Bloomgren, assistant espousing innovative ideas for offense
Thursday’s Alamo Bowl thriller brought an end to Stanford’s 2017 season.
The Cardinal’s 39-37 loss to TCU also concluded Rice coach Mike Bloomgren’s seven-year stint with Stanford, and he can direct his full attention to the Owls’ future.
Bloomgren was Stanford’s offensive coordinator for the last five seasons, and Joe Ashfield, also a Cardinal assistant, will join him at Rice as offensive line coach.
Bloomgren has found his offensive and defensive coordinators, tapping former North Carolina Central coach Jerry Mack and former Michigan secondary coach Brian Smith, respectively.
In the coming weeks, Bloomgren intends to fill out his staff on top of fulfilling recruiting obligations.
With his offensive staff taking shape, Bloomgren talked about Mack and their efforts to create a disciplined and explosive unit.
Mack was a graduate assistant when Bloomgren coached Delta State’s offense. He also interned with the New York Jets while Bloomgren was an assistant there.
Talking football
“He’s just a guy I love talking ball with; I love watching him work,” Bloomgren said of Mack. “I’m so honored that he left a head coaching seat to come with us.
“We’re excited every time we get a chance to talk ball and not recruiting. I can’t wait until we can really sit down and hammer some of this stuff out.”
The early signing day push has kept the staff busy, but Bloomgren is hoping to spend the early months of 2018 collaboratively creating a West Coast-based offense with the tendencies of a spread attack.
“We’ve got a lot of great ideas that we want to combine,” he said. “My system and the system (Mack) ran last year aren’t identical, but I think we can mix a lot of the same thoughts.
“And a lot of the things he did with tempo will be a nice mix with the power running game.”
In 2017, Mack’s attack — which usually features a mobile quarterback and three- or four-receiver sets — tied for fourth in scoring offense and fifth in rushing offense on a team that tied for third in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.
At Stanford, Bloomgren continued a tradition of grinding power offense, adding his own twists through three-tight end sets or jumbo packages most coaches would reserve for goal-line situations.
He invented positions such as the “ogre” and sometimes utilized eight or even nine linemen in a particular set.
“Elephant packages,” former Stanford center Graham Shuler told USA Today in 2014. “Monster. Originally, they were ideas and goal-line packages, and we realized we could use them all over the field and all the time.
“It was really cool watching coach Bloom play around with those and make them functional.”
Reducing sacks
Under Bloomgren, Stanford ranked third in rushing offense in the Pac12 this year, gave up the second-fewest sacks and topped the conference in turnover margin.
“Philosophically, like I said, that means run the rock and great defense,” Bloomgren said. “And that means to run the rock, you’re still going to have to throw it and hit big plays to move sticks.”
With mobile quarterbacks on Rice’s roster, Mack’s hire went from likely to a no-brainer.
“Watching what he’s done with some of those quarterbacks,” Bloomgren said, “we didn’t have sitting ducks at Stanford, but certainly more of a prostyle than a dual-threat quarterback, and Jerry has a lot of experience with those quarterbacks.
“I think one of the coolest ways you’ll see our system integrated is we’re going to be blocking power.
“Same blocking, same physicality imposed on the defensive line but just more opportunity to spread people out … and have great answers if they want to pressure.”