PULLMAN – Dana Holgorsen wasn’t there for the birth of the Air Raid offense, but he was as close as one could get. If Holgorsen wasn’t in the labor room itself, he was right outside the door.
While Mike Leach and Hal Mumme were sketching out Mesh and Y-cross patterns on paper napkins at the local café in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, transferring their wild ideas to a chalkboard at Iowa Wesleyan and putting their brainchild onto an actual football field, Holgorsen was catching passes a few stop signs away at Mount Pleasant Community High School.
Holgorsen was eventually recruited by the two men responsible for forging one of football’s most influential offenses – “He was right in town … so that kind of recruited itself a little bit,” Leach said – and both by proximity and association, Holgorsen eventually became a branch of Leach and Mumme’s ever-evolving coaching tree.