Westlake’s power spread offense may share its closet kinship with the schemes popularized at the University of Florida, but its roots stretch into West Texas.

And that’s not a reference to Darren Allman’s alma mater of Odessa Permian, where he served as head coach before assuming the same duties at Westlake in 2009. Go a little east into the rolling plains and rugged hills under the Caprock, where Brownwood and Stephenville engaged in some of the fiercest power struggles ever seen in Texas high school football.

Allman served as defensive coordinator in Brownwood for most of the 1990s, and he spent many a sleepless night trying to devise ways to slow down the Stephenville juggernaut of Art Briles.

“He’d have about 80 different formations and 80 different plays from each formation,” Allman said recently in his office, still shaking his head at Briles’ offensive artistry. “With the amount of practice time that high school kids have, there’s no way you could prepare for all that.”

But Allman and the Brownwood coaching staff did their best, and they eventually levelled a rivalry that had become decidedly one-sided. Stephenville, one of the state’s preeminent dynasties, pounded the proud Brownwood program in the first half of the 1990s. By 1996, however, Brownwood beat Stephenville 42-39 in a thrilling overtime affair. The teams split their next two meetings, but Allman and the Lions’ coaches could never solve Stephenville’s offense.

“It was when I grew up as a coach,” Allman said. “It was a trial-by-fire every time we played Stephenville. I’ll never forget it.”

Allman never forgot the matchup problems created by a spread offense. He never forgot the no-huddle check that Briles would run from the sideline in place of a traditional huddle, and he never forgot the difficulties Stephenville’s mobile quarterbacks. All three of those memories have formed into essential aspects of Westlake’s offense.

“I told myself at that time that if I ever became a head coach, that’s the offense I would run,” he said. “It is just a nightmare to prepare against.”

Jump ahead a decade to the mid-2000s, when Allman nabbed his first head coaching job at Permian. True to his vow, he immediately installed a two-back, multiple-formation offense based on the power spread principles popularized by Florida head coach Urban Meyer. Allman even took a trip to Gainsville, Fla., for a firsthand view of that offensive system.

Although Westlake’s offense differs from the spread formations at, say, Southlake Carroll or Lake Travis, it “shares the same DNA,” according to Allman. At its simplest explanation, the offense spreads out a defense while retaining a power running attack with a tight end and H-back.

Westlake’s attack differs from many other spreads by utilizing its quarterback as a primary runner. That dash of single-wing, reinvigorated in the past decade by current Auburn University assistant coach Gus Malzahn, has proven particularly popular with Allman.

“When you have a quarterback that can run on a designed play, it’s almost like playing with 12 men,” he said. “The defenses have to account for the quarterback on a running play.”

Last season provided plenty of evidence for the importance of the quarterback position. Tanner Price threw for 2,656 yards and rushed for another 1,101 yards while setting a new single-season school record for total yards of offense. He also helped the state finalist Chaps average a robust 34.1 points per game.

Allman doesn’t expect any offensive dropoff with new quarterback Lewis Guilbeau, a gifted runner with breakaway speed. If Price proved more like former Florida quarterback Chris Leak, a passer who developed into a runner in Meyer’s system, then Guilbeau could be this program’s Tim Tebow: a dangerous runner who threw just enough to keep defenses honest. Both used different means win a national championship, just like Stephenville did four times in the 1990s.