As my name indicates, I am a high school referee.  I just attended a high school rules meeting this morning where the A-11 offense was discussed.

 

Here is the MHSAA interpretation of the A-11 offense.

 

The offense is mostly legal due to the Scrimmage Kick excemption.  Which means that during a normal punt or field goal play all the numbering rules are thrown out the window.  In order for a formation to be defined as a scrimmage kick, you must have at least 1 player lined up 7 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

 

As long as those requirements are met, you can run these crazy formations with every player wearing an eligible number.  However, the eligible receiver rules still apply.

 

-Only 5 guys can go downfield still.  

 -Recievers that are lined up on the line of scrimmage cannot have another player outside of them also on the line of scrimmage

-the remaining 3 eligible receivers must be behind the line of scrimmage.

 

This will cause headaches for officials and defenses who will need to keep track of which 5 guys are allowed to catch the ball.  But, it will also put a lot of pressure on the offense to make sure they have at least one guy 7 years behind the line of scrimmage.  I know as an official I will hit the team witha 15 yard penalty for illegal numbers if that guy is only 6.5 yards back.

I am hoping that the NFHS will look into a way to make this offense illegal, there is a good reason why we make lineman have different numbers than recievers.

 

I hope that helps.