Dragons RB coach takes over as offensive coordinator

The goal of the spread offense is to chew up chunks of yardage and score a bunch of points. What’s essential is making sure the matchups are always favorable.

That’s what Southlake Carroll football’s new offensive coordinator Mark Humble is tasked to do as he enters his first season. Humble, who was the running backs coach, succeeds Clayton George, who left in January to become the new head coach at Tyler Lee.

But this isn’t Humble’s first attempt to learn where and how the pieces fit. Over the past two decades, he has been well schooled when it comes to wearing a pretty important headset.

He was the offensive coordinator at Grand Prairie when Jerry Bomar’s teams were throwing it everywhere. Humble served as Johnny Ringo’s offensive coordinator at Plano East. He was also Kevin Atkinson’s offensive coordinator at Keller. The transition from his previous position to running this offense is as about as smooth as it could be.

“I’ve been blessed to be with some great coaches and great offensive minds,” Humble said. “What makes this perfect is that you have to play to the strength of your players and play to what your players do best.”

There will be a search for prominent playmakers. Two of Carroll’s most dynamic players in running back Lil’Jordan Humphrey (Texas) and wide receiver Zach Farrar (Texas) are moving on to the Division I Power 5 ranks. Carroll averaged 492 yards of total offense (5,901 total) per game. Those two accounted for 274 (3,288 total) of them.

Yet all isn’t lost. Humble has the built-in advantage of returning starting senior quarterback Mason Holmes. Named the starter in the second game of 2015, Holmes threw for 2,884 yards and 38 touchdowns.

Holmes (6-1, 185) has grown. But what has impressed since he was going through the 2015 spring season is his arm strength. Humble believes Holmes has one of the strongest arms to ever come through Carroll.

“Any time your quarterback returns, it’s huge,” Humble said. “With the high level of play we saw from him, we didn’t have to worry too much in the spring except making sure that all of his mechanics were sound.”

Holmes will work with a new set of receivers led by Jackson Davis. Time, communication and chemistry are key.

As for running Holmes, that’s going to depend on how the season develops. The Dragons are still trying to solidify their running game after Jack Johansson.

No matter how impressive the passing yards look, an offense will not be effective unless it can run the ball consistently. That’s going to be daunting with a non-district schedule that includes Tulsa (Okla.) Union, Arlington Martin and Rockwall. Carroll plays Euless Trinity on Sept. 30.

“The trademark of executing at a high level is finding ways to run the football and develop that physical side of the game, even though you’re a spread team,” Humble said. “We know it’s going to be tough sledding with the non-district schedule. But you’ve got to find a way to manufacture it.”

Carroll will always find playmakers. Not many people know who they are yet. But the continuity within the coaching staff makes this possible for the Dragons to contend for the District 5-6A title and make a deep playoff run.

“I’m excited for Mark and anticipate a very smooth transition,” Carroll head coach Hal Wasson said. “He has a great mind, an outstanding work ethic and most importantly, players play for him. I look forward to our offense playing at a very high level.”

This story was originally published August 3, 2016 at 2:52 PM with the headline "Dragons RB coach takes over as offensive coordinator."