Subscribers Ask with Shawn Liotta part II

Shawn Liotta is the offensive coordinator at Clairton High School (PA), a team which averaged 59.9 points per game in 2014. Clairton also averaged 12.8 yards per play and 510 yards in total offense per game, even though the PIAA Mercy Rule was in effect in the second half of 12 of the 16 games his team played. His offense is aptly named the ‘No-Huddle, No Mercy’ offense.

Along the way, Clairton’s quarterback, running back and wide receiver each set school records last fall. Liotta’s team became the second highest scoring offense in the history of high school football by amassing 958 points over their 16-game schedule.

Coach Liotta recently completed a five-set series of DVDs, now available at AFMvideos.com. This includes, ‘Playing Fast and Winning Big,’ ‘The Run Game,’ ‘The Pass Game,’ ‘Screen Package,’ and ‘Game Planning and Play Calling.’ All DVDs include clinic presentations, game video and white board diagrams.

He continues to answer your questions:
What adjustments can you make to your offense when you don’t have a strong-armed quarterback and still maintain pressure on the defense? Dirk Moran, Head Coach, Baldwin School of Puerto Rico.

The key to any successful offensive attack is the ability to adapt your system to the talent that you have that season in your program. Our offense system does not require our quarterback to have a big time arm or be a tremendous athlete. It does require him to be coachable and able to make the correct decisions. We build several options into each play concept that the quarterback has the ability to take advantage of depending on the defensive alignment. These “Run Pass Options” require the QB to make the correct read but do not require the QB to throw the football fifty yards down the field. 

We utilize a diverse screen package and quick game paired with our run game that does not require much more that proper fundamentals and throwing an accurate ball.  Our shallow cross and mesh packages allow us to stretch the defense horizontally across the entire field and do not require throws down the field. We do want to take three to four shots down the field each game to stretch the defense vertically, but the majority of our passing game concepts require footballs to be thrown from the line of scrimmage to ten yards downfield. Arm strength is probably one of the lowest requirements for a quarterback in our system. 

    These are some of the key traits that I look for in a quarterback to be successful in the ‘No Huddle No Mercy Offense.’
1.    Football intelligence/ coachable
2.    Leadership
3.    Work Ethic
4.    Accuracy

Of all the formations you run, what specific formation do you believe keeps defensive coordinators up at night and why? Doug Heslip, Assistant Coach, USA Football.
   
We want to play as fast as possible and in doing so we want to limit the amount of formations that we run. I don’t believe any one particular formation that we utilize causes defensive coordinators to have nightmares. It is the combination of the different personnel groupings, alignments, motion, and the tempo that we operate at during the game. Our goal is to have the ball snapped within five seconds of the ready for play signal. This forces the defense to defend us with base defensive alignments or to have automatic formational checks. We will use shifts and jumps to quickly change our alignment pre-snap to cause problems for defenses that are utilizing auto-checks by formation. 

For instance we will get into our deuce personnel (3 WR, 2 RB) and align in an empty or quads formation and then shift pre-snap into one of our 2 RB sets. We will also do the exact opposite by aligning in a 2 or 3-back formation and shifting to an empty set pre-snap in an attempt to confuse and create conflict in the defense.   

Assuming you had quality players across the board on offense, would you personally choose to run with 10 or 11 personnel? Why? Aaron Cavin, Wide Receivers Coach, Clarke Central High School (GA). 

The majority of the time we operate out of 10 or 20 personnel. My personal preference is to not use a true tight end in our offense as those players can be harder to develop and the utilization of a tight end can cloud the box numbers in the run game. In our two back deuce personnel we utilize an H-back who gives us the flexibility to have the advantages of a tight end in the run game but also the flexibility to quickly move and align him in or out of the tackle box pre-snap. We will at times align our H-back in the traditional tight end alignment to give us a formational advantage pre-snap. A situation where we may game plan to use this formation would be against a 3-5-3 stack defense that does not align properly to an end over formation. 

If I am starting a new program that traditionally has been unsuccessful and has had low numbers with average athletes, what are some steps I should take to implement the ‘No-Huddle, No Mercy’ offense? Jeremy Hunt, Offensive Coordinator, Lindberg High School (WA).

The task of turning around a down-trodden program is one of the toughest tasks that any coach can overcome. There are several objectives that must be accomplished before your focus turns to Xs and Os particularly at the high school level. As a new coach in this situation, you will be dealing with changing a culture of losing that exists in the program. 

You must first get your players bigger, faster, and stronger through your off-season program while increasing your participation numbers. It is important that you find an offensive system that you believe in and can teach effectively to your players, while tailoring the attack to the talent that you have each season. ‘The No Huddle, No Mercy Offense’ provides all of these intangibles and will allow your players to have fun and be competitive. Winning and scoring points will get alumni, fans, and players excited about your program and bring energy toward your rebuilding efforts. 

I have tried to provide all of the tools necessary to install this system with success through the DVD series available through American Football Monthly.  I also provide support and answer any questions coaches such as yourself have on this system as they go through the installation process at nohuddlenomercy.com

In order to maintain your tempo, how do you handle substituting your players during the game? Bryan Gray, Head Coach, East Hall High School (GA).

We are a small school with a roster of under 35 kids. The majority of our athletes are contributors on both sides of the football. It is important that through your off-season training and installation you have conditioned your players to play at this tempo. I try to keep our players as fresh as possible as we transition in and out of our various personnel groupings. We want to limit our substitutions as much as possible as it does tend to slow our tempo. It is important if you are going to use a lot of jet motion as we do in our offense that you keep those players fresh as much as possible. If you are at a bigger school you will have the advantages of having more players at your disposal. However, the goal is always to get your best eleven football players on the field.  In an ideal situation I do not want my quarterback or center to have to play both sides of the football if it can be avoided.

We run a version of an RPO Offense at Creekside High School in Florida. We have five base runs (zone, trap, dive, counter, and 8/9 hole plays) with four blocking schemes. We have 10 base passes, out of our basic 2 X 2 formation and can run each play 5 different ways. My questions for you are:
 
1) What are your base runs with attached RPOs?
2) What are your base passes?
3) Do you have different passes attached to each of your base runs?
4) How do you signal in your plays?
 
Jeff Schaum, Head Coach, Creekside High School (FL).

We have three base run concepts - inside zone, outside zone, and power. In addition to those base concepts we have complimentary runs such as speed option, reverse, iso, dart, draw, and several others that we utilize on a game by game basis. We use a lot of window dressing, motion, and shifting to make our running game appear much more complex than it is to the defense. 

Our base passing game consists of 5 base drop back concepts and 3 base quick game concepts. We also have 3 or 4 red zone specific concepts and several short yardage/2-point pass concepts. We have game planned each week at least one play-action concept triggered off of each of our base run plays. We package screens and quicks to each of our run plays to control the box and allow us to get out of a bad play without having to slow down and audible the play at the line of scrimmage. 

I use a mixture of signals with one or two code words and numbers to get our plays called quickly. We have a simple method of signals and verbal calls using word association to relay a complicated six or seven word play-call into a single word or number. By going to a signal/verbal method of play calling we have been able to truly “play fast”.