Recently in Doug Walters Category

Commenter Fred on the Exchange got me thinking about college bowl games today:

Does anyone else feel like I do that other than the BCS championship game, the rest of 'em are little more than exhibitions. That if you have something else to do or if it happens to be a nice day outside, you wouldn't be that disappointed to blow any of them off, or maybe watch a quarter or two and take a nap.

He's absolutely right, at least in my opinion. Back in 1996, when I first started watching college football (yes, I'm that young), there were 18 bowl games. According to collegefootballpoll.com there were 111 teams in division 1-A, so that means that a little less than a third of teams actually played in bowl games.

In 2008 there will be a whopping 34 bowl games, meaning that 68 of the 120 Bowl Subdivision teams get to play in the postseason. This means that plenty of six and seven win teams, many that are just plain lucky or slightly-above-mediocre, get to feel special in December.

Then I got to thinking - is the explosion in the number of bowl games something recent, or has it been going on for a while? I built a list of every single bowl game ever played (let me know if I did miss any) and the year they began. Then I totaled them up by decade, and the result is the chart below:

The Rose Bowl is the grand-daddy of all Bowl games. It was first played in 1902 and it took nearly twenty years before another Bowl game was started (that just so happened to be the now-defunct Fort Worth Classic).

It wasn't until the mid-to-late 1930's that the real Bowl game craze began. In 1935 teams played in the very first Orange, Sugar and Sun Bowls. The 1940's saw the biggest increase in Bowl games ever with eighteen, but sixteen of them are now defunct.

Seventeen more Bowl games were started between 1950 and 1980 and only five of those games are still being played.

And of course, from 1980 to the present we've seen 33 new Bowl games born. I think the main reason why we feel so inundated by college Bowls today is because many of the games since 1986 are still being played, even if they have changed names a dozen times.

So I'm with Fred. Let's go for less Bowl games and more meaningful match-ups. Maybe then people won't be quite as desperate for a playoff system.

1906: The Forward Pass
1907: The Single Wing
1951: The Wing-T
1958: The Run 'n Shoot
1968: The West Coast Offense, the Wishbone
2007: The A-11

Wait. The what?

Many of you may not have heard of that last one, but if Kurt Bryan and Steve Humphries have anything to say about it we'll be seeing this offense in our area very, very soon.

Bryan is the head coach of Piedmont High School Highlanders, located in Piedmont, CA. Humphries is the school's director of football operations. Due to the small size of the school in comparison to the other area schools they would be playing, Bryan and Humphries began working on an offense that would rely on deception and speed instead of big bulky linemen and conventional offensive techniques. They worked on their designs for two years before unveiling the A-11 offense in 2007. They lost their first two games of that season, then won seven straight games to make the playoffs even though they were at a significant size disadvantage.

The A-11 is run from a "scrimmage kick" formation...in other words, they line up in a quasi-punt formation with a center, two tight ends, two quarterbacks (one of whom is at least 7 yards behind the line of scrimmage) and then six receivers or runningbacks who are able to shift before the snap. Every player wears the jersey number of an eligible receiver so that the defense never knows which six players will be going downfield. The lack of blocking is offset by the use of two quarterbacks and a significant amount of motion before the snap.

Check out some footage of Piedmont's innovative new offense below:

I think this is absolutely fantastic. Did I mention that Scientific American calculated that the number of combinations of players who receive the snap and who end up with the ball rises from 36 in the standard formation with five fixed lineman to as many as 16,332 in the A-11? Just pick a play, any play. It's almost random. Can you imagine the amount of confusion this would create within a defensive unit trying to defend this?

I applaud Bryan and Humphries. It's about time coaches began developing more innovative offensive schemes. I'm tired of the same old, same old. We're seeing this innovation at all levels of the game now...think about how many teams began using variations of the Wildcat offense since the Dolphins found success at the pro level. College teams are running spread options and all kinds of other wacky formations. And now, some innovation at the prep level.

It is completely possible that we'll see the A-11 very soon in our area. As long as nobody stifles this line of thinking (and there are already people trying to do so) this could be the next big game-changing development.

Interestingly, however, college and pro football include rules that would make the A-11 illegal in certain situations. The NCAA rules state that the "scrimmage kick" formation can only be run when it is "obviously a kicking situation". That means that teams could only run the A-11 on 4th downs or goal-line situations. The NFL's numbering rules are too strict to allow players at certain positions to wear numbers that would make them eligible receivers. I've got my fingers crossed that officials at the college and pro levels make some rule changes to open the door for this new system to be run.

Braylon Edwards went to Michigan. The team that hates Penn State, and Penn State loves to hate back. So when Braylon Edwards' interview was aired during Monday Night Football, those with a trained eye found his choice of clothing to be slightly...um...humorous.

Is somebody wishing they had attended a different University perhaps? Maybe, sending a subtle message that they would rather root for a 7-0 team than a 2-4 team?

First of all, hi! The name is Doug, and I've been blogging since 2005. I've lived in York County for about 99% of my life, and I dig the local sports scene but my real passion is for the big leagues. What you can expect from me...a good mix of college and pro, with a sprinkling of whatever else is on my mind from time to time.

So, for my first post, I'd like to share a video with you. Last Sunday's game between the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots flat out blew my mind. It was a real treat to see a pro team break out an option offense for once. Mind you, it probably won't work twice, but it was great to see.

Dolphins offensive coordinator Dan Henning and QB coach David Lee deserve a lot of credit for implementing the scheme. A bit of trivia...Henning had actually run the Wildcat in the NFL before, for the Carolina Panthers. In December of 2006 the Panthers played the Atlanta Falcons and Henning used the team's duo of running backs (DeShaun Foster and DeAngelo Williams) to shove the ball down the Falcons' throats. They ran the ball 52 times that day, had possession for 42 minutes, and won 10-7. Lee had run the Wild Hog offense for Arkansas when Darren McFadden played his college ball there.

If you've never seen the Wildcat (also called the Wild Hog, or Wild Rebel) here is a neat video from David Lee. To answer this post's title, innovation is how you beat the best.