During his last five full seasons at Navy, Ken Niumatalolo‘s offenses averaged under 1000 passing yards per year. Niumatalolo had to run the option, and ran it with success, but he shouldn’t be seen as strictly a service academy-ball coach. He’s anything but that these days.
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Niumatalolo has evolved, at 60 years old, to a coach who has no problem airing it out over and over and over at San Jose State. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian termed Niumatalolo’s offense under offensive coordinator Craig Stutzmann on Thursday as a “run-and-shoot” offense. Niumatalolo, Stutzmann, and anyone else involved with the program from San Jose call it by a different name: spread-and-shred.
Spread-and-shred is a catchy name that attempts to attach a physical connotation to a well-known offense. Niumatalolo himself never played for former Hawaii head coach June Jones, one of the godfathers of the run-and-shoot offense, but the Rainbow Warrior circle is small. And the offensive influences from the run-and-shoot are easy to see.
Niumatalolo hired Stutzmann to be his offensive coordinator ahead of last season. Stutzmann was born in Hawaii and played for Jones in the run-and-shoot. Stutzmann played with and coached under former Hawaii and Washington State head coach Nick Rolovich, a run-and-shoot disciple and former Jones player himself.
Stuzmann’s brother, Billy Ray Stutzmann, played with Marcus Mariota in high school before playing at Hawaii. Billy Ray coached with Niumatalolo at Navy and currently coaches wide receivers at SJSU.
Spartans O-line coach John Estes played for Jones at Hawaii.
Tight ends coach and run game coordinator Mike Judge coached under Niumatalolo at Navy.
Small world.
The spread-and-shred, which is a shotgun, no-huddle, multi-tempo offense that tries to force vanilla play-calls from opposing defenses, is based in the run-and-shoot but applies some modern offensive principles as well. Splits on the O-line and for receivers are varied. The system wants to create as many one-on-one matchups as possible. But instead of just calling it the “run-and-shoot,” Niumatalolo and the Stutzmanns emphasize the shred aspect in order to bolster a level of physicality in their charges.
“He goes onto San Jose State, and for him to make the change philosophically to go from the option game to the run-and-shoot game I think speaks a lot to his trust in his coaches,” Sarkisian said. “The one thing that holds true is their style of play. It is fast and it is physical.”
Walker Eget is the quarterback in the middle of everything. Last year, he was 188-for-328 with 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He completed 57.3% of his passes and gained 13.3 yards per completion. He notched 2504 yards through the air in 2024, often looking for All-American Nick Nash.
Nash isn’t around this year, but SJSU does have another quality offensive weapon in Danny Scudero. He caught nine balls for 189 yards and a touchdown in the Spartans’ season-opening loss to Central Michigan. SJSU attempted 45 passes to just 24 rushes, putting a lot on Eget’s plate.
They didn’t abandon the run, though. Floyd Chalk, who made the most of two years at Grambling State before transferring to San Jose State, is the main threat. He rushed for 721 yards and 10 touchdowns last year, and carried the rock 11 times for 44 yards against CMU. There’s an emphasis on the ‘shoot’ part of ‘run-and-shoot,’ but Sarkisian isn’t forgetting any part of the offense as game day approaches.
“I know you think with the run-and-shoot, they’re throwing it and they’re throwing it. They are,” Sarkisian said. “But they’re physical and nasty up front. The run-and-shoot is a very difficult offense to defend.”
It will be a different sort of test for Texas. Playing against Ohio State? That was often a test of athletic ability against some of the best players in the country running a fairly conventional offense. Playing against San Jose State? The Spartans run an offense designed to make up for physical disadvantages. The key will be playing assignment sound football.
That applies to all three of Texas’ Group of Five non-conference opponents considering all of them have pass-happy systems looking to exploit defensive miscues as opposed to physical matchups.
Sam Houston State will bring the Air Raid. UTEP will offer the “pace-and-space.” Before those two, Texas has to get ready to shut down the “spread-and-shred” called by coaches well-versed in the system.
“Different task that way,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve still got to stop the run. But man, you better be on your stuff coverage wise. You better be on your stuff in your pass rushes. You let them stand back there and throw the ball, it can make for a long day.”
Other updates from Steve Sarkisian’s Thursday Zoom
Sarkisian speaking on his normal Thursday Zoom: “I know we’re looking forward to a rocking student section and a great environment on DKR on Saturday. Should be a fun day for college football.”
Steve Sarkisian mentions Liona Lefau, Ethan Burke, Colin Simmons, Jelani McDonald, and Malik Muhammad as players along with Anthony Hill and Michael Taaffe who are adept at creating turnovers: “They need to be the catalysts as other guys continue to come along to get the ball off people.”
Arch Manning was under center a good amount at Ohio State.
Sarkisian: “I think Arch has a natural feel under center. When you can get under center, the run game hits a little bit differently. You get the running back 7.5 yards behind the quarterback, you can run a little bit more down hill. I think that in turn helps your play action pass game. I don’t think that was a one off for Ohio State. I think that’s going to be part of our offense moving forward throughout the season.”
Sarkisian on ignoring outside noise about “three easy non-conference games”: “I don’t worry about it because of the outside noise. I worry about it because I think that’s human nature. As a coach, how do you combat that? What do we do Monday morning to get ourselves prepared for a ball game? What do we do to try to minimize players looking too far down the road and focused on the task at hand of what’s right in front of them? It’s not so much about what anybody outside the building thinks or doesn’t think. It’s truly what I believe and I’ve been doing this long enough to know that human nature is human nature. We can’t get caught in that trap, so sometimes you coach them harder. Sometimes you point out the slightest of details that could be off to make sure that the screws are tightened up really tight and that we’re ready to play.”
Sarkisian mentions Texas needs to “play to our standard and our capability, and I think we’re more than capable of doing that” when talking about perimeter blocking.
Sarkisian on Graceson Littleton: “I don’t know how many more times I could have come on a press conference with you guys and reference Graceson Littleton throughout spring ball, throughout training camp, of the guy who’d been performing at a really high level for us. You kept wanting to ask me about other people and I kept bringing up Graceson Littleton. It was great to see that he actually got a chance to go out there and show what he was capable of. There’s definitely room for improvement for him, but for that guy in that environment in his first game to play the amount of snaps he played at critical moments, some critical third down plays, third down stops, tackles, very impressed by him. He’s got work to do, but the future is bright.”
Some younger players Sark is excited to see this weekend? Mentions Xavier Filsaime, Christian Clark, Jerrick Gibson, Kobe Black, and Lance Jackson.
Steve Sarkisian says “we just didn’t communicate very well on the last play. It looks like it’s all on (Brandon Baker) when in reality its really the totality of all of them. It was poor communication, and that’s when your communication has got to be at its best at the critical moments.”
Sarkisian mentions ball security on offense was tremendous even with the one interception at Ohio State. He also thinks the Longhorns tackled well. “I thought we played with really good effort, which didn’t put us in a lot of one-on-one tackle situations.”
Sarkisian on Parker Livingstone: “He didn’t let his ranking or how many stars he had dictate how he worked. All he did his freshman year was work his tail off. All he did was seize the opportunity.”
Steve Sarkisian on playing a more physical brand of football: “It’s been something we’ve been preaching going back to spring practice… I thought we had a very physical training camp. I would say Tues. and Weds. this week, from a pure physicality standpoint especially in our team run settings, was probably better this week than it was last week.”
