Melding two offensive concepts
AUBURN | Chip Lindsey has been melding the air raid concepts he’s run for most of his career with the smash-mouth spread he learned from Gus Malzahn as an offensive analyst for the past three years.
Now that he’s back at Auburn as offensive coordinator, Lindsey plans to take that melding process to another level.
“I came to Auburn in 2013 for the reason to be with Coach Malzahn and see how he did things because my background had been a little different,” Lindsey said. “The time here was amazing, learning how he thought and game-planned and did things, and took a lot of those things with us.
“At the same time, even when I left and went to Southern Miss and now at Arizona State and here, everybody’s got their own spin on offense. We’ve all got our own personality that comes out when you design an offense, but the bottom line has never changed. The most important thing is find ways to get the ball to your best players. It’s really that simple. That will be our goal every day.”
Auburn led the SEC in rushing this past season but its passing offense has been a sore spot the last two years. The Tigers were last in the conference in passing yards per game last season and 12th in 2015.
“Last year we led our league in rushing, but we need to be more balanced,” Malzahn said. “We need to throw the ball more effectively. Chip will bring that. I’m excited about our passing game. He will bring some new ideas, some new wrinkles, new flairs, he’s got a great offensive mind. I think it will compliment our run game.”
Before coming to Auburn, Lindsey’s offense was built around air raid concepts he learned from coaches like Rush Propst and popularized by Tony Franklin, Hal Mumme, Mike Leach and Sonny Dykes.
It’s an offense built for speed and passing with four wide receivers, no huddle, frequent audibles, quick, short passes, and wide splits on the offensive line.
Over the past three seasons, Lindsey has taken parts of that offense, blended in Malzahn’s smash-mouth spread and a little of his own including Wing-T concepts he learned under John Mothershed at Deshler High School. He’ll try to adapt that to Auburn’s strengths during the offseason and see what he comes up with this fall.
One thing that won’t change, especially with running backs Kamryn Pettway and Kerryon Johnson along with a big, physical offensive line returning, is a commitment to the running game.
“I think when you get to big-time, even high school football and college football, you’ve got to be able to run the football to win,” Lindsey said. “I know that and we were really successful two years ago doing that and it just opened up our entire offense.
“I know what Auburn is made of. Auburn is made up of hard work, blue collar football and that’s what we’re going to continue to do with maybe some little wrinkles in twists in our passing game.”
Injuries and personnel kept Lindsey from putting up the numbers he’s accustomed to in his lone season at Arizona State. But in 2015, his second season at Southern Miss, Lindsey’s offense was 12th nationally averaging 509.5 yards per game and 13th in scoring averaging 39.9 points.
It featured a 4,000-yard passer in Nick Mullens, two 1,000-yard rushers in Jalen Richard and Ito Smith and one 1,000-yard receiver in Mike Thomas. He nearly had another 1,000-yard receiver in Casey Martin, who finished with 925 yards.
Another important element Malzahn is looking for Lindsey to bring to Auburn is quarterback development. Mullens threw for 6,946 yards and 50 touchdowns in two years under Lindsey. Former Georgia quarterback Hutson Mason threw for then single-season state records of 4.560 yards and 54 touchdowns in 2009 under Lindsey at Lassiter (Ga.) High.
“I’ve actively seen him develop quarterbacks; he’s very good at that,” Malzahn said. “He’s very good at evaluating quarterbacks. I feel very comfortable with Chip; I’ve got a lot of trust that he can do it. And then he fits within my philosophy. The thing with Chip is he had his own offense that he’s been very successful with.”