Football | 3/24/2016 10:56:00 PM

"Creating tempo and becoming familiar with the base of the new offense" are the goals that new offensive coordinator Brett Elliott has established for the Texas State's offensive players this spring.
 
"The main thing that we want to get out of it is tempo," said Elliott. "Our whole philosophy this spring is to learn the base offense, gain confidence in it and believe in it. That way, we can go into the summer feeling good and coming back into fall camp feeling good about it."
 
Elliott and the Bobcats went through the second day of implementing the new offense that features an up-tempo and aggressive attack in shorts and helmets on Tuesday.
 
"It is the second day of (installing a brand new offense) and things are a little sloppy," said Elliott. "But, at the same time this is the only the second day with a brand new offense, so I think they are picking it up."
 
The offense is similar to the one that Elliott ran briefly at Utah during Urban Meyer's first season with the Utes in 2003 before he suffered a season-ending injury. He began that year as the starting quarterback for the Utes, and led Utah to a 40-20 victory over in-state rival Utah State in the season opener. In Utah's second game, Elliott threw a 45-yard touchdown pass with eight seconds left to pull the Utes to within 28-26 at Texas A&M. On the next play, he suffered a broken wrist trying to run for a two-point conversion.
 
"It goes all the way back to when I was playing for Coach (Urban) Meyer at Utah," said Elliott. "The whole idea of the spread offense is to utilize all 11 players on the field. I have been in this offense with a runner, and I have been in it with a thrower. I think when it is really dynamic is when you have (a quarterback) who can do both. That is what I think we are looking for."
 
After Elliott suffered the injury, Alex Smith took over as quarterback and led the Utes to a 9-1 record the rest of the year to firmly entrench himself as the starting quarterback. That forced Elliott to transfer if he was going to get back on the field as a starter. Ultimately he landed at Linfield College and was the starting quarterback for the next two seasons.
 
He led the Wildcats to a NCAA Division III national championship. He ended the season throwing for 4595 yards and broke the NCAA All-Division record with 61 touchdown passes. Linfield finished the season with a 13-0 record.
 
In 2005 at Linfield, he won the Gagliardi Trophy and Melberger Award, given to the top player in Division III, and was named an All-American for the second straight year. In his two seasons, he set school and Northwest Small College single-game, season and career passing records in addition to setting the All-Divisions record in 2004.
 
After graduating in 2006, Elliott signed as a free agent with the San Diego Chargers, played for the Rhein Fire of NFL Europe and was under contract with the San Jose Sabercats of the Arena League when the league halted operations in 2008. Two years later, he continued to play in the Arena League as a starter for the Utah Blaze in 2010 and Georgia Force in 2011.
                                            
He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Mississippi State and served three seasons as an offensive quality control helping the quarterbacks under Dan Mullen, his quarterback coach at Utah. There, he worked closely with quarterback coach Brian Johnson to tutor Dak Prescott.
 
Last season, he was named the co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Everett Withers at James Madison. Withers had been named head coach in 2014 after serving as the defensive coordinator at Ohio State and was looking for someone with experience in Meyer's offense.
 
"Our philosophy on offense is the same as our football program," said Elliott. "We want to be aggressive. We want to be explosive and we want to play with a passion and energy. Everything that we do in this football program, coach Withers has set up for success."
 
The move to James Madison proved quite successful for Elliott as the Dukes continued to be one of the nation's top offenses that ranked second in scoring and total offense with 44.3 points and 528.8 yards per game.
 
Elliott also coached Vad Lee, who was named the Colonial Athletic Association Offensive Player of the Year. Lee led the nation in total offense with 375.5 yards per game and completion percentage of 68.3 percent.  He passed for 2,190 yards and 21 touchdowns and rushed for 814 yards and eight TDs. Lee also became the only player in NCAA Division I history (FCS and FBS) to pass and run for 275 yards in the same game when he threw for 289 yards and rushed for 275 yards in James Madison's 48-45 victory over SMU on Sept. 26. He also earned the "Bill Dudley Award" for the second straight year as the top player in Virginia.
 
After that successful debut, Withers brought Elliott with him to Texas State as the offensive coordinator for the Bobcats and they are looking for the team to develop a similar type of attack.
 
"We are going to be explosive, energetic and we are going to play fast with up-tempo," said Elliott. "Coach Withers has a great line, 'Energy + Creativity= Production.' We want to hang our hat on that with the offense as well. We are going to be fast and aggressive so we can put pressure on the defense."