The Most Important Components of Air Raid

• By Keith Grabowski

Like any successful offense that stands the test of time, the Air Raid has come to mean many things - ootball/air-raid">Air Raid has come to mean many things - it’s Mesh, it’s four and five spread sets, its’s “6.” However, doing some of those things or even all of them doesn’t make your offense the Air Raid.

Air Raid is really a philosophy and the plan behind it.

2023 XFL Coordinator and current Tyler Community College Offensive Coordinator defines the Air Raid in this short video

Coach Smith points out the most important component of the Air Raid is you, the coordinator.  That is true of any system. The concepts may be in the playbook, but ultimately how it is installed, implemented and adjusted falls on the philosophy and thought process of the person who coordinates the offense.

“You were born an original, don’t die a copy!” - AJ Smith

He tells a story of how Wade Phillips explains that there is no tough offense to stop.  He said, “I can stop anything, but….” Coach Smith tells the story and shares Coach Phillips “but” here

Pass to Set up the Run

A simple definition of the Air Raid is “We pass to set up the run.” What happens with the Air Raid is the run plays will become more successful leading your O-Line to say, “We need to run it more.”  Coach Smith points out a favorite quote from Hal Mumme:

“We aren’t going to run it more, we are going to run it further.” -Hal Mumme

So going into Air Raid Philosophy, it is about strategically using the run.  Coach Smith explains that in this video

It’s Players not Plays

Whether you are running Air Raid or Wing-T, it all comes down to players and how they fit into your offense.

Coach Matt Mumme likes the offense’s ability to adapt to fit the players who are on the offense.  Coach emphasizes the limited amount of time that is necessary to prepare for any offense.  The biggest thing that the Wolfpack does starts with efficient use of time, and it all revolves around a three-day install.  The more that you can go through this install in spring or camp, the more refined it becomes.

“The biggest commodity we have as coaches and players is time.” 

-Matt Mumme

Air Raid Planning

The simplicity of the offense lends itself to conciseness and clarity in game planning.  Running Back’s Coach Eric Mele has been with Coach Leach since 2012.  He’s learned the power of simplicity and it carries over to game planning. He talks about how they oversimplify the game plan in this video

I am sure like most, you wonder what is on Coach Leach’s “small little folded up piece of origami” as Mele calls it, he shares the situational side of that small call sheet in this video.

Many coaches are scared away from what people say are the downside of the offense: 

the need for a certain type of player (Matt Mumme already dispelled that)

the imbalance of pass to run (the Air Raid coach thinks about the run game differently - pass to set up run) 

worry that it won’t work late season when the weather turns (every coach has this worry - all offenses have to protect the ball in all conditions).

It really comes down to how you want to structure your install, practice and game planning.  That’s the true methodology behind the offense, and what you can learn from that alone is certainly applicable to other systems.

Having watched an Air Raid practice myself at Mississippi State, I was thoroughly impressed by the number of reps achieved, the coaching happening before, during and after those reps, and the efficiency in how much they were able to accomplish.

Coaching is the key to any scheme being successful, and the Air Raid guys certainly have that figured out.

Always be growing!

Coach Grabowski