Virginia’s Version Of Air Raid Ready To Fly

Robert Anae coaches Air Raid concepts at Virginia football practice.
Virginia offensive coordinator Robert Anae is installing his version of the Air Raid. ~ Kris Wright

Virginia fans got an up-close look at the Air Raid offense back in 2007. That’s the year that the Chris Long-led Hoos surged to the Gator Bowl and faced Texas Tech, then under the direction of Mike Leach. The Red Raiders won the game 31-28.

Still, much of the discussion before the game was how UVA would deal with the Air Raid offense. By then, new Cavalier offensive coordinator Robert Anae had already left for his first stint at BYU, carrying the seeds of the system with him. The interim defensive coordinator for the Gator Bowl from that TT staff was Ruffin McNeill, who now holds the associate head coach title at Virginia. He too left Tech with seeds of the Air Raid in tow to East Carolina where he at one time hired Lincoln Riley, a former Texas Tech QB, as his offensive coordinator.

Those two systems took root and produced in Utah and North Carolina. And now, Anae will try to direct the Virginia football program to success with his version of the Air Raid behind starting quarterback Kurt Benkert, a transfer from McNeill’s days at ECU at the helm. The version now in Charlottesville is not pure Air Raid, if there is such a thing. This blog describes the offensive system like this: “The wishbone and the Wing-T were playbooks, Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense a meticulous method of gameplanning, but the Air Raid is something more akin to an idea, or at least several related ones.”

Anae’s answer on what it is reveals that train of thought too.

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