At one time the Single Wing Offense was like the Spread Offense of these days. Invented by Pop Warner in 1907, it was the most frequent offense in its heyday. At one time there had been more groups operating the Solitary Wing than not, at just about every amount of soccer. In the 30’s and 40’s around 80% of School and Pro groups were being operating the Solitary Wing Offense.
Why do we see so several groups functioning the Single Wing Offense now?
Why Did It Die?
There are quite a few theories listed here are just a several of the additional preferred and rational types:
With so lots of teams running the Single Wing, the “familiarity issue” led to it getting easier to defend. Just like currently, the to start with time you see a little something like a 5 wide Offense it will take you by surprise but just after you’ve got played 5 vast teams 4-5 periods it results in being significantly less difficult to protect. Consider defending the same offense 8 of 10 online games for 20 decades in a row and practicing in opposition to it each individual working day (assuming your crew ran the Single Wing on Offense). The familiarity variable would be quite high.
The Platooning Concept
The transfer to two platooning football gave rise to specialization which in convert authorized for “finesse” players to play the recreation at Quarterback and Vast Receiver. Back again in the 50s and prior to, most gamers performed the two means. Even the good quarterback YA Title performed the two strategies, leading the NFL in interceptions participating in at basic safety. Title also excelled as a punter, actively playing special groups as most starters did back in those days. Players in that working day had to be challenging, bodily, durable football gamers that had to excel in a lot of sides of the activity. Todays Faculty and NFL gamers enjoy 1 way and are extremely specialized. Now even several Substantial University groups platoon. This specialization will allow extra follow time to be devoted to intricate offenses and the development of considerably less physically dominant players.
The Sinking of the Titanic
The 1940 NFL Title Sport factor. With the largest at any time nationwide audience tuned in, the Chicago Bears utilizing it can be new fangled Straight T offense, conquer the Washington Redskins and the Single Wing 73-. This sound thrashing on the nationwide phase led quite a few to think the Single Wing was as very good as a slingshot in a gunfight, it was considered to be antiquated and “outdated fashioned”. Horse and buggy things in the days of air travel and indoor plumbing. This could have been the nail in the coffin for the One Wing, as numerous groups started off abandoning the One Wing for the next best detail, the T Development. Just like now, coaches are bandwagoners, they jump on board with the up coming finest thing that has caught their eye and the fickle hearts of their supporters.
The Keepers of the Faith
Thankfully the One Wing under no circumstances really died. There were being college teams working the Solitary Wing right into the 1960s. A variety of quite profitable High Schools in no way stopped running the offense which includes Menominee Michigan’s Ken Hofer. The Maroons have been working the One Wing for the very last 40 several years and have gone to the playoffs in every single of the past 13 seasons and won 3 State Titles with it in just the final 9 yrs. Giles in Virginia is an additional just one who has trapped with the Wing for the past 20 many years additionally and has gained 2 State Titles in just the previous 6 a long time. There are a handful of Substantial Colleges like these that retained the offense alive together with some forward/backward imagining youth coaches in which the offense has really began to capture fire in the final decade. Add in what City Meyer has accomplished with the Single Wing and you have a stampede of coaches jumping back again on the Solitary Wing bandwagon. There have been 25 or additional Division I College or university groups running at least a single Collection of One Wing plays in their offenses this season. Heck even the Miami Dolphins obtained in on the act with the One Wing in their amazing turnaround this year.
Fashionable Day One Wing
Even though the Solitary Wing of right now nevertheless has many of the core principals of the 1940s Single Wing Mind-boggling at the place of attack, making use of angles and leverage, deception and terrific ball fakes, movement and good engage in motion passing. The One Wing lots of of us run today also consists of some new bolted on capabilities like: Jet or Fly Sweep Series, Entice and display screen games, Mesh or Air Raid passing principles and a great deal a lot more.
Youth Single Wing Football
How wide spread is the Solitary Wing at the youth level? Is the familiarity element going to eliminate my prospects of becoming prosperous with it?
Our hottest exploration from advertising executives of quite a few really big providers and polls of about 1,000 youth coaches tells us:
There are about 2,500,000 children participating in youth soccer currently.
There are about 120,000 youth football groups in existence currently.
About 2,400 of all those youth teams are running the One Wing Offense.
So us One Wingers are still in the minority and the familiarity aspect is still very low as about 2% of youth soccer teams are managing the One Wing. But those adopting the offense is increasing and will carry on to improve in the advent of viewing it on Tv on both equally Saturdays and Sundays. Same goes for the achievement a range of our groups have had at the National Pop Warner Nationwide Championships and other big Tournaments. With so quite a few groups getting so significantly accomplishment with it at the youth levels, interest is sure to spike up. But don’t fret about that, my teams have been undertaking constantly properly with it more than the extended haul. We have been jogging it for 11 seasons from a whole lot of the exact groups and a ton of my levels of competition has bought my ebook, has my DVDs and arrives to this very website web site everyday. We have a monitoring detail on the internet site that reveals me which towns hit the website web-site each and every day.
Coaching Youth Football
The ethical of the story is to count on to see far more Single Wing Football anywhere you are. But never fear, we are nevertheless a minority, they still have to prevent it and if you bought the e book you have the countermeasures at your fingertips for the most typically applied methods and schemes employed to halt this offense.
1 last considered: Do you platoon? Do your very best gamers perform both equally strategies? Are you capable to commit 5 times a week exercise time to just offense, no defense or unique teams? Boy the youth activity and dynamic seems to suit a lot more of the mold of the constraints the teams of the 40s and 50s had, won’t it?