WAGONER — Prince McJunkins remembers the first time he saw what was going to be Wagoner’s offense this season.

“I thought it was a whole bunch of crazy stuff,” the junior quarterback said. “It had everybody going this way, that way, up and down and left and right.”

There was a method to the madness.

The Bulldogs changed their offense from last season’s power, I-formation running attack to the spread to take advantage of their quickness, wealth of receivers and not put as much pressure on the younger, undersized linemen.

So far, it’s working out quite well for coach Dale Condict, offensive coordinator Jeff Williams and the Bulldogs. They are in the Class 4A quarterfinals at home at 7:30 tonight against Oklahoma City Douglass. Both teams are 8-3 for the season.

But those early practices and the preseason games were anything but smooth. Williams saw the team struggle with the new offense.

“We’d have a wide receiver running down field wide open or we missed a block on a screen. It was little things like that,” he said. “This offense is just a different speed.

“In our first three games, we were not able get it down. We didn’t make the right reads at quarterback or didn’t have the timing of the receivers down. We knew it would take time and had to be patient.”

Condict was patient.

“I like running the ball but I didn’t want to tell Jeff, ‘We’ll run it and see how it works.’ I don’t think that’s fair,” he said. “I let him know right away we were going to do it. I said, ‘You run it, I’ll oversee it.’ We sold out on it and didn’t look back.”

The offense then began to click. The Bulldogs picked up big wins against Muldrow and Fort Gibson to start off in District 4A-4 play.

McJunkins got hurt and backup Taylor Bosco did well in the spread until he got hurt. However, Wagoner lost back-to-back games to Poteau and Broken Bow.

With McJunkins returned to the lineup, the offense took off again.

Condict points to the 14-13 win against Hilldale in the season finale to clinch the final playoff berth from 4A-4 as how effective the offense can be. The Bulldogs recovered a fumble late in the game and drove 66 yards for the winning touchdown, scoring on a pass with eight seconds remaining.

“I felt comfortable when we got the ball,” Condict said. “We had a great chance to score because we could spread the field and throw the ball down the field. This offense gives you a chance in situations like that. With last year’s offense, we would’ve gotten beat.”

McJunkins enjoys spreading the ball around.

“Here we are in the 12th game of the season and everybody knows the offense,” he said. “Every skill player knows where to go and they’re going to touch the ball two or three times per game.”

The offense keeps clicking, evidenced by the 35-0 opening-round win against Jay last week. The Bulldogs have six receivers (Paul Golden, Jordan Robinson, Malcom Love, Jimmy Carter, Kevin Peterson and Drew Curley) averaging 15 yards per catch.

Robinson, a junior, has a team-leading 33 catches for 504 yards. He’s gotten accustomed to the offense.

“It was tough at first because we didn’t know what we’re going to do,” the 6-foot-2, 175-pounder said. “t’s our best chance to make plays.”

The Bulldogs, ranked No. 8 in the final Associated Press poll, think they also can make plays against the 4A-1 third place and No. 5 Douglass and their 280- and 290-pound defensive linemen.

“They also have a middle linebacker (Aaron James) who is as good as we’ve seen this season,” Williams said. “If we tried to pack our players in there and try to run it, we would be quite an underdog. They kept (defending state champion) Glenpool (in a 14-0 win) from running last week.

“We need to throw the ball around and I think they’re susceptible to the passing game. This will give us the opportunity to use our athletes.”