4A high school football: Mitchell hired good coaches at Springville

SPRINGVILLE — When Timpview head football coach Louis Wong first learned, two years ago, that Springville's new coach Scott Mitchell had hired former Provo High coach Ed Larsen to be the Red Devils' new offensive coordinator, Wong was immediately impressed.

"Really? Ed Larsen? Mitchell got Ed Larsen? Wow, that's a team we better start worrying about. Ed Larsen can coach," Wong said.

But Wong is not alone in his praise for Mitchell's choices in assistant coaches. In fact, most of the prep coaches around the state say the best move Mitchell made when beginning his first coaching job after his career at Utah and then the NFL, was to surround himself with seasoned veterans, and to give those veterans the authority to do what they do best.

"I know football, and I've been around football long enough to know that I had to get as many good people in here as I possibly could. I knew that's what I had to do," Mitchell said.

Many feel that's a big reason why the Red Devils have gone from a 2-9 record two years ago, a year before Mitchell arrived, to a trip to the 4A state title game this week at Rice-Eccles Stadium against three-time defending champion Timpview. Mitchell feels that any credit given to Springville's coaching for the turnaround, should go to the entire staff, not just him.

"It's a good mix of older, experienced and veteran coaches, with these young coaches that have a lot of desire to learn and who are energetic. It's just a good balance," he said.

Larsen, a former University of New Mexico quarterback, joined Springville after his two-year gig at Provo, and then assistant stints at New Mexico, BYU, Southern Utah, Ricks, Weber State and Dixie State. He's was tutored in the offensive game by former BYU offensive coordinator Norm Chow and former San Francisco 49ers head coach Bill Walsh.

Springville's offense, which Larsen said provides a lot of variety and keeps a lot of players involved in games and practices, is a mixed-version of the West Coast offenses that Chow and Walsh used and the more pass-oriented forms of the spread.

"Scott and I, we talk and we tweak things here and there, and we think we've developed a system that has some complexity, but is simple enough that we can be successful with it," Larsen said. "When it's executed well it looks pretty. It's just a fun offense."

Besides the addition of Larsen, who also serves as the school's weight-training teacher, Mitchell also brought back former Red Devils head coach Doug Bills as his defensive coordinator and brought in former NFL lineman Junior Ioane to work with the defensive line.