The Jeff Quinn era at the University at Buffalo has finally arrived, equipped with a designer offense that's all the rage.

Bulls fans, get ready for the spread, a system that has revolutionized offensive strategy in college football. The brand Quinn prefers is of the no-huddle variety, one that rat-a-tat-tats nonstop at 90 miles an hour and vaporizes opponents.

"As soon as the referee gets out of the way," Quinn said, "I want the ball snapped."

So what makes the spread purr?

First, get rid of the bulky fullback. Check that. Get rid of everyone who is bulky because they clog up the fast lane. Make 'em lean and mean. Speed kills. Speed thrills. So take three or four lively receivers, spread 'em out wide enough to stretch the defense from sideline-to-sideline and perhaps to the point of confusion. Take a quarterback who makes quick decisions. The quicker the better. Run, gun and have fun in the open field. When the defensive coordinator finally becomes antagonistic by inserting extra defenders in the secondary, toss the ball to the shifty tailback, who exposes the teeth of the defense on draw plays and traps.

Welcome to fastbreak football, the ceaseless two-minute offense that the Bulls unveil at 7 tonight in their season opener against Football Championship Subdivision opponent Rhode Island.

"It takes a little bit of time but as we grow and develop and we move through the season, they'll become more confident and more consistent at what they're doing so they'll have a better understanding of our system," Quinn said.

Tonight's opener is full of story lines. Quinn served as the interim head coach in bowl games at Central Michigan and Cincinnati but he's running a program for the first time after 27 seasons as an assistant. The Bulls are breaking in a new quarterback for the third time in as many seasons this time with sophomore Jerry Davis, while Branden Oliver is the first freshman to start at tailback for UB in 10 years.

While the Bulls shift from a 4-3 defensive scheme to a 3-4 under defensive coordinator William Inge has gone smoother than anticipated, the offense is making a drastic change from Turner Gill's multiple offense of the last four seasons.

But it's an offense, when executed correctly, that's proved to not only score points and threaten land-speed records, but win games. At Cincinnati where Quinn served as offensive coordinator under Brian Kelly for the last three seasons, the Bearcats were 33-7 with back-to-back Big East championships and trips to the Orange and Sugar bowls.

Last season, Cincinnati averaged 38.6 points a game, fourth highest in the nation and 11th in total offense with 447.4 yards a game. But Kelly, now at Notre Dame, hogged all the fun from Quinn and called his own plays. Quinn will do the same at UB with a similar emphasis: Suck the will out of the defense.

"It wears people down," Quinn said. "Fatigue will eventually defeat your opponent but it can also defeat you. What I want is a superior mentally and physically conditioned football team."

That means the Bulls' defense, which returns six starters from '09, has to be in shape as well.

"We talked to them about transitioning and sudden change," Quinn said. "You may have created a turnover and [the offense] may turn around and capitalize in one play and [score] a touchdown. ... That's the reality of what this system is so what you try to do is condition them more mentally than physically."

That's fine for senior cornerback Domonic Cook (St. Joe's) who said the pace is so fast in practice that, "game speed will be so much easier."

"Going against a type of offense that's fast speed paced is really great," Cook said. "It's all the conditioning that we need. The most rest that we've had in between plays is probably 10 seconds at the most."

When Quinn arrived at UB he found some of the personnel required to effectively run the offense was already on the roster.

"These guys were doing a little bit of that," said Quinn about the uptempo offense. "We had to change a few big-bodied guys and trim them down a little bit, and they did it, and I liked what I saw."

But the offense also has to be able to shake off mistakes and adjust on the fly.

"There's not a lot of time to think about what just happened, you have to move forward, which is good," Quinn said. "If it doesn't quite work out on the previous play, they don't have to worry. They need to focus on the very next play because that's how fast we want to get onto the very next play. The next play is more important than the previous play."

Strong safety Bunduka Kargbo has apparently left the team. The 6-foot-1, 203-pound sophomore from Albany informed Quinn of his decision Tuesday and his name has been removed from the roster on the school's Web site.

The reason why Kargbo decided to leave is unclear, but when the Bulls' depth chart was released last Thursday, he was listed behind sophomores Ray Anthony Long and Issac Baugh but when another two deep was handed out during media day on Tuesday, senior John Sanders was listed behind Long and Baugh. Kargbo appeared in six games last season as a true freshman and recorded a pair of solo tackles.

rmckissic@buffnews.comnull