Washington offense a force

WASHINGTON — In a quarterback's dream world, he gets to call the plays. He is the captain and makes the decisions. In dream world.

In the real world, an offensive coordinator in conjunction with a coach in the press box and a game plan contributed to by all coaches makes the play calls.

Offensive coordinator Don Miksch has Washington's Demon offense designed to be a spread option and ideally it is the quarterback's to run.

"He gets to call the plays," Miksch said. "Someday we will get there."

The Demons were nearly there with Luke Turner, a three-year starter. Last season Trashaun Willis was nearly there. This season, it is the hope that Ethan Patterson can get there.

“Ethan is the best athlete at his position, whatever position he is playing,” new demon head coach Nic Ehret said.

Patterson was 7-for-11 last season at quarterback with three touchdowns. He rushed 23 times for 204 yards, an average of 8.9 a carry. He had three touchdowns. He caught 10 passes for 145 yards and two touchdowns.

"I spend a lot of time with all of our quarterbacks getting them to understand what we are trying to do," Miksch said. "If they can understand what the play is designed to do, then it can become their offense. They can run it. They can be it. And success will surely follow."

In Miksch's hope for the program, "I wouldn’t even need to call the plays. The quarterback would see a difference and know, this is the play we are going to run."

Last season, Washington finished first in Class 3A in 2-point conversions with 17. Keokuk was second with eight. The Demons tied for second with 55 total touchdowns.

Miksch has been the man in charge of the offense for four years. In 2017, the Demons led Class 3A in total yards (4,454), yards per play (8.8), and were second in touchdowns scored, holding a scoring edge on their opponents 448-177. In 2018, Turner was ninth in touchdowns scored. In 2019, the only teams that scored more than the Demons were the two teams that played in the championship (13 games) and one that played in the semifinals (12 games). The Demons played 10 games. Last season with Trashaun Willis taking snaps, the Demons were second in average points a game and fourth in point differential.

Washington’s offense is heavily based on rules. Depending on position, there are certain rules that coincide with the play call.

Regardless of where a player lines up, or what motion is called, the rule is going to stay consistent. This allows coaches to line people up in a lot of different spots. Yet wherever they line up they are going to do the same thing.

The rules are all the same. It’s just a lot of window dressing regarding the formations and the motion. There are a lot of different extraneous parts that surround just a handful of plays.

“Once you know it is a lot of fun,” Miksch said. “It makes our offense hard to scout. Even if we have an unbalanced lineup, say three receivers and running back to the right side, that is not a tip off to the defense to what we are going to run.”

For the most part, any offense wants to make the defense make decisions as fast as possible.

“Anytime we can make somebody have to decide something, that is going to slow them down,” Miksch said. “That will give us an edge. The more decisions they have to make, the more chances they will make a wrong decision.”