The craziest thing we’ve seen this summer showed up Thursday afternoon calling itself “The A-11 offense.”

But as crazy as it looked, it might be the next “big thing” in high school football.

A couple of coaches at Northern California’s Piedmont High came up with a scheme that attempts to make all 11 players eligible to catch a pass — hence the name, A-11 for all 11 eligible.

A description on the offense’s Web site - www.a11offense.com - describes it as “an innovative offense blending aspects of the spread option, West Coast and run and shoot.”

In its basic formation, there is a center and two tight ends, who surround the football, three receivers are split right, three more split left and two quarterbacks stand in shotgun formation.

Doesn’t sound legal, does it? 

The offense was approved by National Federation of High Schools and the California Interscholastic Federation last season because on any given play it conforms to the rules, including having only five players eligible to catch a pass and seven players set up on the line of scrimmage.

 Piedmont High went 7-4 and advanced to the playoffs using the A-11 offense in 2007.

To read more about the offense and see a video of the offense on Rivals.com, click here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Football, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.