After reading a few poorly-written articles (for example, this one by the Freakonomics guy) about the increasingly popular A-11 (football) offense, and noticing that Nebraska hasn't yet approved it for high school play, I've finally run into a good article about it at the New York Times.
My original complaint, you will certainly not recall (unless you are a very careful reader of this blog---I cannot imagine there are such personalities), was that any offense in which all 11 players are "potentially eligible to receive a pass," is not football, since it's essential to football that only the last two guys on each end of the line of scrimmage can receive a pass. Participating in a "comments" section on the A-11 site (now closed to crackpots such as myself, it seems), I found myself embroiled in intricate philosophical disputes with various high-school football coaches, even writing to one of them "You call it football, I call it Ultimate Frisbee with shoulder pads." Anyway. It turns out that I was missing a key piece of information, despite numerous back-and-forths with those more knowledgeable than I. The Freakonomics article says, for example:
Two California high school football coaches have [... ] randomized the plays themselves — by scrapping the traditional
starting formation and making every player a potential receiver
(normally, only five players can receive a pass from the quarterback).
That increases the possible number of plays the team can run, from the
usual 36, to 16,632.
It’s called the A-11 Offense —
all 11 players are eligible to catch the ball — and it works by
introducing such unpredictability into where a quarterback will pass
the ball that it baffles the defending team and gives the offense a
better chance of breaking through.
In fact, the A-11 plays do not contemplate every player being eligible to receive a pass at the time the ball is snapped. Instead, they do follow the usual rule that only the last two guys lined up on the line of scrimmage can receive a pass. What is done instead is that the players line up with the usual seven on the line of scrimmage, but they spread them out, and mix up the order of the players that are actually on the line of scrimmage. So, the defense has to quickly look at the set just before the snap, and figure out who is an eligible receiver. This isn't so easy to do in the heat of the moment compared to ordinary football plays in which the "interior linemen" all line up on the line of scrimmage, and are big beefy players no one can imagine wanting to receive a pass, anyway. Here's the New York Times article:
Under football rules, seven players must begin each play on the
line of scrimmage and only five are permitted to run downfield to
receive a pass — the two players at the end of the line and three
situated behind the line. The difficult task for a team defending
against the A-11 is to quickly and accurately figure out who those five
eligible receivers are.
Prior to each Piedmont play, only the
center initially goes to the line of scrimmage. The two “guards” and
the split receivers each stand one and a half yards off the line. Then,
just before the ball is snapped, Piedmont shifts into formation for the
signaled play. With this simple movement, the possibilities for
eligible receivers become dizzying.
Since it seems like the only funny business about A-11 is having players is the scrimmage kick formation, and it respects the "7 men on the line" rule, I've flipped completely on A-11 and now think it is very cool.
