A new book about the development of offensive football titled, "Blood, Sweat & Chalk,
The Ultimate Football Playbook: How the Great Coaches Built Today's Game," will be released on Aug. 3. Author Tim Layden, a staff writer for Sports Illustrated, includes a chapter on the spread offense and the influence that Mouse Davis and his brand of the Run-and-Shoot have had on the game.
Layden came to the Portland State campus while Davis was still serving as offensive coordinator in 2008 to interview the legendary Viking coach for his book.
GoViks.com caught up with Layden prior to the release on the book for his reflections on Mouse Davis and the offensive innovation he brought to the game of football.
GV: Tim, to begin, tell us what your book is about, and perhaps how it is?different from previous books about offensive development in the game of?football.
TL: The book is sort of a combination of football history, football schematics and feature stories on some of
the coaches and players who really changed the direction of the game at different points on the sport's timeline. Each chapter in the book -- there are 22 in all – is devoted to a particular offense or defense and within the chapter I try to explain how this attack or scheme got started. And I try to humanize the coaches who came up with the innovations and explain the impetus behind the planning. That was the goal, anyway. It's up to the readers to decide if I succeeded.??
GV: Mouse Davis is a legend in our area, and really made his name with his?Run-and-Shoot offense at Portland State in the late 1970s. Everyone here is partial to him and considers him a bit of a football genius. How is he viewed by coaches and football officionados in other parts of the country??
TL: I think Mouse is viewed with a mix of curiosity and reverence in the football world. There are a lot of young coaches who ask if I talked to Mouse and clearly only know of him as that crazy Run-and-Shoot coach from way back when. But there are at least as many people who I came across – probably more – who respect Mouse as one of the real innovators in the game's history. And I'll say this: There's nobody out there who hasn't heard of Mouse.
GV: We consider Mouse's offense to be a forerunner of the spread offense.?Is that accurate? How does the Run-and-Shoot fit in the development of?modern offenses - both collegiately and professionally???
TL: Oh, there's no doubt about that. Every coach who runs a spread offense with three, four, five wideouts, and with the quarterback and wideout reading on the fly… every one of those guys owes a debt of gratitude to Mouse. And by the same token, Mouse owes his thanks to Tiger Ellison, who wrote the first Run-and-Shoot book while he was a high school coach in Ohio in the 1950s. And Mouse is very quick to credit Tiger, as well as the former TCU coach Dutch Meyer, who wrote a book called ``Spread Formation Football.''
GV: Back in the day, Mouse took a lot of heat for his offense from football "purists." Then he took it to the USFL and Jim Kelly did remarkable things with it. Then, the NFL with the Detroit Lions (the Falcons and Houston Oilers also used the offense). Is it safe to say, the Run-and-Shoot (perhaps via the Spread) has helped changed the way the NFL plays offense in the present day??
TL: Via the spread, for sure. And Mouse will insist that nobody really stopped his Run-and-Shoot in the NFL, and it's true that he put up a lot of yards for teams that didn't play defense very well.
GV: In your book, how much space do you dedicate to Mouse, Portland State?quarterbacks, and the Run-and-Shoot?
TL: There's a full chapter on Mouse and the Run-and-Shoot, as one of the real foundation components of the modern spread offense. As I noted earlier, it's pretty clear that the modern-day spread offense grew out of the roots of Mouse's Run-and-Shoot. The chapter includes some pretty cool stuff that Jim Kelly said about Mouse, essentially crediting Mouse with teaching him the proper fundamentals to play quarterback. But I've also got to reiterate that Mouse is very careful to credit Tiger Ellison for providing the spark that got him going on the Run-and-Shoot, and I've tried to give Ellison a lot of credit. He was a pretty fascinating guy, too.??
GV: Is it fair to say June Jones - another PSU legend - is keeping the?Run-and-Shoot alive and well (through his successes at Hawai'i and SMU)??
TL: There's no doubt. And obviously, June has refined a lot of what he learned from Mouse. A bunch of coaches have taken Mouse's ideas and run with them, modifying them, making them their own. That's what football coaches do.
GV: I know you came out to Portland State nearly two years ago to?interview Mouse, watch practice, and get his insights for your book. Had?you met and/or interviewed Mouse before? How was he to interview?
TL: The time I spent with Mouse was among the most enjoyable days I experienced in more than two years working on the book. I met Mouse after practice one morning at Portland State and he just asked me immediately, ``You want to get some breakfast?'' And then we walked down the street to his favorite spot (The Cheerful Tortoise), which seemed like it was probably a bar at night and a restaurant during the day. Not only is he a very smart football guy, but he's a terrifically engaging personality with a great sense of story-telling and a passion for football. And he was 76 years old at the time! Just incredible. I felt privileged to have had the experience of meeting with him and learning about his history in the game.??
GV: Can you believe Mouse is back it at coaching again in Hawai'i, soon to ?be 78 years old?
TL: Like I said, just incredible. And you can bet Hawaii will move the football. Mouse is truly a national football treasure.
