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Ole Miss made a very innovate hire when searching for a offensive coordinator — tabbing former Sam Houston St. coach Phil Longo as the man for the job.
Longo is a disciple of current Washington State head coach Mike Leach. As a high school coach in New Jersey over 20 years ago, Longo made the trek down to Lexington — where he picked Leach’s brain at a coaching clinic. Thus, this began Longo’s loose affiliation with the popularized “Air Raid” offense.
On Wednesday, FootballScoop named Longo as its 2016 FCS Coordinator of the Year.
While a traditional “Air Raid” offense is almost exclusively rooted in throwing the football, Longo has a more balanced approach. His Sam Houston St. team led FCS with 547.3 yards per game. It averaged 368.3 yards per game — but also rushed for 179.0 per contest.
Tempo is one of Longo’s hallmarks as a play-caller. His main goal is to run as many plays as possible — with the thought of completely wearing out opposing defenses.
Statistically, there’s no question Longo is deserving of this honor.
Sam Houston St. led FCS with a 7.17 yards per play average. The Bearkats also led FCS in scoring at 49.5 points per game — scoring more than 50 points seven times in their 13 games schedule. This included reaching the 60-point mark three times.
As a whole, Longo put together a 2016 year including 7,115 yards of total offense, and an eye-popping 89 touchdowns.
QB Shea Patterson and the rest of the Ole Miss offense have to be licking their proverbial chops at the chance to play in this scheme.
