The run-and-shoot offense started out as the slingshot for the Davids of the high school football world to maybe have a chance against the Goliaths.

Tiger Ellison in Ohio, Mouse Davis in Oregon, Ron Lee in Hawaii — all wanted an equalizer so that their small kids wouldn’t get crushed, and all found it in the run-and-shoot.

In one case in the islands, David became Goliath and Saint Louis dominated Hawaii high school football with 14 consecutive championships in the 1980s and 1990s with Cal and Ron Lee as head coach and offensive coordinator. After some time coaching at the University of Hawaii, in arena football and at Cal’s alma mater, Kalani High School, the brothers are back at Saint Louis. And they look like they could be on the verge of another dynasty, with back-to-back state championships.

The 2016 team was quarterbacked by Tua Tagovailoa, who came off the bench as a true freshman to lead Alabama to its national championship win over Georgia in January. Last year’s Saint Louis quarterback, Chevan Cordeiro, is a freshman contending for the starting spot at UH as it returns to the run-and-shoot this fall following a six-year absence.

Prior to two years ago, Saint Louis’ most-recent state championship came in 2010 with Marcus Mariota behind center, operating a modified version of the run-and-shoot that included run-pass option plays.

“When you have someone with the ability of Marcus, you want to have plays where he can make the read and run or throw based on that,” said Darnell Arceneaux, his coach at Saint Louis who won three state championships as a Crusaders run-and-shoot quarterback.

Four years later, Mariota hoisted the Heisman Trophy and quarterbacked Oregon to the national championship game. He was then chosen by Tennessee with the No. 2 overall pick of the 2015 NFL Draft, and is headed into his fourth season as the Titans starter.

“A lot of these concepts that I had in high school are still the same ones that I use today,” said Mariota, who started learning the run-and-shoot in eighth grade. “It is very beneficial, especially if you have dreams and aspirations to play at the next level. Those concepts and all those things will continue to build and you will be familiar with them. It was a blessing to play in that system, and all these young guys that are coming out of it, I’m excited for them.”

“Sometimes it’s a necessity”

It’s been a long time since the Crusaders could be considered an underdog other than on a few rare occasions, mostly against perennial power Kahuku (which broke Saint Louis’ stranglehold on the top rung in 2000). But there are other Davids brandishing slingshots in the form of the double-slot.

“‘Iolani does a real good job with it,” Ron Lee said. “They’re in the situation like we were with smaller guys, so they have to do something like that.”

In the offseason, Vinny Passas, the longtime Saint Louis quarterbacks coach, teaches fundamentals at all-comers clinics.

“It’s a ‘If you do that, then I’ll just do this instead,’ type of offense in terms of receivers running their routes and QBs being on the same page,” said Bobby George, who was the starting quarterback on Saint Louis’ 2002 state championship team. “In high school ball it is fully unstoppable if the right plays are called against the type of defense that is being shown.”

Over the years, neighbor island schools, including Konawaena and Baldwin, have also used four-wide offenses with success.

“What happens is the point guards, some of the baseball players, they’re small guys, and if they play football (in a run-and-shoot offense) instead of just blocking the free safety they’re catching the football and having fun,” said June Jones, when asked about the proliferation of four-wide offenses in Hawaii high school football. “I think that happened in Hawaii, in Oregon, everywhere it’s been. Even in Atlanta in the ’70s and ’80s. You have (high school coaches) looking at it, and a lot of them don’t have big kids to play tight end, or two big running backs.”

Dan Morrison installed spread formation passing attacks at Punahou and Roosevelt before coaching quarterbacks in the run-and-shoot under Jones at UH, Southern Methodist and now Hamilton of the CFL.

He did it for the same reasons as Davis and Lee and Wendell Look at ‘Iolani: a lack of numbers and size.

“Sometimes it’s a necessity,” Morrison said. “In some ways, it’s the same story as Mouse. You’re a young high school coach, without a lot of talent relative to the league. And you’re the head coach, so no one is telling you that you can’t do it.”

Pros learned from preps

He noted that other innovative, pass-first offense coaches like Hal Mumme and Art Briles came from the high school ranks, like Davis did.

“A lot of the really creative things in college football percolated from high school football,” Morrison said. “Everyone thinks it comes from the top down, but actually a lot is from the bottom up. When you’re coaching in college and the pros, there’s more pressure and criticism and there can be a fear to try something different. In high school, it’s ‘Hey, let’s go! Why not?’”

Before Don Coryell was enshrined in the Pro Hall of Fame for his exploits as the pass-happy coach of the San Diego Chargers he was a high school coach — at Punahou and Farrington, in 1951 and ‘52.

But this was before “Air Coryell,” and early in his career, including his time in Hawaii, Coryell was a proponent of the I formation — a set-up used more for power running than throwing the ball.

In a roundabout, unexpected way, Coryell factored in the run-and-shoot’s arrival here more than 20 years later. When defenses bunched up at the line against the I, offenses with smaller players didn’t stand a chance. And coaches like Ron Lee looked for — and found — ways to throw the pass instead of contend with the mass.

“It’s a great equalizer,” Arceneaux said. “It gave everybody a fighting chance. You’re never out of a game in the run-and-shoot.”