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AFM Magazine


The Use of Formations to Gain an Advantage

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Garrison High School has a long tradition of a winning football program. We have been in the playoffs 28 times and won 22 district championships. This was the first time in my coaching career that I had taken over a program that had a winning tradition and the opportunity was there to make a good program great instead of trying to turn an unsuccessful program into a winning program.

I was hired in July of 1999 and had only a few weeks to familiarize myself with my coaches and players. I spent the time between mid-July and the beginning of practice in early August teaching the very basics of our offense and defense. The first season we learned everything on the run. We had a great season going 12-1 and getting beat in the third round of the playoffs.

In my second season, with a very small senior class, we won 7 games and lost 5 while being eliminated in the second round of the playoffs. In my third season at Garrison, we went 7-3 in the regular season, barely making the playoffs. We hit stride in the playoffs winning 5 straight to get to the state finals. In the finals, we met Celina, a team that had won 3 straight state championships and had a 56 game winning streak (the all time record in the state of Texas at the time). We played a great game but lost 41-35.

After the disappointment of the loss wore off (some, you never get over) we started analyzing the game. We concluded that because they had lined up in over 30 formations in the films that we broke down, we had spent too much time trying to show our kids where to line up against each formation to be successful. We had five kids on our defense that received academic all-state recognition but we still did not always line up right and we were not as aggressive as we wanted our kids to be.

We decided that we would attempt to use formations to our advantage. We do not say ‘win’ with formations because we know that you win with good football players executing your game plan. We also knew that this would only work if our players understood what we were doing and what we were trying to accomplish. The advantage that we felt we had was that we would be working on our formations 14-20 weeks and the team trying to stop us would have one week to prepare for us.


Diagram 1. Right formation


Diagram 2. Left formation


Diagram 3A. "R" formation


Diagram 3B. "L" formation


Diagram 4A. Right Over


Diagram 4B. Left Over


Diagram 5. Lettering System


Diagram 6. TB "A"


Diagram 7. TB "Y"


Diagram 8. Left Over Fullback "A"


Diagram 9. "Full House R"


Diagram 10A. Heavy "R"


Diagram 10B. Heavy "L"

Our base formation is a pro-set (See Diagram l.)

We have a flanker, tight end, and a split end that flip-flop depending on the call. The flanker and tight end always go to the strong side of the formation. Everyone else lines up in the same position unless we specifically tell them to line up elsewhere.

We call the back behind the right guard the fullback and the back behind the left guard the tailback. If we called “Left” we would look like this (Diagram 2):

If we wanted to go from a pro set to a double tight formation, we would call “R” or “L”:

(Diagrams 3A and 3B):

We usually substitute a bigger player for the split end when we want to go to a double tight formation.

We would call “Right Over” or “Left Over” if we wanted to go to a twin set opposite our tight end. (The word “over” is an alert for the flanker only. It tells him to go opposite the call.) We put the flanker on the inside in case we want to use motion. (See Diagrams 4A & 4B)

These changes are usually made to find out what they are doing as far as secondary coverage and to determine what the defense will do to our strong side as opposed to our weak side.

We also have a lettering system for our backs if we want to position them at a different place. For example: if we want the tailback to line up (or shift) to a certain spot we can do it by calling it in our formation call. We use the following system to designate different positions on the field. (Diagram 5)

For example: Right TB “A” would look like this. (See Diagram 6)

Now we have a four receiver set with only one person moving. We might call Right over TB “Y” (See Diagram 7)

This usually gets man coverage on our tailback who is usually our best athlete. In 2003 our best athlete was our fullback so we would have used the following formation to get the desired coverage. (See Diagram 8)

We go to our “Full House” formation very easily. Full House is automatically a double tight end formation and the flanker moves in to a three back set. “R” or “L” tells our strongside TE which side to go to. (See Diagram 9.)

This was basically a running formation for us. Our flanker was a great athlete who did not get many carries but averaged over 10 yards per carry when he did. This formation allows us to run the triple option to either side as well as having two lead blockers on leads instead of one. We also used crossing action from our backs to attempt to confuse the defense.

Using the same concept as Full House, we go unbalanced occasionally to see how the defense adjusts. We call this set “Heavy”. (See Diagrams 10A and 10B)

We run the same plays out of this as we do out of Full House. We hope to get personnel match-ups that are favorable to us or to get defenses to under-adjust or over-adjust when we go unbalanced. I know that defensive coaches have coached their players on all of our alignments, but we also know that because of time restraints and kids sometimes not performing in game situations as they do in practice we may gain the advantage that we desire.


Diagram 11. Jumbo "R"

Another formation that we employed is what we call our Jumbo set. With this set we bring in an extra lineman for our flanker. (See Diagram 11)

Our hope in using this formation was that you would put down an extra lineman that would be out of position (usually a defensive back) and not as strong as our lineman. If the defense didn’t bring someone up to the line of scrimmage, a gap should be available for us to exploit. We give our QB the freedom to change the play or change the hole we are running to at the line of scrimmage. This gives us a better chance of exploiting a defensive weakness. We still have our normal alignment on the “weak” side.


Diagram 12. Hog Formation

In passing situations we go to our Hog formation. This is an I formation with three wide outs. We put our flanker and split end on one side and our fullback as a single receiver on the other side. We moved our tight end to the fullback position. He did a good job of catching the ball out of the backfield as well as a good job of pass blocking. (See Diagram 12)

We run all combination patterns out of this set as well as isolation patterns with our fullback. We also ran a draw and screen as well as hitting both backs out of the backfield from this formation.


Diagram 13. "Trips"

In obvious passing situations we sometimes went to a trips set. In this formation we moved the tight end and fullback to the flanker side to get the three receivers and switched the flanker and tight end as far as who was on the line of scrimmage and who was off. (See Diagram 13)

This allowed us to better utilize our personnel. We need a faster receiver on the outside to spread the field. It also allowed us to use our tight end in shorter crossing patterns and to block for the fullback on any quick hitting pass.


Diagram 14. Double TE, Double FL

Another formation that we used in a crucial playoff game was a doub
le tight end, double flanker formation 1 back. (See Diagram 14)
We decided after scouting and seeing the difficulty our opponent had defending this formation that we could easily adapt our personnel to utilize the angles that we hoped to get. We called this our Lott formation, (named for our upcoming opponent) but we could just have easily called it “R Fullback A” and moved the TB to the one back position.

Occasionally we lined up in one formation and shifted to another. We did this against teams that flip-flopped their line or tried to match up personnel with us. We use motion to get the defense to adjust and get them out of position when the ball is snapped.

In looking at what we are doing, I want to re-emphasize my belief that formations and trick plays do not win football games. My article is not titled ‘Winning with Formations’; it is titled ‘Using Formations to Our Advantage’.

The advantages that I feel we gain are:

1. It is fun for our players - Our players like to line up at different spots and play different positions. (For example – tight end to fullback, flanker to fullback in a three back set, and fullback to receiver.)

2. We have been able to get people out of position by the way we line up, by shifting, and by using motion. Rarely has it created a problem for us.

3. We have been able to better utilize our personnel by moving them around to take advantage of their individual skills.

4. We have been able to create better angles for our linemen to block, and holes in the defense for the backs to run through. This allows a good player to become a better player.

5. We feel that this requires our opponents to spend more time game planning our formations and less time game planning how to stop our offense.

I do know that this plan can help, but games are won by young men executing in crucial situations. This happens when they are aggressive and understand what you are trying to accomplish.

The philosophy of our coaching staff is simple:

1. Have fun - (Both coaches and players.)
2. Be aggressive - do not be afraid to make mistakes going full speed.
3. Play to win - if winning were not important, no one would keep score (and I would sleep better after a loss)
4. Win with class - you are not a winner if you do not exhibit good sportsmanship and win with class.


Related Videos
American Football Monthly now offers a full line of coaching videos. So, if you enjoyed this clinic article, here are a few videos that you may find interesting:

FV-01295B Multiple Formations and Personnel Grouping (Williams and Atkins)
FV-01306 Inside Zone Offense (4 tapes)
FV-01333E The Spread Formation (Munez and Johnson)


To find these videos and many others, view our online catalog at www.AFMVideos.com.

About the author
Jimmy Thompson


Coach Jimmy Thompson begins his sixth season at Garrison High School this fall. In his previous five seasons, the Bulldogs have compiled a 57-12 record including a 15-4 mark in playoff competition. Last year Garison went 16-0 and won their first state football championship. Thompson has a composite coaching record of 122-52-1 and has been named State AA Coach of the Year twice. You can reach him at gitn@excite.com






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