To Flexbone Or Not To Flexbone
Jay DeCann – Head Football Coach – Melrose High School - Melrose, MN

Our staff is currently in the research process to find an offense that best fits our personnel. We have completed our evaluation of our athletes not only on the varsity levels, but junior high, 9th grade and 10th grade teams. We want to make sure we are not going to be going through this process every year or so. We want to find an offense that we can hang our hat on and develop the skills needed for our kids to be successful on the field. With our new offense it must also be adaptable for our youth and junior high programs to learn the basic terminology, formations, and base plays.

I have had the opportunity to coach in a variety of different offensive schemes in my eighteen years of coaching. From Pro I (power, counter, trap and toss), West Coast Offense (Air Raid), to all one back (inside and outside zone) running game. The experiences have been outstanding and I have been mentored by some outstanding coaches who have helped me develop sound principals on the offensive side of the ball. The past seven years we have been mostly one back with multiple formations running inside and outside zone and incorporating Air Raid pass concepts.

We have been very successful with this approach and were very blessed to have some outstanding players, especially at the receiver, tailback and quarterback positions. We have had outstanding team speed, 6’-3” gunslingers at quarterback and amazing speed and vision at tailback. We had enough depth with linemen that we could get by with only 1-2 linemen playing both ways. This offense allowed us to win or tie for 3 conference championships and play in one section championship game in a five-year span.

So why change? The past two seasons have been down years for us and as we tried to continue what has worked for us offensively in the past with a few adjustments based on personnel. This was starting to hurt us more than it has helped us. We no longer had the team speed to run away from everybody. Quarterbacks were not the natural throwers we have had, and our tailbacks were smaller than we have had or more of a fullback type. We have very limited depth with our linemen and were forced to play four of starting offensive line on the defensive line. Our lack of consistency with our running game did not allow us to keep the chains moving, eat the clock and this really hurt our red zone efficiency. All of this hurt our defense and it did not allow us to play championship defense like we have played in the past. Our defense was on the field way too much. This hurt our ability to stay fresh and did not allow our coaches enough time to make the needed adjustments during the game.

As we started to evaluate our players, we were researching different offenses that we felt could fit our personnel. We looked into the wing-t, double wing, and flexbone option. The wing-t seemed to fit our personnel, but there are three other teams in our conference that run the wing-t and they have won only one conference championship in the past seven years and most teams in our league do a great job in defending the wing-t. We also looked into the double wing. This made some sense with our limited talent and depth we have, but we still want to be able to force the defense into defending the entire field both vertically and horizontally. Finally, we looked into the flexbone. Our defensive staff made a comment early in the evaluations that stuck with us, and that was they always loose sleep the weeks they have to defend a double slot formation because of the threat of 4 verticals as well as 4 athletes who can run the football. We opened the season the past two seasons against a flexbone option team and we really liked how they attacked us inside out as well as the vertical passing game. They were very simple in how they attacked us and did not seem to be that much better than us talent wise.

Here are our final conclusions that we used to help determine our switch to the flexbone. We like how it forces the defense to play assignment football rather than just rally to the ball. Takes advantage of our more athletic running quarterbacks. The smaller tailback type kids will fit in perfectly at the slots and we now have a position for our fullback type kids. We feel the run game will allow us to move the chains and eat the clock, and help keep our defense fresh and off the field. We still can use some of our pass concepts that we have used and the vertical passing game will help us stretch the defense vertically. We still have a big question yet to answer. Do we want to use a Tight End or not? We are leaning towards not using a Tight End. This will allow us to move 3-4 athletes to the offensive line which in turn will give us more depth that is needed with our linemen on both sides of the ball.

What’s next? We are in the process of determining what and how much do we want to run. What can we implement at the youth and junior high levels? What are our teaching progressions going to be? What techniques and fundaments do we as coaches need to get answered prior to summer camps and fall practice. Establishing a HIT list of how we want to attack specific defenses. I’m sure I am missing other areas of concern, but these are our priorities at this time. We do not want to reinvent the wheel in our research. Our plan of attack is to discuss the offense with some local small colleges and high schools that also run the flexbone option. We want to know how they teach and coach the option. We are also busy watching game film and any option clinic tape or DVD we can get our hands on. I guess the answer to the title is; “YES to FLEXBONE!”

 

Coach DeCann has been coaching football for 18 years.

Offensive Line Coach Mayville State University 1990
Offensive Line Coach Minot State University 1991 1995-1998
Grad Asst. Running Back Coach Northern State University 1992
Inside Linebackers Coach/Recruiting Coord. Northern State Universtiy 1993-1994
Head Football Coach Montevideo High School 1999-2000
Offensive Coordinator Melrose High School 2001-2006
Head Football Coach Melrose High School 2007-present

To discuss this article with Coach DeCann please visit the following link.