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Spread Shotgun Wing T Offense: The Running Gameby: Lew JohnstonHead Coach, Western Branch HIgh School, Chesapeake, VA © More from this issue To recap the information presented in our first article in the December, 2004 issue of American Football Monthly, we felt we needed a means to spread the field against defensive teams that wanted to gang up on us on the line of scrimmage. We had a young man whom we were developing at quarterback that we knew was going to be very talented as far as throwing the football. But I did not want to abandon our Delaware Wing T base philosophy. We took the Wing T formation and spread the TE and Wingback and stepped the Fullback over to the Flexed TE side and walked the QB back to 5 yards depth. We now presented three wide receivers with the potential for a 4th if we wanted to set our Halfback up in the slot to the SE side. We preferred keeping the HB in the backfield for two reasons: 1- for pass protection purposes and 2 - for simplicity sake. We didn’t want to overburden our offensive players since this spread Wing T shotgun package was just a change-up to our base Wing T attack. I wanted to keep our Delaware Wing T terminology and schemes so we looked at how we could incorporate them into a shotgun offense. The Delaware system has three basic series: 1- the 20’s which includes buck sweep, fullback trap and waggle; 2 - the 30 series which are the power (double team) plays; and 3 - the 80 series which includes the belly isolation play. Again, we wanted to start out simple so we chose one play from each series to strengthen our running game. Our two most effective plays have been off tackle with the Halfback carrying the ball and the belly iso with the Fullback carrying the ball. One attacks the flexed TE side and the other attacks the SE side.
The fullback kicks out the end man on the line and the flexed TE runs off and then blocks the defender over him. We have on occasion directed the flex end to crack back on the first LB to his inside. The wide outs run off the defender and stalk him. The QB receives the snap and hands off to the HB who is crossing in front of him and bootlegs away from the play.
The final running play we adapted from our Delaware Wing T system was the Fullback Trap (Diagram 3). One thing we discovered is that we needed to trap AWAY from the Fullback's alignment. When we tried to trap the defensive lineman to the side of the Fullback, he penetrated so much (which you normally like defensive linemen to do when you trap them) that he was hitting the Fullback as soon as he got the ball. By trapping across the formation, the pulling Guard can get that penetrating defensive Tackle and the Fullback can run up inside the trap block. We use standard inside trap blocking rules just like most teams do in America.
We fake the Fullback Belly Iso and send both backs to the fake side. The HB checks the flank for Outside LB blitz and the FB fills off the hip of the pulling tackle. The play-side Guard and Tackle block their FB Iso rules since the play will be coming back to them. The Center and back-side Guard block On-Away. As mentioned, the back-side Tackle pulls and leads through the hole, picking up the LB as he scrapes back. The QB rides the FB and waits until the pulling tackle crosses his face. He then follows the Tackle into the hole. In reality, it becomes a QB Counter Iso with the Tackle leading (See Diagrams 4A and 4B).
With these three basic Wing T plays, plus the QB misdirection play, we had all the running offense we needed to attack along a broad front. Because we have the defense spread, we did not attack wide. We wanted to attack the Inside LB’s who were looking for pass first from our spread attack. Remember that the passing game becomes the focal point in this package. We use the run simply to keep the defense honest. With defenses having to prepare for both packages each week, we found that our Wing T running game flourished. The extra time defenses would have been able to use to create sound keys against our Wing T running attack was now taken up devising ways to defend our Spread Shot-Wing T offense! We, however, were just taking our Wing T offense and spreading the field. It really did not require extra preparation on our part. It was built into our schemes; therefore, it was easily built into our practice schedule. This offense allowed us to win 32 straight regular season games over a 3 1/2 season period. We won three straight District championships and one Regional championship and appeared in the State play-offs every season. Having a great drop-back passing QB helped elevate us to the championship level, but it’s the system that makes it work. |
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