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The A-11 Offense: You Have to See it to Believe it

by: Mike Kuchar
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Warning: Although completely accurate, the following information may seem preposterous, even downright offensive, to some defensive coaches and those conventional offensive coordinators who have grown accustomed to running the same scheme year after year and too set in their ways to change. All skill players on the field at the same time? Every player can be eligible on any given play? It’s real. It’s all real. So real that we got film to prove it – right now as a matter of fact on AmericanFootballMonthly.com. So before you get any further, put this article down, get on your computer and check it out. Go ahead, you won’t believe your eyes.

Now do you believe us? We don’t blame you for being a little skeptical. In fact, nobody believed Head Coach Kurt Bryan at Piedmont High School (CA) either when he and Assistant Coach Steve Humphries dreamed up this scheme over a year ago in the bowels of the football office at Piedmont. They say the mother of all invention is necessity, and Bryan found it necessary to be able to compete against schools that were twice the size of the 800-student enrollment that he had. As a one-back, west coast style offense the previous season, Piedmont was 5-5, struggling to edge their way into the playoffs. So, he got to thinking. The plan was to create a scheme that would spread defenses and get his best athletes on the field at the same time – giving them plenty of grass to work with. But that just wasn’t original enough; most of the country was already shifting to the spread offense. So, Bryan had to come up with something totally different and what he just may have done is completely revolutionize the game of football.

Bryan and Humphries began designing what they initially called ‘Project Pluto’ in the spring of 2007, concocting hundreds of unique formations on paper. The goal was to force defenses to cover the entire field and limit the possibility of getting to the QB, like so many teams were able to do against traditional spread teams. Problem was, whatever they would scheme up would not fly with some of the NFHS (National Foundation of High School) rules.

THE LIGHTBULB
But Bryan and Humphries found a chink in the armor of the NFHS, and it lay in the scrimmage kick formation. According to high school rules, a scrimmage kick formation (most commonly used in punts and drop kicks) is a formation with at least one player seven yards or more behind the neutral zone. There is no player in position to receive a hand-to-hand snap from between the snapper’s legs, with the possibility of a kick being attempted. The wheels started to churn. What if we can line up every play, not just fourth downs in a SKF? And what about the possibility of not kicking from the SKF? What if we can put our QB at seven yards as the kicker and run every play out of our system from that formation? They probed further into the rules of the SKF. According to the NFHS, all eligible receivers must wear jersey numbers 1-49 or 80-99, except in a scrimmage kick formation, and it is permitted to line up in a scrimmage kick formation every down. “Does that mean we don’t have to use ineligible numbers?” Bryan and Humphries began to think. Defenses would have a fit trying to figure out who they need to cover. “And what about the long snapper?” Bryan remembers asking himself. “In a punt you have to lay off that kid for a couple of seconds. Wouldn’t the same apply if we lined up every play in a scrimmage kick formation? We’d be able to get every shotgun snap off virtually untouched.” They were onto something big and they knew it.

“We knew by spreading the field from the numbers to the numbers, from left to right, we would force the defense to account for everybody. We wanted to create huge running and passing lanes for our smaller and quicker QBs. Basically we wanted to spread the offense to the extreme,” said Bryan. “We still weren’t totally sure that what we were coming up with was legal, but we knew it was cutting edge,” said Bryan. So, Bryan did the right thing by submitting his master plan to the California Rules Association in the spring before last season. He even invited some of the officials down to Piedmont for a whiteboard discussion and on-field demonstration of the new scheme. Although some of the officials couldn’t believe their eyes, it all checked out. “We really couldn’t figure out anything wrong with it,” said Sam Moriana, a California official with over 50 years of experience at the high school level. “When teams come out in high school in the punt formation, they usually punt. Although it’s not the typical punt formation, I just think that it’s different and innovative and was bound to come along. Kurt showed everybody what he was going to do. He didn’t hide anything.”

THE BLUEPRINT
Bryan named his new design the A-11 offense, which stands for ‘All Eleven Players Potentially Eligible.’ It features up to all eleven players wearing an eligible receiver jersey with the potential of two QBs in the shotgun formation. There is no one under center (that would violate SKF rules), thereby meeting the criteria for a scrimmage kick formation. In order to get the proper spacing, Bryan divides the field into thirds or pods (Diagram 1).
Diagram 1:'Pods'

The left hash to the left sideline is the red pod; between the hashes denotes the white pod; and the right hash to the right sideline is the blue pod. The base formation, which Bryan calls 3-5-3 (based on the numbers of players in each pod respectively) features a center with two adjacent linemen – that could be either guards or tight ends in the white pod. The next closest players line up a yard outside the hash with the potential of three to four players in each pod (Diagram 2). Two backs will line up in the backfield, either a running back and QB or two QBs. According to NFHS rules, if two players are in the backfield, the ball must be snapped between the two. So, defenses really never know who is going to get the snap. “We would want two QBs in the backfield in order to have a two-headed monster. Plus, the defense doesn’t know where the ball is going to be snapped. We can run it either way. You want your best athletes back there touching the ball as much as possible,” said Bryan. It was a crazy idea and could never work, right? “It was radical, but every change is. We figured that if we ever got this thing approved by the rules association and we got the green light it would be awesome. Either we would get fired or change the game of football forever. Obviously it worked out pretty well.”

Diagram 2: '3-5-3' Base Formation

After working out some of the initial kinks of a the new system, the Highlanders reeled off seven straight wins, and finished with a 9-3 record, including an undefeated record in league play. Although, the scheme may seem complex, Bryan and his staff worked on developing the most important element of any offense – keeping it simple for the players. “We had to clinic our players on the rules of the game, based on who is eligible or who is not. An eligible numbered player may not be eligible based on where his location is.”

According to high school rules, only five players are eligible to receive a pass on any particular play, with seven total players lining up on the line of scrimmage. Bryan wasn’t getting around that one, but he again found a way to tweak it just enough to create a conflict to the defense. Prior to the snap, in order to satisfy the seven players on the line requirement and to be in correct position for at least one second prior to the snap, the snapper and the six other players usually move onto the line of scrimmage. But that only pertains to a traditional formation. In a SKF, the numbering exception does not take effect until a player establishes himself on the line of scrimmage.

In other words, if all eleven players are off the line they are technically still eligible to receive a pass until they step on the line. And remember in the A-11 every player is wearing an eligible number so it’s virtually impossible to determine who isn’t eligible until it may be too late. Bryan may start in his base formation, but will frequently motion and shift until he gets a numbers advantage in one of the pods, as in ‘shift base out’ (Diagram 3). In this scenario, the R motions across the formation while the B steps on the line of scrimmage, creating a trips look. “We will get the ball according to where they are weak or we have a man advantage. The theory is the ball moves quicker than the man and it proved to be true. If we think we have the advantage inside the hashes (white pod) then we’ll get the ball downhill on a run. If we have an advantage in the red or blue pod, we’ll get the ball out there quickly on a quick screen or some type of flood pattern. The biggest dilemma is that the defense has to determine who is eligible and who isn’t and they only have a split second to do it. It cuts down their communication time,” said Bryan. All the moving and shifting left many opposing coaches scratching their heads.

Diagram 3: 'Shift Base Out'

“The problem for us was twofold,” said Bert Bertero, coach at Saint Mary’s HS, who lost to Piedmont 21-14. “First off, you tend to get caught up in who is eligible and who isn’t. We told our kids that they can’t do the officiating. They need to leave that up to the officials. Secondly, it forces you out of your comfort zone. You almost need to become a two-minute defense just to keep up with their tempo. That is so hard to prepare for because our scout team can’t replicate it within six days of preparing. It really became a distraction during the season because we had to come up with a separate package to defend it.”

THE BASE PLAYS
Despite the complexity of the scheme, Bryan managed to package the base plays he ran out of his west coast style of offense a year ago and bottle them into the A-11 offensive system. “I didn’t want to totally dump all the ideas that we had established a year ago,” said Bryan. “But the biggest change was getting into that shotgun formation. I had never been a shotgun coach in my 21 years of coaching. I hated it. I wasn’t comfortable with it. So if a guy like me can do it, anybody can.” One of the first plays he implemented was Base Wide 10 Option Right (Diagram 4). Here it’s drawn up from Bryan’s base 3-5-3 set against a typical 3-5-3 defensive structure. Bryan will use this in order to take advantage of a walked out, outside linebacker who is flexed wide because of the A-11 formation. On the backside of the play, Bryan teaches his players to scoop the defender in front of them by getting ‘their heels to the play.’ The center and play side tight end will work to hook the nose and tackle while the E back comes screaming inside to pick off the Buck linebacker. After securing the snap, the one back (or QB in this case) will work downhill and attack the inside shoulder of the Sam linebacker while the two back takes a bucket step to get into pitch relationship at 4.5 yards behind the QB. It’s a double option play designed to get the ball outside the hash and in the alley in a hurry.

Diagram 4: 'Base Wide 10 Option Right'

Bryan admits that because most teams were trying to load the white pod (tackle box), he threw the ball more than 70 percent of the time. His most effective pass play while moving the pocket was Base Out Creep 18 Tiger (Diagram 5). Because of having only three players aligned with the snapper, most of the A-11 pass schemes are rollouts in an effort to attack the perimeter and push the pocket. It’s important to remember that on forward pass plays only the end receiver on the line of scrimmage will be eligible. If a player is covered up on the line of scrimmage by another receiver, that player is ineligible. So, in order to seal the backside edge and prevent run-through, he’ll line up the ‘A’ back next to the U. The A, U, Center and Y will all reach block with an attempt to get their heels to the play without going downfield. On the front side of the play, the Z receiver runs an 11-step post curl, making the defender think he’s attacking the post. The E receiver works a five-yard speed out into the flat. If the QB doesn’t get him the ball right away, he’ll convert it into a wheel route. The B player screams hard inside to make what Bryan calls a ‘hunt block’ which means he is sealing the first threat that the defense presents to the edge from outside in. The two-back executes a ‘creep’ technique, which is a short shuffle motion with intent to seal the edge at the point of attack. After securing the snap, the one-back attacks the edge looking for either the E or the Z receiver. Or, if he likes the look backside, the X receiver will be running a post.

Diagram 5: 'Base Out Creep 18 Tiger'

Because ineligible receivers are permitted to go downfield on plays where a forward pass does not travel beyond the neutral zone, Bryan has a ton of screens in his offensive package. One of his most successful screens has been Base Out Stagger One Dink Screen Right (Diagram 6). The idea is to sell the Tiger pass scheme as much as possible, while screening the ball to the two-back. The center will stay engaged with the nose as long as possible; the U and the Y will set to the side of the call (in this case left) flashing a pass pro set for a two-count and work up to the second level. All receivers away from the play will work to seal their head up defenders getting their heels to the play. The three receivers to the side of the play will either try to kick out or seal the defenders in their pod. The two-back will pretend to block the front side defensive end (chip block) for a two-count then turn around expecting the ball. The QB, or one-back, will take a three-step drop, let the defensive line rush up field, then throw a ‘soft dart’ to the two back. If for whatever reason, the front side defensive end doesn’t fall for the screen fake, the QB will push the edge quickly to get him to widen, then dump the ball right underneath him.

Diagram 6: 'Base Out Stagger One Dink Screen Right'






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