Developing a Simple, Yet Diverse Offensive Formation System

Using Key Words to Build a Simple Offensive Formation System

The key to being a multiple formation spread offense is to develop easy formation rules for players to learn and follow so they can line up fast and easily. No matter the goal of your spread offense, you want a formation system that is easily adaptable so you can get the match-ups you want and score points. For the sake of teaching the basics, I will focus on our TE formations. The power spread offensive formation system is predicated on some basic personnel rules that tell receivers where to line up:

• Y (TE) lines up TO the call, ON the line of scrimmage, and ATTACHED to the offensive line.
• Z receiver lines up TO the call, OFF the line of scrimmage, and split out wide.
• H receiver lines up AWAY from the call, OFF the line of scrimmage, and in the SLOT between the Tackle and the outside receiver.
• X receiver lines up AWAY from the call, ON the line of scrimmage, and split out wide.
• F Back lines up with his toes at 5 yards depth, next to the QB with his inside leg on the outside leg of the guard, and in accordance to the play call.

Our base tight end formations are simply called Right and Left. Based upon the formation rules above, Right and Left formations look like this:

In order to get into other formations, we simply tag a receiver with a word that means something only to him. The other 10 players simply line up in accordance to the base rules of Right and Left formations. Ours system is predicated in only moving the players that are OFF the ball in order to get into the formations we want. In our case, this is the H, the Z and the F.

H Receiver  Base Formation Tags

Within our base formation system, these words speak to our H player:

• Hop: H lines up in the slot opposite his normal rule and should become #2 Receiver.
• Max: Tells H to line up as a running back in the backfield

As you can see in the diagrams, only the H breaks from his normal formation rules. All other players line up according to the Right and Left base formation rules.

Z Receiver Formation Tags

These words speak to our Z receiver:

• Flip: Moves Z to the opposite side and inside of X.
• Flop: Moves Z to opposite side and outside of X.

As you can see in the diagrams, only the Z breaks from his normal formation rules. All other players line up according to the Right and Left base formation rules.

Double Formation Tags

Sometimes you may want to use two tags in order to get into the formation you want. This is done when utilizing two back formations or empty sets. In our offense, we would use the “Max” and “Flip” or “Flop” tags together.

These formations would look like the diagrams below.

Want to go Empty? You can easily move the F out of the backfield with a simple North or South formation tag. North and South tell the F to leave backfield and line up as a receiver

• North = Line Up as inside receiver OFF the line of scrimmage on the Right side

• South = Line up as most inside receiver OFF the line of scrimmage on the LEFT side.

You can tag North and South to any single back formation diagram above to get into an empty set.

In our offense, we utilize spread formations without a TE as well, but we simply use R and L words to keep the formation system of where to line up intact. Which players are ON and which players are OFF the line of scrimmage will change, but the general direction of where they line up does not change. For us, our 2x2 double slot formation is Rip and Liz. Rip and Liz would take the place of Right and Left as the basic no TE formation

Rip and Liz talks to two players:

• Rip/Liz tells the Y to line up OFF the line of scrimmage in the Slot between the tackle and the outside receiver.
• Rip/Liz tells the Z to line up ON the line of scrimmage in his normal alignment.

We get to a 3 receiver set by adding our “Hop” tag from above.

We get to a 2 back set by adding our “Max” tag from above.

This is a very simple, yet very diverse formation system that uses only a few words. Using only 10 words, you can get into well over 25 formations if you choose to do so. The system is easy to learn because the basic rules are applied for most of the players in a majority of the formations. This formula of a base system with tags can be used with any offense to create a diverse formation system that will give you the match ups needed to gain an advantage and be successful.

Best of Luck!