UD’s wing-T proof best ideas evolve

Try to think of something you have owned for 27 years that still works like it was brand new.

If you’re old enough to be able to remember that far back, think of how many cars, major appliances, even houses or apartments you’ve gone through in that time.

Now think of this.

Harold “Tubby” Raymond has been running the wing-T offense at the University of Delaware for 27 years. And while there have been a few down football seasons scattered in there, for the most part all his Blue Hens have done is win, 218 times, to be exact, and counting.

I want to know why this is.

In a profession where coaches come and go with the regularity of student-athletes, heck, where whole offenses come and go (anybody remember the wishbone?), why has Raymond not only become a fixture at Delaware, but kept winning with an offense that began on a drawing board in Orono, Maine, in 1950?

“Part of it is we’ve been able to adapt,” answered Raymond, whose current Delaware squad will put its first-place standing in the Yankee Conference on the line today at Alumni Field against Maine. “We haven’t stood still. The offense we run now doesn’t resemble what we started with all those years ago.”

All those years ago. Picture it. Two young Michigan grads – Dave Nelson and Harold Westerman – come to Maine to coach football. A couple of years later, a young Michigan grad by the name of Raymond joins Westerman’s Black Bear staff.

As Raymond recalls, Nelson and Westerman had already created the wing-T formation, borrowing principles from Michigan’s single-wing, and had run it successfully at Maine. But they used it almost exclusively to run the football. So Raymond, a line coach, made a suggestion.

“They had put the wingback in, but they were running it with two tight ends,” said Raymond, now 65. “At the time, Woody Carville was one of our ends. So I suggested that we put Woody way out there by himself. Spread him. That way, one defender would have to go out there and it would soften their flank. Hal asked me, `What do we do if nobody goes out there with him?’ I said, `We throw it to him.’ Hal said, `Throw it all the way out there?’ That’s how conservative we were.”

“It worked,” Carville said, recalling the first time he split wide in a game against New Hampshire in the ’52 season. “They even left me uncovered. I remember Ed Bogdanovich starting to run right, stopping, and throwing back across the formation to me, all alone.”

Thus began the kind of innovation-on-the-fly that has continued to mark Raymond’s coaching. After first following Nelson to Delaware in ’54 as an assistant, Raymond succeeded Nelson as head coach in 1966.

The rest is UD history. Three Division II national titles (’71, ’72, 79). Ten Lambert Cups, signifying championships of the East. Three Yankee Conference titles, and counting.

Raymond said, like a man tinkering on a car in his garage who uses new parts every year, the innovations have changed the look of the ol’ wing-T. In years when Delaware has had a great throwing quarterback, like current Minnesota Vikings starter Rich Gannon, the wing-T emphasized drop-back passing. Other years, it’s been run-oriented.

“What we’re doing now looks more like wishbone than wing-T. The thing we’ve kept from the wing-T is starting with a four-back offense in which all the backs are capable of running with the ball. All are within reach of the ball. And we keep a wingback in the same spot,” he said.

Why then, with all Delaware’s and Raymond’s success, haven’t I-A and pro teams run the wing-T?

They have, according to Raymond.

“Evashevski won a Big-Ten title with it at Iowa in the ’50s. In ’58 Dietzel ran it at LSU just like we did at Maine and won a national title. Frank Broyles ran it at Arkansas. Marv Levy ran it in the NFL with Kansas City for a year and a half. The only reason the pros don’t use it now is because they don’t have enough running backs. You need a lot of backs, and they take up too much space on the roster,” said Raymond, sounding like the proud guardian he is of an idea that started on a blackboard in Maine a long time ago.