A-11 Offense ??

[KurtBryan]

Originally Posted by bigjohn

1. Page 96 in 2007 Rule Book details the Coaches Code of Ethics. One such code states "The coach shall master the contest rules and shall teach them to his or her team members. The coach shall not seek an advantage by circumvention of the spirit or letter of the rules." I believe the A-11 does take advantage by circumvention of the intent of the exception to numbering for scrimmage kick plays, since the coach has no intention of actually scrimmage kicking the ball away. As such, the Federation should comment on this particular offense as it pertains to the intent of scrimage kick exceptions.

Reply:

A. Those items you listed were reviewed during the approval process and were part of our submission package, and discussed in detail with the interpreter before approval. The Coaches Code of Ethics, "not in the spirit of the rules or game, and the travesty" issue were never close to killing the approval, but it was a fair question nevertheless.

B. The A-11 is Not based on confusion, it is based on potentially eligible players and legally creating more possible options. But still, only 5 possible WR's on each play.

Sincerely,

KB

PS - Little bit of an update: As of today, there are now at least 3 states who have contacted us that will teach their officiating crews about the A-11 offense. That is not a bad thing...they have picked up either our Las Lomas or St. Mary's DVD (clearest videos to watch) and how to properly officiate it, and how to properly determine the Eligibles and Ineligibles. (If you happen to Ref in those states you will be contacted and/or you already know about the large or small group training for Officials - and it's not for me to advertise which states. Respectfully, and like I have been saying all along - there is a significant part of the football world who DO view our offense as innovative and worth looking at in terms of what it might/can do for the game from a coaches or officials viewpoint, etc.)

And so, like that one Ref who was so kind to point out in his earlier letter, this will make all of the officials in his state learn the rules even better and become better officials by learning how to officiate when handling an A-11 game or other similar types of offenses. And my point has been all along - we work together, communicate together and learn together. We learn from you Officials and hopefully you might learn a tad bit from us too...