Oakland, Riverdale, Smyrna change offensive schemes for 2014

MURFREESBORO – Oakland's ground and pound, Riverdale's Wing-T and Smyrna's I-formation will be placed on the back burner in 2014 for a more wide-open look.

The three Rutherford County football programs have left taking snaps under center and have moved to the shotgun.

All three 7-AAA offenses will look vastly different, in at least formation.

• Oakland's run-heavy, I-formation has been replaced for a two-back, shotgun look with an emphasis of trying to utilize a group of talented receivers.

• Riverdale will still have some Wing-T tendencies, but appears to be heading toward what SEC fans saw from Auburn in 2013.

• Smyrna has turned to an uptempo spread similar to what Siegel instituted in 2011.

• Oakland coach Thomas McDaniel acknowledged that his offense has been perceived to being from ancient times. But it was fine with him. McDaniel picked up some of the new offense from MTSU.

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"Everyone has said our offense was in the Stone Age," McDaniel said. "But I was perfectly fine with that. I didn't see a need to change that much.

"But this opens it up some."

McDaniel pointed to the Patriots' Class 6A state quarterfinal loss to Blackman a year ago when the Blaze were able to load up to stop the run game.

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"With the amount of receivers we have, going to the shotgun gives us better opportunities as well. This is not nearly as crazy as people may think it is. This is not a total transformation. We're still a power-running team. We're just going to do it out of the gun. And we're going to do some other things."

At Smyrna, though, things will be vastly different. Smyrna coach Matt Williams plans to speed up the offense in an effort to tire defenses, using sophomore John Turner to direct the Bulldogs' offense.

Williams said the new offense fits his roster's needs.

"We don't have the huge kids up front that we've had in the past," Williams said. "We had to do something to help the kids and the offensive line. We had to do something to take the pressure off our front.

"This gives us a few more opportunities for a few more athletes."

It also means fewer players will be able to play both ways, especially the linemen.

"We're trying to go as fast as you can," Williams said. "We wanted to make sure the offensive line and defensive line are different because they will get tired the quickest. We had to make sure we had guys that can play on the offensive line and some for the defensive line."

The tempo is still something Riverdale coach Ron Aydelott is searching from the Warriors. He has said he will toy with the idea of playing a more uptempo style out of the Warriors' new offensive look that features a quarterback in shotgun, or pistol look.

However, Aydelott said there will be some Wing-T philosophies in the offense. It just won't be with a quarterback under center.

"It's simply a lot of the stuff we do with a 5-yard snap," said Aydelott, who said he went to several places to put together the offense.

"What we're doing is trying to find different ways to do some of the same things. Maybe some of that is smoke and mirrors as they say. But we're trying to energize things for the kids."

Contact Tom Kreager at 615-278-5168 or tkreager@dnj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Kreager.

Friday's Prep Football Scrimmage Schedule

MBA at Siegel, 9 a.m.

Beech at Oakland, 9 a.m.*

Blackman at Franklin, 5 p.m.

Centennial at Smyrna, 5 p.m.

Page at Stewarts Creek 5 p.m.

Riverdale at Lincoln Co., 6 p.m.

Eagleville at Columbia Acad., 6 p.m.

*First hour will be freshmen