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The Wing T Shotgun Offenseby: Greg Wallace© More from this issue We have over the last three years taken our traditional zone and wing-t running game and adapted it to the shotgun formation. We have had very athletic quarterbacks that have allowed us to show off their running abilities as well as their passing skills in the shotgun set. We firmly believe that the QB can best be featured as a runner from the shotgun formation. It truly enables the QB to be a two-way threat. Our base offense is a one back set with a slot receiver and three wide outs, or a tight end and two wipeouts. Utilizing these same sets only now out of the shotgun has allowed us to keep our package very similar (See Diagrams 1 and 2).
I will go over our base plays from our base set, then show you
the same play from the shotgun. The first play is the basic wing
t sweep. We run the traditional double guard pull where we will
either log the defensive end and pull around, or we will kick the
defense end out and turn up with the trail guard. We can run the
base sweep with either the R or the F running the ball (See Diagrams
3A and 3B).
Then the same plays from the shotgun (See Diagrams 4A and 4B).
The other wrinkle to this play that works extremely well from
the gun is the QB keep and fake to the RB. This has been a great
addition to our playbook, with the QB averaging over 5 yards per
carry (See Diagram 5).
The sweep reverse is a great addition to the playbook as a trick
play or part of the regular offense. We like the reverse coming
off the keep by the QB as it allows the RB to now be the lead blocker
on the play (See Diagram 6A).
This leads us to the play action pass of the sweep, or the waggle
pass. The waggle pass gives you a great opportunity to hit the long
ball, or work the flat or curl area. We peek at the deep ball and
then go directly to the flat or the hole route (See Diagram 7A),
We will also run the base sweep with an empty backfield
and motion either of our slot receivers back and run the same basic
plays. The idea of an empty backfield initially has the defense
spread and thinking pass. The ability to run the power sweep can
catch defenses a little off balanced (See Diagram 8).
This same basic play can be run by the QB with or without a slot
man faking a sweep (See Diagram 9).
Each of these plays gives us very good play action passes. The
first is with our basic over and under route, and the other is a
corner route versus cover 2 (See Diagrams 12 and 13).
Our basic inside run from the shotgun is more of a draw look,
but it gives us a chance to still pull like we do in the wing t
plays. We want to try and attack the 1 technique as the angles are
better, but it doesn’t hurt the other way either (See Diagram
14).
The play action off this basic play is very good as well as giving
you strong protection with the QB being in the traditional pocket.
This is our traditional curl route where the QB will read the strong
inside linebacker to determine whether to hit the hook or the curl
(see Diagram 16).
These are just a couple of our basic plays that we have adapted from our basic offense and made them very good running plays from the shotgun. The other key component is that you are now utilizing one of your best athletes running the football: your QB. We also feel strongly that as opposed to running the waggles and boots from under center and sometimes getting jammed inside, now our QB is back off the ball and sees the rush from the very start.
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