Fly sweep

Coach: Sorry, I just saw this -- here's the scoop on fly and jet sweep:

Caught on the Fly

Yucaipa, Fontana using tricky offense

By JOHN MURPHY, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun, 2004

Thirty years ago a slightly absent-minded, football-obsessed man named Phil Maas took over the Coachella Valley High School football program.
One day Maas and his right-hand man, Roger Sugimoto, were wondering aloud what type of offense to use.

"We were in the P.E. building,' Sugimoto said. "A janitor overheard us and said 'Why don't you run The Mosca?' We said 'What's The Mosca?' And he said 'It's Spanish for 'the fly' and we used to run it at Delano.'

It was from this humble beginning that the Fly offense was popularized. Now two of the eight teams in the Citrus Belt League Yucaipa and Fontana run the Fly.

"I like the misdirection,' said new Fontana coach Joe Kramer, whose team opened with a 14-13 upset victory against Cajon. "We have the speed to run it. It's good for undersized teams. It will help our inexperienced line.'

Kramer, formerly a double-wing devotee while at Hesperia, learned the offense from Righetti High School of Santa Maria coach Greg Dickinson, a former Hesperia.

"We're working on our mesh points right now,' Kramer said. "We're not anywhere near perfect. It's a very intricate offense and it takes near-perfect timing.'

New era

At Yucaipa, coach Jeff Stout took over the program in 2002 after Jim Taylor retired from coaching.

Stout has switched Yucaipa from its traditional I formation to the Fly. Last Friday, in a 35-33 victory against La Quinta, three Yucaipa backs John Keyes, Justin Hill and Kent Walton gained more than 100 yards apiece in an impressive offensive showing.

"It's like the wing-T but with more motion,' Stout said. "We played Arlington one year when I was defensive coordinator and they were running the Fly. They beat up on us. I like the offense because it's tough to defend. I always said that if I became head coach, that I'd try it.'

Stout's first Yucaipa team went 1-9. But the Thunderbirds improved to 4-5 last season.

This season, Yucaipa is off to a quick start heading into tonight's 7 p.m. home opener with Palm Springs.

Fontana and its Fly also makes its home debut, taking on San Gorgonio at 7:30 p.m.

The Fly brings the flanker in motion through the formation before each snap, whereupon it can either take a handoff, block or become a receiver.

A typical Fly formation may include a quarterback and split running backs, a tight end, a wide receiver and the "Fly' (or z-back),' who lines up about 1yards behind the scrimmage line.

"We've interjected it into our program and it's fun to learn and fun to teach,' Stout said. "The kids really like it. You can't key on any one aspect of our offense.

"We send the fly into motion full speed and the quarterback can either hand the ball off to him, hand it to the fullback or keep it himself. Then the defense starts putting eight or nine guys in the box to stop the run and you can throw it to your tight end and boom he's wide open.'

The Fly cannot be learned overnight. Stout coaxed Arlington's former Fly expert Mike McGuire away from the Lions' coaching staff and installed him as Yucaipa's offensive coordinator.

At first, just the Yucaipa varsity ran the Fly, because the lower-level coaches did not know how to teach it. Now, all of the Thunderbirds teams run the offense.

Sugimoto, the mastermind of the Fly with Maas at Coachella Valley and later North Monterey County High School in Castroville, knows the Fly offense like Barry Bonds knows the strike zone.

"The whole thing is a lot of fun,' said the 61-year-old Sugimoto, now an Aptos resident. "The kids enjoy the blocking angles and it's amazing how plays run up inside will pop open with a back going right by the safety who is running in the opposite direction. It's all deception.

"You have to play a disciplined defense when you go against the Fly. If you don't, you'll be in for a world of trouble.'

Pioneers

Thirty years ago, Coachella Valley coaches Maas and Sugimoto knew virtually nothing about the the Fly. So, following the advice of the school janitor, they drove to Delano High School in the Central Valley to pick the brain of late Delano coach Gene Beck and to watch grainy old game films.

"What we saw on film with Gene was our kind of kids,' Sugimoto said. "Delano had a high number of Latino kids who were not big, but they were quick and the offense allowed them to not have to block anyone face-up, one-on-one. The blocking angles interested us. And we even saw their kids missing blocks and the team still making big plays.'

Fueled by the Fly, Coachella Valley won league titles in 1975, '76 and '77.

In 1979, Maas and Sugimoto took their act to North Monterey County, then a second-year school.

North Monterey County, located in the self-proclaimed "Artichoke Capitol of the World' had a team with Oakland Raider- style uniforms and a principal, Walt Holmes, who dressed in silver and black and paced the sideline like Al Davis.

The Condors had never won a football game, having been outscored by a combined 345-12 in 1978 during a scandal-filled maiden season.

In '78 the North County program was rocked by an eligibility scandal and the school's first coach, Ron Veres, was fired. A young underclassmen coach named Mark Speckman was made the interim coach and was forced to endure that difficult 0-10 opening season (the team had no seniors).

By '79, Maas and Sugimoto had arrived and Speckman remained on the staff. The Condors program took flight with the Fly, going a remarkable 9-1 in '79, probably one of the greatest one- year turnarounds in state history. That '79 season began a string of 11 consecutive years where North Monterey County won either a league or Central Coast Section championship.

It also spawned the amazing career of Speckman, now the coach at Willamette University in Salem, Ore.

The Guru

Prior to becoming the offensive coordinator at Willamette in 1995, Speckman spent 14 seasons as a prep coach in California, forging a 113-48-3 record.

Speckman and his Fly lifted Merced to national prominence from 1986-93, including consecutive 14-0 seasons in 1989 and '90. His '90 team was chosen No.1 in the state by CalHi Sports, fifth in the nation by ESPN.com and 10th in the nation by USA Today.

Speckman has become to the Fly what Bill Walsh is to the West Coast Offense or Bloomington High School's Don Markham is to the double-wing.

"As far as X's and O's, the Fly just makes a lot of sense to run,' Speckman said via telephone from Salem, Ore. "Teams with lesser talent can have success because it makes blockers better.'

Speckman has written "Coaching The Fly Offense,' and also sells videotapes on the subject. He runs a camp in Salem for high school teams that run the Fly and has been sought after by scores of prep coaches, including Yucaipa's Stout and McGuire.

"I take no credit for inventing the offense, but I have helped develop it,' Speckman said. "A lot of coaches seek me out to learn it and it gets overwhelming at times. I've never even heard of some of these people or their schools.'

Said sportswriter Norm Maves of the Oregonian: "High school coaches just flock to him. A lot of teams up here use at least some elements of the Fly.'

In fact, Boise State, using the Fly to a great extent, stunned Oregon State last week.

As for Willamette University and Speckman, its Fly defeated the University of Redlands 52-30 in 2002 and 35-16 last season.

Like the single- and double- wing that Colton High School employs, players seem to enjoy the tricky aspect of the Fly.

Speckman mused that when he has left prep jobs for other posts, the players seemed more concerned that they would lose the Fly than the coach.

At Yucaipa and Fontana, the Fly is just getting off the ground. Yucaipa is probably more efficient at running it at this point and seems to possess more talent than Fontana.

Both teams face stiff opposition tonight and stand a good chance of losing. But then, the unique Fly offense has suited the undersized and the underdogs for decades now, and promises to give the Thunderbirds and Steelers a fighting chance.

Said Speckman: "If you're not great and you run the Fly, you have a chance to win. And if you have great talent, you can win it all.'
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Now for the Jet: As best I can make out, Coach Herschel Moore from Cumberland University in Tennessee was the first to run it at the college level, no earlier than the 1980's; the coaching staff at the University of Delaware, meanwhile, placed their first contact with it to the mid-80's, when they picked it up from high school coaches in Georgia. Either way, the Fly was first by a large margin -- so either the Jet was copied by someone who came into contact with the Fly, or else it was a case (and far from the first) of parallel evolution in football.

So that's it -- and if you'd like to see the Jet sweep integrated into the Wing-T, have a look at this:

Youth Wing-T playbook

Regards,

Ted Seay
Vienna, Austria

The "FLY" sweep is nothing but the old QUICK PITCH.

It goes back to the book "FLY-T OFFENSE" by Hampton Pool (Head Coach of the L.A. Rams in the early 1950's)!

Coach
Unless I am thinking of a different play, there is no pitch in the fly or jet sweep,
Karjaw

Lou - Lombardi OFTEN gave credit for his "Packer Sweep" to Dr. Jock Sutherland's Pitt Panthers & Pitt Steelers (he coached both at one time or another) Single Wing off tackle play!

The thing I like about the fly sweep is that you can get three to four lineman to second and third level defenders. Doing this opens cutback lanes and alleys for the ball carrier. It also puts alot of pressure on the force defenders. I believe sweep is most effective with three possible perimeter blockers although we run it with two or three perimeter blockers. We run sweep to the two WR side or the 1 TE and 1 WR side with a lead back 75% of the time. We are also able to get both guards our center and backside tackle to the second and third level of the defense.

I could tell you off hand that the fly sweep is not pitched it's handed to the fly in motion or wingback. The fly(wingback)runs to the outside or cuts inside the 2 or 3 hole and cuts back outside I personally ran outside and cut back inside and about 90% made a touchdown. I love the fly I ran it for coach Gene Beck in 1979 and ran it in Earlimart jr.high School back in the 70s