Jim Jr. Smith

Football's True Smash Mouth Offense! Robust Football Jim Jr. Smith

In 1985 I was first introduced to the Robust offense at Pomona High School in Arvada, Colorado. We were struggling, and in the middle of the season when one of our coaches suggested we try an offense he had run as an assistant at Lakewood High School. It was the Robust offense and it fit our team. It then became our trademark over the years. Woody Hayes first designed the Robust offense at Ohio State as his goal line offense. It has since developed into a total offense used by many high school teams. This offense can be used as a team's entire offense, with that team being very successful. The Robust offense started as a power off tackles attack using the fullback off tackle play as its base play. Woody Hayes believed the fullback off tackle was the best play in football. It is a pure power play attacking the defense with power football off tackle. To run Robust, your team must be able to run the fullback off tackle and run it successfully. This play is the bread and butter of the Robust offense. Over the years, we have found that to make this play successful we had to block it many different ways. But once this is done, the team is on its way to success. Using the base play, the offense then expands to the option game, play action passing game, and on and on. But the defense must first stop the fullback off tackle before the offense needs run these other plays. An entire game could be played with the fullback off tackle, the option play off of it and the base play action pass off that action.