MitchMash: The evolution of Texas football is everywhere

Back when Ty Detmer pulled up under center at Southwest (San Antonio) in the early 1980s, there were no 7-on-7 competitions, the shotgun formation was a novelty and the spread offense definitely had not spread. 

Especially in the state of Texas, land of the wishbone, veer and power football. 

"Back in my time, it was all about running the ball," said the Heisman Trophy winner who played 11 years in the NFL.

Boy, how times have changed. 



Texas high school football is filled with pigskin slingers, no better demonstrated than last weekend when Refugio junior quarterback Travis Quintanilla set a state record with 10 touchdown passes in an 80-0 win over Taft. He completed just 13 passes for 383 yards.

There was also the duel between Oklahoma-bound Cody Thomas whose Heritage (Colleyville, Texas) team outlasted MacArthur (Irving, Texas) and Tyler Petrillo 56-47. Thomas passed for 541 yards and seven touchdowns and Petrillo passed for 290 and three scores.

There was Alex Cooper at Mesquite who threw for 429 yards and Tyler senior Greg Ward who was nearly perfect, completing 29 of 32 for 382 yards and four scores.

It came on the same weekend former Tivy (Kerrville) star Johnny Manziel broke his own SEC record with 576 total yards while accounting for six touchdowns, leading Texas A&M to a 59-57 win over Louisiana Tech.

Manziel, a redshirt freshman, rushed for 181 yards and three touchdowns and threw for 395 and three more. He's the first SEC player to ever have two 500-yard plus games in a single season. Just two seasons ago he was putting up those same numbers at Tivy, earning him the nickname, "Johnny Football."

"The state has definitely evolved," said Detmer, who is now a third-year head coach at St. Andrews (Austin). "It used to be a running back state and now it's a quarterback state."



That's proven at the highest level as well.

Of the 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL, Texas had the most natives with eight compared to runner-up California with six. No other state had more than two alums.

That didn't surprise Detmer, whose 162.7 passer rating at BYU is an NCAA record. He completed 958 of 1,530 passes for 15,031 yards and 121 touchdowns while in college.

"There's great athletes in the state and they take their football serious in terms of off-season workouts and drills," Detmer said. "The better athletes in the state now have all moved to quarterback."

Though Texas was long known for its smashmouth football, the father of the spread offense is considered Rusty Russell, who coached orphaned boys at Fort Worth's Masonic Home and School in the late 20s.

In 1952, TCU coach Leo "Dutch" Meyer wrote a book entitled Spread Formation Football. Though varying spread offenses emerged after that, it really took hold in the late 1980s.



Like father, like daughter

Around Northern California, nobody under 6-foot can spike the volleyball with greater tenacity or authority than St. Francis (Mountain View, Calif.) 5-10 senior hitter Chloe Lott.

"She just hammers the ball," St. Francis coach Leahi Hall Leon said. "For whatever reason, there are just some players who get good hand contact every time they swing. Chloe is that player. She is a hammer. She's the terminator."

Just like her father — NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott — was on the football field.

Unlike many children of celebrity parents, Chloe doesn't hide or diminish her father's athletic impact. Quite the opposite.

Besides her reputation as the team's "hammer," Chloe's work ethic and competitive team spirit parallel her father to the bone.



Not necessarily the pinkie bone — yes, Ronnie Lott's greatest "tough guy" moment was when he cut off part of his own dislocated pinkie because it was "in the way" — but Chloe is nails in all regards. She's still considering her college options.

"Nobody could possibly compete harder than Chloe," Hall Leon said. "At practice, in the weight room, conditioning. And the best part about it is that she competes with herself. She sets a great example for others but doesn't expect anyone to be as tenacious as she.

"She wants to be the very best in every aspect of the game and every aspect of the program."

Chloe knows exactly where that competitive gene comes from. Ronnie Lott attends almost every game.

"It definitely comes from my dad," she said. "Since I was very young, he instilled in me to simply be the very best you can be at whatever you do. Just give your best.

"I never have felt any pressure to live up to my dad. He never made me feel that way. My dad is just the best."



The Forgotten Team

If last year's Campolindo (Moraga, Calif.) football season would have made a good Hollywood blockbuster — as coach Kevin Macy suggested — then its 2012 campaign is worthy of some Indie Spirit awards.

Not nearly as spectacular, but perhaps as unlikely, the Bay Area's 17th-ranked Cougars are off to a 6-1 campaign and have won 20 of 22.

Unfathomable considering last year's team was picked to finish last in the Diablo Foothill Athletic League but finished 14-1 while reaching the State Division III Bowl game. And more unlikely considering that team graduated 19 of 24 starters.

With two of those five returners out for the season with injuries, Campolindo is down to three returning starters, all on the offensive line. How in the world?

"First off, we told the team right away that we're not judging them against last year's team," Macy said. "It was up to them to find their own identity.



"A lot of people were afraid to embrace them after being so emotionally attached to last year's team. We joked they were like a bunch of orphans around here. We've nicknamed them ‘The Forgotten Team.'

"But these kids just keep plugging away. They're finding a way to hold things together."

They were challenged further Wednesday when they found out their one Division I athlete Brett Stephens — the team's "franchise" and emotional leader — is out for the year with a shoulder injury.

On Friday, in stepped last year's JV quarterback Andrew Zolintakis, who threw for 235 yards and accounted for two touchdowns in 24-21 win over visiting Las Lomas-Walnut Creek. Stephens, a UCLA baseball commit, helped mentor Zolintakis, who has been a starter this season at safety and receiver.

He completed 16 of 30 passes and scrambled seven times for 14 yards, including an 8-yard TD run.

"Andrew played great," Macy said. "He kept his composure. He kept his eyes down field. He's not as fast or strong as Brett, but he's slippery."



Said Stephens: "Andrew was awesome. He made a bunch of big plays. I'm proud of him and the whole team." You can contact Mitch Stephens by email at mstephens@maxpreps.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MitchMashMax.