2014 Morris Article that may change the haters minds

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Ultimately, the wishbone was just a new way to outflank a defense and attack multiple areas at the same time. Principally it does this by cycling through three options: the inside run (FB dive option), the off-tackle run (QB keep), and the outside pitch (to the trailing halfback).

In the mid-2000s, a Texas high school coach named Chad Morris watched Arkansas unleash some old option concepts in a new guise with star runner Darren McFadden.

Morris had just replaced head coach Art Briles at Stephenville High School and failed to maintain the state championship standard that Briles had established. He'd switched from Briles' spread game to a power-I scheme, and Stephenville had missed the playoffs for the first time in 14 years. He determined to go to that Arkansas coach and learn as much about his offense as he could. That Arkansas coach was Gus Malzahn.

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When people reminded him, “This is way Art did it,” he began countering, “I’m not Art.”

But what to do?

Morris pointed north to Arkansas, to the city of Springdale near the northwest corner of the state, hard by the Oklahoma border. It was there in the self-proclaimed Poultry Capital of the World that a high school coach named Gus Malzahn was running a wide-open offensive attack that was bringing him acclaim across the high school world.

It took Morris, “head in hand,” three trips to Arkansas to earn an audience with Malzahn... The first time he went to talk to Malzahn, Morris got as far as a playoff postgame handshake.

The second time, also after a playoff game, there was a handshake and some small talk.

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As long as we don’t have picture plays on the sidelines- he doesn’t do that does he?

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