The History of the Wing-T
Coach Forest Evashevski was quite successful at the University of Iowa during the 1950\'s
by: Dennis CreehanUS Military Academy, West Point, NY©
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It is an
honor to have the opportunity to write this article and especially
since the article deals with a topic as dear to my heart as the
wing-t. In my 33 years of coaching I have seen many different cycles
of football but the wing-t has remained a fixture since the time
before I played and throughout my time as a player and a coach.
I am sure that it will continue to be a very popular system long
after I am gone from football. The wing-t has managed to stay current
long after other fads in offensive football have disappeared.
In the late-60s most of the college teams in the country were throwing
the football until the University of Texas won about 30 games in a row
with the Wishbone offense. This started an explosion of teams across
the country that went to triple option football including the University
of Oklahoma and the University of Alabama who won quite a few national
championships between them. Many other teams used the “Split Back
Veer” offense, which enabled them to use the triple option play
from pro-style formations. These teams were able to integrate option
football into their attack with the same pro type personnel that they
were using when they were throwing the football. I witnessed my own college
team being transformed from an also-ran to a champion using the Split
Back Veer offense.
During all of this time there was a team, which continued to have great
offensive success without going to the Wishbone or the Split Back Veer.
That team was the University of Delaware. Delaware was running a four
back offense like the Wishbone teams but they were able to align the
backs in a position where they could be pass receivers as well as running
backs. This gave them the opportunity to have run-pass balance in their
attack as well as a powerful running game.
Diagram 1.
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Delaware had been running the wing-t offense since the late Dave
Nelson came to the University of Delaware from the University of
Michigan in 1951. (This may help to explain why the helmets at
the University of Delaware have the same design at the helmets
at the University of Michigan.) Coach Nelson is considered by many
to be the “father of the wing-t offense.” Coach Nelson
experienced great success with the wing-t offense and other coaches
at other universities also copied his style. Coach Forest Evashevski
was quite successful at the University of Iowa running the wing-t.
Coach Evashevski published a book on the wing-t in the 1950s that
is found on many coaches’ bookshelves even today.
Dave Nelson retired from the head football coaching position at the University
of Delaware after the 1966 season and passed the torch to one of his
top assistant coaches Mr. Harold “Tubby” Raymond. Coach Raymond
continued to run the wing-t and in fact made many updates and improvements
to the offense. The popularity of the wing-t exploded when Coach Raymond
took over the reigns. Coach Raymond’s clinics and camps spread
the word of the wing-t to high school and college coaches all across
the country.
The success of the offense at the University of Delaware was so profound
that many larger major universities copied the offense. Two such notable
universities were Penn State and Notre Dame. As a young graduate assistant
coach at the University of Pittsburgh in 1974, it was my responsibility
to run the scout offense in preparation for the Penn State game. It was
almost impossible for me to get those scout team players to simulate
those plays the way Penn State would be running them in the game. Notre
Dame had so much success running the wing-t that they were able to win
a national championship running the wing-t. In a most memorable national
championship game against Alabama, Notre Dame won a thrilling last minute
victory over a Bear Bryant-coached Alabama team. This game, more so than
any other, put the wing-t offense in the national spotlight.
The University of Delaware continued to run the wing-t for more than
50 years until the retirement of Raymond after the 2001 season. Coach
Raymond won 300 games as a college head coach. This was a feat accomplished
by only a few college coaches in the history of the game of football.
While many other fads and styles of offense came and went, the University
of Delaware kept right on winning football games with the wing-t. The
success was astounding! Coach Raymond won countless conference titles,
went to the national playoffs almost every year, and even won the national
championship. The ability of Coach Raymond and his staff to keep updating
the wing-t and the inherent flexibility of the offensive system enabled
the University of Delaware to integrate modern trends in offensive football
without destroying the basics of the wing-t.
Many other styles of offense have been incorporated into the wing-t over
the years including some of the most dynamic offensive philosophies in
the history of the game. There have been many teams that have combined
the wishbone and the wing-t, the run-and-shoot and the wing-t and the
west coast offense and the wing-t. Bill Walsh who won three Super Bowl
titles with the San Francisco 49ers has made the statement that his brand
of the west coast offense had its roots in wing-t football. When you
watch a Bill Walsh-coached offense you will see flankers motion into
wingback positions, you will see the same counter and counter bootleg
plays as the wing-t, and you will see misdirection just as if you were
watching a good wing-t team.
Another tribute to Coach Raymond and the University of Delaware was the
number of assistant coaches from the Delaware staff who went on to become
head coaches themselves. My first exposure to the wing-t came from the
late Ron Rodgerson who was the line coach at Delaware for many years
before moving on to the head coaching position at the University of Maine.
Rodgerson then moved on to become the head coach at Princeton University
where he coached the wing-t offense until his untimely death. Rodgerson
was my first tutor when I set out to learn the wing-t.
One of the great things about Raymond, Rodgerson and all the coaches
at the University of Delaware was their willingness to share information
with other coaches. Their enthusiasm for the offense and their love of
the system has provided a great example for coaches from all over the
country.
Another of the fine wing-t coaches, and maybe one of the top offensive
minds to ever coach the wing-t was coach Ted Kempski. Kempski was the
offensive coordinator for Raymond at the University of Delaware for many
years and most people believed that he would someday succeed Raymond
as head coach. Kempski was the most in-demand clinic speaker in the country
for years. He was a fountain of knowledge and was very much responsible
for constantly updating the wing-t offense with new ideas. Kempski was
the second coach to tutor me in the wing-t offense. He was so willing
to talk football and share ideas that he once flew to Edinboro University
in a snowstorm to clinic our staff. The Delaware offensive line coaches
were always great teachers and were equally great sources of learning
for coaches trying to implement the wing-t system. Gregg Perry succeeded
Rodgerson as the line coach at Delaware and was another great teacher
and clinician. Perry was a fixture at coaching clinics across the country
and taught many coaches the fundamentals of wing-t offensive line play.
Another coach who deserves mentioning when discussing the great teachers
of the wing-t is a little known coach who taught me most of what I know
about the offense. His name is John D’Ottavio. I first met Coach
D’Ottavio when he was the offensive coordinator for Coach Barry
Streeter at Gettysburg College. At that time Gettysburg College was one
of the finest offensive football teams in the country at any level. I
had the opportunity to meet him because Kempski was too busy to spend
time with me during one of Delaware’s summer camps. During that
summer camp Kempski had intended to meet with me to teach me the offense.
When he got too busy he said for me to meet with D’Ottavio and
his exact words were that “John knows more about the offense than
anyone including me.” Those were powerful words coming from the
man that most people felt was the leading expert on the wing-t offense
in the country. D’Ottavio had spent ten years as a player and all
10 years were in the wing-t system. At that time D’Ottavio was
in his 15th year as a coach and all 15 were also in the wing-t. That
added up to 25 straight years in the wing-t. Besides the years of experience,
D’Ottavio was a dynamic speaker, motivator and salesman for the
wing-t offense.
During the many years that the University of Delaware was enjoying success
with the wing-t there were countless numbers of college programs that
also used the wing-t as their offense. There are many more than I can
name in this article but I am able to list the following: Middlebury
College, Tufts University, Gettysburg College, Clarion University, Edinboro
University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of South Dakota,
Morningside College, Grove City College, Gannon University, Defiance
College, Cumberland College, North Central College, James Madison University,
Delaware State University, San Francisco State University, Southern Connecticut
University, Augustana College, Salisbury State University, Salve Regina
University and William Paterson University. These are only the schools
that I can remember and who had coaches that I have come in contact with
over the course of my time in coaching. I am quite sure that there have
been many more colleges who have used the wing-t that I don’t know
about. The most glowing tribute to the wing-t besides its success on
the field is the number of schools who thought so much of the offense
that they adopted it as their own system of offensive football. In my
33 years as a coach and ten years as a player, I can think of no other
system that has been copied at so many other schools.
In my own coaching career, I began to run the wing-t when I became the
head coach at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 1979. I originally
had intended to incorporate wing-t blocking schemes into an I formation
offense. To learn those blocking schemes I took my staff on a trip to
the University of Delaware. During that visit to Delaware we became so
enamored with the offense that we scrapped the original idea of using
just the blocking schemes and went to the entire system lock, stock,
and barrel! We were believers after seeing what the system could do.
Oddly enough, it was a graduate assistant coach named Steve Nolan who
first talked me and my staff into visiting Delaware. Nolan had played
in the wing-t at Clarion University of Pennsylvania and had experienced
much success with the offense.
What we learned in those early days was that you could move the ball
and score points without having dominating talent. Since we were taking
over a program that had been losing, we did not have dominant talent.
We had a stable full of 5-foot-10, 175-pound running backs and an offensive
line that was not big enough to knock people off the ball. By using the
wing-t system we were able to play .500 football for my first three years.
However, the following three years were dynamic. We won 25 football games
and lost only five while averaging over 400 yards and 36 points per game
for that three year time period. As a head coach, I took this offense
to three different universities: Edinboro University, San Francisco State
University and the University of South Dakota. At all three universities
we were able to take losing programs and turn them into successful programs.
Twelve of my former assistant coaches went on to become college head
coaches and many of them continued to run the wing-t offense. Tom Herman
at Gannon University, Malen Luke at Clarion University, Gerry Gallagher
at William Paterson University, Ron Rankin at the University of South
Dakota, Phil Willenbrock at the University of Puget Sound, and Blair
Hrovat at Allegheny College were all very successful head coaches using
the wing-t offense.
Diagram 2.
|
In today’s football, the passing game has re-emerged as
the offensive style of choice returning the profession to where
we were in the mid-60s. Much of this is media driven and the trend
is to throw the ball so that the media will not brand the coach
as old fashioned or even archaic. A coach is pressured to throw
the football to keep the media, and consequently, the alumni off
his back. The trend towards passing should not hurt the future
of the wing-t offense. In fact the best wing-t teams over the years
were always the teams who could complete the keep pass and the
waggle pass on a consistent basis. The 1990s featured wing-t teams
opening up their formations and spreading the defenses while still
utilizing four backs. The following formation is a “loose
formation” and is a modern adaptation of the basic wing-t
formation:
Diagram 3.
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Diagram 4.
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Another variation of the basic wing-t formation is the double
wing formation, which gives an offense the threat of four quick
receivers while keeping the integrity of the four back attack alive.
Diagram 5.
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A modern adaptation of the double wing formation is a loose double
wing formation which gives the offense the ability to utilize many
of the passing concepts that would be used in a run and shoot offense.
The latest evolution in the wing-t offense was to create formations that
gave the offense the threat of trips (three) receivers to one side while
still maintaining the integrity of the four back attack. Using the loose
double wing formation with both ends on the same side accomplished this
objective. In some of these formations one of the receivers might be
ineligible but by stepping the wingbacks and the ends on and off the
line of scrimmage we can create four back offenses with trips receivers
and make everybody eligible. Here are two examples of these kinds of
formations. In the first example one of the ends is ineligible but in
the second example everyone is eligible. We arrive at these formation
variables by stepping the wingbacks and ends on and off the line of scrimmage.
Diagram 5.
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Diagram 6.
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The second formation can put either the widest or second widest
receiver off the line of scrimmage and the backside wingback on
the line of scrimmage making everybody eligible.
Even with the modernization of the offense one must wonder what is the
future of the wing-t? With the retirement of Coach Raymond and the change
in philosophies at the University of Delaware the wing-t has lost its
leader in the Division I arena. The offense has continued at the small
college level but with fewer teams. Why has this happened and will the
wing-t go the way of the single wing? These are great questions and the
answer is simple in my mind. If just one Division I school would start
using the offense again they would attract a national audience and national
support. The wing-t offense continues to flourish at the high school
level and all of those high school coaches would love to send their players
to a major school to play in that system which is so much fun for the
players. In fact, a school could have a national recruiting base without
spending any additional money simply by running the wing-t offense. The
basic structure of the offense is outstanding and has the adaptability
to make the changes needed for modern football philosophies.
There are some unscrupulous college recruiters who negatively recruit
against the wing-t by making statements like “you can’t get
to the pros in the wing-t.” This hurts the reputation of the offense
but is not true. Rich Gannon was a wing-t quarterback and was this year’s
MVP in the National Football League. The truth of the matter is that
it is much easier for wing-t coaches and players to adapt to other systems
than the reverse because the wing-t is taught with such precise detail.
Any college athletic director looking for a way to turn a struggling
program into a successful program would be wise to bring this system
to his school. The national interest that he would create by using this
system would give him a guaranteed recruiting base as well as unlimited
numbers of potential summer camp participants. The wing-t has survived
for over 50 years and has never been better. The offense will continue
to flourish in the future because it has such great flexibility and adaptability.
Best of luck with your wing-t offense!
Wing-T
Related Videos
Dennis Creehan is considered one of the
foremost experts on the Wing-T offense. To learn more about
Dennis Creehan and the Wing-T offense, log onto www.AFMVideos.com to
get these great Wing-T
videos – and hundreds more!
Constructing a Winning Game
Plan for the Wing-T FV-00875
Wing-T Practice & Drills (3-tape series) FV-00876
Wing-T Practice Routine FV-00876A
Wing-T Practice Drills: Quarterbacks & Running Backs FV-00876B
Wing-T Practice Drills: Split Ends, Tight
Ends & Offensive Line FV-00876C
The Wing-T Option Game FV-01084
The Down Option: Wing-T Option Game FV-01084A
The Belly Option: Wing-T Option Game FV-01084B
The Trap Option: Wing-T Option Game FV-01084C
Wing-T Sweep FV-00426
Wing-T Offensive Series FV-00426-28
Wing-T Belly FV-00427
Wing-T Down FV-00428
Attacking the 5-3 Defense with the Wing-T FV-01571A
Attacking the 4-3 Defense with the Wing-T FV-01571B
Attacking the 4-4 Defense with the Wing-T FV-01571C
Attacking the 5-2 Defense with the Wing-T FV-01571D
Find
Wing-T Videos
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About the author: Dennis
Creehan
Creehan, a veteran of more than 30 years of coaching
at both the professional and collegiate levels, enters his first
season as the special teams coordinator at Army.
Creehan, who coordinated the special teams at Duke University and worked
with the Blue Devils’ inside and outside linebackers the past two
years, will oversee the specialty units at Army this season. Prior to signing
on at Duke, Creehan served as defensive coordinator at Rutgers University
for three years.
While working with Duke’s special teams, the Blue Devils topped the
Atlantic Coast Conference and ranked fourth nationally in punt return average
in 2001, establishing a school record in the process. Additionally, he
helped guide a Duke defense that was vastly improved a year ago.
Creehan helped Rutgers post the second-best turnaround in the nation in
1998 as the Scarlet Knights improved from a winless 1997 campaign to five
wins in 1998, his first season at RU. Creehan began his coaching career
in 1971, serving as defensive coordinator at Keystone Oaks High School
in Pittsburgh, Pa. In 1974, he joined Johnny Majors’ staff at the
University of Pittsburgh, where he spent one season as the tight ends coach
and recruiting coordinator.