When Notre Dame plays Texas in the 2016 season opener, the Longhorns will be breaking in a new offense for the second year in a row.

Last season, in a move that would make Charlie Weis proud, Texas offensive coordinator Shawn Watson – a longtime proponent of the pro-style West Coast Offense – decided he was going to install a no huddle, up tempo offense.  The results were…  well… they weren’t great.

On the surface, Watson’s plan wasn’t a bad one.  Nearly every high school in Texas is running some form of the spread, so it makes sense for a school like Texas to install an offense the numerous talented offensive high school players in the state already know.  But Watson was not the man to make that change.

So Watson is out and former Tulsa offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert is in.  We’re going to dissect the Sterlin Gilbert offense in two posts.  Today we’ll take a look at Gilbert’s Tulsa offense at a macro level – how his offense works from a 10,000 foot view.  In part two, we’ll get our hands dirty and dive into the nuts and bolts of actual plays and formations.

Next Man In                                                                         

Sterlin Gilbert comes from the Art Briles coaching tree.  Though he has never worked directly with Briles, Gilbert was former Baylor assistant Dino Baber’s offensive coordinator at Eastern Illinois and Bowling Green from 2012 to 2014.  In 2015, Gilbert coached under longtime Briles assistant Phil Montgomery at Tulsa.

Gilbert is bringing the Baylor-style offense to Texas.  It’s hard to pin a label on this offense (“spread,” “pro-style,” etc.) because it is so unique within college football.  It’s easy to file it under the generic “spread” category because the offense moves fast and operates out of the shotgun.  But Gilbert’s offense is unique in its almost extreme “spreadness” but with a smashmouth flavor to it.  It also makes extensive use of packaged plays and run-pass options – so much so that this offense is sometimes compared to the triple option.  The term “veer and shoot” was coined by (I believe) SBNation’s Ian Boyd as a way to express the option nature of the offense (the veer) combined with its wide open passing game (the run-and-shoot).  We’ll go into this in more detail in part two.

By the Numbers                  

Let’s take a look at the raw numbers from Gilbert’s 2015 Tulsa offense to get a feel for how his offense operates. We’re going to look at traditional stats instead of diving into advanced stats because we’re just trying to see how this offense operates.  For all you math nerds out there, you can check out Bill Connelly’s Tulsa preview here.

Overall, the offensive stats were impressive.  Tulsa was 13th in the country in total offense, at 507.4 yards per game.  Most of those yards came through the air – 333.2 pass yards per game, 11th in the country.

But though Tulsa had the most success throwing the ball, this was an offense that was committed to the running game.  On the season, Tulsa ran the ball a total of 591 times to 492 pass attempts.  But just because they liked to run doesn’t mean they were very good at it.  Tulsa finished 61st in the country (almost smack dap in the middle) at 174.15 rush yards per game.  That’s decent, but they averaged only 3.83 yards per rush – 103rd in the country.

For comparison, here are Tulsa’s running number compared to Notre Dame’s:

Tulsa – 591 rush attempts – 2264 yards – 3.83 yards per rush

Notre Dame – 480 attempts – 2703 yards – 5.63 yards per rush

Tulsa ran the ball over 100 more times than Notre Dame but had almost 500 fewer yards.

This is an offense that also liked to go fast.  Tulsa finished 7th in the country in total plays and 110th in time of possession per game.  You can argue the merits of the time of possession stat, but the high number of plays coupled with the low time of possession is a big indicator of team that liked to push the tempo.

So what does that tell us?  Texas is certainly going to move fast on offense. That’s a given considering Gilbert’s background.  Notre Dame didn’t face a ton of offenses in 2015 that pushed the tempo, but when they did (Clemson and Ohio State) the results weren’t great.  How much of that was due to the overall talent level of those teams and how much of it was due to the offensive style is up for debate.  But going back to 2014, Notre Dame gave up 43 points to North Carolina, 55 to Arizona State, and 43 to Northwestern – all teams that move quickly on offense but don’t have nearly the level of talent of Notre Dame.  This could be an area of concern heading into the season opener.

We also know Texas will run the ball.  Gilbert’s Tulsa offense was committed to running the ball despite the mediocre results.  The Longhorn’s quarterback situation is a mess, with the starter in the season opener either a true freshman or Texas’s own version of Tommy Rees.  Plus, Texas brings back two bruisers at running back – D’Onta Foreman is 6-1, 249lbs. and Chris Warren is 6-2, 252lbs.  Gilbert will likely look to them to pound the defense between the tackles, move the chains, and wear out the defense.  That, plus the hurry up nature of the offense, can lead to a long day for the Irish front seven if they don’t take Texas out of their comfort zone early in the game.

So that’s it for this macro-level look at the Texas offense.  In part two, we’ll open up the playbook and look at how Gilbert’s offense actually operated on the field last season.