Knights aim to toss lots of darts
No-huddle St. Thomas More takes chances as it prepares to tackle archrival Notre Dame Jugglers
Bernie Kully knows it’s not quite as simple as he paints it, but it’s the best way the head coach of Burnaby’s St. Thomas More Collegiate Knights varsity football team knows to frame the essence of the high-tempo, no-huddle offence his team has embraced this season as it takes aim squarely at the 2013 Subway Bowl title.
“It’s like throwing darts at a dart board,” Kully chuckled Thursday, his mind looking ahead to Friday night when his Triple A No. 3-ranked Knights tangle with their traditional rivals, Vancouver’s Notre Dame Jugglers, in a 7:30 p.m. kickoff under the lights at the Burnaby Lake Sports Complex.
“The more darts you throw, the more chance you have of something sticking.”
Hurry-up, no-huddle offences have been around for ages, but they’ve existed as packages in a team’s offence, not as the sole base.
Not until the NCAA’s Oregon Ducks gave it mass popularity as a full fourquarter offence over the past few seasons has the no-huddle begun its mass trickle-down through the college and high school ranks. It’s even trickled up to the NFL.
At St. Thomas More, where athleticism and talent at the skill positions abound in players such as quarterback Chase Malcolm and receiver/ running back Malcolm Lee, the new offence seems well suited.
“We are trying to get to a high school level of what Oregon does collegiately,” said Kully, who admits that even with off-season training by his players and a full fall camp under their belts, there is still the need to get better conditioned.
“(Oregon) is so advanced and so amazing at what they do. They provide the example to strive for.
“But it can’t be something that you do once in a while,” Kully continued of an offence in which pace and big plays add up to opposition fatigue of both the physical and mental variety. “It has to be all the time, and so practice can be a bit of a learning curve.”
The Knights launched the offence to great effect last Friday, crushing host and rival Holy Cross 43-0 in Surrey, getting four touchdown passes from Malcolm, two of which he threw to Lee. STM also rushed for a pair of scores.
Anyone watching Oregon cruise to a 66-3 victory over Nicholls State this past weekend in its home opener saw how exciting the style can be. The Ducks are passing more this season under new head coach Mark Helfrich, but in past seasons, when first-year Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly was calling the shots, Oregon’s biggest plays came from its running game.
Opposition coaches set to face Oregon have even begun to practise fake-injury plays as a way to try to slow the tempo.
At the B.C. high school level, Kully has seen no-huddle becoming a larger and larger part of offences.
“Four years ago, South Kamloops was running a slowed-down version of it,” Kully said. “I can remember three years ago, the Mt. Douglas JVs were holding up cards (to signal plays in from the sideline) to run their no-huddle offence. When we scrimmaged (W.J.) Mouat in the fall, they were running some nohuddle.”
There is a learning curve going on right now with the Knights, who can get even better by mid-October if speedster Jalen Jana is able to come off an ACL injury suffered on the basketball court.
But the basic premise is simple: Take elite, conditioned athletes and find them a way to get, say, 15 to 20 extra snaps per game.
Or as Kully says: “The more darts you throw, the more chance you have of something sticking.”