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."

[Fish]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

So were their legalities once debated, or were they not?

I forgot that organized sports are monolithic. Sorry.

The rules you listed were once debated, and afterward accepted.

The A-11 has been debated, and afterward rejected.

Can you see the difference now?

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Laz

dude ... you miss understand me

i have no problem with them making a new rule to close the loophole for this new offense.


this title of the thread sound like the OP was crying about people wanting to use rules to stop this new offense because they couldn't stop in on the field.

like i said .... it's high school, so i don't care if they are using rules just to stop this offense.

I'm sorry that I misinterpreted your intentions.

[Valiant]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

A-11 is just stupid anyway. Good for them. A-11 makes a joke out of football by using silly jersey number exceptions. That isn't football. If you can't play the game the way it was intended and you have to resort to sneaky pass-eligible exceptions, then maybe you shouldn't be playing.

Yeah but if it is a school with zero traditional lineman what are they suppose to do??? Get ran over every game??

Of course, if you have the lineman to play and run this then it is shitty..

I say only let certain schools that do not meet certain criteria of players be allowed to run this..

What is the win/loss record of A-11 teams???

[Valiant]

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"?

Kind of like the spread has allowed normally non traditional football powers in college and the chiefs of last year to compete somewhat..

[Valiant]

Originally Posted by whoman69

Horrible argument. Leagues and state classifications are done by school size. If the schools they are playing are too large then they should change conferences. The rule is only in place on kicks to allow the team to get down the field for coverage. Anything else is bull.

He is talking size of players I believe..

If you are a small school and do not have anyone over 220 for a lineman, you are going to be hurting in any division..

Again, what is the won/loss records for these teams.. That might be why people are complaining if they are going undefeated with it where normally they would be winless..

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

The rules you listed were once debated, and afterward accepted.

The A-11 has been debated, and afterward rejected.

Can you see the difference now?

The A-11 is only being rejected because schools that are more traditionally powerful, with a bigger base of supporters, find that it is making the playing field unnecessarily even.

Pissed off programs who lost are trying to go back and change the rules of the game because they are poor sports.

The fact of the matter is that if these same arguments were used 100 years ago, and accepted, football would be about as popular as lacrosse right now.

There's no reason to be afraid of innovation. Go back and watch a football game from the 40's. Look at how ****ing boring it is.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Valiant

Kind of like the spread has allowed normally non traditional football powers in college and the chiefs of last year to compete somewhat..

FFS, look at how much more interesting parity has made the NFL playoffs. The Super Bowl used to be a bore. Now it's routinely an exciting game. I'd rather not relive the early-mid 90's Super Bowls.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Valiant

Yeah but if it is a school with zero traditional lineman what are they suppose to do??? Get ran over every game??

It's rather simple. If you don't have the facilities to properly compete in terms of students, training facilities, money, etc. with the rest of the established league, then don't form a team in that league. If you still want your kids to have a chance to play football, then establish a rec league that adheres to that competition level. But don't expect the rest of an established league to make exceptions to the rules for individual teams that are vastly under-competitive.

[Valiant]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

It's rather simple. If you don't have the facilities to properly compete in terms of students, training facilities, money, etc. with the rest of the established league, then don't form a team in that league. If you still want your kids to have a chance to play football, then establish a rec league that adheres to that competition level. But don't expect the rest of an established league to make exceptions to the rules for individual teams that are vastly under-competitive.

So high school teams are now divided by training facilities and money.. Glad to know most parents can just pick up and move their kids to another school that easy...

As for the A-11 after googling, yeah undersized teams were going undefeated to the championships against schools that had bigger rosters and better players all around..

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Whatever happened to defensive innovation?

There's a reason why the Tampa 2 came to prominence, and why teams shifted to a zone-blitzing scheme in the early 90's.

It wouldn't be terribly difficult to design a zone blitzing defense that could wreak havoc on the A-11. Or the Prowl. Eventually, they'll run out of quarterbacks.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

The A-11 is only being rejected because schools that are more traditionally powerful, with a bigger base of supporters, find that it is making the playing field unnecessarily even.

Pissed off programs who lost are trying to go back and change the rules of the game because they are poor sports.

The fact of the matter is that if these same arguments were used 100 years ago, and accepted, football would be about as popular as lacrosse right now.

There's no reason to be afraid of innovation. Go back and watch a football game from the 40's. Look at how ****ing boring it is.

BS. There are no rules being changed. The A-11 has been, and will continue to be an illegal formation that is only allowed on the high school level because the refs choose not to penalize them for running a scrimmage kick formation as a full-time offensive formation. There are no pissed off programs or traditional powerhouse football teams doing anything at all about the A-11. They don't ****ing care because it's a high school gimmick kick formation. The A-11 is not innovation. There's no future for it in American football. It's not even possible to implement in college or the pros.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

BS. There are no rules being changed. The A-11 has been, and will continue to be an illegal formation that is only allowed on the high school level because the refs choose not to penalize them for running a scrimmage kick formation as a full-time offensive formation. There are no pissed off programs or traditional powerhouse football teams doing anything at all about the A-11. They don't ****ing care because it's a high school gimmick kick formation. The A-11 is not innovation. There's no future for it in American football. It's not even possible to implement in college or the pros.

So, they were allowed to run it, then they weren't, but no rules were changed?

That's tantamount to saying that the PGA never outlawed square grooves, and that they were always illegal, because they ruled in 1990 that you couldn't have them.

If a team wants to, it can run a punt on every play, or attempt a field goal. So you can, or cannot run a scrimmage kick formation at all?

They still have 7 men on the LOS, and 5 ineligible receivers on every play. It's the defense's job to be able to read and react to that.

[King_Chief_Fan]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

BS. There are no rules being changed. The A-11 has been, and will continue to be an illegal formation that is only allowed on the high school level because the refs choose not to penalize them for running a scrimmage kick formation as a full-time offensive formation. There are no pissed off programs or traditional powerhouse football teams doing anything at all about the A-11. They don't ****ing care because it's a high school gimmick kick formation. The A-11 is not innovation. There's no future for it in American football. It's not even possible to implement in college or the pros.

that is because it is okaaaaaayyyyy. If was outside the rules, it would not be allowed. Where there are rules, it is not odaaaaaayyyy.
why in the world do you care so much? just asking

[Fish]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

So, they were allowed to run it, then they weren't, but no rules were changed?

No. Teams were never previously allowed to run the A-11. They added an exception in high school football called the 7-5-2b rule that allowed for receiver-numbered players on the LOS to declare themselves eligible for a pass on scrimmage kick downs only. Which was an update to the 7-5-2 rule. It was intended to aid in coverage for scrimmage kicks, and was never intended for any normal offensive formation. When they enacted the 7-5-2b rule, that's when teams started taking advantage of the loophole it created. This article discusses them changing 7-5-2b to remove the loophole.

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

If a team wants to, it can run a punt on every play, or attempt a field goal. So you can, or cannot run a scrimmage kick formation at all?

You can't.

The formation is also illegal under NCAA rules, which define a scrimmage kick formation with an additional requirement that "it is obvious that a kick may be attempted,"

You can't line up in a scrimmage kick formation without the intention of a kick. High school refs don't call the teams on this.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

No. Teams were never previously allowed to run the A-11. They added an exception in high school football called the 7-5-2b rule that allowed for receiver-numbered players on the LOS to declare themselves eligible for a pass on scrimmage kick downs only. Which was an update to the 7-5-2 rule. It was intended to aid in coverage for scrimmage kicks, and was never intended for any normal offensive formation. When they enacted the 7-5-2b rule, that's when teams started taking advantage of the loophole it created. This article discusses them changing 7-5-2b to remove the loophole.



You can't.



You can't line up in a scrimmage kick formation without the intention of a kick. High school refs don't call the teams on this.

Because the last time I checked, High Schools don't work of the NCAA rulebook.