Can You Say ‘Gimmick'?

Offensive fads come and go in Texas high school football.

Years ago, the Wishbone ruled the roost.

In 1980, current UNT head coach and former Southlake Carroll legend Todd Dodge became the first passer in Texas high school history to pass for 3,000 yards in a season under passing guru Ronnie Thompson at Thomas Jefferson HS in Port Arthur.

That proved not to be a gimmick, as teams evolved the spread and the offense we see now was perfected in the late 1990's at schools such as Flower Mound Marcus behind all-state quarterbacks such as Chris Sanders and Spencer Stack.

But there's a new fad coming to high school football, and hopefully it never ends up in Texas.

The A-11 offense is a fad that would never stick and become the norm because it simply wouldn't work in arguably the most talent-rich state for high school football in the United States.

Just check out this crazy stuff, which has become all the rage in states such as California, enough so that there's entire Web sites dedicated to it.

Essentially, the offensive formation has found some loopholes in the National Federation of State High School Associations' rules, and the governing body is looking for a way to end it in all states where it's used. Thankfully, Texas uses what are essentially NCAA rules and thus has blocked teams from using the A-11 offense.

Imagine not knowing who is going out for a pass on a respective play. With the A-11, you have 11 players who are eligible receivers. All players wear jersey numbers between 1-49 and 80-99.

The team can still only send six players out on pass routes, but those players are unknown, unlike in a conventional offense when defenders don't have to worry about the possibility of centers, guards or tackles going out for passes. It's basically like zone blitzing for offense and tries to create one-on-one matchups all over the field for opposing defenses.

It would clearly be a good last-ditch tool for struggling programs around here to use. Gimmicks always lead to a few wins a season, but there's one question to ask. Would it even be successful in Texas?

The answer is: Not likely.

Texas high school football has the best coaches around and with sophisticated zone blitzing packages and superior athletic talent to some of these other states, defenses would most likely figure out a way to put a stop to this madness.

Adam Boedeker is a sports writer/blogger for the Denton Record-Chronicle. He thinks New Zealand is better than Old Zealand.