By
Darrin Sheffer
Do you have a Quarterback? By that I mean do you have a guy who has a consistent arm, can make quick decisions in the passing game, has good footwork and can be the general of the offense? In my experience if you don’t have a guy who has these skills naturally by HS it is extremely difficult if not downright impossible to coach it into them. (some may disagree but not every coach/team has time enough to adequately drill these skills into a player). If you are in this situation as a coach who wants to run a Spread Offense like you see in the NCAA, unless your skill players have raw talent and your lineman are good enough to cover up your lack of QB play you will not have a good season offensively. If you are in a situation similar to this, I suggest you take a good hard look at the Single Wing Offense.
http://ncaa06revival.com/hb-direct/
Let me be clear, I am in no way trying to say that the Single Wing Offense in itself will make your team better. There are no offenses that will make your team better. To make a team truly great you need a scheme which places your players in the best possible position to succeed, you need discipline as a coach and as a team and you need to do the small things right at all times. That being said, I do believe that the Single Wing Offense can help teams which have athletic talent without decent QB play.
If you are looking for a full explanation of the offense with diagrams or a How To Coach The Single Wing article you are not in the right place. (I will link you to some coaches’ sites which you can find this info). Instead what my plan here is to share with you a few reasons why I have fallen in love with this offense.
When many coaches hear Single Wing they typically think of the Unbalanced Single Wing which was recently brought back to popularity by Coach Rick Darlington from Apopka HS in Florida. Coach Darlington’s offense takes advantage of defenses with his use of an overloaded offensive line and very talented running backs who have the speed to outrun defenders. If these players have the ability to throw the ball this will only make the offense deadlier, but it isn’t always required.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/962141-explaining-the-single-wing-and-how-it-can-work-for-tim-tebow-and-the-broncos
My favorite series in the Single Wing is the Power Series. Power is a great play; many say it’s God’s play. However, in most offenses the QB’s job on Power is to be what I call the “Handoff Machine”. The most a QB will do is hand off the ball and probably do some sort of boot action. While that is important to most schemes, what if I told you that you don’t have to lose a player during a handoff? With the Single Wing the QB is the ball carrier which eliminates the hand off, and in return you gain an extra blocker at the point of attack. In the Unbalanced Single Wing Power Play, you have a kick out block by a Sniffer/Fullback, a run through block by a B Back/H Back, and a pulling guard who will be a cutoff block. Also, because of the way the ball is snapped to a player who is already on the move this play will hit the point of attack faster than the power out of an I formation. If you make the Power play the feature play in your Single Wing attack, you will have a built in Counter play and multiple options for play action which all become deadly when the defense is geared to stop the run
.
http://smartfootball.com/spread/did-the-spread-really-evolve-from-the-single-wing#sthash.YxnyRQl4.dpbs
What about those teams who seem to lack everything (speed, size and talent)? If that is the case I would recommend using the Single Wing to misdirect the defense. With good ball fakes and key breakers, you should be able to move the ball against most teams you will face. However, this may be difficult because offenses that count on misdirection require the players to be disciplined in their fakes. If you have crappy ball fakes it won’t work.
If you are hesitant to dive into the Single Wing because it seems too old school for you let me tell you this, the Single Wing is the Grandfather to the modern day Spread Offense. Are you a fan of RPO’s? The Single Wing invented them before WWII. Do you like the Wild Cat offense? What about Ohio State’s offense? All based on Single Wing (Urban Meyer freely admits that his current offense is based on old school Single Wing principles). You could have a Red Zone package in your offense, call it Wild Cat and get away with running Single Wing. Perhaps slowly build it into your current offense. Another reason I love this offense is because it is actually very easy to adapt it to modern day spread offenses.
http://www.sportsfan4.com/football/the-wildcat-formation/
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me on Twitter or leave a message in the comment section below.
Remember to Stay Obsessed.
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