New football offense

And here I'd nearly forgotten Big Boy Urbey was college football's Gauss.

 

The A-11 is a variation of a trick play called the swinging gate.
The center would be the tight end and he would pitch the ball back to one of two quarterbacks.
The center was the last man on the line, so he was eligible, you had four offensive lineman standing to the far right, who were all ineligible, and then backs and other receivers were mixed in.
The whole idea was that the defense would be so confused as to what to do, the offense would get a big play out of it. Assuming they didn't catch a penalty, which is what usually happened.
In high school we always practiced for the gate because one of the teams in the conference would run it.
It also resulted in the single greatest game of my high school career.
I was playing defensive tackle and when a team ran the gate, I moved to head up on the snapper, my job was to hit him and then go after the guy who got the ball.
The team that ran the gate as a trick play, used it as its offense for the length of the second quarter and the entire second half.
I finished the game with eight or nine sacks, I don't remember how many tackles for loss and as a relatively nimble lineman, I also got to drop back in coverage and broke up one pass. Damn near made the interception.
Any coach who thinks that this would work as an offense would be wrong.

 

The swinging gate as a full-fledged offense?! I've only seen that on conversions...if something's open, go for the 2. If not, line up for the kick.

 

For a lot of those plays, it looked like there were only six men at the scrimmage line.

 

Exactly. Methinks refs were told the base offense was legal, but don't know why it's legal. So they probably let a lot of shit go because they don't want to feel like they don't understand what's going on in front of them.

And whoever commented on giving up 10 sacks a game, it's not a big deal when that's split between two QBs.

 

It seems like a defense could get enough sacks to eventually kill a drive as long as there are no big plays.

 

Classic. My coach had a philospohy on the swinging gate (basically he hated it). One team in our district ran it on every extra point, and would occasionally try to run it on a normal down with the variant being instead of the center eligibale they line up one guy to his left, or sometimes one guy on each side. Our D coach line up 4 guys in front of the center...two to his left one on the right and a "linebacker" in the gap. Our coach told us if they snap the ball without going back to normal position (which they often did) those four guys had one job, and one job only...ignore anyone else and punish the center. He didn't care if the guy that the ball was snapped to ran for an easy score as his philosphy was you punish the center they won't run that again, and if they do the center will be so scared he's useless.
Indeed, first time they ran it center was super slow to get up. The play bombed as well. When they tried it again, indeed the center was useless as he snapped the ball about 20 yards too deep. That was all it took.

 

The team I cover runs this formation...the main play is left wing back motion 45 degrees toward QB, snap, pivot and pitch right...then the LG, LT and QB all pull and run through the hole as lead blockers for the WB...

After they run that play five or six times, picking up at least 4 years a pop, they'll switch and run the other way with the other guy. Then, they'll fake the pitch and hit the other WB on an inside sweep. Or they'll run a FB belly up the middle and fake the pitch. Or it's a fake belly, fake pitch play-action pass...

It's boring as hell to watch, but it's damn effective. They were second in the conference in rushing last year, and they didn't have a SINGLE running back that went better than shitty D-III.

The coach switched to this offense after trying a spread with crappy QBs for 5 or 6 years. They never won shit, and last year they took home the conference title and came 2 yards from going to state.

 

That's exactly what we ran in high school...similar play progression too. Everything was based off the power sweep, then there were other plays run off that (FB dive, counter, etc.). School hadn't had a winning record in 30+ years before '98 (my 8th-grade year) and has been .500 or better every year since, including its first several state appearances.

 

There is nothing worse than the preponderance of teams running the spread with mediocre QBs and slow running backs and wide receivers. I'd rather watch a power running game. At least the game is faster.

 

Lord, you aren't kidding. The happiest Friday night I ever had on duty was a private school game when some backwoods seg academy rolled into town running the Notre Dame box.



50 minutes later, we were at halftime.