When Manny Diaz was able to land Alabama quarterbacks coach Dan Enos as his offensive play caller at Miami, many viewed it as one of the coups of the assistant coaching carousel. We even ranked the hire among the top 10 assistant coaching hires of last off season.
But after struggling offensively in year one, where the Canes finished 73rd nationally in scoring (28 ppg) and near the bottom at 88th or worse in first downs and total offense, and 120th or worse in rushing and 3rd down conversions as well, fans have been clamoring for change of some sort.
After being asked if he'd consider operating more out of "the spread," Enos provided an interesting answer to the Miami Herald.
“What is the spread offense? I don’t know what it is. Is it shotgun? Is it quarterback run? We do all that. We run RPOs. We’re in 11 personnel most of time - which is three wide receivers, one back. We’re in shotgun or pistol most of the time."
"People define spread offense; it’s a very ambiguous term. I don’t really understand it because systems don’t win championships. Players and coaches do.”
Going to a "spread" offense is something that is so often viewed as a magic pill of some sort in certain media circles and among fan bases when offenses traditionally struggle, but Enos brings up a good point to those that want to bring that up - What exactly is this "spread" philosophy that is viewed as the magic solution?
Enos went on to share that he was willing to adjust much more this year than in years past when he's been other places, citing using more pistol based sets based on what quarterbacks were more comfortable operating out of and instituting more RPO options as well.
"We are not ram rodding a system down anybody’s throat. We are going to constantly try to make the system have adjustments. We’ve adapted our scheme.”