• Bridget Wentworth/The Star-Ledger

Kashann Simmons stood off to the side at practice Monday, his arms crossed, his eyes hidden behind dark black sunglasses.

The plays for his spread offense ran through his head: Tiger. Wyoming. Laker. Vegas.Simmons, the Plainfield High offensive coordinator, settled on 57 Mesh, and watched another assistant relay the play into his players with a series of hand signals, almost as though he were a third-base coach.

When the play worked, ending with a completion, Simmons smiled from the sideline.

"Good ball!" he shouted. "Good job!"

Simmons couldn't help but be satisfied. After all, his offense -- the one he had criss-crossed the country to learn about -- was running as perfectly as he'd imagined when he committed to it two years ago.

Simmons' version of the spread may be unique at the high school level, but it isn't the only one out there. As high schools open practices in earnest this week across New Jersey, more teams than ever before will unveil the spread, or variations of it.

"Even teams that run traditional offenses are putting in all kinds of spread principles," Palisades Park and Leonia coach David Schuman said. "Five or six years ago, you didn't see that."

The spread helped turn around programs at East Orange, Irvington and Plainfield, which made the playoffs last year after a two-year postseason absence. It made others such as perennial power Don Bosco even stronger. And even though Piscataway, Carteret and Orange don't run the spread exclusively, their offenses now show traces of it.

Predicated on multiple wide receiver sets and a quarterback in the shotgun, the spread helps create numerous vertical seams by stretching the field. Teams like Plainfield emphasize quick, short passes to move the ball, while others rely on misdirection to open the running game.

The offense gives underdogs a better chance to score points and stalwarts an easier way to get more of their best athletes on the field. Moreover, you don't need a team full of bulky linemen to run it -- you just need some guys who can run, and someone who can throw it to them.

"When we first started running it, I think we were pretty much ahead of the game," said East Orange coach Marion Bell, who installed the spread before the 2006 season. A year later, Bell saw his team finish 11-1 and win the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 4 title.

Perhaps no program was more propelled by the offense than Irvington.

According to Irvington coach Darnell Grant, the program had only three winning seasons between 1976 and 2002, a span in which the team was routinely outmuscled up front. When Grant took over in 2002, he stuck with a multi-I formation, but it didn't fit his players -- a group that usually contained plenty of speed but little girth.

"I looked at the situation, the teams we lost to, and a lot of times we were oversized and overmatched up front," Grant said. "Next year we go into the spread and we go 8-2 and we make the playoffs for the first time since 1976. This gave us a chance every year because we could play to our to strength with speed and athleticism."

Instead of praying for large players to appear in the hallways, Grant said he can pluck a tall kid from the basketball team and convert him into a pass-catching tight end. Or use a small player with speed as scatback out of the backfield.

Plainfield has similar players to choose from -- plenty of speed but not much size -- so there wasn't much debate about what offense the team would use when Simmons became offensive coordinator in 2007. The first season was difficult as the program shifted from the veer option to the spread, but the next year the offense took off.

That was in part because of Simmons' summer of travel.

He had sat high in the bleachers at Rutgers Stadium five years earlier, watching his brother-in-law, Baron Flenory Jr., play for New Hampshire. That day, the Wildcats, a Division 1-AA team, beat Rutgers, 35-24, behind its spitfire offense -- the spread.

"I was just amazed with how that offense ran so efficiently," Simmons said. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, these guys are running all over the place.'"

Simmons was introduced to the coaching staff by his brother-in-law, and he developed a relationship with the offensive coordinator, Chip Kelly. When Simmons got the job at Plainfield, he called Kelly, who had become the offensive coordinator at Oregon, and asked if he could come study the offense.

Simmons spent four days in Oregon, pouring over game film, watching the Ducks practice and dissecting the spread with the coaching staff. Later that summer, he drove to New Hampshire, where Simmons still had contacts, and did the same thing.

At Plainfield, the gesticulations, the cadence, the hand signals are almost identical to what is used at Oregon and New Hampshire.

"I studied everything he knew," Simmons said of Kelly, who is now the head coach at Oregon. "It was a really good experience."

Plainfield is reaping the benefits. The system is perfect for quarterback Tyrone Johnson, a standout basketball player who has the speed and arm strength to execute the spread to its full potential. Last year they made the playoffs; this season, they expect more.

"We have speed, we have quickness, we have height and athleticism," Simmons said. "That's what makes the spread what it is. We want to get those kids in space with the ball and let them make plays after the catch."