Rhett Lashlee plans to simplify everything for Miami in new role as offensive coordinator
When Rhett Lashlee was a star quarterback in high school playing for Gus Malzahn at Springdale in Arkansas, he twice threw the ball 71 times in a game. His Bulldogs were among the most prolific offenses in the country in each of the three years he started. He parlayed it into a playing career for the Arkansas Razorbacks, and then a coaching career primarily spent as Malzahn’s right-hand man with the Arkansas State Red Wolves and Auburn Tigers.
He broke off from Malzahn for the past three years to serve as offensive coordinator the Connecticut Huskies and SMU Mustangs before taking over the same position for the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday. For the first time since arriving in Coral Gables, Lashlee spoke publicly Friday in an appearance on the Joe Rose Show with Zach Krantz on WQAM and a significant portion of the conversation was spent discussing his influences as a coach. Most everything he does in his spread offense, Lashlee said, traces back to his relationship with Malzahn, which he said means an easy-to-learn, hard-to-stop system is coming to Miami.
“I think that’s what’s exciting about it, even back when I played for Gus in high school and all through the years,” Lashlee said in the radio interview. “I think the thing that we really take pride in with our system is it is a player-friendly system, and it’s not complicated. We’re not trying to go out there and make it complicated because not only do we want to play fast with tempo, we want our players to play fast. And what I mean by that is be reacting, not thinking because when kids are reacting at any position, then their abilities are taking over and they’re playing at the best of their ability. When they’re thinking, they’re hesitant, they’re slow, they’re guessing and they’re not as good as they can be, so our system is designed to be very simple for our guys on our team, but to present itself as complex to the defense.”
His track record bears out, particularly in 2019 in Dallas. In Lashlee’s last season as SMU’s offensive mastermind, the Mustangs ranked second nationally in plays per game, seventh in points per game, ninth in yards per game and 42nd in yards per play. The year before, SMU ranked outside the top 45 in all four of those categories. He brought a stylistic overhaul to Texas when he arrived, and the Hurricanes hope he will bring the same sort of shift to South Florida in 2020 as they go from pro style to spread.
Lashlee has a massive amount of questions to solve next season, though. This season, Miami finished outside the top 85 in each of those four critical offensive categories. Its quarterback position and offensive line are totally unsettled. The Hurricanes will have to replace three of their most talented skill-position players.
It all starts at quarterback, though, and Lashlee said Miami’s competition at the critical spot is wide open moving forward.
“You’ve got to have consistency at the quarterback position, especially with what we want to do — playing fast, spreading the field and trying to put our playmakers in space,” Lashlee said. “You’ve got to have a quarterback who’s almost like a point guard on a basketball team. You just kind of run the show and distribute things. The great thing about it is it’s not just at quarterback it’s at every position. I think I get to meet with the guys for the first time on Sunday. What I’ve told the ones I have talked to so far is it’s a clean slate. To be honest with you, I don’t really care what happened last year because that doesn’t do anything to help us moving forward. I’m really focused on what we can do moving forward, so everybody’s got a clean slate, but I don’t think there’s any question — there’s no reason to dodge it — for us to be good on offense and to make the improvements we want to make, we’ve got to have a lot more consistency at the quarterback position.”
If Lashlee’s system is as player-friendly as he touts, it could help ease some of the Hurricanes’ most glaring problems which plagued Dan Enos’ one season in Miami. Quarterback Jarren Williams, who started the majority of the season, never jelled with the former offensive coordinator, sources told the Miami Herald, and all three competing quarterbacks struggled to grasp Enos’ pro-style system.
Lashlee said his offense operates out of shotgun about 90 percent of the time — the heavy under-center work was a challenge for Williams, and fellow quarterbacks N’Kosi Perry and Tate Martell in 2019 — and fits with what most kids want to play.
“We believe in spreading the field, getting your playmakers in space and playing fast, and ultimately that’s what kids want to do. They love it and if they’re doing what they want to do, they’ll buy in,” Lashlee said. “I grew up when Nolan Richardson was winning national championships with ‘40 Minutes of Hell’ at Arkansas, and it was just a unique style and brand of basketball that everybody wasn’t really doing, so if we can do something that’s a little different, have something that’s a little unique to us, it gives us an advantage that is a way of life for us. At the end of the day, the more plays you get, the more chances your playmakers have to touch the ball, the more chances you have to score — it’s just that simple and hopefully we can wear down our opponents because it’s something we’re used to. At the end of the day, spread the field, get our guys in space and let them do what God’s given them the ability to do.”
It’s something Lashlee knows he will be able to tout on the recruiting trail when the current dead period ends Thursday.
Lashlee, who said he and coach Manny Diaz are still “finalizing” any other potential coaching changes on offense, used to recruit Florida when he was Auburn’s offensive coordinator from 2013-2016, so he knows the talent in the Miami metropolitan area well. It was part of the reason he decided to join the Hurricanes and he’s excited to start proving his offense will be able to get the most out of the region’s athletes.
“One of the things that makes this opportunity exciting is there’s a lot of young men down here that have a lot of ability and I think if they just see an offense that they know they can come in and thrive in and use their abilities, it’ll excite them to want to stay home and go to the U. When I was at Auburn, I recruited down here four or five years and we got a lot of good players out of here. Everybody comes down here to recruit because there’s players everywhere, but it’s a lot different when you’re coming down here to get a player versus when you’re able to say, This is home, and try to get players to stay here.”
Here’s everything else notable Lashlee said in a 13-minute interview with Rose and Krantz:
On the origins of his system: “Honestly for me, it’s what I know. As a player back in the late ‘90s in high school, I played for Gus Malzahn, who’s the head coach at Auburn. I threw it 71 times in a game twice and I think all three years I was in high school we led the offense in total offense or were right up there at the top. We didn’t have a guy who ran faster than a 4.6. We just spread the field, we played fast, we were tough, we were disciplined, we executed and it really gave us an advantage. And so that’s just kind of my background and then I’ve spent a lot of time with Gus, whether it be at Arkansas, Arkansas State, Auburn, when I broke off and kind of gone and done my own thing, but there’s still a lot of that philosophy that’s in me. You see what Clemson does — guys like that all come from kind of the same tree.”
On how he’ll fix Miami’s third-down issues: “I do think success breeds confidence and confidence allows you to be successful on third down, in clutch moments, in the red zone and to be successful you’ve got to get guys bought into having an identity, they’ve got to know who we are. And they’ve got to have done stuff over, and over and over again to create good habits, so they can execute when all the pressure is on.”
On the role of tight ends in his offense: “I think with what we do, those guys are kind of the glue guys. The better your tight ends are, the more versatile you can be and play fast because if you don’t have great tight ends, you can play fast, but you’re a little bit limited and the defense has a little better idea of what personnel you’re in, what sets you’re in. When you have tight ends that can put their hand down, be off the ball, flex out like a wide receiver like the couple guys that we have here, it really gives you a lot of versatility to not only go fast, but go fast and be multiple with the looks you give. One minute you’re in a heavy set, one minute you’re empty and you’ve gone fast.”
On how he responds to blitzing: “What we do allows our guys to do it over and over again that they can solve a lot of problems instead of doing a bunch of different stuff, and you know it all, but you’re not really good at anything. Look: A lot of people are going to blitz. I like when people blitz because that just gives you the opportunity for big plays. Our system — we’re in the shotgun probably 90 percent of the time, but we’re not trying to hold the ball forever. The longer you hold the ball, the more sacks you have, the more negative plays you have, the more bad things happen. We’ve got a lot of work to do to get to where we want to be, but in our passing game, we’re not trying to have the quarterback hold the ball forever. Let’s get it out of his hands, let’s get completions, let’s get it to playmakers. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to throw it vertically down the field because we are and that’s a big part of what we do, but I don’t think you have to hold it forever to do that.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 9:07 AM.
