Davidson head coach Rick Cauley had a couple of challenges last week.

His Warriors had dropped two straight games and also had a pair of quarterbacks injured.

The answer? Go back to the future.

In three days of practice, Cauley and his staff made the quick – and dramatic — transition from a spread offense to a single-wing attack similar to the one Murphy had success with during Cauley’s days as offensive coordinator there.

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“Our starting quarterback Hudson (Spivey) was out, and our backup was down as well,” Cauley said. “It really kind of left us with no quarterback. With our background and knowing you really don’t have to have a quarterback sometimes, we made the move.”

The result? A surprising 42-10 victory at Fairhope.

The single-wing basically gives an offense two different running options (inside or outside) within the same play. K.J. Maye took most of the snaps and ran the offense to perfection under Cauley and then-head coach Ronn Lee at Murphy. The Warriors seem to have a perfect trigger man as well in Coastal Carolina running back DJ Butler.

“DJ kind of filled that role, and it went well,” Cauley said. “He’s so good that he can do a lot of different things on offense. He’s K.J.-like in that they are both leaders. Once DJ embraced the new attack, the rest of the kids did, too. I remember in 2011 when K.J. embraced it, his friends got on board as well, and it led to good things. Everyone has to buy in.”

Butler ran for 230 yards and three touchdowns on 21 carries and also passed for 44 yards. It was a drastic improvement for the Davidson offense, which scored just two touchdowns in its last game – a 56-14 loss to Daphne. The attack gives Butler multiple handoff or running options as well as the ability to throw to an open receiver.

Butler has run for at least 100 yards in each game and now has 851 yards and 9 TDs on 89 carries — an average of 9.6 yards per carry. He’s also 4-of-4 passing for 81 yards and 2 TDs.

Cauley said the transition last week in practice wasn’t as difficult as one might think.

“The kids are pretty smart here,” he said. “They were able to get what we wanted down. The run schemes are basically the same. The ball-handling in the backfield is where we had to focus. That is really what we worked on last week. The kids did a good job of taking it all in and being open to it.”

It’s a scheme Cauley learned from former Enterprise coach Rick Darlington. He said Davidson isn’t running it as fast or as crisp as his teams at Murphy did more than a decade ago, but they’ve also had just three days of practice.

“I’m hoping as time goes on, they will get better at it,” he said.

It looks like the Warriors will stick to the single-wing plan at least for the foreseeable future.

“We are not getting anyone back anytime soon,” Cauley said. “It’s kind of where we are right now. We’ll decide on any other stuff when it becomes time to do that. Right now, we are just moving forward.”

The offense wasn’t the only thing that changed for Davidson last week. The defense also went from a four-man front to a 3-3-5 attack after giving up 122 points combined in losses to Baker and Daphne.

“It was really two major changes,” Cauley said. “They were both necessary – one due to the injuries on offense and the defensive change just because we weren’t playing well. We wanted to give our kids the best chance to win.

“We thought we needed to get them moving and get more hats to the ball, and they seemed to like it and respond. It’s a huge credit to our kids on both sides of the ball. It seemed to energize the whole crew. I hope we can carry the momentum through the back half of the season.”

Davidson (2-2, 1-2 Class 7A, Region 1) will play a non-region game at B.C. Rain this Friday before returning to region play against No. 4 Mary G. Montgomery on Oct. 6.

“We had a couple of rough games in a row, and we did not feel like we were that bad of a team,” Cauley said. “We really just wanted to get out and play again. That goes for the coaches and the players. We wanted to show we are really better than what we had shown.

“The single-wing is not like a magic bullet. You still run power and counter and sweep, but you have to have the kids buy in. We tried it a few years ago, and the kids really didn’t buy in. These kids have bought in so far. We’ll see where we go from here.”