Bo Graham brings youthful enthusiasm to Rainbow Warriors football team

Growing up in Mesquite, Texas — where Pee Wee football is big and the love of the Dallas Cowboys is bigger — a young Bo Graham was often just a living room’s view away.

“I had 18 cousins — 16 were males within five years of me,” Graham said. “I grew up playing football in the front yard. If we were all together, we weren’t allowed to be in the house (playing video games). We had to be outside playing. I was that kid who was always outside, always outside trying to get a pick-up game of football with people in the neighborhood.”

That unabashed enthusiasm has not waned through the years — from being a multi-sport prep athlete who was nicknamed after football/baseball standout Bo Jackson, to being a running back/receiver at West Virginia, to an extensive coaching career in football. These days, the son of University of Hawaii football coach Todd Graham can be found leading meetings, working with UH offensive coordinator G.J. Kinne, and moving among the offensive stations during the Rainbow Warriors’ practices. Bo Graham holds the title of pass-game coordinator and running backs coach, but his value is in fostering an “elite-discipline” culture and implementing a run-and-gun offense that culls schemes from his experiences and the Warriors’ past.

“I love football,” Graham said. “I have great passion for the game. It’s really easy for me to keep my energy up (during practices). The game is supposed to be fun. We’re out there making plays and having fun. … I just fell in love with (football) at an early age. It’s something that intrigues my mind and stimulates my creativity. … Just being around (football) all my life, it’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle.”

Through the years, Graham has embraced the mixed art of coaching. He has a teaching background in strength-conditioning training that he applies to coaching. At West Virginia, Graham learned Rich Rodriguez’s offense — a scheme that utilized the triple option out of a spread formation. At Tulsa, where he worked under his father, the Golden Hurricane added what is now known as the run-pass option. In 2007 and 2008, Tulsa led the nation in total offense with 543.9 yards per game the first year and 569.9 the next season. The hybrid concepts at Tulsa and then at Arizona State provided a balanced blend of passing, running and passing after running.

Graham has worked under coaches of prolific offenses — Gus Malzahn, Mike Norvell, Chip Long and Billy Napier. Now Graham is helping to develop the so-called run-and-gun offense at UH. There have been challenges for a coaching staff that was assembled in January. The pandemic led to the cancellation of spring training, restrictions on summer workouts, and the delay to what will be an abbreviated season. In the 12 practices of training camp, which concluded with the past Saturday’s session at Aloha Stadium, the Warriors have matched positions to skill sets and emphasized eliminating mistakes.

“We’re stressing the right things, trying to create good habits and discipline,” Graham said.

The intent has been to use the run-and-shoot, an offense the Warriors employed the past two years, as the base while adding wrinkles such as air-raid concepts. The modern air raid is no longer only a four-wide, pass-first scheme. “We often joke as a staff: what’s air raid and what’s not air raid?” Graham said. “It started as a base, and then grew.”

Many air-raid offenses have the option of moving a receiver to boost the running game when defenses rush three linemen and drop eight players into pass coverage. The Warriors’ wish is to employ a run-and-shoot base with the options to create mismatches against the different defensive looks. For the Warriors, that means using quarterback Chevan Cordeiro as the point guard, expanding the roles for running backs Miles Reed and Dae Dae Hunter, and utilizing hybrids Melquise Stovall and Calvin Turner. Turner, who can be used as a running back and receiver, was Jacksonville’s starting quarterback before transferring to UH in the spring.

“We’ve got a bunch of guys who are highly successful in space,” Graham said.

Graham praised Reed and Hunter. “They would have been good playing football 40 years ago, and they’d still be good playing 40 years from now,” Graham said. “They have a great skill-set. They can run the ball. They can protect. They can block. They can catch the ball. They can run every route in the (passing) tree.”