A 11 offense???? Run & Shoot on Steroids

The A 11 offense is not the wave of the future because - IMO - the NFHS (the rule making body for all sports across the nation except for two states - piaa_ump can explain it better) will be rewording the rulebook to outlaw it by next year. Several states, including WV, NC and TX, have already made it an illegal formation period.

What it does is takes advantage of a loophole in the rulebook.

The basic concept of the offense is to get 11 eligible receivers on the field at the same time in a very spread formation.

The rule it breaks - says you must have 7 people on the line of scrimmage and the last two are eligible receivers. The interior 5 lineman are not eligible. In HS rules you cannot have a lineman number 50's - 70's go downfield on a pass period. In the NFL you have the report rule where if you run a lineman downfield you must tell the ref and he tells everyone over the loudspeaker - this does not exist in HS.

How it breaks the rule - overall you can put guys anywhere but for simplicity sake imagine this - ball in the middle of the field, a group of 3 players with receiver numbers goes wide left, a group of 3 players stay in the middle at the ball with receiver numbers, and a group of three players goes wide right all with receiver numbers. So far you have 9 guys at the LOS (line of scrimmage) and two guys in the backfield both with receiver numbers. In a predetermine way 7 guys step up onto the LOS in this very spread formation to become legal with the rules then you snap the ball and the 5 on the inside just stand there because they cannot go downfield because of the "TE" cap rule - last one on the LOS can go downfield.

In this formation the person snapping the ball could be eligible for a pass if he is the last person on the LOS as long as he has a receiver number.

How it follows the rules - in a scrimmage kick formation you don't have to have lineman numbers on the field - not sure why they did this but my guess is to allow faster guys to be able to cover the field on punts. In order to have a scrimmage kick formation the person behind the center is at least 7 yards behind center. Quarterbacks in shotgun formation get around 5 yards and punters are around 12 - 15 yards. Since you can kick on any down and not restricted to just 4th down then as long as you are behind the center at least 7 yards you then you are legally in a scrimmage kick formation.

Also, in a scrimmage kick formation you cannot hit the center so that also limits what the defense can do.

Problem - the A 11 follows one rule (scrimmage kick rule) while violating another rule (must have 5 lineman numbers) at the same time. The scrimmage kick rule was for obvious kicking situations like 4th down and you are giving the ball back to the other team. Now they want to use this exception as a way to run an offense.

While it's "legal" it's still wrong and goes against what football is about. I know deception is a huge part of football with offenses like the Wing T and misdirection plays but those two follow the rules while deceiving the defense. In any offense you know who the eligible receivers are but in this you have a split second to figure out who are the eligible receivers.

In my opinion it's wrong and I am an offensive minded guy.

The rules side of it was pretty obvious, but what I'd really like to know is how it played on in real games...?

and I certainly suspect there were some serious confrontations... yelling/screaming, etc going on between coaches, fans etc.

I must assume the coach who devised this had to present it to the field officials before the first game.

Not sure when it started but it was a high school coach somewhere in California who came up with it as a way to be able to compete against bigger and better schools. I don't think he uses it as a regular offense but more of a change of pace.

I am sure you could find snippits on youtube if you searched for it. There is an A 11 website but not sure of the address.

I would bet there was a time out used the first time it was shown. Then another time out used to "discuss" whether it was legal or not.

The high school I used to be at used the formation as a regular punt formation about 6 years ago. We only used it during 4th downs and usually still kicked out of it. We never had any teams / refs object to it.

Best way to defend it is to put a very fast player at the ball and have him rush the QB.

The NFHS have their work cut out for them in rewording the rules to find a beneficial solution.

The high school where my children attend(ed) implemented the A 11 offense this year. It has been such a dismal failure so far (0-2) that many fans in the stands refer to it as the 9-11 offense..........

Hate to hear that about your children's school.

It's a gimmick offense and will never really work fulltime. You might catch someone off guard with it once or twice but to run it all the time still won't work. You aren't going to take 5'11 and 160 lb kids beat pretty good athletes.

If you are a good team then you don't need to run it because you are skilled enough to run a real offense.