

California High School's Offensive Scheme Adds Randomness to Football - edw519
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=football-offensive-math&print=true

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chriskelley

      ;offensive scheme...
      (begin
        (display "Your mama is a snowblower")
        (newline))

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soundsop
The part about randomness is a red herring. They are choosing from a larger
set of plays than is usual. The article implies that this is somehow akin to
randomness, but I think that's a bit of a stretch.

I do remember some research on using random selection among plays in football
to improve offense. Maybe the value of random selection diminishes as the
number of possibilities increases.

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jedc
I think writer is saying random since you never know whether the player you're
facing on the other side is going to be a lineman on that play or a receiver.

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breck
This article is silly. Maybe in some random high school league you can have 11
eligible receivers, but not anywhere else. In the pros, you need to have at
least 7 players on the line of scrimmage and the 5 linemen are not eligible
receivers.

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ojbyrne
There's a discussion in this thread:
[http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=87&f=2909&t=2717293&#...</a><p>Basically it's
a kick formation.

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jraines
a11offense.com says it's approved in 40 states. What does that mean? Do the
rules of football change from state to state? Would it be legal in the NCAA?
How about the NFL?

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DocSavage
If this became widespread, I would think it hurts smaller schools with less
talent. Think about schools like USC that have a dozen speedy All-American
playmakers in their three-deep. It's bad enough trying to defend them with the
current # of ball-eligible players. Can't see why the bulk of teams would want
to allow this.

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steveplace
But then you wouldn't have coaches pushing adolescents to pack on 50 pounds so
they can compete on the line.

With these plays, you don't need all-star speed, just really good execution.

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mattmaroon
I don't understand how they're not getting sacked left and right with no
linemen. 7 yards isn't that far.

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soundsop
I don't think having fewer than 5 linemen is a legal formation. The article is
confusing in it's explanation of the formations. If you look at the slides of
the plays (link at bottom), there seem to be at least 5 player on the line of
scrimmage.

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mattmaroon
I'm not sure exactly what scrimmage kick formation is, but from a little
googling I was able to determine that the defensive linemen aren't allowed to
make contact with the center after the snap.

