Can't stop an offense? Make it illegal!

[modocsot]

A-11 Offense Now Has to Play Defense

http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=911196

Kurt Bryan, the football coach at Piedmont (Calif.) High School, has heard the wail of protests against his A-11 offense. Deceiving, skirting the rules, unsportsmanlike. It has been labeled gimmicky and it has its enemies.

That's why he can only imagine that the worst is in store for his and Steve Humphries' offense in the next week.

The A-11 offense, a super-sized spread with eligible receivers popping up all over the field, has been banned by some high school state associations. Bryan is worried the National Federation of State High School Associations is going to adopt rule changes for 2009 that will ruin the scheme in the states where it is used.

The football rules committee of the NHFS met Jan. 24-26 in Indianapolis and Bryan said the committee discussed proposals that would effectively take the fledgling A-11 off the chalkboard.

Brad Garrett, the assistant executive director of the Oregon Activities Association and vice chairman of the NFHS Rules Football Committee, said rules committee members cannot talk about proposed rule changes or how they voted.

The rules committee makes recommendations to the NFHS national governing board, which votes whether to accept recommendations, but the board typically passes what it is presented by the rules committee. The board is expected to release rule changes for 2009 in the next week.

One of the proposals the committee discussed, which would curtail the A-11, was to take away an exception to rule 7-2-5b that allows players with jersey numbers 1-49 and 80-99 to be down linemen, and eligible pass receivers, in a scrimmage kick formation.

The A-11 (A11Offense.com) creators used that exception to have all of their players wear numbers 1-49 or 80-99, numbers reserved for receivers, and said if the numbering is allowed for scrimmage kicks it should be allowed for all offensive plays. Referees working A-11 games, Bryan said, have not thrown flags for ineligible receivers and allowed the offense to proceed throughout the game.

Bryan and Humphries, who is Piedmont's director of football operations, said the National Federation might institute rules to block the use of the A-11 by member schools, but that is not going to make the offense go away.

"There is a demonstrative benefit of using the A-11 offense, and there is room in America for more than one style of football," Bryan said. "There is a loud, ugly minority out there that is against this offense.

"This is standing up for the little guy in football, the schools without the numbers of kids or the big linemen. There is a huge disconnect between the players on the ground, the kids that play in this offense and the National Federation."

Bryan said if the National Federation adopts rules curtailing the use of the A-11 among NFHS members, then there will be a movement to create a federation for schools that want to use the A-11.

"What is ridiculous is there already are A-11 teams playing non-A-11 teams without incident," Bryan said. "We are playing within the rules."

Bryan said as far as he knows the opponents of the A-11 offense have not been to a game to watch the offense and examine it closely.

In the A-11, players do not wear the traditional jersey numbers for linemen: they use 1-49, and 80 through 99, which is legal. This means that all 11 players on offense can be eligible for a pass.

In essence, the offense creates an island for 11 players, spreading the defense out, and looking for one-on-one matchups.

If a player gets set on the line, and another player lines up outside that player, the inside player is ineligible to catch a pass. What the A-11 can do is have offensive players wait until the final seconds of the play clock and then take positions on the line making it difficult for the defense to know, until the last moment, which receivers are eligible.

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association declared the A-11 offense was an "unsporting act" and banned its members from using the offense.

Officials from state associations who say their members cannot use the offense said the A-11 uses a loophole in the rules to deceive opponents. That loophole could get closed in the next week.

"The rule was written for a scrimmage kick exception, the number requirement, to aid in terms of long snappers and blocking situations," said Mark Dreibelbis, the supervisor of officials for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. "They are taking a rule book exception for a scrimmage kick and putting it [in] place every down of the game and that is not the intent of the rule and it is outside the spirit of the rule code and it is an attempt to deceive and attempts to deceive are unsporting acts."

Dr. Ralph Swearngin, the executive director of the Georgia High School Association, warned schools in Georgia during the 2008 season about using the A-11 because he said it broke National Federation rules.

On its Web site, the GHSA's warning said any player in a game in a scrimmage kick situation (punt, field goal, extra point) wearing jerseys 1-49 to 80-99 still "must assume an initial position on his line of scrimmage between the ends and he remains an ineligible forward-pass receiver during the down."

Bryan said it is not his intent to try and lead schools to break away from the National Federation. He has proposed a sub-federation for schools that want to play A-11 football.

"Allowing teams the right to use A-11 football if they want to is extremely viable," Bryan said. "And there are plenty of people who will be ready to help set that up so everybody wins."

[The_Doctor10]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

The fact that you can't immediately tell who's eligible out of all 11 players is part of the reason why it isn't legal. Anyone on the field can be an eligible receiver coming to the line of scrimmage because they're breaking the jersey numbering rule. That in itself gives a huge advantage over legal offensive formations. That's the point. Legal formations don't allow you to do that.

And fake punts and kicks are still perfectly safe due to the differences in jersey numbering and eligibility on obvious kicking/punting downs. That's how they closed the loophole. They revised the rules to provide distinction as to what downs would allow which formations.



Every level of football has said that it's illegal. That's the purpose of the ban. The National Federation of State High School Associations, the NCAA, and the NFL now all have rules prohibiting it.

How about we just do away with the defenses showing blitz and then dropping into coverage, eh? That seems to de awfully deceptive. If the QB thinks the entire secondary is coming for his head, he may jump the gun and throw a poor pass. And the corner who looked like he was gonna blitz just stands there, picks it off, and waltzes into the endzone.

Here's a thought: since the players in the NFL have gradually evolved to be much bigger and much faster than previous generations, why not maybe make the field bigger? Then you can have all the traditional offense you want with a little more room to move around.

[kcfanXIII]

Originally Posted by Sully

By using a loophole.

a) its not an every down situation to use the swinging gate.
b) the SG still satisfies the requirements of 5 down lineman. not 5 guys wearing receiver numbers.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Sully

That sounds ridiculous, to me. What if I want to punt on 1st down? (I know a local coach who makes the playoffs yearly who has done so)? What if it's late in the game and I want to try a FG not on 4th down?

You're free to punt on first down if you'd like, or kick a FG on a down other than 4th. You just can't have 11 guys wearing receiver numbers on the field when you do so.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Unleash_the_Phury

How about we just do away with the defenses showing blitz and then dropping into coverage, eh? That seems to de awfully deceptive. If the QB thinks the entire secondary is coming for his head, he may jump the gun and throw a poor pass. And the corner who looked like he was gonna blitz just stands there, picks it off, and waltzes into the endzone.

Here's a thought: since the players in the NFL have gradually evolved to be much bigger and much faster than previous generations, why not maybe make the field bigger? Then you can have all the traditional offense you want with a little more room to move around.

There's a HUGE difference between pre-snap deception and cheating by doctoring jersey numbers.

JFC.

[whoman69]

Originally Posted by Unleash_the_Phury

Oh I agree. But the point of the A11 was to give this small school with no real line talent a fighting chance. It's no fun running a normal offense, failing miserably, and then having the other team run up the score. If they have the physical ability to field a team with a legitimate o-line, they should probably do it. But it doesn't make sense to criminalize an idea designed to prevent a team from being used as a league doormat.

Horrible argument. If you are a smaller school like that, then your competition should also be smaller schools. They have classifications in high school sports for a reason.