The Wing-T vs. Multiple Defenses

by: David Purdum
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For defensive coordinators, there is no peskier offensive scheme than the good, old Wing-T. They keep trying to pop that guard trap over and over. Then right as your linebackers have forgotten what a pass looks like, they go play-action. Absolutely aggravating.

Western Branch High School (Chesapeake, Va.) Head Coach Lew Johnston is a pesky Wing-T guy. Orchestrated 75-percent of the time out of the shotgun, Johnston’s T really drives D.C.’s crazy. Pearl River High School (LA) Head Coach Joe Harris is also a pesky Wing-T guy. He actually gets excited calling the guard trap. “It’s like throwing the bomb,” Harris says.

University of Alabama-Birmingham D.C. Wayne Bolt says to stop those pesky Wing-T guys, you have to throw a change-up at them. Bolt’s Blazers boasted the second best rush defense in Conference USA.

Amite High School (LA) Head Coach Donald Currier says you need to stay true to your alignments and your assignments to thwart the Wing-T. All four coaches agree on one thing, though – The Wing-T is an effective and proven offense and, when executed properly, very hard to defend.

“I love coaching the Wing-T,” said Harris, who was taught the offense by former NFL quarterback Bobby Hebert. “Just the little details with the Wing-T up front, I just have a ball with them. You could tinker forever.” Harris tinkered his T to back-to-back playoff appearances, a school first.

Delaware’s Tubby Raymond Wing-T-ed his way into the Hall of Fame. Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas and Notre Dame have all at one time utilized the Wing-T. So why has this time-tested system vanished from the college ranks?

“Most people’s perception of the Wing-T is ‘three-yards and a cloud of dust.’ It’s not glamorous enough,” said Bolt. “People want to see you throwing it all over the field these days. It’s really a shame, because the Wing-T is a great offense.”

“I don’t think it’s conservative. I guess it could be if you get up against a team and you just pound it up the middle and win,” said Harris, as if picturing his dream game. “But the Wing-T can be exciting.”

It’s even been suggested that high school players from a Wing-T system won’t cut it in college. Johnston couldn’t disagree more. Dre Bly and Shyrone Still are both former Bruins who went on to play in the NFL. Rich Gannon was a Wing-T quarterback at Delaware and an NFL MVP.

These days, the perception that the Wing-T is a grind-it-out, “boring” offense has become much more of a misnomer. After 50-plus years of yielding to the T, defenses began to increasingly commit to the run, sometimes throwing as many as eight or even nine players into the box. Now, the Wing-T is evolving right back. Modern versions, such as Johnston’s “Spread Shot-Wing,” are popping up all over the nation and causing defenses havoc with the kind of potent aerial attacks once thought to be reserved for spread offenses. It shouldn’t be that surprising that Wing-T teams are putting the ball in the air, though. After all, Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense comes from Wing-T philosophies, especially the use of misdirection.

Since implementing a spread shotgun attack into his Delaware Wing-T base philosophy four years ago, Johnston’s Bruins have won three straight district titles and ran off 32 consecutive regular season victories a few years ago.

“The teams that take it to another level are the ones that throw the ball out of the Wing-T,” says Currier, fresh off of winning the Louisiana Class 3A state title. “So many teams that run the Wing-T are very disciplined and run-oriented. When you play somebody that switches things up and throws the ball effectively out of the Wing-T, that’s when you’re really going to have trouble.”

Enter Johnston. While strictly maintaining the Wing-T’s principles, the 21-year veteran has shifted his tight end and wingback outside. In the Spread Shot-Wing, the tight ends are lined up approximately 7-10 yards from the offensive tackle, with the wingback split 12-15 yards outside the tight end. The quarterback is five yards behind the center, and the fullback and halfback are aligned behind the offensive guards.

“This has really allowed us to keep defenses off balance,” said Johnston. “Now, they can’t just worry about preparing for the Wing-T; they also have to be ready for the spread offense.”

Seventy-five percent of the time, the Bruins start out of the shotgun, using some of Delaware Wing-T’s base plays sprinkled with a series of play-action passes. The terminology is the same as the traditional Wing-T, as are the blocking schemes and various pass routes.

Harris’ Rebel offense is much more traditional. Pearl River throws the ball only 20 percent of the time. Yet, heading into his fifth season, Harris stresses that the 20 percent is vital to the Rebels’ success, especially when facing a defense with fast, athletic linebackers. “Sometimes we’re asking an offensive tackle that weighs 270 pounds to try and block a fast, 200-pound linebacker,” he said.

Harris was an assistant at Slidell (LA.) High School under head coach Wayne Grubb, who, after Wing-T-ing his way to the Class 5A state championship game in 1986, scrapped the offense in favor of a spread attack. “Coach Grubb said, after he got out of the Wing-T, that he was tired of making all-district linebackers for everybody else,” laughed Harris. “Linebackers can give it a hard time. If you’re going to run the ball that many times down inside, that’s what linebackers do, they plug the run.”

Grubb says one of the best ways to aid your linemen and slow down the linebackers, is by the use of misdirection and ball fakes. “You have to be conscious of your technique, especially when carrying out your ball fakes,” the 21-year veteran Slidell coach said. “That’s very important in the Wing-T.”

In practice, the Rebels spend a lot of time teaching escape techniques and routes, trying to get their linemen past the defensive line and onto those troublesome linebackers. “We have our linemen do head-fakes,” he said. “If we’re facing a 50-tech, two-gap football player – they’re taught to squeeze down and jam you up to keep you off the linebackers – we’ll give a little head fake, and it’ll work twice a game. We try to teach them techniques to escape. Turn your shoulders, keep their hands off your numbers.”

Still, the buck sweep, belly and guard trap are the heart of the Wing-T. Harris’ Rebels once made T-shirts that read, “Put eight in the box and we’ll still run the football.” Pearl River has produced 1,000 yard rushers in four of the last five seasons.

“We believe that the system of the Wing-T will take care of whatever front they’ll give you,” said Harris, who is a district rival of Currier’s Warriors. “If we can run it down their throats and beat them, I won’t put in the air once. But you’re not going to run it down the throats of Amite. They can take on blocks, they can shed blocks and then get to the football.”

Currier says his defense’s success against the Wing-T is centered on keeping his players’ assignments consistent. Amite held St. James High School, which features a similar attack to Johnston’s, to only 20 points in last year’s semifinals. St. James entered the game averaging 34 points a game in the playoffs.

Currier will rarely vary from their traditional 4-3 alignment. “You don’t want to make too many changes to your base defense,” he explained. “You want to keep the same alignment and assignment, especially assignment, to keep it simple so your kids are reacting not thinking.”

“You’re not supposed to be able to defend the Wing-T with Cover 3,” said Harris, “but they do it every year.”

When preparing his team for the Wing-T, Currier will lay out hoses on the field to form a lane in which the defenders are to attack. “When they run the buck sweep, their backs aren’t running to daylight,” he said. “They’re running to a point and making a cut. We’ll put those hose pipes down to simulate where that cut is. We want our kids to attack down that hose pipe.”

Like in most traditional Cover 3’s, Currier’s free safety plays centerfield and is responsible for pass until he identifies run. Amite’s linebackers react to the run first, and then drop back in pass coverage.

At UAB, Bolt prefers to get his safety more involved in the running game when facing an option-based offense. He also changes up assignments to try to keep the offense off-balance. “If somebody starts moving the ball on us consistently, we’ll maybe switch two linebackers’ responsibilities, just trying to give them the same look,” Bolt said.

The Wing-T’s Long Bomb The fullback dive or guard trap is anything but the most exciting play in football. Harris disagrees. The guard trap is one of the seven base plays in the Rebels’ version of the Wing-T. “When I call the guard trap, to me it’s like throwing the bomb, because there’s always that chance that you’re going to pop that trap,” he said. “You can stick that guy out there and run that go route and just throw it down the field, and he might catch it two out of 15 times. But I can run that guard trap 15 times, a couple times it’s going to pop for six or seven yards.”

The Rebels set up the trap through a variety of slight adjustments. “We’ll try to influence the linemen by faking a buck sweep,” Harris said. “Sometimes we don’t even have to block the trap guy. Anything that indicates a false read—we’ll trap to the motion and catch people slanting toward the motion; we’ll gut it, switch it up already.”

Along with the guard trap, the buck sweep has to be established in order for the Wing-T to really get rolling. The keys to a successful buck sweep, according to Harris, are getting the guards ouside to form the cutback lane for the back. “A lot of the down blocks are right in front but the main thing is getting those guards out there,” he said. “We’ll run the buck sweep out of three different formations, sneak an unbalanced look in there or just outnumber them on one side. You can get away with it one or two times before they catch on. Lombardi’s power sweep is the same thing. It’s just a good football play that’s lasted over time.”

That’s what Dave Nelson had in mind when he invented the Delaware Wing-T over 50 years ago.

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