Coach Stutz has developed a reputation as an innovative football play-caller. Early on, as a young coach in Hawai`i at Saint Louis School, he incorporated Run N Shoot offensive concepts, which he learned as a high school and collegiate player.
Creatively, he enhanced the basic foundation of the Run N Shoot Offense, which resulted in two back-to-back state titles. It was his transition to the college ranks that he was able to further develop the concepts of his playbook. Over the years and at each stop, Stutz worked with coaches of diverse offensive and defensive backgrounds. This exposure prompted a collection of ideas that would later shape a new offensive style of play.
Image courtesy of San Jose State Athletics
It was at Weber State University, that he was introduced to RPO’s (Run-Pass-Options) by a colleague. He saw the potential of combining run plays with the Run N Shoot and Deep Choice concepts.
As Offensive Coordinator at Emory & Henry College, Head Coach Curt Newsome allowed Stutz the freedom to implement what he had been strategically piecing together from his collective stops and learning from his coaching network.
Thus, Stutzmann’s Spread & Shred was formally created and named. It’s designed to spread the defense pre-snap and entails various alignments.
Photo courtesy of San Jose State Athletics
These alignments, in turn, allow the offensive players to see where defensive pressures can come from and give coverage recognition. It also creates light boxes to run the football, create space, and match up problems when throwing the ball. Utilizing the RPO’s gives his players the opportunity to take advantage of a defense’s vulnerability.
Spread & Shred is efficient and explosive. The run game consists of five run concepts with variations. The pass game is built on giving receivers and quarterbacks options to find openings against any coverage.
Many of Coach Stutz’ offensive players have become All-American players, national statistical leaders, and NFL draft picks as a result of the Spread & Shred highlighting their talent.
With this success, Coach Stutz has drawn interest from the football industry on his coaching and style of play.
His most recent engagement on “The Preferred Walk-On: The People’s College Football Show” where he discusses the origins of Spread & Shred, can be accessed here: