10/30/2022 football Edit

Flashback: Birth of the Fast Break Offense

Charlie Ward, who was honored during an FSU basketball game in February, was viewed as having the perfect skill set for the Fast Break Offense.

Bob Ferrante • TheOsceola

Editor

The birth of the Fast Break Offense was 30 years ago on an October 1992 night in Atlanta. A desperate Florida State coaching staff had the keys to unlock the Seminoles’ offensive potential and, no, it wasn’t just a quarterback named Charlie Ward. It was a spread, no-huddle offense influenced by the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals. And it was just the right scheme for the personnel to rally from a massive deficit and stun Georgia Tech.

Osceola publisher Jerry Kutz caught up with Mark Richt and Mark Salva, two FSU coaches up in the box, this week to reflect on the Fast Break Offense. And we’ve also dug into the archives for stories from the game on October 17, 1992 from Jerry as well as Osceola writers Daniel Mitchell and Dan Densmore.

From the Oct. 23, 1992 edition of the Osceola

After shooting itself in the foot for three quarters, Florida State’s offense used a shotgun to blast Tech in the fourth. The Seminoles gained just 19 yards, no first downs, and had two turnovers in the third quarter, then erupted for 205 yards and three touchdowns in the decisive fourth period.

The obvious difference was the decision to ditch the one- and two-back sets in favor of a no-huddle shotgun set on FSU’s first possession of the final quarter, with 14:27 left and the Seminoles trailing 21-7. Charlie Ward, who had been pulled in favor of Danny Kanell after struggling in the third, re-entered and completed six of eight throws for 60 yards on the 80-yard drive and ran for 24 yards on the series. (A penalty actually made it an 85-yard drive.)

Offensive coordinator Brad Scott said the no-huddle offense “keeps a defense from being able to huddle and put in a bunch of different calls and change too much of their coverages. So we were able to pick our way down the field.”

FSU’s next possession ended in three plays, but Ward matched FSU down the field twice more in the final 5:20. In all, Ward accounted for all but one yard of FSU’s offense in the fourth. The icy junior hit 14 of 21 for 136 yards and scrambled for 68 yards on 9 carries down the stretch.

The decisive touchdown, strangely enough, came out of the I-formation. Georgia Tech had shown a tendency to blitz when the Seminoles lined up with two backs, and true to form the Jackets blitzed again on the fourth-and-5 play. Under maximum protection, with the backs staying in to block, Ward hit Kez McCorvey on the left sideline, where the sophomore eluded Lethon Flowes and found paydirt.

“It was a big win for us, a mighty big one,” Bowden said. “The man over on the other sideline (Bill Lewis) is a heck of a coach. But we just had one heck of a comeback.”

The final points in the game were scored by the defense when outside linebacker Reggie Freeman pinned Shawn Jones in the end zone, giving FSU a 29-24 lead with 47 seconds remaining.

“I blacked out, didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know what happened,” said an ecstatic Freeman. “I just know all the guys that I love were on top of me and I couldn’t get up. That’s great. Best feeling I ever felt. I want to black out more.”

Looking back: The Birth of the Fast Break

Richt was the quarterbacks coach and Salva was a graduate assistant for the 1992 season. Bowden opened the door in the winter of 1991 for the coaching staff to research something new, but the intention was never for a radical shift in what the Seminoles would use as the primary offense.

But it was rooted in what two successful NFL offenses were doing in the early 1990s. Richt had a former Miami Hurricanes teammate, Jim Kelly, who was lighting up defenses with the Buffalo Bills’ K-Gun. So he and other coaches were able to visit Levy in Buffalo as well as Sam Wyche and his staff in Cincinnati.

“What happened that offseason, Coach Bowden came to us during hideaway, during our planning time, and he mentioned that he was willing to get into the shotgun for the very first time,” Richt said on Wednesday. “The only time he wanted to get into the shotgun was during a two-minute drill or one-minute drill, whatever you want to call it. And a time when everybody knew you had to throw the ball to get back in the game. And because of that, we started out in a five-receiver look, even though we kept our tailback and tight end in the game. We might have been four wides and a running back at the time, but we didn't even have a back in the backfield when we practiced it, because he felt like everybody was going to be in a prevent defense, three-man rush, no point in having a back back there to protect. So that's how we start the season in our two-minute drill.”

FSU used the shotgun, no-huddle offense a bit before that night in Atlanta. The Seminoles rallied at Clemson using it and tried to come back against Miami but, well, the right thing didn’t happen for FSU. But then came the comeback from out of nowhere against Georgia Tech. It became obvious to the coaches what they should do next.

“After the game, my wife, Katharyn, looks at me says, ‘Charlie seems to do a lot better than in the shotgun, no-huddle. Why don't you start the game in it?’ ” Richt said. “And so we’re like, ‘Hey, maybe we’ll do that.’ ”

Said Salva: “It was definitely an epiphany that hit us that day about what exactly we had. It was an exciting day. I was Brad Scott's eyes and ears for the offensive line upstairs. And, yeah, that was a memorable day for sure.”

FSU’s coaches were reluctant to go all in the next week in the rain at Virginia. But against Maryland on Nov. 7, the floodgates opened in a 69-21 win.

“We had 10 drives, 10 touchdowns,” Richt said. “And 858 yards of offense, and Charlie had (395) yards of offense. And the fast break, no-huddle was born that day, in my opinion, as far as realizing what a great weapon it could be and how great of a player Charlie could be if we just gave him some space and let him direct traffic like a point guard would in basketball.”

The transition from the I-formation to the spread offense was far from smooth. There were interceptions. Many of them.

“We were all regular personnel, just two backs, a tight end, tight end, two receivers and occasionally split it back out,” Salva said of previous personnel groupings in 1991 and earlier. “But that 1992 year, I remember, we transitioned to a lot of 11 personnel (one RB, one TE, three WR). And we started running more one-back stuff with Charlie under center. And I remember Coach Bowden saying he wasn't a big fan of that because when you get in 11 personnel, now you got to start reading boxes (how many defenders were up front).

“I remember coach Bowden saying he didn't like a 20 year old doing what he's been doing for 35 years. So he wasn't a big fan. So when Charlie started throwing all those interceptions early, you remember that one meeting, after that game where he threw, I think, four picks that game, and we still ended up winning because our defense was just so dang good. But I remember Coach Bowden laying the law down saying, ‘We better get this right.’ ”

Salva and Richt are laughing and it’s easy to laugh now. But at the time, Bowden was serious. The coaches had to get it right or Bowden would go back to the I-formation.

“He was looking at all of us, but I think maybe me more than anybody because I was coaching (Ward),” Richt said. “And he said, ‘Charlie has been throwing a lot of interceptions here. And I was wondering, is that Charlie's fault? Or is it my fault? Or is it y’all’s fault?’ … The team school record for picks is 17 or whatever the number was. And he said, I promise you, you will not break the record because if you get within one, you're not gonna play (Ward) the rest of the season.”

Ahead of the curve

The birth of the Fast Break Offense was the key to opening up an offense that helped the Seminoles, who already had an overwhelming talent edge in their first year in the ACC, take the league by storm. And in 1993, only Notre Dame briefly derailed the Seminoles’ national championship aspirations.

“We were way ahead of the curve,” Salva said. “And you tie that to our personnel. Obviously, we were hard to stop. And I think the only people that really obviously caught up to us that had the personnel to match up to us were Notre Dame and Nebraska. … It was a fun time and we had the perfect quarterback for it. Charlie was ahead of his time. He was the perfect guy.”

After the 1993 season, Salva joined Brad Scott and took elements of the Fast Break Offense to South Carolina. Richt stayed and became FSU’s offensive coordinator. The beauty of the Fast Break Offense was it matched up well with personnel and a wide range of quarterbacks. South Carolina was able to win a bowl with Steve Taneyhill at quarterback, while FSU’s coaches kept building the dynasty with Danny Kanell.

“We found that offense could be effective regardless of the style of play that the quarterback had, if he was a good decision maker, accurate passer,” Richt said. “Didn’t have to be that runner or that athlete that Charlie was to make it go. Danny Kanell ended up proving that.”