A-11 Offense for ISU?

[jcats322]

Although sometimes I think it went:

Up the middle, up the middle, up the middle, punt. :smile:

You beat me to it. I have never been more frustrated in my life than when I had to set through that 0-10-1 season and we kept running the **** ball up the middle on what seemed like every play. +rep

 

[Psyclone]

While the formations of this offense are pretty wild, you still have to follow the basic rules of football, so they have to have 7 players on the line, meaning 5 players are "covered up" and thus ineligible to be downfield on passing plays. And since someone has to throw the ball, that leaves 5 players eligible to receive a pass. So the passing attack of this offense wouldn't be much different than a team running the spread or run-n-shoot, but there are variety of other plays that could be run utilizing backward passes, pitches, laterals, etc. As someone else stated, the main advantage you would have is the unknown. That and you create a lot of one-on-one matchups. An athletic defense that can tackle would probably handle this offense without a lot of difficulty. It would remind me a lot of playing Texas Tech.

I was trying to watch that small video and it appeared to me that there were ineligible receivers downfield on a number of those pass plays. I didn't stop and rewind, so maybe I'm wrong. They must change who is lined up on the LOS, otherwise when you split out a lineman, why would you put a defender on them? This doesn't appear like an offense you could run every down. I would think it's effectiveness would be less as the field gets shorter.

 

[CarolinaCy]

I was trying to watch that small video and it appeared to me that there were ineligible receivers downfield on a number of those pass plays. I didn't stop and rewind, so maybe I'm wrong. They must change who is lined up on the LOS, otherwise when you split out a lineman, why would you put a defender on them? This doesn't appear like an offense you could run every down. I would think it's effectiveness would be less as the field gets shorter.

I didn't really pay all that much attention to the video, but I know that you have to have 7 players on the line of scrimmage for the play to be legal. That means that only the outside 2 are legal receivers. I guess if you shift enough players (and re-set before the snap to make it legal), then you can confuse the defense as to who is eligible and who is not.

I had thought the same about this offense bogging down as you get closer to the end zone, but it's not really just about going deep with the receivers. By confusing the defenders and being able to run multiple crossing routes, you could find yourself with many options to complete a pass. Also, by spreading out the defense so much, it is actually easier to run the ball, especially up the middle.