play calling

Over the years, we have evolved a great offensive system for multiple formations. I coached under a pure "West Coast System" (Red Right, Brown Left Slot, etc.) for a year, and it was not nearly as logical and consice, and was overly wordy for the High School level in my opinion.

The first thing we do is letter-code our backfield formations in all 2-back sets.

I- I formation (genius, huh?)
B- Backfield Split
N- Offset I Near
F- Offset I Far
W- Halfback Weak
O- Halfback Over

Next, we have "Slot Numbers" that we use to align our "Z back" into multiple positions along the offensive formation. We keep with the same "odds left, evens right" that we use for our hole numbers.

1 / 2- Power Back (For Power I alignment)
3 / 4- Sniffer Back (Aligned on the tail of the OT)
5 / 6- Wing Back (2x2 off the TE position or 3x3 off the OT to the SE side)
7 / 8- Flanker (WR alignment)

We then give the standard "Right" or "Left" call to align our TE and SE.

We number our backfield (the Pure West Coast does not, nor does the Wing-T system) as follows:

1 - QB
2 - FB
3 - HB

So now we can use the old tried-and-true "what back through what hole" 2-digit call.

We have all of our plays designed into series based on backfield action. For example, in the "Belly Series", we have the following group of plays:

BELLY
BELLY KEEPER
BELLY COUNTER
BELLY OPTION

We also divide up our passing plays based on backfield action, QB drop depth, and so forth. We have "Playaction", "Quick" for 3-step drops, "Cup" for 5 step drops, and "Roll" for our rollout game.

We use a route numbering system for X, Y and Z and call the route numbers in that order.

EXAMPLES OF PLAYCALLS:

I6R-36 Belly
B8R-783 Cup
W5L-35 Belly Pass 957

Of course this is the "bare bones" of the system. We also organize all of our running plays into 5 different blocking schemes (similar to the series concept for the RB's) so, for example, all of our backside trap plays follow the same rules, all of our playside trap plays follow the same rules, all of our ISO plays do as well, etc, etc. What this amounts to is having our OL learn 5 base schemes as opposed to 17 some-odd rushing plays.

We have systems for single back and muliple receiver packages as well, but I don't want to post a bunch of information if this isn't what you are looking for. Bottom line is that it is easy for the kids and the coaches, and makes logical sense.