High School Football: Coaching innovator Mumme to serve on Sullivan East coaching staff

Summer football has been a star-studded event for the students of this school especially at Sullivan East. 
 
Of course, current University of Tennessee players Dayne Davis, Bru McCoy, and Cooper Mays are mainly satisfied with the immaculate turf football field in Bluff City as well as former Tennessee and current NFL quarterbacks Hendon Hooker, and Joe Milton. 
 
Indeed, include Hal Mumme in the equation as well. 
 
Yes, you guessed right, Hal Mumme- the father of the ‘Air Raid’ offence, who will assist this season as a coach for the Patriots. 
 
“I have not taken it out yet, but Coach Mumme will be on the staff this year,” Sullivan East head coach JC Simmons prior to Thursday interview. 
 
Simmons said the 72-year-old Mumme will have assistance from Sullivan East offensive coordinator Stan Bedwell, a celebrity in his own right for being an inductee to the European Football Hall of Fame. Bedwell who moved to the Tri-Cities region in 2023 is also Vice President Hal Mumme & Associates company. 
 
’Stan will be the offensive coordinator and then who better to bounce questions off of or have watching then Coach Mumme’ said Simmons. “Pretty cool it is going to be! We got him hired and then he was able to come and meet everybody… Stan will be the OC and then we have got the O. G. here with us for the year. ” 
 
Mumme will no doubt be glad to be on the Sullivan East football staff and I’m sure Sullivan East principal Andy Hare is happy as well. 

“Sullivan East is extremely happy and proud to have a man like Hal Mumme in our staff,” Hare stated through an email interview, “He is an innovator of a football game; the Air Raid offense innovator is evident in today’s football game at every level. ” Our players will be Google-able from his behavior to them as fellow human beings, our coaches will be Google-able from his advices to them as coaches. 
His coaching experience, and acquaintance with college and professional coaches and players, and confidence in us at Sullivan East sums up the fact that the team and community is capable of achieving as much as is possible. ” 
 
Mumme, the keynote speaker at the Stan Bedwell Air Raid Clinic in Bristol in march of 2023, said that he adapted concepts of coaching gurus Darrel “Mouse” Davis, LaVell Edwards and Bill Walsh and developed his own version of the Air Raid the nickname given by Mike Leach the former assistant of Mumme who died in December of 2022 while serving his team as a head coach at Mississippi State. 
 
It is not mere passage of offense. The offense must cause the stretching of the defence to create space for the making of the big plays which include throwing of the ball or handing to the back. Simmons has taken Mumme’s offense, which he claims is just for entertainment purposes, to Sullivan East; participants and coaches wear T-shirts displaying the slogan “Air Raid City. “ 
 
Simmons commented, ‘It is fun. ’ He added the offense constrain the defence to guard the whole field not part of it. Like this is kind of this thing where Coach Mumme is like okay do you hand a kid football and tell him to go out there and run the Power in the backyard I mean throwing it all over the place. Yea it is fun, yea it is exciting, but for me it is sort of like the ability to spread the ball out. 
 
What Coach Leach always pointed out, it is not really 50/50 run-pass, it is just that every lad is getting his hands on the football. <|reserved_special_token_189|>
**Source** 
 
Quarterback Drake Fisher, the record-setting quarterback, has now graduated and is playing football now at Presbyterian College, therefore, Lingerfelt, said Mumme and Bedwell, is, as of now, the heir apparent to Fisher on what is known as a two minutemen team. 
 
He was with us last year and appeared to be more improved after the summer, Simmons said. He just really comprehends what is happening, right now it is just a matter of repetitions and practicing how it can be done. 
 
Sullivan East lost 17 seniors off their first winning season and playoff berth since 2016, including Fisher, who dominated statistically in Tennessee throwing for 3,274 yards with 34 touchdowns. It took Patriots to a 6-5 record and as for the fan friendly offence that the team was running this season they have as many as 49 passes minimum but there are many alterations and the ball recipient and the passer are different. 
 
‘It is kind of thing yeah it is exciting, we put up big numbers, but at the same time we are not complicated,’ said Simmons. ”Guys can come in and do just as well. “ 
 
The Patriots lost receivers Tyler Cross now at Union, Will Alley, and Kaden Roberts and interior lineman, such as Marshall Jones and Christian Blevins currently at Maryville. It also marked the end of the line for the Patriots in the ongoing season while promising guard Corbin Laisure, who signed for Colorado in April, transfers to Science Hill in his last season of high school. 
 
’It was his decision,’ Simmons said. This is a young man who is attempting to make a business decision in the process, we wish him the best and predict that he will do well at Colorado. 
 
Of course, there will be some bumps to have to fill many of those gaps, but Simmons said he has the believe that the Patriots have some players who could fit in the Air Raid formation from Blue Proffitt at the receiver to Bentley Key at the running back. 
 
‘We have got a little bit of depth there, a lot of times when the number one goes off and your two comes on, there is a difference, but I feel like we are pretty even ‘ said Simmons emulating on the Patriots who was scheduled to open the season on Aug. 23 by hosting Johnson County, then hitting Tennessee High and then Stone Castle for the first time since 2010. When Men are substituted for a play or two, the next man on the field understands what to do. 
 
Mumme’s initial coaching role came in a Texas high school in 1976 and he became a college head coach winning a total of 20 games in four seasons at Kentucky from 1997 to 2000. He too was the head coach at Iowa Wesleyan where his connection with Leach originated from, Valdosta State, Southeastern Louisiana, New Mexico State, McMurry and Belhaven.

His coaching career will proceed in the spring as head coach of the San Antonio entry in the International Football Alliance semipro league that is set to commence operation in the spring of 2025 with five American teams and three of the Mexican type. 
 
Former Sullivan East football player Dayne Davis held his third an-nual football camp at Sullivan East in June. That was succeeded on Wednesday by Hooker and Milton warming up their pitches in the same area through a camp. 
 
Joe and Hendon were at the Sullivan East yesterday and it was crazy, mentioned Simmons who was among the workers lucky to get a chance to get an autograph and snap a photo with Joe. ILER: Bluff City, for those wondering, is not a city anywhere in America but cool things happening in Bluff City are real. 
 
Sho was cool in Bluff City, expect it to roll into this season as one of the coaching’s most prolific minds will be assisting the create more magic. 
 
‘This is the type of stuff where it helps just to let everybody know,’ Simmons said. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of Sullivan East we have had half of the University of Tennessee out their on that field. More coaches like coach Mumme coming to coach for us and coach Bedwell. 
 
It is not just a move over place; there is a strategy to establish something here Everybody looks good in red, white and blue.