The offensive philosophy is different, and is as follows. These are also more adjustable to you, for example using the run to set up the pass.

1. We will live by the pass. (Not die)
2. We will use the pass to set up the run.
3. We will be a highly-explosive offense by forcing the defense into 1 on 1 situations.
4. We will attack the defense both horizontally and vertically.
5. We will throw high percentage passes.
6. We will confuse the defense by formations and motions.
7. We will force the defense to cover the whole of the field and run to the football.
9. We will have an explosive, exciting running attack.
10. We will always win the fourth quarter.

This offense relies mostly on spread formations, and usually has a specific set of them, and applying the schemes to them. The key to modern offense is diagnosing how a defense reacts to certain formations and motions, and guessing how they will react, and then calling a play designed to take advantage of whatever look they give you. Coupled with attack certain players and matchups that are favorable. The more talent and good players you have, the more options and good matchups and less they can do to take away say a key player. Just as important is utilizing all the good players you do have. For example, if you line up in shotgun no backs and the defense always checks into cover 3 versus that you are likely to run a lot of hooks and hitches until they adjust. Also if you line up in such a way and they go man to man with a linebacker on a slot man, you can take advantage of that with a slant, crossing route, out or corner. Therefore, flexibility remains largely up to each coach if they want to use various formations and apply these simple schemes to them to achieve their goal. This is why modern offenses use so many formations now, they limit their plays and schemes.

Moreover, most are easy to teach, for example if I wanted to go to 5 wides and run a 3 step slant. All I'd have to do is apply the routes run from normal trips as diagrammed in the 3 step section on the side with three receivers, and on the two receiver side run the routes shown in the normal scheme. (As long as there is no tight end, the bubble rule should still apply to no backs. They shouldn't be able to have more than 5 in the box.)

Just to mention, we do not come out of this offense in the red zone, or short yardage. We do what we do and don't try to change too much. Though we do work hard on the red zone and short yardage proportionately, we don't believe you have to have any kind of basic set you get from other teams. We will cut splits, and work on running the football, and having effective plays and schemes for this area. We mostly just try to analyze what a defense does in this area like any other. Often though, we find we have to drop the ball off to playmakers to let them run into the end zone. This is also where screens, especially the WR screen are helpful. Also, and I will elaborate in the run section, is we have a formation where the Y and the A align where a tight end would be except off the line and in a two-point stance. (we also substitute or just bring our use our base personel depending on who we have and what kind of players are there) This is how we make sure to take use of effective tight end/lead blocker types, and to tighten down in short yardage to help prevent penetration. It also, because of it being what we use for power running but still within the scope of our offense, one of the best ways we like to use our bootleg s.

Motion, which is a tool used to reveal coverage, create mismatches, change alignment, and generally make the defense think, can be a powerful weapon. "Motion causes emotion" and any time the defense has to think it is at a disadvantage. The only motions we use are "Jet" (a receiver crosses the formation to the next nearest slot position if an outside receiver or normal wideout position if not), "near"(a receiver starts wide and motions in but slows up as he approaches the offensive tackle/tight end to his side. Used for help in releases and coverage recognition.) and "return"(receiver begins like jet and upon reaching the center stops and pivots and returns to original position). It is called by simply telling that player to run it. (Z Jet, Y Return, etc.) Running back motion is known as east or west, where they will aproach the LOS, and motion out as a split receiver to their called side. We label this as "East" and "West" (East is left and west is right obviously). Motioning into no backs is probably our most effective way of doing it.

Shifts are also a powerful tool, and this is easily called by saying the initial formation and then the formation to be used at the snap. ("Gun Trips Left None Right" would have the QB in shotgun, trips to the left and the X to the right. Then after getting there all the skill people would have to shift around to get the X and the A on the left and the Z and others on the right and the QB would go under center. Remember in this case the offense knows where it is going, while the defense is usually like "what are they doing")

We name our plays by series and use a 2 or 3 digit number for all plays. We number our holes, and use our backs as the first digit on run plays. Our zone run the right by our back would be 22. Our quarterback sneak would be 10. Passes each drop has a series, like 3 step drop might be 90 and 5 step might be 80, and the second digit would be the route scheme. 91 would be our hitch route scheme, and everyone would have to know their assignments as based on that formation. This is one reason we keep the number of schemes to a minimum. We define the strongside of the pass protection as the side the back goes to, so if we want the strongside to be to the right, we simply state the two digit number, such as 82, but if we want it to the left, we will call 182. This also tells the offensive line what to do, which is the most important part of a pass play. Our most common audible on passes is to change the side of the protection strength.

On things like bootlegs and screens, they have a series. Screens are 70s and bootlegs are 60s, then the schemes are defined by numbers. For example 72 would be the wide receiver screen to the right, 173 would be the bubble screen to the left. On bootlegs the 1 indicates the quarterback is going to be going to the left and the pulling guard will lead that way, NOT the direction of the back.

The no-huddle emphasizes conditioning, discipline, confusing the defense, setting the offensive tempo, and it also allows your offensive staff to get a look at the defense before you call a play.

In practice, the no-huddle allows you to rep and practice more plays, and it reduces the need for extra conditioning drills because your 20 minute sessions of plays versus air (when we run all our plays vs the air emphasizing perfectly executing their assignments and hustling) will leave them winded, and you will have gotten a maximum number of possible reps.

In the game, your players are coached to always run the ball to the referees after each play and to hand them the ball to help them to spot it sooner and to get behind the ball and to look back to the quarterback or sideline. (The linemen need to stay about a foot or two back from where they would be in their stance, because when they get in their stance they don't want to give away the play based on adjustments to splits.)

I've seen the snap count handled a variety of ways, but we always go on hut unless our QB, and this is his discretion, calls a term after the play signal. It can be anything, just whatever is indicative.

Then everyone sets, and the snap count is "Go, [color] [number], [samecolor] [samenumber], hut" or on 2 means "hut, hut". We also go on "go". An example is "Go, Blue 22, Blue 22, hut". Mostly the color and number are dummy calls but a hot color, whatever you choose, designates it is an audible. If the hot color was black, and they said "Black 191" it'd change the play to the hitch route with the strongside of the pass protection to the left. I'm sure almost all of you all already have a similar system. (In shotgun if the QB needs to move the back he should just do that, but the back should always go behind the quarterback, in case of errant snaps. It's a good habit to have.)

The only other point I have to make about the no-huddle, is it needs to be practiced at a slower tempo for ball control after building a lead. The system still functions it just needs to be slowed down, still controlling tempo, in order to conserve the clock.

The other contingency is the no-huddle in a 2 minute situation. This is more common, but is easier for us since we are always in no-huddle. We just have to make adjustments. We make a call to the offense, or on the sideline that we will be going to this, and we have a code word. It can be anything, but we call it "lightning". But after a stoppage of the clock, we'll often call "regular" and go through our normal routine of calling the formation then lining up and calling the play. But we have a hand signal, usually just a winding of the arm, and a call, "lightning" any time the clock is running. Anyway, we pick one formation during the year, or week, based on our best personel and get them on the field where they are most comfortable. This becomes our set for lightning, it won't change at all. However, it shoul be noted that receivers have to come inside to the hashes after every play in High School. We then can call anything in our offense just as normal, using the same signals. However, all plays wil be run on "go" instead of the normal snap count. We also have a call for the stop the clock play.

However, we also have a two-minute philosophy. We have to understand how much time we have, and how many time outs. Each pass play usually takes around 6 or 7 seconds. If we have two minutes, with time outs, that is a lot of plays. So we try to minimize the time between plays if the clock is running, so on the plays themselves we can take our time. Our quarterbacks are drilled to go through the same progressions as always, and we generally pick bread and butter type plays. We always use some 3 step and possesion type passes, and if the situation permits always run some. Not just draws either. We've spent all our practice time a certain way, the rest of the game a certain way, so why get frantic and change things. People need to be mindful of what is going on, and get out of bounds, but at the same time, not to make things happen to the point of making mistakes. The quarterback especially. He simply needs to hit the open receivers and distribute the ball. Often we've had quarterbacks try to hold on to the ball and force it downfield to the receivers in these situations, when he had a crossing route or a swing pass wide open udnerneath, and this type of mistake was uncharacteristic. When asked about it, they usually replied "I was trying to make something happen." We've also had quarterbacks pass up open receivers and wait for other receivers to try to get open later downfield and it has worked. However, we tell them the same thing, get the ball to those guys right now so they can get upfield. Worry about those other guys when they get open later. Because that is the type of habit, in any situation, but often becomes evident in the 2 minute drill, that leads to poor decisions and interceptions. The biggest goal is to make first downs. That's all. The rest will come.

The other variant I want to mention about the no-huddle we do, is we will practice a series of 4 plays in practice, usually plays that make the defense run, like screens to either side, maybe a draw, a sweep etc. and practice running those in order and running the play as quick as possible. At any time if we have to, we can stop and tell them to huddle up if the situation makes itself neccesary, (3rd and long) but we usually do this package once or twice a game. We just pick a codeword, you could call it anything, but we call it "thunder". We usually go on our normal snap count, but there have been games we've decided to go on "go" on these plays, which is our quick count. This is intended to control the tempo, keep the defense off balance, they are simple base plays for us but each has the potential to break, and it often really winds our opponents who are not prepared for this type of faced paced attack. We keep the same personel in, but we can go to any formation we use within that personel group, and if we wanted to run say a sweep to the sideline we could easily run guys in and line up if we so choose, but that's rare when we do that.(Remember the referee has to spot the ball before you can go and the receivers have to come in to the hashes after each play.)

I'm not going to get into super detail here, but I hope can help shed some light. Basically coverages are the scheme that the defenses use in pass defense. There are a certain number or variety of them, and it is helpful to break them into categories in order to be able to communicate, especially in the heat of a game. Here are the definitions.

3: 3 Deep zone
1: 1 middle safety, man to man(can be loose or tight man)(likely blitz)
2 Zone: 2 deep, zone coverage underneath
2 Man: 2 deep, man to man underneath(generally tight man)
0: 0 deep(no one deeper than 9 yards)(definite blitz)
3 Tag: 3 deep zone with man to man on one player 4: 4 deep, (looks like two deep with safeties farther in on the hashes and corners off a bit more and bailing out.) (Also known as prevent coverage)

Other keys to look for to determine zone or man are motion, (bumping accross or following a player), reading a cornerbacks leverage and eyes. If he is 6 or 7 yards back and turned in or looking in at the QB, it's zone, and he probably has the deep 3 or half or somesuch based on what the others are doing. if he is looking at the man, it is probably some kind of man to man with loose man coverage. If he is up close and positioned inside(back to QB) looking at the receiver, it is probably blitz, he is in man, and has no inside help. If he is up close and heads up, and looking at the receiver, it is probably some kind fo press man but not a blitz as he has help. If he is located to the outside and is looking at the QB, it is zone, and he has the flats which means it is some kind of roll coverage, either cover 2 or a cover 3 with a safety playing the deep third behind him. But he will probably be trying to force the receiver inside to the help and he will be playing short.

I hope that is helpful, it is important to be able to communicate as coaches and players so they can tell you and you them what you see and confer quickly to make decisions, especially the proper ones. You have to know what you're getting in order to defeat it.

The quarterback, as he approaches the line and prepares for the snap is taught a specific way to get a pre-snap read of the coverage and defense in order to make his decisions for an audible. He will begin by looking at the far left, usually at the left cornerback, and then moving his head steadily along where the safeties are in order to try to recognize probably coverage(or coverages) and will see the linebackers and rovers with his peripheral vision. Upon reaching the right flat with his eyes and the right corner, he will work his way back left at linebacker depth seeing the defensive line and their positions and body positions with his peripheral vision. He will look for alignments and keys as to whether they are stunting or dropping or various keys regarding the run or personel matchups. He has to be mindful that all his receivers are covered by defenders otherwise he will go to the bubble screen rule. He will continue working his eyes left until he gets back to the left corner in the left flat and will repeat the process once more. (He might not do it a second time when the snap is on go.)

The running backs will count the number of safeties in order to determine number of defenders in the back. He will then get a good look at the front, the defensive line and linebackers/rover safeties. He will try to discover the probably running lanes on run plays but not stare at them, and recognize potential rushers on pass plays, especially his assigned man.

The offensive linemen need to learn to break the habit at the younger levels of staring at the ground that most of them come in with, and learn to get their eyes up in order to quickly recognize fronts and alignments in order to sort out blocking. They also need to learn to communicate, we don't use calls because our schemes are simple and we'd just as soon let them point at the guy. However, sometimes that is neccesary as well. Communication is vital along the offensive line. Especially if a guard is uncovered and the tackle is covered with another rusher to the outside that the guard needs to worry about. These sort of calls are vital.

The receivers will approach the line looking at the defensive backs in a similar fashion to the quarterback, and will take his time generally. In their stance, we use a 2 point stance, the receivers should not look directly at the ball, but should look more towards linebacker depth, seeing the ball in their peripheral vision while at the same time seeing the safeties' alignments and understanding where the man on him is (inside, outside, deepth, press, etc) by both looking at him and feel. The receiver often also, knowing the snap count, can sneak a peek at the defender over him.