Roots of Trinity’s offense run deep in high school football lore

Throughout the early 2000s, as programs across the state ushered in the new spread-’em-out era of offensive football in Texas, Euless Trinity was installing and perfecting schemes popularized in decades past. When those spread offenses began to incorporate the read running game in the late 2000s, Trinity became an adopter.

Combined elements of a traditional pro-style offense with newfangled intricacies mixed into the running game have given the Trojans their unique look that has been one-third of the equation that has produced three state titles since 2005. And it all started in response to one of the least memorable seasons of the Steve Lineweaver era, his first as Trinity head coach in 2000.

Lineweaver and Chris Jensen, his offensive coordinator and now first-year head coach, brought their wishbone/flexbone offense with them from Class 3A Commerce, where they had just put a state championship trophy in the case after the 1999 season. Confidence abounded.

But what works in Class 3A won’t always work in the biggest classification, then Class 5A and now Class 6A. The Trojans made the playoffs that first year running a lot of triple option looks but were bounced from the postseason unceremoniously in bi-district, not having enough firepower.

“You’ve got to have a quarterback in that offense that can beat a free safety one-on-one, because if a defense takes everything away from you in the option sequence, you’re going to have a one-on-one,” Jensen said. “When we got here and started seeing 6-3 safeties who ran 4.4s coming unblocked, we didn’t have the quarterbacks to match up. Not a lot of people do.”

In short, the evolution of the individual athlete in Texas high school football is one reason that few successful programs can afford to rely offensively on a traditional option-based attack. But the immediate conundrum facing the recent state champions was that the offense they had ridden to the 1999 Class 3A Div. II title was now essentially obsolete on the 5A playing field.

Back to the drawing board.

As they are wont to do, the Trinity coaching staff was in attendance at the 2000 state championships at Cowboys Stadium. The main attraction that year was the matchup between an athletically overmatched Katy team and Tyler John Tyler in the 5A Div. II title game. Katy was on its way back to establishing itself as a perennial power after the Tigers had won their first state championship in 38 years three seasons earlier under legendary coach Mike Johnston.

The eye test would have given the title to John Tyler that day, but that’s why they play the game.

“Katy just handled them,” Jensen said. The final score was 35-20 and Katy has been a fixture in the December festivities ever since, under Johnston until 2004 and his successor and former defensive coordinator Gary Joseph since.

After the game, Lineweaver suggested to Jensen they have a closer look at what Katy was doing on offense. Though they didn’t know it yet, the parallels between the towns of Euless and Katy, the schools themselves and the potential football players roaming the halls were uncanny.

That spring, the Trinity coaching staff was again in attendance when the Katy coaching staff spoke at a Dallas-area coaches clinic. But Lineweaver and Jensen wanted to know more, especially after Lineweaver began to compare demographic and enrollment data on the two towns, the two schools and the two football teams.

“It really showed us how big a match Katy and Trinity were on all those levels,” said John Pafford, who served as defensive coordinator under Lineweaver and is retired. “That there really was something to this.”

And with the help of Jeff Dixon, who had coached with Lineweaver when the two were assistants at Southlake Carroll and who moved on to coach running backs at Katy under Johnston, a sit-down was brokered. Lineweaver, Jensen, Pafford and the rest of the Trinity staff, hoping to reinvent their offensive philosophy, drove down to Katy.

“They opened their doors to us, and we weren’t sure how welcoming they’d be, especially when our request was to potentially introduce their offense on our campus,” Jensen said. “But the only thing they wanted to know was, ‘What do you need.’”

Jensen and his colleagues listened as Katy staff members described the wealth of big-bodied linemen they seemed to have at their disposal year in and year out.

Check. Same at Trinity.

They listened as the Katy staff told them they didn’t always have a lot of great athletes, but they consistently had at least one who could “dot the ‘i,’” meaning at least one special athlete who would make an effective running back in Katy’s pro-style offense, running behind the fullback in the I-formation.

Check.

They listened to Katy coaches who said they were usually average to above average at the quarterback position.

Check again.

So Lineweaver and Jensen switched offenses, just as they had done twice during their seven seasons at Commerce. It wasn’t that their offense had failed; it was that their previous offense didn’t fit the personnel they were now coaching. It becomes easy for fans to form opinions about the stereotypical ego-driven football coach archetype, but Jensen and Lineweaver’s decision to switch offenses came from quite the opposite motivation.

“He was never attached to any offense,” Jensen said of Lineweaver, who always coached on the offensive side of the ball before getting the head whistle. “He was never an ego guy about ‘This is my offense, and this is what I do.’”

That example has certainly colored the way Jensen handles his schemes as well.

“As a coach you’ve got to put your pride aside. It’s not about what you know or showing your genius or something,” Jensen said. “It’s about putting something together that moves the chains and gives you the best chance to win.”

The offense isn’t the triple option, but it isn’t the spread either. In fact, it doesn’t even have a catchy name. Jensen and his coaches still call it ‘The Katy Offense.’

It keeps the clock moving by primarily employing the run game from the special back who dots the ‘i’ behind a larger-than-average to elite offensive line. The blocking and footwork of the offensive line are two of the most important and yet under-appreciated skill sets required to run it successfully.

It ditches the notions of left guard and tackle vs. right guard and tackle for the concepts of a quick side and a strong side, which gives the offense the flexibility to run any play to any side of the field by flipping the position of the offensive linemen relative to the center.

Tight ends are expected to set the edge in Trinity’s offense and are often converted defensive ends rather than big-time receiving threats. And, yes, wide receiver can be a lonely position at times. And, no, your quarterback is not going to throw 40 touchdowns every year.

“It’s about getting guys to buy into doing what’s needed to move the ball,” Jensen said. “It’s not about making you happy.”

With the new offense installed, the Trojans bulldozed their way to the state semifinals in 2001, Lineweaver’s second season. Jensen jokes that the 27-23 rain-soaked loss to Reggie McNeal and Lufkin to end the 2001 season and deny the Trojans a berth in the state title game is still a sore spot, but clearly the new offense was already paying dividends.

But when Arlington ousted Trinity in the bi-district round the next two years, a tectonic shift was happening across the state. Todd Dodge’s Southlake Carroll teams won four Class 5A titles in five years from 2002-2006, and coaches tore up playbooks all over the state in favor of the new toy, the spread offense.

But even in the face of the two-season bump in the road, the Trinity coaching staff stayed focused on making minor adjustments to their pro-style offense to decrease some tendencies toward predictability rather than jump ship in favor of the new flavor. Jensen and his staff still meet with Joseph and the Katy staff every few years to trade notes.

“It just doesn’t fit our personnel,” Jensen said of the spread.

Trojan players, parents, fans and even coaches who have parlayed their time under Lineweaver into higher profile coaching positions elsewhere are glad Lineweaver and Jensen stuck to their guns. The three state championships Trinity gathered in four state title game appearances in the next seven seasons are proof.

With that run, Lineweaver equaled Johnston’s three state championships at Katy after borrowing his offense to get it done. With the coaching legends’ successors in place at the respective programs, fans have four more weeks in the regular season to watch this year’s playoff picture work itself out.

If Trinity and Katy are placed in the same playoff division within Class 6A (based on enrollment numbers of playoff qualifiers: Trinity has the second-highest enrollment in District 7-6A and Katy has the fourth-highest enrollment in District 19-6A) when the 2015 playoff brackets are unveiled, the only possible way the two could meet would be in a state championship game.

How appropriate.

This story was originally published October 12, 2015 at 4:29 PM with the headline "Roots of Trinity’s offense run deep in high school football lore."