Adapt and survive: For the Dallas-area’s best football teams, offensive fluidity breeds success

There weren’t any wholesale changes to Denton Guyer’s offense this season, head coach Rodney Webb said. Sure, the numbers may say differently on a surface level, but that’s emblematic of the scheme.

Something that isn’t broken doesn’t need fixing, as the narrative goes. But sometimes, something that is successful is built to be tweaked.

“I think with any great offensive philosophy,” Webb said. “You have the flexibility, from year-to-year, to lean on different aspects of the offense without having to change the entire offense.”

In 2020, 65% of Guyer’s offensive plays were runs, and 3,662 of its 6,294 (nearly 60%) total yards came on the ground. That’s what worked best for Webb and co. last season. Quarterback Eli Stowers, now at Texas A&M, was a true dual-threat at quarterback and rushed for 1,078 yards and 18 touchdowns.

Just 2,632 of Guyer’s yards came through the air in 2020, and only 35% of its plays were of the passing variety. Stowers’ best skill was his legs. Guyer’s leading wide receivers were all juniors or younger. It had an offensive line with two Division I recruits to run behind, too.

Guyer averaged 40.79 points per game and advanced to the state semifinals. The run-heavy scheme had worked.

This season is different.

Nearly 64% of Guyer’s total offensive yards have come through the air in 2021. It’s rushed for nearly 1,600 fewer yards, and opts to rush the ball just 56% of the time, down 9% from last year.

Guyer (13-1) is averaging 37.5 points per game and, once again, will play in the state semifinals on Saturday against Tomball (11-3). A more-balanced offensive approach — with a heightened emphasis on passing the ball — works, too.

“Productivity has been very similar in terms of yards and points,” Webb said. “But how we’ve gotten there is very much different.”

The five other Dallas-area teams that’ll play for a trip to the state championship this weekend are in similar positions.

Duncanville (12-1), which will play Southlake Carroll (14-0) on Saturday in the 6A-I state semifinals, has passed for nearly 1,400 fewer yards this season than it did last (2,727 yards to 1,369) but has rushed for nearly 1,200 more yards (2,472 to 3,638). Carroll has rushed for 3,447 yards this season — the most its ran for since 2013 — but has passed for more than 900 less yards than it did last year.

Mansfield Summit (11-3), playing in its second-straight 5A-I state semifinal on Friday against College Station (14-0), rushed for 182.8 yards per game this season. That average has ballooned to 248.7 in 2021. South Oak Cliff (13-1) will play Lubbock-Cooper (13-1) in the 5A-II state semifinals on Friday, and will bring in a revamped aerial attack that is averaging nearly 100 more passing yards per game this season compared with last. Celina (12-1), which will face Gilmer (13-1) in the 4A-II state semifinals on Friday, took the opposite approach: It’s rushed for, on average, 242.54 yards per game this season compared with 148.91 last year.

So, what’s behind the changes? A sudden shift in philosophy? A brand new playbook, with last year’s sitting in a trash can somewhere?

It’s really not that drastic, the coaches of those teams will say. It’s a sign that the teams that rise to the top, year-after-year, know how to work with what they’ve got.

“It’s just kind of how we developed our personality as an offense this year,” Celina coach Bill Elliot said. “I’ve always stressed to our coaches, ‘We need to do what we do best.’ If we need to throw the ball and we have the receivers that can go get it and a quarterback that can do it, then let’s do that. We’re going to do what fits our personnel the best.”

Celina averaged 218.55 passing yards per game last season. It had experienced wide receivers, a young offensive line and a quarterback in then-junior Noah Bentley who could sling it.

But Celina returned four starting offensive lineman this season, as well as running back Gabe Gayton, now a junior who’s rushed for 1,512 yards and 17 touchdowns this season. Bentley has still proved to be a key part of the offense, but as Elliot and his staff assessed the team — and what the team could do best at — it just made sense.

Run the ball.

“It’s kind of just the growth of our offense, and the maturity of it,” Elliot said.

Guyer and South Oak Cliff trended in the opposite direction. Like Elliot and Celina, it came down to personnel.

Jackson Arnold, a four-star junior recruit, proved to Webb and his staff that he was worthy of being built around. The numbers (3,601 passing yards and 30 touchdowns) have since backed it up.

“During the early to middle part of the year, there were just things that went well for us in games that we didn’t expect,” Webb said. “We have not been a drop-back team in several years ... probably about the middle portion of the season, we started realizing we’re a really good concept-based drop-back team.”

Likewise at South Oak Cliff, where senior Kevin Henry-Jennings (2,649 passing yards, 34 touchdowns and two interceptions) forced coach Jason Todd to call more passing plays. South Oak Cliff passed the ball just 33% of the time last season. That number grew to 41% in 2021.

“It really was personnel-based,” Todd said. “But the personnel was in place last year. The biggest thing was, due to COVID, we couldn’t build a lot of chemistry. We had some young guys.”

A change in offensive focus, of course, can lead to a change in roles.

“Our kids understand, the way it’s going to fall this year, you may not be the star,” Webb said. “You may not lead us in receiving or rushing every single game ... a lot of guys may come into the season thinking they’re going to be the guy, or last year they got X amount of carries or X amount of yardage.

“That doesn’t mean what’s best for us the following year.”

Guyer has a chance to advance to the state title game for the first time since 2019. South Oak Cliff is vying for its first trip to the title game. Southlake Carroll and Celina (eight state titles apiece) are looking to add to their trophy collections.

To reach those heights, the teams have proved change isn’t always a bad thing.

Offensive differences

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