THE DROPBACK T-FORMATION ATTACK -- IS IT BECOMING DYNAMICALLY OBSOLETE?

This piece is obviously directed toward that element of humanity deeply conversant with modern-day football tactics. Nevertheless, we’ll do our best to make matters reasonably understandable to those more oriented to basic fandom and not the game’s offensive mechanisms.

As we enjoy viewing either a collegiate or professional level game these days, we can’t help but notice the ever-increasing employment of the shotgun formation, with a corresponding decline in the more traditional dropback T. Furthermore, an additional and likely growing diversion which has appeared in the most recent years bears the somewhat inappropriate “wildcat” label.

In the interest of optimum clarification, we offer the following brief explanations pertaining to the three above-mentioned terms:
· Dropback T – The quarterback positions himself right behind the center to take a close-up snap, then drops back either to hand off or pitch out to a runner, throw a forward pass, or carry the ball himself;
· Shotgun – Instead of having to receive a minimum-distance snap and start making a hasty retreat, the quarterback stands several yards behind the center, awaiting a between-legs pass straight into his hands;
· Wildcat – The quarterback sits this play out on the bench, being replaced by a running back in the otherwise shotgun spot.

Handoffs, pitchouts, passes, and straight run options exist in each of the foregoing deployments. With opposing linemen, backers-up, and even deep defenders seeming to grow beefier and speedier from year to year, rapid-fire offensive play execution has become increasingly mandatory. The need for quickness, coupled with deception and a modicum of explosiveness, has never been more vital than under present playing conditions.

At this stage we feel obligated to toss out as concise as possible a history of how offensive attack formations have evolved, beginning with football’s dark ages and moving forward.

During the very early days, the pre-play lineup showed the four backs in a diamond-shape behind the center. This layout soon gave way to bringing the deepest man in closer, so that a Goodyear blimp shot would resemble an inverted letter T pattern, hence the formation’s modern era tag.

However, the aught and teen years of the last century produced an innovative coaching gent named Glenn “Pop” Warner, who devised two separate backfield deployments, soon to be dubbed the single and double wingback respectively. The quarterback no longer started out right behind the center. Instead, a direct pass would be made to one or more players stationed in what we now call the shotgun position. There were distinct advantages thus provided, in that less ball exchange was required, with the play being executable more rapidly.

The alternate Warner systems became the sole attack means employed for roughly three decades, with the single wing being prevalent by far. Its key feature was shifting the running and blocking strength to one side, usually the right.

This dominance was blown to bits in 1941, following two sensational milestone games – one professional, the other on the college Rose Bowl turf – which found not only the enemy forces, but the fans as well, utterly dazzled with what the T-formation, as reincarnated by the Chicago Bears and Stanford University respectively, could accomplish. With exception of a few diehard Warner system advocates, that year witnessed teams from the NFL down to kids playing on vacant lots returning to the theretofore outmoded setup. No change in the game’s structure has ever been swifter or more universal.

Following that massive reversion to ancient-day offensive methodology, a relatively short time span was needed for variations to be introduced. Pretty soon, the blimp would no longer show a pure letter T configuration. The evolutionary movement produced such strategic layouts as the T with man in motion, the winged T, the T with flanker, the slot T, the split T, the sidesaddle T, the wishbone T, the double T, and perhaps a couple more we’ve forgotten.

In due course, even the schools which had adamantly stuck to the single or double wingback lineups (primarily Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Texas, Southern California, and a precious few others) abandoned Warnerism in favor of the T, never again to change back.

Did we say never? Well, hardly ever. During the late 1940s and earliest 1950s, Michigan and Princeton made devastating use of the single wing, spiced up with a highly deceptive “buck lateral” feature. This faded out in fairly short order, though, since far too much ball-handling was involved, making matters easier for eagerly charging defensive linemen.

Jumping to the present, the deployment diversity we see today challenges even the keenest of viewer imaginations. In most instances before a play starts, we observe men spread almost all the way across the field, at times with the quarterback completely alone behind the center.

The question at this point therefore seems to be where do we go from here? Based on past history, our customary presumptuous predictions appear below, to take effect over the coming decade, or likely an even shorter span:
· Permanent disappearance of the snap-and-dropback quarterback maneuver, hence placing him exclusively in the shotgun position;
· Gradual (or maybe steadier) enhancement of the wildcat setup, resulting in far more running back use as a prime play executor;
· Further evolutionary movement yet, to the point where the wildcat arrangement may find the pure running ace to be supplanted the now-defunct triple-threat, do-everything-superbly back, which we old-timers once enjoyed watching perform so masterfully.

We’d like to enlarge upon that last comment a bit, by saying it would be a pleasure indeed to witness the return of a few Walter Eckersall, Jim Thorpe, Eddie Mahan, George Gipp, Paddy Driscoll, Ernie Nevers, Ken Strong, Dutch Clark, Jay Berwanger, Clint Frank, Ace Parker, Byron White, Nile Kinnick, Bill Dudley, or Glenn Dobbs types, in contrast to the numerous single-skill-only gladiators who grace our playing fields at this time.

We can hope, anyway.