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."

[vailpass]

If you don't like the HOA don't live in the neighborhood.

[Sully]

Should the swinging gate be illegal?

[38yrsfan]

The passage of time does not negate the fact that new rules have been implemented or existing ones changed nor does it "traditionalize" the rule changes that have been made. To some it is an opportunity while to others it is infamy.

Frankly, it isn't that important to be so concerned about.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Sully

Should the swinging gate be illegal?

No. Why would it be? It satisfies all the rule requirements for an offensive formation.

[Sully]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

No. Why would it be? It satisfies all the rule requirements for an offensive formation.

By using a loophole.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Sully

By using a loophole.

And what loophole would that be?

[Sully]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

And what loophole would that be?

No less a loophole than allowed the A11.

[kysirsoze]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Do you recall the debate over the legality of the forward pass?

Or the fact that pre-snap motion could have been considered exploiting a loophole.

Or the tackle eligible play.

The huddle.

7 guys on the line

The funny thing is that the inferior talent of Notre Dame triumphed over the powerhouses of the day, like Army, by using a little known and employed system called the forward pass, something strangely similar to how these A-11 schools can compete with inferior talent.

Would you feel comfortable in telling Knute Rockne that his offensive scheme was "not football"?

Honest question:

Are you in favor of lifting all formation rules on both sides of the ball in football? This would allow for the most innovation.


P.S. This thread is such a metaphor for government control that it should almost be moved to DC. Right down to what the football founders must have intended.

[dtebbe]

LOL. We race karts, and at our local track there are 2 shops that people race out of. The shop we race out of has the most die-hard racers that work on their stuff until they are fast. We routinely hand the other shop's racers their arses. The owner of the other shop is constantly whining about stupid things like bodywork being outside the rules, tires being prepped, etc., etc.

If these people would spend 1/2 the time working on their shit that they spend on whining, they might have a chance of winning.

DT

[CoMoChief]

God not this argument again.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Sully

No less a loophole than allowed the A11.

That's incorrect. A-11's formation is(I should say was) strictly intended for scrimmage kick formations. It does not satisfy the requirements for a legal offensive formation in two ways. The A-11 does not have 5 down offensive linemen, as required for a legal offensive formation. It also neglects the normal jersey numbering requirements for linemen in legal offensive formations.

The swinging gate on the other hand, does indeed have the required number of ineligible down offensive linemen, with the correct jersey numbering. They are simply in a different position, but they're still linemen on the line of scrimmage who are not eligible receivers. There is absolutely no loophole necessary to run it. It's simply a legal offensive formation with it's down linemen in a different position than normal. There are no extra eligible receivers as in the case of A-11.

This shouldn't be difficult.

[Brock]

Meh, whatever. It's over.

[Sully]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

That's incorrect. A-11's formation is(I should say was) strictly intended for scrimmage kick formations. It does not satisfy the requirements for a legal offensive formation in two ways. The A-11 does not have 5 down offensive linemen, as required for a legal offensive formation. It also neglects the normal jersey numbering requirements for linemen in legal offensive formations.

The swinging gate on the other hand, does indeed have the required number of ineligible down offensive linemen, with the correct jersey numbering. They are simply in a different position, but they're still linemen on the line of scrimmage who are not eligible receivers. There is absolutely no loophole necessary to run it. It's simply a legal offensive formation with it's down linemen in a different position than normal. There are no extra eligible receivers as in the case of A-11.

This shouldn't be difficult.

there are no "extra" eligible recievers in the A11. You just can't immediately tell who is eligible.
You also can't make hard and fast rules about what you can and can't do with "kicking formations" without doing away with fake punts and field goals.
So far, the only real argument I see against this is "tradition." if that's really the argument, them the argument must logically be against the swinging gate, as well. Hell, tradition says players used to have no such thing as eligible and ineligible nbers, so it's weak to begin with.

If leagues don't like it, fine. But let's not pretend there was anything illegal or non-traditional about it.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Sully

there are no "extra" eligible recievers in the A11. You just can't immediately tell who is eligible.
You also can't make hard and fast rules about what you can and can't do with "kicking formations" without doing away with fake punts and field goals.
So far, the only real argument I see against this is "tradition." if that's really the argument, them the argument must logically be against the swinging gate, as well. Hell, tradition says players used to have no such thing as eligible and ineligible nbers, so it's weak to begin with.

If leagues don't like it, fine. But let's not pretend there was anything illegal or non-traditional about it.

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.

"The definition of a scrimmage-kick formation was clarified to differentiate formations that have been used traditionally for attempting a field goal or kick try from those used for a punt," Colgate said. "In addition, the circumstances under which the numbering exception can be utilized have been changed to clarify what can be done on first, second, third and fourth downs."

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.

[Sully]

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.

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?