I'm interested to hear your opinion. The A-11 offense website is selling how-to videos and manuals. Does anyone think its worth the investment for a High School program?

like air-force football if you ask me.... Thats what you play as kids throw it all over the place, everyone is legal, etc. I dont think its going to be legal at least for very long, if it does catch on. Its a loop-hole in the rules, and sorta goes against the letter of the law. But you never know, offense sells tickets, so maybe the powers that be will let it slide, and it will be the new triple option forward pass spread offense progression.

As a once and future coach but more importantly an academician of the game, this A-11 offense and its smarmy coach really ticks me off. It takes advantage of a help-you-out rule in a way it was never designed for. The free-kick jersey rule was to allow kids to get a chance to play special teams on the line without having to wear pullover jerseys making them statutory linemen. (The way the A-11 works is that it shuffles these players before the ball is snapped, meaning that any player coming out of the huddle might end up on the end of the line and thus eligible.) 

I'm all for coaches thinking "outside the box," but football standardized receiver eligibility 80 years ago.

My guess is the abuse of said rule will lead to its repeal or control in the NFHS, which hurts young players and the occasional washed-up senior whose only contribution might be in the punt formation. That will be sad, but the price must be paid for playing outside the spirit of the rules.

I do wonder how effective the offense can be in the long term. Piedmont had a good year but who knows who they played, and talent if they have it (as Jill suggests they do) makes any  offense look like a genius scheme.

I also question how you can toughen up your team to play defense when your offense is playing flag football all practice (gsimmons, you might have more to say on that.) Recall that one of Bo's benefits to a strong running offense was nastifying his defense during the week.

I love that we're talking this sort of stuff on mgoblog! 

As I understand it, the controversy around this offense is that it uses a loophole in the rules to bypass requirements for 5 players to have non-eligible numbers (and to be non-eligible). I get the requirement to have 5 non-eligible receivers, but what is the spirit of the rule in making sure certain numbers are ineligible? Why the hell should coaches, players, fans, officials care if your jersey # is high/low/whatever? Don't we only care about making sure about the correct number of bodies on the line?

This reminds me of lacrosse, in that the #s don't matter, only the number of the players behind/in front of the midfield line. Often in a game a defensive player would go on a breakaway, and it was the responsibility of one of us middies to stay behind the line, raise our stick (so the official could see no one was offsides), and wait for the D guy to come back.  No one cared or might consider it "illegal" if a longstick defenseman was running around on the offense, as long as the cost of that was a shortstick being held back on defense.  The kind of player didn't matter in lacrosse.

I've got no problem with this offense. As long as the quantity of players on the line are right, then I don't think we should care if it's the right kind of players on the line. But maybe I'm missing something.

Now I am no expert on the game, but I guess I don't see how it's not illegal. Still, I agree that it takes away from the spirit of the game. It essentially turns the game into backyard tackle football where everyone is eligible. I doubt it would work past the HS level. I think that one way of remedying it is to make a rule where you can only designate a maximum number of eligible receivers in each set of downs i.e. only these players can receive the ball within each set of downs. It sounds like a stupid idea by me. It doesn't affect the formation because how do you know which guys are chosen as eligible? Does it have to announced? For one thing, it takes away the possibility of some trick plays. Or maybe designate ineligible receivers. Make a rule that only one lineman can be eligible should the coach so choose. I'm just throwing ideas out there, but they would take away from the basic rules of football. Re: innovative offenses, I read something somewhere about a "spin offense." Have you heard of such a thing, gsims? Also, the worst, sneakiest trick play out there that I've seen has to be the "wrong ball" trick. It's a cheap, cheap way of playing. I don't get how a coach gets any satisfaction out of winning that way.

I appear to be alone here, but I like the idea. For all of those saying it goes against the spirit of the rules/game, isn't that what was once said of the forward pass? It's innovative. Originally the coach implemented it because most of the schools in their league were twice their size and he wanted to try to even the playing field. Apparently he's had some success, we'll see if that continues or if opposing coaches have figured it out. But it's a great way to utilize the talent that he has. I personally like the idea of Rich Rod running it, given our issues on the offensive line.

 

Edit: I just read that it's illegal in NCAA football.  There is wording in the rule regarding the special kick formation that this formation employes stating that "It must be obvious that a kick has at least been attempted."  If high school sports bodies wish to make this formation illegal, adding this phrase would be the simplest method.

Offensive football rules have swung too far towards passing, and this is one of the final overreaches that will swing things back to a more manageable equilibrium in High School football. The NCAA, to its credit, dealt with this in its rules a long time ago. The "Scrimmage Kick" rule that allows for substitution of ineligible numbered (read: big, slow) players off for a punt formation was edited when college coaches started exploiting the rule as well. The edit: eligible jersey numbered players (1-49, 80-99) were only allowed in the interior five of a scrimmage kick formation (direct snap deeper than 7 yards) in "a kicking situation clearly exists (i.e. 4th down, punter substitution)." Expect the NFHS and other governing bodies to adjust. The Notre Dame Box offense utilized a similar exploit: shifting just before the snap to change the side of the strength in the single wing offense (read: having 7 players on one side, suddenly changing to the other, and snapping the ball near simultaneously). This offense does a similar trick only with who is going to be an eligible receiver at the start of the play. I would not stake the future of a program or season on this offense.

You might be referring to the variant of the Single-Wing called the "Single-Wing with the Spinning Fullback" which is much more akin to Wing-T blocking concepts and the idea of "hiding" the ball from the defense by the player taking the snap turning around and shielding view of the ball from the defense. Single-wing concepts are incorporated into most spread offenses especially ones with bigger QBs like Tim Tebow. See the article I wrote for SMQ: http://www.sundaymorningqb.com/story/2008/2/28/131454/592 Check this video of some old-school Michigan single-winging (from Coach Hugh Wyatt of Camas, WA): http://homepage.mac.com/coachhw/iMovieTheater9.html

This offense goes to 11.