North Texas' Power Air Raid: Mesh

A staple of the Air Raid, a tool in the Morris toolbox

What we now know as the Air Raid is mostly a marketing trick. Mike Leach told a story about how someone brought an actual air raid siren to the games and would play it after touchdowns. Hal Mumme and Mike Leach’s offense needed a name and that was that. The system, as it was, is pieced together from other offenses. Famously Mumme and Leach went to BYU and learned from Lavell Edwards. BYU was throwing while everyone else was running, and the West Coast-style offenses were throwing short when everyone else was tossing deep passes.¹ Everyone learns from everyone (steals) and it has always been this way. Mumme and Leach mostly had the right kind of attitude to do things unconventionally and stick with it. They believed, so their players believed, and it was successful. The offense is mostly a set of beliefs, in practicing, and concepts and an approach to doing offense. You want your guys to have repped a small number of plays and to be able to run them from a lot of formations at a high tempo. The goal is to make it maximally confusing for the defense, while as simple as possible for the offense. That, is the “Air Raid.”

Since it was the offense successful for undersized, tiny Iowa-Wesleyan and Valdosta State, Mumme got better jobs, and so did Leach. Both spawned some disciples — former players and coaches, and so on.

Mesh

For a long while, a staple of the Air Raid was 92. You’ve seen it in video games and probably even came up with a version yourself playing in the backyard. I remember the first time I “ran” this play was in the street when my uncle told me and my brother to run and cross paths down the field, and he’d throw it to whoever was open.

Lavell Edwards’ 1985 playbook. Sure looks like Mesh to me.

The BYU Cougars ran a version of Mesh with the backs. The reads are the quick out first, and if that’s not open, throw the mesher (shallow crosser) underneath. If that’s not there, you find your dig route over the top.

Compare with Eric Morris’ version, which is not too much different. Here the first read is the Z-receiver. The second is the mesher, or X-receiver coming across. Then it would be the dig over the top.

North Texas ran this vs Charlotte

Here, Mestemaker’s eyes go toward his first read, he comes off it and finds Sides crossing, wide open.

Morris doesn’t call this play very often, but you’ll see it a couple of times per game. That’s one thing about this play and how it clashes with some of the Air Raid’s principles: it is expensive. Dana Holgorsen went away from the play because of that (and because he was tired of coaching it, having done so for 20+ years) but also it took up so much time.

In a clinic, Holgo mentions that he changed the way he taught it to make it simpler, and added a wrinkle. We’ll get to that later.

Against WMU, we ran the same thing, but the RT was beat badly. DM threw to Sides but the play was eaten up.

Morris’ version is not too different than the Mike Leach version, who famously “didn’t change [anything].” You see the reads are the same, and the coaching points a little more clear, but running this play is about making reads, and having answers to whatever is thrown at you. He quick out is adjusted for cover-2, where it converts to a corner. The mesh/shallows are converted to sit routes vs zone, and divides vs man.

That aspect of it is where you get the most coaching headaches. Often guys will need lots of reps on the intricacies of what is man or zone or what is grass or not. The QB/WR reads need to be the same. Lincoln Riley says “It’s more important that they be on the same page, than they be right.”

Last year we saw Chandler Morris and his receivers struggle on this (and really, a lot of things) highlighting how many reps you need to get comfort.

The alleged Mike Leach 1999 OU playbook

There are a lot of coaching points and subtle differences you can make. When do you get off of your first read? Where should the meshers target — Lincoln Riley says he still teaches the “handclap” thing. Holgorsen said he stopped doing that because the guys would be looking for the handclap and “not at the QB.” Holgorsen teaches them to run toward the tackle and then make a read, a change to what he used to do “just run through.”

Lincoln Riley’s version

Lincoln Riley teaches his Mesh pretty much the same way. The first read is the outside receiver, the mesh goes “right over left” and the right side sets the depth. They clap hands, and the backs are check-releases.

Eventually, defenses start getting wise to these things, and like to sit in some zones (Rip/Liz stuff) where they can match up with the crossers and sit on the reads. The answers come in tagging different variations. Chris Brown of Smart Football once called the Mesh play something like the “veer for option teams” and you can see how it could lull teams to sleep, and then you hit them with something different. Tag a post instead of that quick out, or a zip-route/whip-route from those crosses and you have easy answers to the common hedges.

Motions to get easier throws for the QB (“My QB can’t throw that out route!”)

The most famous example in North Texas history is Mason Fine throwing it to Rico Bussey².

In the course of tagging things you get some common ones and you shorten them. Blue Z-Move 92, H-Wheel becomes Blue Cobra, to Mumme. Well for Holgorsen, instead of tagging F-Wheel, how about you make it the first option? In his version of Mesh, he added the sit/over route that NFL teams started incorporating, which was great as a “traffic” play, that allowed the back to wheel for gains.

Holgo’s Mesh Rail

Here is the Hologoesen version at his new stop: Nebraska.³

Holgorsen lessened the expense of teaching Mesh by reducing some of the responsibilities. The X receiver doesn’t run the corner, instead he’s an alert/hot route for blitz looks. The primary read is the back, and the right mesher - Y - is now a clear out guy. “Take them out. You aren’t getting the ball. If you take out the umpire, he middle linebacker, whoever. The better.” The change came in part because of the use of tight ends in his sets more often. It was harder to call the play, and teach it to TEs.

Again, the finer points of the play are so expensive that using up valuable TE time to teach this play when it wasn’t likely going to him was not great. So he teaches his guy to just set the mesh and run, the real target (second to the back) is the mesher on the shallow cross. Finally, the sit route in place of the old Dig over the top gives a zone answer.

The reads are similar — the back, the mesh, the sit. The alert is the X.

When Should We Expect It?

Lincoln Riley says that he loves Mesh anywhere on the field. It is “a security blanket” and because he can dress it up and tag little extras without a lot of fuss, it provides versatility. Eric Morris has typically called this on medium downs. The screen grabs above are 2-&-5 and 3rd-&-4, for example. It’s a great man-beater, and so if you expect some man-to-man looks from the defense, it is great to dial up. The zone-answers are built-in, so if you are wrong, you still haven’t wasted a play-call. When it is blocked up right, the corner ends up being a lead blocker for the mesh guy, as we saw vs Charlotte with Landon Sides taking it for big yards.

Mike Leach loved it in the red zone, with a post tag. Seth Littrell/Graham Harrell loved it there also, and dialed it up for both the post and a wheel (from the back) scores.

It’s a great play. Keep an eye out for it as you watch the Mean Green the rest of the year.

1. Bill Walsh’s tree had and has a great many disciples. The ideas Wash and pass-first teams have are basically Air Raid type principles. They are all about simplicity and repetitions. The main way the WCO teams and Air Raid teams differ is in the language, with the WCO offense telling basically everyone where to be. The ‘Raid teams simplify this by design, in order to play much faster.

2. You might remember the shirt:

3. How crazy is it that Nebraska is running the raid? Part of the reason Texas Tech hired Mike Leach was that it new it couldn’t compete with the Nebraskas, Texases, and OUs of the world. Now the Cornhuskers are running the offense that was hired to level the playing field.