A Glimpse at Football History & Why the A-11 Offense is Good for the Game

A Glimpse at Football History and Why the A-11 Offense is Good for the Game


In the year of 1861, The Oneida Football Club of Boston, Mass., became the first organized football team in America, consisting of a roster of players and regular practices, and they played against opponents comprised of blended teams in pickup games throughout the Boston area. Later, Rutgers University battled Princeton University in November of 1869, as the first official collegiate football game took place. Throwing the football or carrying the football was not allowed, and Rutgers defeated Princeton by a final score of 6 – 4.

As the game of football became more popular, standardized rules took shape in the late 1800’s. Yale University team Captain, Walter Camp is duly recognized as the Father of American Football. Among some of his numerous contributions to the game: emphasizing speed over strength by reducing the number of players on the field for each side from 15 to 11, the snap from the center to quarterback, and of course the Line of Scrimmage (L.O.S.). Camp also introduced Down & Distance rules that have since been modified, and he was a tireless advocate of keeping football fast paced and high scoring. Camp apparently realized plodding and low-scoring contests were usually boring, and too much of that would thwart the creative ingenuity of the game’s natural design.

However, even with all of Walter Camp’s innovation, football remained an incredibly violent, mob rule type of sport into the 1900’s. And not until 1905, when the President of the United States – Theodore Roosevelt intervened and forced the rules of the game to be modernized mostly for safety reasons, did football undergo its greatest renaissance of all time: The introduction of the Forward Pass, in large part to allow smaller teams a more reasonable chance to compete vs. their larger foes.

Over the next few decades, several rule modifications to encourage the use and effectiveness of the forward pass came to light, and coaches like John Heisman, Pop Warner, Knute Rockne and Amos Alonzo Stagg “pushed the envelope” by using creative passing attacks, a lot of pre-snap shifting and huddling.

For more than 100 years, rule modifications or unintended results from rule changes have allowed football coaches to design innovative schemes that have made football the most thrilling sport on the planet. For more than a century, football has been at the pinnacle of the dynamic sports because of its relentless innovation and adaptability. Football’s Founding Fathers and Coaching Icons understood the beautiful necessity of innovation, and the need for football to always blend size, strength and speed on the field of play. It is a game of heroic physical achievement married with brilliant strategic concepts and design.

Looking back, it’s clear football’s unique history points us in the direction of the game’s future. The ghosts of football’s tough and glorious past demand that its current caretakers constantly push the game forward with groundbreaking strategies and provocative concepts to keep it fresh and invigorating for the players, fans and coaches, and to honor all of football’s historic fraternity.

Question: 100 years from now, will football be the same game it is today?

Answer: The game cannot remain stagnant because it will die. It cannot live unchanged because it will become stale and then it will perish. Therefore the game must adapt. It has no choice but to change because of its inherent personality combining speed, strength and guile. The game has always embraced pressing innovation that draws upon football’s history, while driving it towards breathtaking tactics enabling its great athletes to thrive on the field of play. Halting the use of innovative stratagems in football is equivalent to cutting off its supply of oxygen. It will suffocate if not allowed to breathe.

For just one moment – imagine the game of football without the use of the Forward Pass? Truly it is unimaginable for today’s football fraternity, but 110 years ago the forward pass itself was beyond the scope of its participants’ respectable imagination.

However, as has been the case in football for more than a century, when cutting-edge ideas flourish, it not only benefits the players, coaches and fans of that particular era, but those new methods of attack serve as a genesis for yet-to-be thought of fresh concepts developed by the coaches and players of the future.

Looking forward, is the A-11 Offense good for the game, as various spread offenses in football become more flanked-out across the field of play?

· The A-11 allows smaller teams a better chance to compete vs. larger opponents by spreading out the defense. And it emphasizes speed and precision combined with effective physical movement

· The A-11 makes the game safer for the players, as smaller athletes are not forced to bash heads against physically superior opponents every play

· The A-11 breathes new life into offensive coaches by offering a nearly unlimited amount of creativity in designing plays and strategies

· The A-11 allows defensive coaches to design entirely new tactics

· The A-11 is fun for the players and coaches, and exciting for the fans

If we had the honor of sitting down with the Founding Fathers of football and the pleasure of visiting with the coaches and players of football’s future 100 years from now, what do you think they would they say about an offense like the A-11?

Respectfully, it seems like history will be the judge…


By

Kurt Bryan
Head Football Coach
Piedmont High School (Piedmont, CA)

www.A11Offense.com or www.PiedmontFootball.com
kurt@piedmontfootball.com
(510) 410-4717