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AFM Magazine


Myths vs. Facts - The A-11 Offense a Year Later

by: Mike Kuchar
Senior Writer, American Football Monthly
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It was only last spring when AFM first debuted this radical new offensive scheme that was conceived in the living room of Steve Humphries, the offensive coordinator at Piedmont High School in California. Back then it might have only been a fad when Humphries and head coach Kurt Bryan had just installed it the season before and really had only implemented it on offense around 70 percent of their snaps.

But since, it has taken on a life of its own. Like any fad that starts to pick up speed, the A-11 has become more of a trend, particularly in the California Bay area, and may be coming to a program near you. The scheme has been featured in The Washington Post, made four appearances in The New York Times and has been mentioned among the “Top 10 innovative football ideas” in ESPN The Magazine. Its DVD sales are among the highest in the AFM library and the installation manual – the blueprint of Bryant’s and Humphries’ innovation – has been purchased by nearly 100 programs this year.

So you’d think with all this attention comes fame? Think again. Humphries and Bryan spend as much time defending their concoction as they do devising plays to best defenses. It seems people may fear what they don’t understand – the state of North Carolina banned the use of the A-11 because they say it is unfair to defenses trying to determine which receivers were eligible. It gets trashed daily in football blogs, and some officiating crews in West Virginia feel that it ruins the balance between offenses and defenses.

Since AFM was the first to introduce it to a national audience of coaches, we feel it’s our responsibility to keep you up-to-date on the controversies surrounding the A-11 and its acceptance by programs around the country. We asked the creators of the A-11, coaches that have adopted the revolutionary offense and even a veteran official to address the myths that surround the program and the facts that support it.

The A-11 offense is a pass-oriented offense with no chance of running the ball effectively.

Gary Chambers, Head Coach, Saddleback Valley Christian HS (CA), 10-1 record in 2008
“Actually, I believe it is an excellent running offense. We ran what we call the jet sweep as our staple. We had two very fast running backs so a lot of teams sell out – sending their defensive ends hard to stop it. We would just run our single back on the cross to the back-side or a QB draw when they did over commit. We also found that we could just drop our QB back another yard (past the seven yard depth mandatory for a scrimmage kick formation) and neutralize them as well. The A-11 actually makes the backs better by giving them larger running lanes. Big backs are more effective and so are scat backs. Our running game still produced two-thirds of our offensive production. I call it a spread offense on steroids.”

Steve Humphries, Offensive Coordinator, Piedmont HS
“This past season we had 276 passing attempts and 282 rushing attempts. Out of 558 plays, we ran the ball 50.5 percent of the time and passed it 49.5. If that’s not offensive balance, I don’t know what is. We had 19 rushing TD’s and 29 passing TD’s. We have so many kids that can touch the ball. In our stat book this year we had 16 kids rushing the ball and 11 catching the ball. The ball gets spread around a lot. We are simply spreading teams out to run the ball effectively. It’s the same concept used in spread offenses.”

Johnny Poynter, Head Coach, Trimble County HS (KY)
“I believe that we were more run oriented than the others that ran the A-11. Our QB ran for over 1,200 yards and was the top running QB in the state. We ran the QB draw, the QB counter off the jet motion, the QB Iso and the speed option. All of them were effective. Our QB this year was a converted wide receiver from last season who caught 40 passes for 650 yards as a junior. He was our best athlete, so this scheme was perfect for him. He threw the ball 271 times and we ran it 339 times. So we were certainly pretty balanced.”

The A-11 offense helps undersized and undermanned teams compete more effectively throughout the course of an entire season.

Chambers:
“I would agree that the offense tends to level the playing field when one team is much smaller than the other. There is no doubt that athleticism is at a premium for teams playing the A-11, but that works both ways. Our two toughest games occurred when the other side had similar athleticism. But we still managed to move the ball. Also, remember that offense is just one half of the game. The A-11 gives the team with less size and strength a shot at scoring parity. A high scoring game with such contrasting sizes and styles would be very fun to watch.”

Humphries:
“I would recommend going online and watching our game against Hancock Christian. They had more talent than anyone I’ve ever seen, including seven legitimate Division I players. If we were in our one-back west coast scheme like we were two years ago, we would have gotten demolished. By using the A-11 we spread those guys out. We hit them with a double pass to go ahead late in the game. A lot of teams couldn’t get first downs on them but we were able to move the ball because of our scheme. We chose not to line up and try and pound them. We lost 61-34 but it was one of the best games of the year. The fans were totally excited and our kids wanted to keep getting the ball back. Even though you’re outmanned, you can still make a game out of it because of this offense.”

Poynter
“Maybe so. We played the number one team in the state, Beechwood High School in Fort Mitchell, this year during the first round of our playoff game. We were down 21-0 with four minutes to go in the first half when we reverted back to the A-11 offense and we got away from our traditional wishbone set. We were able to score right away on a team that only surrendered about 7 points per game. It was a perfect scheme for us. We were very young and very small. Our average size was 5-7, 155 pounds. We started three freshmen and seven sophomores this year and we only had two players over 200 pounds – our QB and our center. If we didn’t use the A-11, I’m not sure we would have gotten out of there alive.”

The A-11 offense gives the offense an unfair advantage over the defense.

Chambers:
“I would probably agree that in many situations, this offense gives us an advantage. However, I would disagree that it is unfair. I keep hearing that this is a "new" exploitation of the rule. However, I know for a fact that Inglewood High School ran this offense in 1954. It did not work for them because of the athleticism of their opponents. Saying that it is unfair is the same as saying that the team that is twice as big and twice as fast and has twice as big a student body has an unfair advantage. Remember that before Red Grange, the forward pass was believed to be unfair. Every offense is designed to maximize the strengths and take advantages of the opponent's weaknesses. I keep hearing the word “deceptive” but deception is part of the game. Think about how many teams execute reverses, counters, statues of liberty, double pumps, double moves, screen passes, draws, false keys, traps and counters. Who wants to just run off-tackle over and over again?”

Humphries:
“It would be the biggest disservice to the game of football if the powers that be ban this offense. There are so-called football purists that don’t want the game changed in any way because of an unfair advantage. They think that we are creating a loophole to get around the rules. Rather than showing us how good football can be they want to knock us down. What we’ve been doing is showing an opportunity to make football a fun game. In fact, most coaches find it a fun challenge to play us rather than play a wing-T.”

The A-11 offense is impossible to be refereed due to determining pre-snap who is eligible and who is ineligible.

Sam Moriana, 50-year veteran of officiating, (CA)
“Any good high school official who is competent would have no problem officiating a game showcasing the A-11 scheme. They just need to be alert as to who is eligible on each play. They just have to be on their toes. It doesn’t take extra work, just intelligence. There may be flags thrown on each play, but once the ball doesn’t cross the line of scrimmage (let’s say on a screen play for instance) we just pick up the laundry. It’s really no big deal. We have had no complaints from any officials whatsoever that have refereed their games. The biggest pressure really is on the wing men – the head linesman and the line judge – because they are the ones who determine who is eligible. Piedmont doesn’t jockey back-and-forth. They let their position players be known which makes it easier on us. They declare it. They stay in the SKF (Scrimmage Kick Formation) with two deep backs all the time at least seven yards behind the LOS so they can still deploy five potential receivers. I think it’s only a matter of time before college rules committees take a look at this formation and allow it for downs other than fourth in the college game and make it an every-down possibility.”

Humphries:
“How many illegal men downfield penalties have we had? One. There was no problem with our games being refereed. It’s not an overwhelming task to manage the game. Just this season we traveled down to Laguna Beach HS and before we did so we got an email from Laguna Beach officials about a PowerPoint on the techniques they were going to use to ref our game. They tell us that they’ve been doing research all summer long. Even referees who have never seen our games, had never had any issues with it at all. They were fine. In fact, it may even be beneficial for them. The thing is, it’s so spread out you can see everybody. We may actually get away with less because they can see our hands better on holding penalties.”

Poynter:
“I had only one game where the officials had a problem with it and it was mainly because of who they were as people. They were ignorant and didn’t want to see any change in the game. The rest of our ten games, they were great. They had film on the offense beforehand, so they were well prepared. I called them during the playoffs when I knew we would have non-league referees and told them about what we do and they were very receptive. In fact, they mentioned how fun it is just to watch. They really enjoyed working the game and they were very competent during the game determining who is eligible. They would say #2 is on, #3 is off, etc.”

Chambers:
“Out of the 55 officials that refereed our games, two left the game unhappy about the offense. At least 30 came to me after the game and said it was not as tough to officiate as they thought it would be and said they thought it would be fun to watch as a fan.”

The A-11 offense is fun and builds enthusiasm for your program.

Chambers:
“This is not a myth. Even big guys want the opportunity to catch the ball and score a touchdown. This offense allows the guards and the center to occasionally go out for a pass. How cool is that? I have also heard, ‘what are you going to do with the VIP’s (that’s what we call our linemen)?’ I tell them we still need a defense and since we run a 5-2, we still need 5 - 7 of these guys and for a school of 234, where there are 117 boys and 43 of them play football, 5 - 7 of them in any given year is the exception, not the rule. This year we went 10 - 1 and had only one player over 200 lbs. and he was injured half the year. Without the A-11, we’re 7-3 at best.”

Poynter:
“We were really struggling during practice early on in the season so I told our kids to get a water break. When they returned, I told them, ‘I’m going to show you something here, but I can’t guarantee you it will work.’ Well, they were thrilled and it did work. During that last game in the playoffs when we were down by three scores, our kids were hollering for us to run the A-11. If I had this offense and was running it in a Central area school, not so much a rural town, we would get tremendous publicity. It would be unreal. We finished the season with 26 kids on the team and there were already 46 at our post-season meeting as soon as the season ended.”

Humphries:
“This is true, no question. In practice there is no telling who is getting the ball. The kids are attentive and they know their assignments. The kids are excited because they play an outcome in the game because so many of them touch the ball. Kids have a chance to make their mark two, three, even seven times during the course of the game. It’s great for football and it’s great for the fans. We had kids in the stands during our home games with ‘A-11’ painted on their chest. They love it. It makes the game exciting and it makes the game fun. Who doesn’t want to see a game where any particular player at any moment can go out for a pass?”






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