Most dynamic one-back attack

All of your ideas are the right. Now you either have to choose one our roll all of them into one offense.

I think the one back shotgun is the best way to use an athletic quarterback. He's just like the tailback then, but you've eliminated the handoff. As to the formation, I think if you really want to spread the defense out, going four wides (Doubles) is going to force the defense to cover the most space. If the defense is going to cover all four receivers (or at least give you walk-away alignment on the inside receivers) and leave a safety in the middle, it reduces the front to a six man box. The offensive line (5) plus the one back and QB means the defense is outnumbered 7-6. If the defense wants to play a Cover II, it means a 5 man box. We did see one team that simply played straight man, and left seven in the box. We've found that the blocking schemes are more basic since the fronts we see are pretty limted. We see a 4-2 front about 95% of the time when we get in this alignment.

Even though the four wides and shotgun seems like a passing formation, we still ran the ball from this alignment about 75% of the time. There are several versions of trap plays for both the QB and the Ace back, QB Iso, Cross plays, Draws. We're an option team and we use zone blocking concepts, but we don't run much in the way of traditional zone plays. The run game really expands if you teach your QB to read the 5 techs for give or pull and run basically a double option. If you saw Texas play this year, they ran this alot with their redshirt freshman, Vincent Young. I don't remember the exact formations, but the concept was the same.

These are just some of the things we like about the four wide offense.

I'd be glad to share what I have. Where do you coach?

We've toyed with a number of things to do out of the shotgun, starting in 2001 when we we preparing to play the eventual State Champs. We caught them off guard (we'd never shown it before), and had some success with it in the first half. The "gimmick" aspect didn't last, and we eventually lost the game in a blow out. But we decided to research it more, and included it in our 2002 playbook as another series of plays, and ended up using it on almost 50% of our snaps . Some of it is two back shotgun, some one back. We also have used a number of different formations, but the four wides was what we ended up running the most of, and had the most success with. For the 2003 season, we refined it a little more, added some wrinkles, but ended up using it less as the season progressed, mostly because of our QB. In '01 and '02, we had a big, but not overly quick, QB that could break the first tackle, and made some big plays. We designed alot of power plays to hit inside the tackles for him. For the '03 season, our QB was small, but very fast, so we wanted to get him on the corner via the veer, and speed option. He wasn't as effective running the same type plays we had the past 2 years. His game was all about intelligent reads and getting to the corner. But, we didn't really start teaching the QB to read the ends (while in the shotgun, ala Lyle Landsdale and Jerry Campbell's book Installing the Gun Offense) for pull or keep until later in the year, which would have given our QB a chance to get outside from the shotgun alignment. It was great in practice...forced the ends to really sit and read as opposed to squeezing and chasing the back down from behind, but in the game our QB (who was banged up...didn't even practice the last three weeks except on days we were in shells) was pretty anxious to give no matter what the end did. The shotgun option will be a much bigger part of our offense in '04.

For the '04 season, we are looking at starting a Sophomore at QB, and we have some returning backs that we want to emphasize in the running game more, so I anticipate using a Twins Open, 3-wide formation both shotgun, and under the center, from which we will run the option. (The Twins Open formation has many of the same benfits of our Doubles, forces a SS/OLB to cover the slotted receiver, and often a walk-away DE or OLB to the open side. The only time it is not as effective in reducing the front, in my opinion, is versus the college 4-3.) Even though I'm not sure how much we will run them in the upcoming season, we are still going to install our other, non-option shotgun plays. That way, in the '05 season, our then junior QB will be familiar with the concepts and plays. We will want the ball in his hands as often as possible then, and as I said, the shotgun is the best way to make your QB the featured back in your offense, and not just the leader and ball distributor.