At this point in the book, Tubby Raymond has already given the history of the Wing-T. He’s explained what the Wing-T is philosophically. He’s described the strengths and weaknesses of common defenses. Finally, in a section he calls “Elements of the Offense,” he gets into how the offense is structured and sums it up with fully developed plays aimed at specific points of attack.
Offensive Communication and Structure
The advantage of offense over defense is knowing from what formation, how and where the play will attack and when the ball will be put in play. This, of course, requires a numbering system that clearly communicates an entire play simply and quickly.
Emphasis on “quickly,” Gus?
Like the Air Coryell passing system, Raymond suggests using a 3-number play calling technique to describe each individual base play. But instead of the three numbers only telling three receivers which routes to run, these tell the entire team what the formation is, what the backfield motion looks like (aka the backfield series), and what gap the ball carrier should be aiming for.
Formations
The base formations mostly determine whether the backs are aligned away from or toward the wing, a lot like the Slant, Stack, and Opposite qualifiers in Gus’ offense determine whether the tailback and/or H-back are to the same side as the Y and Z or not.
There are lots of add-ons in Raymond’s offense that determine the spacing of the receivers or even if both ends are on the same side, something Gus has been known to do.
And there’s a list of add-ons to move the backs (including the wing back) around. One of them looks particularly Auburn-esque.
DELAWARE CHEATIN’, PAAAAWWWWLLLL
Raymond finishes up the formations with motions, not only to simply move a player from one side of the formation to the other, but also as a way to shift from one formation to another.
Backfield Series
The list of series is probably what people think of the most when they think of the Wing-T. Without getting into the details of each one, just know that each series generally describes the first steps of the four backs in the offense, the quarterback, the halfback, the fullback, and the wing back.
For example, the 20 series, the “bucksweep” series, has the halfback and wing back attack the play side wide, the fullback dive up the middle, and the quarterback bootleg to the backside.
Meanwhile, the 30 series, the “power” series, has all the backs except the quarterback aiming for the same point of attack.
The third number tells the ball carrier which gap to aim for. You’ll notice that each lineman is numbered in the diagrams above. The center is always 5 and the rest are numbered right to left. Therefore, the last number not only tells which lineman will be the primary blocker, but also the direction of the play.
Finally, the play name can have a suffix to describe lots of different things. It can add an option pitch, a specific route to run for a drop back pass, or even change the types of blocks the line uses up front.
Just so you can see it all come together, this play is called Spread 123 GT (guard trap).
The 100 formation is the most basic Wing-T formation with the half back aligned to the left, away from the wing back on the right. Normally, the tight end is on the same side as the wing back, but “Spread” swaps the tight end and the split end.
The 20 series is the “bucksweep” series shown above, where the wing back and halfback go wide and the fullback dives up the middle. The right tackle is the 3-man, and it’s his block on the play side linebacker that should be the aiming point for the ball carrier.
Finally, the “GT” modifier tells the playside linemen to ignore the defensive end and let the backside guard block him from the inside out, also known as a trap.
Now, HUNH teams have gotten even better at communicating plays to the field, but this isn’t too bad for a 30-year-old book about a 60-year-old offense.
Offensive Summary
One of the drawbacks of a 3-digit system is that it can be used to make up a play that won’t actually work. For example, running a reverse is going to be difficult out of the 30 series since every back is going to the same place.
So, in the next chapter, Raymond uses the reader’s just-learned knowledge of the play calling system to give examples of how it can be used in real situations. It’s basically a chapter full of stuff like this.
There are five basic flanks that can be blocked: 1. To a TE and WB. 2. To a SE and WB. 3. To a TE and DB. 4. To a SE and DB and 5. To unbalanced.
1. To a tight end and wingback: 121 - Down Blocking, 182 Down Option - Down Blocking, 131 - On Blocking, (Figure 7-1).
2. To a spread end and wingback: SPR121 - Down Blocking, SPR - 131 - On Blocking (Figure 7-2).
3. To a tight end and diveback: SPR 921 - Down Blocking (Figure 7-3).
...
And then pages and pages of diagrams like this.
He goes on to describe which sorts of run plays can be used off tackle and in the middle, and which pass plays can be used with the quarterback dropping back, sprinting out, or running a bootleg.
I won’t go through the whole chapter because, well, it’s very technical and hard for me to understand, much less explain. Instead, I’ll share this.
What catches my eye is the blocking of the offensive line. Raymond’s playbook is not afraid to ask the offensive guards and tackles to execute several different types of blocks. The book will describe those blocks in detail later, but just look at some of the images in this and previous Wing-T articles. Pulls, traps, whams, cross blocks, gut blocks, etc.
I’ve written about the “wrinkles” Gus Malzahn used in 2013, and since the zone read was such a heavily used play that year, those wrinkles mostly focused on the zone read section of his playbook. But with the zone read practically out of the play book last year, those wrinkles left with it. I kept expecting new tweaks in the run game to show up, but instead, the run game stayed vanilla and relatively easy to stop.
If Auburn doesn’t get back to its zone read ways this fall, hopefully Gus and company can rediscover some of these more unique line blocking techniques that the Wing-T has used for decades.