Just wanted to hear any and everyones thoughts on a the three back offense. ( power football) is it dying out. I know a few highschools in the state are considered power football teams. Is it because kids playing football today are more athletic? Has the spread offense really taken off? Or are there few high school coaches left that really believe in power football? Any and all thoughts or opinions are welcome.

Ask the Russell Red Devils and Coach Ivan McGlone.:dancingpa

Belfry has done very well with it.

It's not a thing of the past in Mercer County. We like "The Bone".

Not at the High school level.

Power football is great, in my opinion. But, you, as a coach, have to run the offense/defense to meet your personnel. If you have, say, over 5 very good athletes and you want to get them all on the field, with as many touches as possible. Then the spread is a very good option. If you have, say, one very good athlete and several decent athletes, then the "I", "Wing T" or "Power I" formations are more of what you want. If you have two very good athletes the the "Wish Bone" is a good option. Linemen are important for the offense as well, If you are going to run a power offense, you need quick athletic linemen. With the spread you have more versatility with your linemen. Quick linemen are always good, but with the spread you can get away with some bigger, and possibly slower linemen.

 

With the above statements, I do not mean that you have to run certain offenses with those personnel, people do it differently all the time. My experience with Bill Tom Ross, showed me that you can have a flexible offense with a traditional "Power Formation". Coach Ross ran the "Wish Bone". If he had one or two decent backs, he would run more of the traditional "Wish Bone" plays, the dives, leads, and sweeps. If, the next year, he had three or four good backs, he would run the "Wish Bone" with a lot of slot formations, the TE would be a good athlete and became a split end, and one or both of the half backs would become slot backs, and looked more like a "Wing T" or "Pro" formation. He then passed more and ran more screens, drop back passes, and bootlegs.

 

The thing with the spread is: it looks more like a passing offense, and it is to a certain extent, but a lot of the passes are screens and short passes that allows the receiver to run after the catch. I see the spread as a running offense, if you will. Just instead of handing the ball off, you toss it five or ten yards to them. Of course, there are the occasional throws down field, but most of the passes are short with big runs after the catch.

 

The thing is, you can't label an offense, then limit what you do. The offense should be flexible to your personal. If you insist on running the "Wish Bone" with three small backs that are not very physical, then you will have problems. Or, if you only have one true athlete and insist on running the spread, you will be disappointed. Your offense has to have flexibility. Your "Wish Bone" may at times look more like the spread, and at times your spread may look more like the "Wish Bone".

 

So, maybe the spread is the new power football.

I know of a lot of teams that have it in their package, but it is not their base offense any longer. It gives you a very nice pre-snap look to set up a pass on 2nd and 3rd and short, and is still very effective on the goal line. You can also run a lot of plays out of 3 back, including cutback and counter, QB veer, and many other plays utilizing diferent personnel. It is not a thing of the past, just one viable element of an overall scheme.

It may not be the traditional power game, but Urban Meyer pretty much runs a power football game when Tebow is running the football. He has two lead backs, and he has the ball. Sounds like a wishbone to me.

Wishbone can still be very effective. But you must have some pretty good O-lineman to get it done. You must also be able to throw the ball enough to keep people from loading up on you. Most of the teams that run the bone are also very good defensive teams and they don't beat thereselves on the offensive side of the ball with turnovers.

St. Xavier has it in their package (the wishbone) and uses it quite effectively on short yardage and goal line. I see it used quite a bit but never as the base package for any team in awhile.

It may not be the traditional power game, but Urban Meyer pretty much runs a power football game when Tebow is running the football. He has two lead backs, and he has the ball. Sounds like a wishbone to me.

 

He runs the Spread Option which is basically that, an option attack run out of a spread look.

Urban Meyer devloped his offense with wishbone principles. He loved the wishbone, but knew it would be hard to recruit running it. The spread option is a great offense to get athletes in space. If you watch UF you will see them motion that 3rd back into the back field and run "wishbone."

It will come back into style. Football is like fashion. If someone is having success with something, or looking good doing something people will copy it. Its all about cycles in football.

The basic premise of power football is that my guys are better than yours...especially the OL. We will win the majority of the battles in the game by physically beating you up during the game in order to blast holes into your defense with 8-9 defenders in the box. Today teams that are evenly matched can not win playing strictly power football because mistakes occur in every game. Essentially it requires a team to be flawless if evenly matched. The reason power football is slacking off is because everyone lifts, conditions, and becomes better football players over time, unlike times past. The quality of athletes has improved over time and this has produced much more parity in the game. With parity comes the need for innovation...and power football is certainly not innovative. This is not to say one can't run the football, but it does mean that new ideas must be taken into account in order to give your kids, which aren't ALWAYS going to be the superior athletes on the field, a chance to win the game by executing a solid scheme...i.e. spreading the field forcing teams to honor the pass and still running the ball into the expanded running lanes that naturally exist in a nickel or dime defense...if the defense does not adjust then you throw it until the cows come home...or until the defense adjusts to it by alignment.

Dunbar still uses the power game.