Old School / Unique Offenses

[Salem33]

What schools in the state are running unique or old school offenses? Split back  veer, single wing, straight T, Power I. Are they having or have they had success in recent years? Will we see a rise in these coming back? 

[PHJIrish]

I don't know about unique or old school, but a run around end is a trick play for the Cathedral Irish, so far this season.  The offense is quite conservative and has scored only one TD and two field goals total so far in three games.  Granted, the opposition has been quite talented, and that won't change much for Friday night.  I'd like to hear the school song a lot more!

[JQWL]

Paoli has run the flexbone for years. I see Crawford County running it now. West Washington goes back and forth with it. I thought recently Salem was running flexbone or some double wing. Brownstown's double wing spinner is a off shoot of the Single Wing spinner series. North Harrison did run the Power I. North Knox runs Tim Murphy's version of Shotgun Double Wing which has a lot of Single Wing elements in it.

[cornfed]

Knox has been going with 7 lineman, double TE, H-back and direct snap to McLaughlin at QB. Snap it, and they are coming straight at you. Seems to be working well. McLaughlin has 1,057 yards rushing through 3 games.

[foxbat]

16 hours ago, Salem33 said:

What schools in the state are running unique or old school offenses? Split back  veer, single wing, straight T, Power I. Are they having or have they had success in recent years? Will we see a rise in these coming back? 

Talk about a blast from the past!  Grew up in Houston when UofH was just doing this stuff.  We were running it as early as middle school.  Had a crazy defensive coordinator who always showed you the "proper" tackling technique of driving your facemask through the sternum, but he went full speed without a helmet.  By second week of practice, he'd opened up a big gash on the bridge of his nose and you could tell who he demo'd the technique on because they had a huge blood spot in the middle of their chest on their jersey.  He devised a way of turning the veer into a single option.  Usually involved about 2-3 personal fouls in the first half, but by the second half the QB had no desire to even get close to attempting a second read, much less getting to the pitch component.  Wouldn't work nowadays as defenders would be called for spearing. 

[wabashalwaysfights]

16 hours ago, Salem33 said:

What schools in the state are running unique or old school offenses? Split back  veer, single wing, straight T, Power I. Are they having or have they had success in recent years? Will we see a rise in these coming back? 

A really interesting look at the evolution of the modern spread and how it relates back to a lot of these older concepts...

Who Actually Invented the Spread Offense

[First_Backer_Inside]

2 hours ago, cornfed said:

Knox has been going with 7 lineman, double TE, H-back and direct snap to McLaughlin at QB. Snap it, and they are coming straight at you. Seems to be working well. McLaughlin has 1,057 yards rushing through 3 games.

I hope he stays healthy, the rest of the team only has 200 yards offense.

[Salem33]

I just feel that small schools especially should look to more “old school” football concepts and formations. I think some knocks on them is the amount of time they take to develop, and they aren’t “sexy”. I feel more coaches would be interested in them if schools and parents would buy in. 

[adambetz]

5 hours ago, cornfed said:

Knox has been going with 7 lineman, double TE, H-back and direct snap to McLaughlin at QB. Snap it, and they are coming straight at you. Seems to be working well. McLaughlin has 1,057 yards rushing through 3 games.

Leanding rusher in the nation. He's got some lofty goals this year including setting the all time state and single season records. Off to a lightning start.

[1st_and_10]

15 hours ago, Salem33 said:

I just feel that small schools especially should look to more “old school” football concepts and formations. I think some knocks on them is the amount of time they take to develop, and they aren’t “sexy”. I feel more coaches would be interested in them if schools and parents would buy in. 

Agree.  You have some small schools who try to run spread and struggle to get the snap and block it long enough... Run the Offense that caters to your team.  Those old school concepts/formations can keep you in ball games when you can chew up the clock and get 3-4 yards per play.  

[Bobref]

Crown Point has gone to The Beast offense. It might sound new. But to me, it looks an awful lot like the single wing that I played against vs. Valpo … in 1969!

[WCGrad92]

Monrovia for the most part has ran the Inside Belly as their offense since 2007 when Kevin Hutchins became the HC. They have made it to 2 State Finals, winning in 2015 rushing for 6383 yards(Indiana State Record). He learned the offense from Dick Harpold while he was coaching at Howe. I believe Dick Harpold ran this offense when he coached at Arlington.

[Coach Nowlin]

DID I HEAR SINGLE WING???

 

 

 

[NLCTigerFan07]

Warsaw, Mishawaka, and Wawasee are all running the "Bart Ball", flexbone style of TMT (Triple - Mid Line - Toss) offense in the NLC.

[TigerFan20]

Jasper ran the flexbone offense for decades until their new coach switched over to Spread offense this year. 

[AG]

On 9/12/2025 at 7:19 AM, 1st_and_10 said:

Agree.  You have some small schools who try to run spread and struggle to get the snap and block it long enough... Run the Offense that caters to your team.  Those old school concepts/formations can keep you in ball games when you can chew up the clock and get 3-4 yards per play.  

Yep, Pioneer just went back to the state finals running the type of offense that you just described. They kept the first half close by chewing up clock with long drives, and they did the same thing against South Adams. 

Pioneer is one of the best examples of building a "system" and teaching the fundamentals of it throughout youth league and middle school. I've seen Pioneer field some poor 7th and 8th grade football teams that then went on to win banners at the high school level.

[1st_and_10]

1 hour ago, AG said:

Yep, Pioneer just went back to the state finals running the type of offense that you just described. They kept the first half close by chewing up clock with long drives, and they did the same thing against South Adams. 

Pioneer is one of the best examples of building a "system" and teaching the fundamentals of it throughout youth league and middle school. I've seen Pioneer field some poor 7th and 8th grade football teams that then went on to win banners at the high school level.

Webo does the same.  Our youth and Jr High programs run the offense & defense (where we can) of the High School Program.  

[RingLeader]

Although Pioneer came up short they did do something they’ve never done before having all 3 RB’s plus QB eclipse 1,000 yds this season. Not bad for old school offense
FB 1600

RHB 1168

QB 1087

LHB 1051

[foxbat]

On 11/29/2025 at 9:23 AM, AG said:

Yep, Pioneer just went back to the state finals running the type of offense that you just described. They kept the first half close by chewing up clock with long drives, and they did the same thing against South Adams. 

Pioneer is one of the best examples of building a "system" and teaching the fundamentals of it throughout youth league and middle school. I've seen Pioneer field some poor 7th and 8th grade football teams that then went on to win banners at the high school level.

 

23 hours ago, 1st_and_10 said:

Webo does the same.  Our youth and Jr High programs run the offense & defense (where we can) of the High School Program.  

 

I think that sometimes the idea of teaching the scheme at the youth level can sometimes be overrated or overemphasized.  To an extent, it's a question of how early you introduce that, as well as the complexity of the scheme.

When I was coaching youth programs back in the day, I had a counterpart at another program ask me how detailed our play calling was for 3rd/4th grade kids.  He confessed that they were just basically lining up in the huddle and saying things like "Mike, give the ball to Bobby and then Bobby, run to the right side behind Tommy" or something similar.  We ran a basic system where we introduced back and hole numbers as well as general terms like dive, sweep, and counter to the kids, but these were all independent of the high school varsity schemes.

In the time that I coached in LCC's youth program, from around 2002 until my retirement in 2020 when COVID killed the season, I coached under six different varsity head coaches and an interim HC.  Every time a new coach came in, we always asked, if they wanted us to run a specific type of offense, scheme, numbering, terminology, etc.  All of them said, do what we were doing because the most important things to them were that the kids understood safe and effective fundamentals of hitting and tackling, fundamental football ideology, and probably most importantly, that the kids had fun so that they would stick with football and keep coming back while their bodies caught up to their enjoyment of the game.  I recall one coach even going so far as to say, just do what we were doing because there was no guarantee that he'd even still be coaching by the time they got to the high school. 

[superjay]

Riverton Parke runs old school double tight smash mouth offense.  Dominated South Putnam in first half 21-7 before falling in OT.

[First_Backer_Inside]

On 9/12/2025 at 2:59 PM, Coach Nowlin said:

DID I HEAR SINGLE WING???

 

 

 

Went to Uindy with a guy named Rylan Arihood, really good running back. Was sad to see him transfer to St. Joseph. I'm pretty sure it shut down before he graduated. Do you know if he decided to go play anywhere after that?