Iolani head coach Wendell Look (left) and Leilehua head coach Nolan Tokuda (right) are both proponents of no-huddle/hurry-up offenses. ScoringLive photo illustration

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For Nolan Tokuda, football is a business. Not because it's about money, but rather efficiency and profit. The ninth-year coach of the Leilehua Mules is widely regarded as a top offensive minds in the prep ranks and his teams have consistently put up big numbers.

Meanwhile, all Wendell Look has done in the last eight years is win seven state championships at the Division II level, including the last six. Look is now in his 23rd season at the helm of the Iolani Raiders – the most of all active prep coaches.

We caught up with each coach Monday afternoon – five days before the Mules and Raiders do battle under the afternoon sun at Iolani's Kozuki Stadium – to discuss the nuances of the no-huddle/hurry-up offenses that both teams employ.

ScoringLive: Why do you use the no-huddle/hurry-up offense and when did you go to it?

Nolan Tokuda: "After the 2007 state championship year, where we had to get in those final two drives running no-huddle against Saint Louis, we thought we found a balance with it for us and the kids really liked it. It's almost like an organized park-league game. We've run the uptempo style since 2008, and it helped that we had Andrew Manley, but  you know, we continued the trend with Kenan Sadanaga in 2010 and 2011 and then Justin Jenks last year. Ultimately, we decided that it had so many advantages, especially with some of the (defensive) linemen we had to block in past years like Kennedy Tulimasealii. If you ask any linemen, they will tell you that they hate running, so we wanted to make them run, sideline to sideline, with little rest. It's so much fun to run. If you look at it from a business aspect, if you cut out the middle-man, you make more profit. For us the middle-man is the huddle. We cut out the huddle, we got more reps in at practice and in games – more profit."

Wendell Look: "We went to the no-huddle about 10 years ago and the reason being is that I saw Northwestern play the year when they won the Rose Bowl and for that kind of a team to be able to compete in the Big 12 with teams like Michigan and Michigan State, it was all because of their tempo. So, we visited with them and they said that it was a big factor in their success. The tempo they created against (physically) bigger teams was because they were able to wear teams down in the fourth quarter."

SL: Do you have a goal in mind as far as the number of offensive plays you want to run or the time between plays?

NT: "We don't look at the number of plays as our goal, we just look at execution as the goal. Whether we run 40 plays or 90 plays, just to execute the best we can on each play in the goal. We want to control the tempo – whether it's going fast or we're in a 4-minute offense situation and we want to run some clock. What we tell our players if we want the other teams to play ‘Mules football.'"

WL: "Not necessarily. I think we just try to go as fast as we can (while) still being very efficient and obviously being effective and able to execute. You don't want to be so fast that you're out of control. We practice to be very quick and efficient during our practices."

SL: Do you see any detriments of running this style of offense?

NT: "It could be a detriment in regards to the fact that we have military kids and a lot of times they come to us so late that we have no real time to slow things down and talk, they just have to line up and go and learn on the fly. Even our quarterback, Mack Eberhardt, he had to learn on the fly, but it's just a go-go-go tempo. Another detriment could be that it's hard to slow down and coach – you're basically coaching on the fly. Other schools have said that injuries happen more often because the game goes so fast and bodies can five out. We train so well under (defensive coordinator) Mark Kurisu, who handles our early season conditioning and weight training program. He makes the conditioning football related, it's made for the tempo we play at. They'll have four to six seconds of burst, followed by 15 seconds of rest, then four to six seconds of burst and 15 seconds of rest and so on."

WL:  "No detriments, but you have to prepare your team. They have to be well conditioned. I think the big thing is that the team – especially the defensive side coaches and players – needs to understand that when you go fast and the offense goes three-and-out, it's a quick turnaround, maybe 15-20 seconds off the clock. They have to understand that we might be back on the field in a short period of time and we might go three-and-out a couple series in a row. If you have one side not understanding the other side, obviously you can have problems, but at the same time, when we get it rolling, the benefits are there."

SL: Do you think the trend of more teams going to no-huddle/hurry-up offenses will continue at the high school level?

NT: "I think that everybody looks at it that there's some advantages to it. In 2011, when Mark Kurisu served as interim coach, I think (Radford coach) Fred Salanoa was the West all-star team coach and he asked Mark to join the staff and share how we do our hurry-up offense. They brought on our OC and DC and we shared our practice plan, so you know, Aiea, Pearl City, Kapolei, Radford obviously, they all saw our practice plan and I think everybody liked it and jumped on it. Fred did a great job with it last year with Radford. I think the trend will continue until a team has an offense or quarterback that can't handle the tempo and then you'll see them go back in the huddle."

WL: "It's like anything else, it's about what's fashionable at the time, but you know, coaches have to decide what is best for their program and what suits their kids. The kids have to believe in it, but into it and you have to be able to effectively run it. Look at the spread-option offense now and how many teams are running that. Whatever the NFL and college is doing, it trickles down to the high school level, so it's whatever the trend is and whatever works for your team. Also, football coaches are notorious for stealing other people's ideas and that's what we do. It's good to see what works out there for other teams and see how you can fit it to work for your team."

SL: What can we expect from Saturday's game?

NT: "It's going to be fun. Anytime you can go against the six-time defending champions it's a great measuring stick. I don't care about them being Division II, they can compete in Division I, so it's going to be a great test for us going uptempo with their guys."

WL: "I think it's going to be a wide-open kind of game. Nolan is at the forefront of being innovative on both offense and defense. I mean, talk about thinking outside of the box – I think that he is one that is not afraid to think outside of the box and try different things and he's been very effective and successful."

Iolani leads the all-times series against Leilehua, 6-5-1 (the teams tied once in 1958). The Mules won the previous meeting, 33-14, at Hugh Yoshida Stadium in 2008. Saturday's game, which is slated for a 2 p.m. kickoff, will be televised live statewide on OC16.

ScoringLive reporter Stacy Kaneshiro contributed to this report.