The end of the A-11 Offense

We've mentioned the A-11 offense before, and how it was created by the coach of Piedmont (CA) High School to give his under-manned team a chance to compete against the other schools in it's conference that had twice the enrollment. The secret to the A-11 is that it ran out of a scrimmage kick formation, usually used for punts and PATs. Typically, linemen must wear jersey numbers between 50 and 79 and are ineligible receivers. In the A-11, nobody wears those numbers and everybody is a potential receiver. It's really quite brilliant and a great example of thinking creatively and using what's available to you to accomplish something.

But we wouldn't want our high school kids to be creative problem solvers, would we? The National Federation of State High School Associations sure doesn't, so they "closed the loophole" that allowed it to work.

"It was unethical for them to use a loophole in the rules to run this offense," said Mike Webb, the supervisor of football officials for the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission who is on the NFHS football rules committee. "This takes away the deception."

Wait, what? Unethical? Deception? I think these guys need to take a big step back for a second and reevaluate what they are doing. It's a football game. A team figured out a way to compete by playing within the rules. They should get medals.

Hat tip to Chuckie Hacks, who has more here.