Noah Roehl
Son of a coach and younger brother of a legendary quarterback, Noah Roehl grew up on the football practice field at Coupeville High School, building forts out of blocking pads and surviving off of stray orange wedges.
Later, he would go on to be a star Wolf player himself, before transitioning into his current role as a high school assistant coach in Seattle. These are his thoughts and the first in a series of columns on the sport(s) he loves:
What does the new football season at Coupeville look like? A lot of confusion!
What I mean is that the offensive system that new head coach Tony Maggio is installing is based on deception, misdirection and general confusion for the defense. The Coupeville football team will be running the Wing-T offense.
This is not a new offense by any means. Developed by Glenn “Pop” Warner in about 1907[i], it uses a variety of play series in which the quarterback gives the ball to one running back, but fakes it to the other running backs.
The Wing-T offense is based on different series of plays. For instance, on any given play, the movements of the running backs and the quarterback might all look exactly the same, but the quarterback will hand the ball off to a different runner.
Typically there are about 3-4 plays per series, and depending on the football team and coaching staff, a team may have 3-4 play series in. While that might only give a team about 16 different plays, 4 series x 4 plays each, at the high school level, with VERY good execution, that can lead to a very good offense.
Most notably, Bellevue High School runs the Wing-T, and one could say it has had some success for them, having won 9 of the last 10 Washington State 3A championships. While that is impressive, and definitely cements Bellevue’s legacy, I personally think the victory over De La Salle High School of California in 2004 has had a bigger impact.
At the time, De La Salle was riding a 151 game win streak[ii], and produced a ton of Division 1, and future NFL players.[iii] Bellevue’s win gave modern validity to the Wing-T, and likely started the cascade of great athletes that would start filling Bellevue’s halls.
While most people believe that Bellevue is good because they have the best athletes, the reality is that the first 3 state championships and the win over De La Salle had less to do with the athletes[iv] and more to do with the system.
The Wing-T system is based on misdirection, but what many people do not realize is that the real value of the Wing-T system is that it puts the O-line at a huge advantage[v].
At the NFL and college level, most offensive and defensive lineman are massive.Not massive like your friend who can eat a lot of tacos, but massive like Bigfoot’s 350 pound child.
However, at the high school level, many teams play with offensive lineman who are small, scrappy and mean. They are willing to push people around, get a little dirty and execute when they know they will get little, if any, recognition for it (think Brad Pitt in “Snatch”).
When you are undersized as an O-Lineman it is often difficult to just line up across from somebody and push them any direction you want, which is the NFL and college concepts.
What the Wing-T does is creates angle blocks for the O-line. The O-lineman gets to take on a defender at an angle, with a slight element of surprise and the physical advantage of using the opposing players own momentum to the offense’s advantage. Additionally, these concepts allow lineman to pull, often referred to as a trap pull or a loop pull. Now that smaller undersized lineman, who is mean and gritty, and typically quick, can get out in front of the running back and essentially be an additional lead blocker.
As a defender playing a good Wing-T team, each play will potentially look like 3 other plays (remember the concept of the play series explained earlier), but the offense will also have an additional blocker out in front and because of the advantage of angles, the O-line will have created bigger seams for the running back to run through.
Going back to Bellevue’s defeat of De La Salle, it is my opinion that Bellevue was able to do more with less.
They executed extremely well and used the blocking schemes of the Wing-T to move much larger and stronger defensive players and create huge holes for the running backs to run through. Bellevue, largely believed to be the underdog in that night’s game, [vi], was able to soundly beat a much stronger opponent with scarcely more than a superior understanding of how to create a lot of confusion.
Now how does this apply to Coupeville? Am I saying that Coupeville will win 9 state championships in the next 10 years? Maybe, but more realistically Coupeville’s football team will be able to take advantage of the same confusion that many defenses deal with when playing Bellevue.
The reason the Wing-T offense works is that smaller, undersized teams are able to compete by forcing the defense to defend against multiple plays and players on every play. Coupeville has a large and veteran O-Line and some very skilled and quick running backs. With a disciplined QB who can execute great fakes Coupeville will surprise many teams this year and put a lot of points on the score board.
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i – There are some that argue that Walter Camp developed the T-formation in 1882, which was the precursor for Pop Warner’s development, but the root of the Wing-T is actually based out of the single wing offense, often known today as the wildcat, or wild(insert name of your mascot). What is old is new again.
ii -151 game win streak would mean that De La Salle had not lost in almost 12 years. Assume 10 regular season games per year, plus 3-4 games for playoffs.The state of California does not have one state champion, like WA. Instead they have regional champions, North, Valley, South, etc. http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/story?id=1875067
iv – I am not saying that Bellevue didn’t have great athletes, but as a whole Bellevue athletes have not gone on to achieve the athletic careers that some of the De La Salle alum did. Bellevue’s two most notable football players to go onto the NFL are Stephen Shilling and David DeCastro, both of who were intelligently gifted and both spent spent 4 years at highly ranked Universities — The University of Michigan and Stanford University respectfully — before going onto the NFL.
v – Notice that Bellevue’s most notable NFL players are both offensive lineman.
vi – Hard to believe the Bellevue was an underdog considering they had won the last 3 state titles, but they were largely considered underdogs in that game.
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