Is Hal Mumme the most influential coach in modern CFB history?

Mummy/Leach definitely

Leach’s coaching tree is nuts. Especially if you count Art Briles (which is iffy because he didn’t really run an air raid)

I mean, if your gonna go that route you could say Lavell Edwards. He at least was a good coach in addition to a great offensive mind. His coaching tree includes many impressive coaches.

quote:

---

Is Hal Mumme the most influential coach in modern CFB history?

---

No. I think someone's coaching tree needs to include people that only worked directly for them. Too much movement among assistants to give everyone credit. Yes Mumme was influential, but that doesn't mean he gets credit for Art Briles b/c Briles' boss (Leach) worked with Mumme. Unless I'm missing something, Leach was the OC under Mumme for a couple of seasons. Then Briles was the RB coach under Leach for a few seasons. That's a bit of a stretch to credit Mumme for Briles.

quote:

---

hobby of mine is researching coaching trees, don’t ask why.

---

Why?

Made this thread last year but for Leach. Leach was the brains in that operation and has completely influenced offense on all levels since

Lavell Edwards without a doubt. The guy produced a multiple all American QBs and his teams lead the nation in passing like 10 times.

STEVE SPURRIER

quote:

---

Is Hal Mumme the most influential coach in modern CFB history?

---

Opened this thread to post a snarky reply about "Influential as far as how to be an object lesson in recruiting violations sinking a promising career, then yes!" But I'll admit that reading this got me thinking. Oddly enough, I graduated from Southeastern (Go Lions, lol) right before he started as their coach 18 months or so after the Kentucky scandal, when SLU decided to revive their 20-years dead football program.

I think overall, though, the air raid offense and it's many hybrids and derivatives are not so much a reflection of a coaching tree as much as an overall coaching philosophy - similar to 4-3 or 3-4 on defense. At it's start, to me, it was a gimmicky-type of approach in trying to make small-school talent perform at a higher level than if they ran a traditional offense. Like most things (i.e., the RPO) other coaches in CFB and the NFL saw how they could incorporate aspects of it and did so - not necessarily as a result of coaching with Mumme directly, but also coaching against him or seeing the offense and adding parts in.

Football is always an ever-evolving sport. The wishbone was revolutionary, but then it became outdated. the triple-option was revolutionary, then became outdated, then had a revival of sorts because it seemed exotic when Paul Johnson ran it at Georgia Tech. Overall it's rather difficult to tie down innovations to one person, since, using your example, each coach that encountered the broadly-defined Air Raid added bits and pieces or tweaked or whatever. That's why it's called the Air Raid rather than "The Mike Leach offense" or the "Hal Mumme offense."

TL; DR: interesting thought exercise, but I think the offense is only tied to the coaching tree as opposed to being defined by the coaching tree.

I was a student at Valdosta State when Hal Mumme was the head coach with Mike Leach as an assistant. Guy Morris was also an assistant there under Mumme, but that predated me.

A few years later we had Muschamp as DC and Kirby Smart as the DBs coach.

Mumme's son, Matt, who played for him at Valdosta State and UK, was later the head coach at Lagrange College and was just named as the OC at Colorado State.

Mumme has been very clear that he studied Lavelle Edwards' offenses to develop the Air Raid.

You can also make an argument for Glenn Ellison+Jack Neumeier (Run and Shoot and power spread respectively, but power spread never exists if Ellison doesn't invent run and shoot).

Hal Mumme is probably the better answer though. Everyone uses air raid concepts and he also invented the RPO as if changing passing concepts alone wasn't enough.