Giving players chance to succeed major piece of Harrell's philosophy

Graham Harrell has one simple expectation for his offense this season.

"I always expect to score, and I expect the same amount out of our guys," Harrell said Thursday. "When they take the field I expect to score, no matter what's going on, no matter how bad you're out, no matter how bad you're down, no matter what's happened after that point in the game. If we set foot on the on the field, the expectation is to go score."

It's something Harrell did often during his college playing days, which wrapped up after the 2008 season. Playing under head coach Mike Leach — a noted Hal Mumme disciple and embracer of the air raid offense — Harrell thrived, throwing for more than 15,000 yards and 134 touchdowns in four years.

After his playing career ended, Harrell joined the coaching ranks — embracing many of the schematics taught by Leach. Still, when it comes to his current offensive philosophy, Harrell says he's no one-trick pony.

"I think that people that come from (Leach), more than necessarily looking exactly like him schematically, I think that we all kind of have that philosophy of, hey, let's identify what we're gonna be good at, and go be good at it," Harrell said. "So let's identify what that is, dress it up, make it look complicated for a defense, but as simple as possible for kids, and let them go out there and not hesitate, play fast and give them a chance to be successful."

Over the last three seasons as the offensive coordinator at Southern Cal, Harrell saw consistent success in regard to offense. His units eclipsed 400 total yards in all three seasons — a plateau WVU has reached only once in the Neal Brown era.

Last season, despite starting two different quarterbacks during the season, the Trojans finished as the conference's top passing offense (298 yards/game). They also scored on 90% of their drives that entered the red zone.

After head coach Clay Helton was fired mid-season, Harrell found himself out of a job at season's end. He officially landed at WVU in January, with Brown calling him the "best available offensive coordinator."

With Brown and Harrell having come from similar ideologies, a familiarity with strategy was likely a major selling point.

"If you go back far enough, the Hal Mumme guys, and I mean everyone that stems from there, has tried to put their own twist on it," Harrell said. "So we'll look a little bit different, but I do think that there's some common things in it."

----------

• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.

• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.

• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel

• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @JaredSerre

•Like us on Facebook