Neumeier Spoke, Elway Listened

It was a time when John Elway occasionally went to the no-huddle offense in the first quarter and rarely ran with the football, content to leave the scrambling to the defensive backs.

These were the late 1970s and Elway was establishing himself as the premier prep quarterback in the country at Granada Hills High. More significantly, perhaps, Elway was becoming established in winning football--as taught by Jack Neumeier.

Neumeier, who coached at Granada Hills from 1960-1978, devised a high-tech passing scheme beginning in the 1970 season that produced instant results--a City Section title. His concept of spreading the defense from sideline to sideline was basic but applying it was difficult. What Neumeier needed was a strong-armed quarterback who believed in his passing philosophy.

John Elway believed.

Elway understood the wisdom of operating the shotgun on first down when the defense wasn’t prepared to stop the pass. And Elway understood the logic behind sending two receivers to each sideline on plays near the opponent’s goal so the concentration of defenders stopping the run is reduced.

Elway not only believed, he achieved. He passed for 5,701 yards and 49 touchdowns in his three-year career, which ended suddenly with a knee injury midway through his senior season in 1978. Playing in only six games his final season, Elway threw for 1,837 yards and 19 touchdowns, completing 129 of 198 passes. Had he remained healthy and Granada Hills reached the final, Elway could have played another six games.

“I guarantee it, he could have thrown for over 4,000 yards if he hadn’t got hurt,” said Neumeier, now 71 and living in Vista in San Diego County. “We had games coming up that weren’t too tough and were going to let him go. We had a goal of 4,000 before the season started. I knew we were going to break the national record. In my mind, there was no doubt about it. . . . I never thought I’d lose John, because I protected John.”

The 6-foot-2, 170-pound Elway was hurt in a 21-10 loss to San Fernando. Recalling that play, Elway said in 1978, “After scrambling, I turned upfield and planted to cut to go around a defender. As I planted, it popped on me.”

Oddly, Elway, now 6-3, 210, showed few signs in high school of the running ability for which he became renowned at Stanford and with the Denver Broncos, who will meet the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIV on Sunday.

“When he played for me,” Neumeier said, “he wasn’t allowed to (run downfield). I told him, ‘If you take off, you got to get out of bounds.’ It’s amazing he hasn’t got killed (in the NFL). When he slides, they can hit you in the knee or hit you in the head.”

Neumeier’s short passing game, in which Elway would drop back only one or two steps before firing, also shielded Elway by keeping away the pass rush. This ball-control measure was one of the keys to Granada Hills’ 24-14 regular-season win over Banning in Elway’s senior year. He completed 12 of 17 passes for 169 yards and one touchdown. It was the only time in Chris Ferragamo’s 11-year coaching career at Banning that he lost to a Valley team.

“Granada Hills had the best passing attack we ever faced,” said Ferragamo, who took his teams to eight City 4-A titles and is now a Long Beach City College assistant. “Elway would look to the left on a slant pass and then throw to the right on a slant and it was unheard of. He probably had the quickest release. He got rid of the football so fast that you couldn’t defend it.

“Jack Neumeier was one of the innovators in the City. He was using four wide receivers and a single back and that was the thing of the future. He’d have two wide receivers on the right and two on the left and whoever was open, (Elway) would throw it to him. I think the reason we won (twice against Granada Hills the previous year) was because we had superior athletes.”

Neumeier abandoned his ball-control, run-oriented offense and turned to the passing game after his team finished 6-2 in 1969 but failed to qualify for the playoffs. “My ideas then were that you win with defense, but we never scored enough to win,” Neumeier said. He was inspired to change after reading “Run and Shoot,” a book about the passing game by Ohio prep football coach Glenn Ellison.

Explaining his philosophy, Neumeier said: “Basically, my offense spreads the defense across the field. A lot of teams spread the defense the depth of the field, like the Raiders, but my idea is to spread them sideline to sideline so you never get two defensive backs to cover one receiver.

“And when you catch the defense in a one-on-one, the receiver would go to an open spot and should get there before the defender because he knows where he’s going.”

Neumeier’s offense became known as “Happy Jack’s Flying Circus,” in honor of its ringmaster, and continued to fly even after Elway’s injury in 1978. Using 5-foot-9, 150-pound Walter Seymour as Elway’s replacement, Neumeier maintained his pass-happy philosophy and Granada Hills won four of its last five games. Seymour’s success supported Neumeier’s contention that his sophisticated passing schemes would work against opponents even if the offense wasn’t triggered by an All-American quarterback.

After recovering from torn cartilage in his left knee, Elway got one final chance to operate under Neumeier’s system, and it was one of the most dazzling moments in state high school football history. In the 1979 Shrine All-Star Game at the Rose Bowl, Elway completed 23 of 37 passes for 363 yards and four touchdowns in three quarters as his North team overwhelmed the South, 35-15. Neumeier displayed a no-huddle offense on his team’s first possession--leading to a quick touchdown--and occasional shotgun snaps to a halfback instead of the quarterback.

Neumeier recently watched a tape of that game and made these comments:

* On Elway’s 48-yard pass to former Granada Hills teammate Paul Bergmann, who made a one-handed catch: “That’s one of the things John did in high school--he rolled to his left and threw to his right. I just can’t believe that. And did you see that catch? Unbelievable.”

* On the South’s being called for offsides because Elway changed the cadence of his signal-calling: “Hey, that’s one thing I can take credit for--John’s ability to draw the defense offsides.”

* On an Elway pivot on which he turned his back on a pass rusher and rolled away: “People are always asking me about it. It seems like he could see out of the corner of his ear. He had that sense that no one would be there.”

Elway’s biggest season came in his junior year when he passed for 3,039 yards and the team advanced to the semifinals, losing to Banning, 38-6. During the regular season, Granada Hills beat Birmingham, 48-12; Monroe, 40-13; and San Fernando, 40-35. Granada Hills finished 9-3 in Elway’s junior year and was 4-2 under Elway during his senior year.

Elway’s junior year was reminiscent of Granada Hills’ 1970 season when Dana Potter passed for a City-record 3,214 yards, fewer than 80 yards short of the then-national record of 3,290 by future NFL quarterback Joe Ferguson of Woodlawn (La.) High.

“One of the things Neumeier realized when he (went to the pass offense),” said Potter, “is that it’s a lot more fun when you run an offense where you have to think instead of beating your heads together on every play.

“To him, it comes down to playing on the beach four on four. He thinks whatever the defense does, there are ways to combat it. He doesn’t come into the game with a strict plan of attack. He feels he has enough of a variety to the offense that he could adapt.”

Potter was back at Granada Hills as an assistant coach during the Elway era.

“A lot of people who take a look at John took a look back then and said what wonderful physical skills he had,” Potter said. “One thing (Neumeier) did was teach John the game of football. I think John’s success at Stanford was in large part due to running a somewhat Stanford-type of offense at Granada Hills.

“When I was at Nebraska, there were eight quarterbacks on scholarship and each person was bigger than the next. The physical skill is just part of the game. I really believe John could have been lost in the shuffle at Stanford if he hadn’t had an offense like Granada Hills’.”

Jack Elway, former football coach at Stanford and Cal State Northridge and John’s father, said that “probably John’s greatest break came from going to Granada Hills and being tutored by Jack Neumeier. John was his real protege. He was planning on retiring when John was a sophomore but he coached two more years until John graduated, and we’re thankful for that.”

After moving to Fallbrook following the 1978-79 school year, Neumeier wound up as an offensive assistant for a trio of San Diego County schools, whose coaches solicited his assistance. Neumeier coached his third 3,000-yards-a-season passer in 1986 when Fallbrook’s Scott Barrick threw for 3,496 yards in leading his school to the San Diego Section 3-A title.

Neumeier coached at Fallbrook for six years in the ‘80s under Tom Pack.

“One of the main changes that took place in the 1980s in North (San Diego) County,” Pack said, “was throwing the football, and I think they looked at us because we turned things around by throwing the ball.”

Neumeier coached his last season in 1988 for Torrey Pines.

“I think I got more recognition here than in L. A.,” said Neumeier, laughing. “They weren’t used to that (passing) stuff here. I think they got mad at me for bringing it here.”

Neumeier said that it is difficult to predict a winner in Sunday’s Super Bowl because “when pro teams meet, you never know who’s going to win.”

But Neumeier gives an edge to the 49ers because of their strong short passing game. “I’ve never seen John throw a quick pass (in pro football),” said Neumeier, “and that’s a disadvantage to John because they can put a rush on him.

“At the beginning I was really discouraged,” Neumeier said of Elway’s NFL career. “But they’ve changed. They weren’t going to the shotgun much then. All they were doing was throwing deep and getting a lot of interceptions.”

Neumeier’s biggest gripe about the Broncos concerns their “horrible” goal-line offense. “They lose more touchdowns down there than any pro team I’ve seen,” Neumeier said. “They come in with a tight-(formation) team and try to jump over. They run three times and kick a field goal. They have no imagination at all.”

Neumeier said he felt so strongly about the Broncos’ offensive inadequacies that he wrote a letter to Bronco Coach Dan Reeves once Denver completed its regular season. Neumeier listed ways to improve the team’s sagging offense.

But Neumeier, never mailed the letter, believing that he wouldn’t have been taken seriously.

As far as the Bronco quarterback is concerned, Neumeier has no complaints.

“I’m afraid at the end of his career, they’ll say, ‘There’s one of the greatest athletes with the greatest potential,’ and they’ll look at his numbers and say he didn’t have the highest passing efficiency,” Neumeier said.

“But I’m sure he’s going to be a Hall of Famer because they’ll look at how many games he led the team to wins and that’s the important thing.”