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Plant Is Surpassing Last Season's Offensive Output

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By KATHERINE SMITH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 26, 2007

Updated: 11/25/2007 11:55 pm

TAMPA - Plant quarterback Aaron Murray spent the bulk of his Sunday holed up in Coach Robert Weiner's office poring over game film of the Week 1 Armwood game.

In front of him, surrounded by bags of chips sat the Plant playbook filled with 1,100 pages of plays. Think Yellow Pages, but with X's and O's instead of names and numbers.

It's that playbook that has produced one of the most prolific high school offenses in the state the past two seasons. The success of Plant's offense and the insane numbers it has produced begs the question - is it the players or the scheme?

The defending Class 4A state champions' scheme is basically a carbon copy of the offense Jesuit ran in the 1990s, when Weiner was an assistant coach with the Tigers.

"The origin of the offense is the same," Weiner said. "We've kind of dabbled in the spread at Jesuit a little bit. The evolution of all of this comes from the same place. It's just gone off on a tangent for us at Plant. We only explored a little bit of it at Jesuit, but it's not something we created new. It's just evolved a lot over time."

That evolution has even changed dramatically in the span of one season. Former quarterback Robert Marve, who has been back to watch some of the Panthers' games this season from the sideline, sometimes didn't recognize the plays.

"Our offense is more advanced and more developed than last year," said Weiner.

Plant leads Hillsborough County in total offense this year. Through 12 games, the Panthers have averaged 467.7 yards of offense a game. The county's second-most proficient offense, Jefferson, averaged 356.4 yards a game, more than 100 yards less.

In two games against Jefferson this season, Plant put up 94 points and 967 yards of offense.

"They're just awfully good," Jefferson coach Mike Fenton said. "That Aaron Murray is just unbelievable. I think it's a combination of the scheme and players. We do a lot of the same kind of stuff, but Aaron's as good a quarterback as I've ever seen."

Murray set a state touchdown record Friday night against Jefferson. He has thrown 51 this season, which broke the record Marve set last year at 48. According to MaxPreps.com, Murray leads the state with 3,869 passing yards.

His main target, receiver Derek Winter, also leads the state with 1,582 receiving yards.

"It's the players. It's not the scheme," said Gaither coach Mark Kantor, whose Cowboys lost to Plant 48-21 in Week 2. "They're tough and Aaron Murray, he's really good. Derek Winter is fantastic and injured Cornelius Gallon was just as good as well. Then you throw in Lovell Jackson, as a defensive coordinator, trying to defend them, you wonder what in the hell are they going to do."

Reporter Katherine Smith can be reached at

(813) 259-7860 or ksmith@tampatrib.com.

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