BOOK CLUB: UNLOCKING THE MOST EXPLOSIVE OFFENSE IN HISTORY
Talking about the Veer and Hoot with AJ Forbes - author of the definitive deep dive on Kennesaw State's secretive new system.
Offense was never a question when Kennesaw State’s football program started. For the first eight seasons, we knew exactly what we’d get every Saturday: Flexbone triple option on repeat, thanks to the Paul Johnson disciple that ran the show from the beginning. Most games it worked; sometimes it didn’t. Either way, you could always count on an “It’s like novocaine — give it time, it always works” level of consistency.
You might’ve heard Brian Bohannon no longer coaches here. We’ve probably discussed that enough by now, but he’s back at another one of his Previous Institutions after a 1-8 start to life in FBS and a PR nightmare of a firing. That means Kennesaw’s flexbone ethos — and the attempted Pistol rebrand — will give way to a brand-new system during a total teardown under new head coach Jerry Mack.
Mack already said to expect an uptempo offense in the mold of what Tennessee runs. That makes sense, as his experience on Josh Heupel’s staff in Knoxville is probably most instructive as to what earned him the job. In the limited coverage of Mack’s first hundred days and the start of spring practice, though, nobody’s bothered to ask what that really means or to elaborate on terms like “ball mechanics,” a fancy way to talk about where you should hand the ball after you get tackled or go out of bounds.
That’s fine, because we can still see a clear vision based on the incoming staff and common threads between the Vols and other Veer and Shoot offenses. Mitch Militello, a long-time Heupel acolyte, took the coordinator role. The rest of the assistants come with heavy influences from Jeff Lebby, Lane Kiffin, and former Baylor head coach Art Briles, the system’s controversial architect. Mack’s updated coaching tree also intersects with OL coach Jay Clements' actual family tree, as his dad Randy began working with Briles in the high school ranks.
The Veer and Shoot nickname, coined by Ian Boyd on SB Nation’s Football Study Hall, pushed further into the casual fan’s consciousness when CFB 25 featured the sometimes-gamebreaking playbook under its adopted name. Boyd’s Substack features as detailed an introduction as I’ve seen on the tempo, splits, and other concepts that make the offense tick.
Will the name Veer and Hoot take off as a name for the Owls’ new offense in that same way? Sadly no, but that won’t stop me from spamming it anywau.
To dig even deeper, a new book from former Montana offensive lineman AJ Forbes dropped at a perfect time for KSU fans. “The Veer-and-Shoot: Unlocking the Most Explosive Offense in History” came out at almost exactly as Mack took the job and started importing his version of the system to Kennesaw. Forbes compiled about 200 pages of philosophy, schemes, diagrams, and even drills after spending multiple years studying Baylor’s original version and offshoots like Heupel’s work at Tennessee.
We’re just a couple weeks away from seeing the Veer and Hoot’s public debut at the spring game on April 5. Fortunately, Forbes was willing to spend some time answering a few questions for Owls fans about his book and help us get an idea of what to expect from the new regime on offense. Let’s dive in:
HOOT STATE: I enjoyed your prologue where you called this book a “testimonial for all the fans who want to learn about the game they love.” That's a healthy mindset and would make a lot more people appreciate everything that goes into what they see on Saturday. What about the Veer and Shoot, an offense you lovingly call a lock-and-key cult, convinced you to sit down and write this book over multiple years?
FORBES: I believe that it’s human nature for people to want to know more about things, places, and people that are hard to get information on. The Veer-and-Shoot offense is exactly that. It took me three years to get the information I needed to put together a quality resource that I felt good putting out, and I was still learning new things about the system as I was actively selling the book.
When you look back at the old Baylor days when Art Briles was the head coach, they were averaging 50 points per game doing things that nobody else was doing until other schools started poaching Briles's assistants. And when you do things that nobody else is doing, it’s hard to get information on it. Over the last 15 years, different things have leaked out that contained bits and pieces of information, and I was lucky enough to talk to a couple of people who had some insight into the system. But even with that, you’re not going to find a comprehensive resource on the Veer-and-Shoot anywhere other than the book that I wrote. I figured that if I wanted to learn more about this incredible offense, other people would as well. So that’s what led to the writing of the book.
Speaking to the secretive nature of this coaching tree, did you ever feel vaguely like a CIA agent during the research process? Every time I open the PDF, there's a suspicion that Lebby or another Briles disciple might kick down my door and confiscate the laptop.
It’s very hard to get information about the Veer-and-Shoot and I ran into several roadblocks when trying to get into the details. I had to create some kind of foundational knowledge before I reached out to any other coach or player. I felt like I couldn’t just approach someone with detailed information and point-blank ask them to teach me the system. So I watched multiple clinics with guys like Art Briles, Kendal Briles, and Jeff Lebby to get a foundation of the system. Then I broke down every Baylor game from 2013-15, diagramming each play by hand to teach myself what they were trying to do. After that, I reached out to people who I knew had insider information on the Veer-and-Shoot, expressed the existing knowledge I had, and asked them what they were willing to offer me. And even then, when those who responded offered whatever information they could, they followed it with “But you didn’t get this from me.”
With that being said, I know that this stuff is considered valuable information due to its scarcity, so I just wanted to do the offense justice when I wrote the book.
Purely hypothetical situation: Let's say I'm rebuilding an extremely young football program that just made its first-ever coaching change after a few rough seasons during a possibly rushed FBS jump. What's the elevator pitch for a casual fan on the Veer and Shoot and why it works?
The Veer-and-Shoot is the fastest, most explosive offensive system that I have ever seen. You spread the defense from sideline to sideline, give your Quarterback and Wide Receivers the chalk last with the variety of option routes in the Deep Choice package, and give the Offensive Line a clear box count to get downhill in the run game or protect in the passing game. It’s a great equalizer for a team like Kennesaw State, who is working to make a name for themselves in the FBS.
Kennesaw State's coming off nearly a decade of the flexbone triple, then a couple transition years in sort of a zombie pistol scheme. Am I off-base to see a ton of similarities between the Veer and Shoot and the Paul Johnson stuff that Brian Bohannon ran, just in a slightly different package? What do you think will be the biggest adjustment for Owls fans watching this style of offense?
The biggest adjustment for Owls fans watching the Veer-and-Shoot on game days is the pace at which the offense plays at, and the types of formations that they’ll see. A lot of these Veer-and-Shoot teams like Tennessee, South Florida, and — to some extent — TCU are going to snap the ball within 15 seconds of the last play. The Flexbone style with Bohannon at the helm was more meticulous even when they weren’t huddling. And then formationally, you will see Kennesaw State put their wide receivers from sideline to sideline to spread the defense as thin as possible. There is a defined area between the Tackle Box and everywhere else. In the Flexbone, that was not the case whatsoever…the exact opposite frankly.
With all of that being said, the two offensive philosophies are very similar. Both work to give the offense the chalk last on the field. With the Flexbone, the Quarterback would option one or two defenders in the run game (depending on the scheme). In the Veer-and-Shoot, the Quarterback constantly has to make a decision on whether to hand the ball off or throw an RPO depending on the leverage of a particular defender. In addition, he and his receivers are going to have multiple Deep Choice routes to work with that allow the wide receivers to attack the weak spots in whatever coverage is in front of them.
The Deep Choice series is the core of the offense’s passing game. One receiver is tagged with the choice route, allowing him to adjust his route based on the leverage of the defender covering him. It creates 1-on-1, half-field isolation as the receiver works to find open grass downfield. While this happens, the rest of the receivers are running complimentary routes designed to create space for the tagged choice receiver to work with, attracting the attention of possible defenders who might compromise the throw.
- Forbes on the Deep Choice concept essential to the Veer-and-Shoot’s passing attack
Jerry Mack coached at Tennessee for a few years, and KSU’s new OC Mitch Militello has been with Heupel dating back to the Missouri days. What elements define the Heupel branch of this system?
As the offense has evolved, especially with Heupel at Tennessee, one of the biggest things I have noticed is that they use the Tight End in more unique ways than that of the old Baylor days. Back in the early-to-mid 2010s, Baylor’s Tight Ends were essentially a 6th Offensive Lineman and looked like such. They were lead blockers in the run game and protectors in the pass game. As the offense has evolved, they have become more receiver than Tight End.
Heupel also started utilizing more motion than the old Baylor days, moving receivers from one side of the formation to the other or taking the Tight End from the backfield and splitting him out into the slot. He also started using more compressed formations to run different concepts that aren’t necessarily native to the Veer-and-Shoot.
It's not out of the ordinary to see immediate results during the early days of adopting Veer-and-Shoot principles. Every Owls fan would welcome that after finishing dead last in offensive SP+ last year. What about the system makes it so ripe for growth during year one?
One of the biggest things that the Veer-and-Shoot does is make things complicated for the defense while keeping things simple for the offense. The wide splits and high tempo forces the defense to decide where they want to line up before the ball is snapped. Otherwise, they’re going to be stuck in no man’s land and can’t make a play regardless of what the offense does. This gives the offense a clear picture across the board of what they're about to see before the ball is snapped.
I also believe that there is a conditioning element to the tempo aspect. Defenses can’t substitute against this system without getting flagged. The same guys have to be on the field the entire time, chasing receivers in space and taking a pounding up front. Then, they get too tired to think about what they need to do on a play. That’s a tough thing to ask of your defense down in and down out.
On the flipside, what are some potential early roadblocks to installing the offense, especially for a program like KSU toward the lower end of the G5 food chain?
There is a threshold of speed at receiver that needs to be met for the Veer-and-Shoot to operate at the highest level. But other than that, the system can be molded and adapted to different kinds of personnel. The hardest part will be the teaching aspect. When do you hand the ball off versus throw the RPO? What route do you run against this leverage versus that one? Each player on the field has different decisions that they have to make on every snap, but that is also the case with every other system.
As soon as regular non-ball-knowing fans like me catch up to this kind of chalkboard info, coaches have already moved on to the next frontier. If you had to predict, what kind of evolution or innovation do you see expect to see next from the current Veer and Shoot programs?
The biggest evolution is the implementation of the QB run game. If you listen to Kendal Briles talk, he has been implementing a Wildcat package at every stop he’s been at since his time at Baylor. I also think that what teams do with their Tight Ends is dependent on what they’re capable of doing, but those guys have become more and more diverse as time has gone on.
Thanks again to AJ for being the first — and likely last — published author to join us for Hootmail. If you’re interested in checking out his unauthorized Bible to Kennesaw’s new offense, you can grab the paperback at places like Books-A-Million or Amazon, or the digital version on his own storefront.