Unbalanced line: Does anyone still run it?

[BeaverHokie 35]

This was something I believe started locally in the Merril Gainer era. he ran it, and his proteges, Chmara and Carlock, ran the unbalanced line at Bluefield and Graham for a long time. It just seems to have disappeared.

 

Now, for the unitiated, we're not talking about what, say Penn State, does. I've seen them line up with the TE on the left, shift, and move him to the right, and the SE is still on the right. That creates something that looks like:

 

.............LT..LG..C..RG..RT..TE...........SE

 

Now what Bluefield ran was really interesting, both tackles were on the same side, like this:

 

 

.............TE..LG..C..RG..IT..OT..TE

 

----or---

 

.............TE..LG..C..RG..IT..OT............SE

 

which could be flipped around to

 

..SE.....OT..IT..LG..C..RG..TE

 

 

Neat offensive set...if a defense doesn't adjust, you have a man advantage on the strong side. The key is a defense has to treat the guard (strong side, same as the two tackles) as the middle of the line, not the center.

 

So, does anyone still run a version of this? I think it would be neat for Bluefield to try it again, just to see if the defense recognizes it and adjusts accordingly.

[wavefan64 10]

We actually run a couple of offset formations at Grundy. We have some success with it also.

[Blues_56 23]

We ran that formation a couple times evry game, scored on it a few times too.

[BigBlue02 11]

I'd say Giles County would run something like that especially with the single wing offense. I know we use that at Richlands sometimes.

[Deleted Account 5,203]

I have seen UVA play an unbalanced line on nearly 80% of its plays, because of that massive ground game this last year.

However, I must agree, it is a disappearing art as finesse passing grows more and more.

[Blues_56 23]

Yea UVA did that alot and they pulled either the guards,tackles, or both on 85% percent of the plays they ran too.

[mountainman63 10]

Giles does run an unbalanced line, 100% of the time

it looks like this

 

E G C G T T E

.........BB........WB

 

...TB.FB

[wisecav72 10]

Grundy ran it alot last year and in 2002, in the graham game that year we ran it nearly every time, bringing the right tackle(Albert Childress) beside the left tackle-me- and we ran around the left side almost all night. But grundy doesn't have the lineman to do it anymore so, they use it less and less. Not as many teams use it these days, wonder why that is?

 

wisecav72

[BigBlue02 11]

Don't even get my started on the Single Wing that gave me fits in Jv when we played them. I didn't know who to key on only thing I knew is that I had the Dive.I never knew which way it was going lol. But it was fun pushing a little 180lb Guard all over the field.

[hoard 18]

I remember Graham running the unbalanced line up until around 1988 when they switched to the wishbone mostly. Tazewell also ran it for many years under Dave Litz in the early 1990s. Those teams used the straight T and an I-formation with a back lined up directly behind a guard (think they called this a "box" set). It's also common to see it with the flexbone-type set with both HB's up on the line of scrimmage.

 

Gate City may still use it some and of course, the single wing teams like Giles use it. But you're right, very few teams run it now.

[BeaverHokie 35]

[ QUOTE ]

I remember Graham running the unbalanced line up until around 1988 when they switched to the wishbone mostly. Tazewell also ran it for many years under Dave Litz in the early 1990s. Those teams used the straight T and an I-formation with a back lined up directly behind a guard (think they called this a "box" set). It's also common to see it with the flexbone-type set with both HB's up on the line of scrimmage.

 

Gate City may still use it some and of course, the single wing teams like Giles use it. But you're right, very few teams run it now.

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

There are a lot of Bluefield connetions there...Dave Litz is a Bluefield grad, if I remember correctly. And the Gate City folks, the Colobros, I think they're all originally Bluefield folks too.

 

Gainer's methods stayed in use a long time after he was gone.

[zach 10]

We(Lebanon) ran it against Giles, and it seemed easy to get at least 4 or 5 yards a carry if we led like a 31 draw or qb sneak. I was only a starter for one game(against giles in a region game of all games),but when i was in (at right guard) we tended to that b/c giles never put a guy to the inside of me, but we only ran that inside the ten. Even with me not in we ran it quite a bit.

[oldskool 10]

Graham still runs it quite a bit.

[MavsRock 21]

James Monroe has ran an unbalanced line in the single wing the last 2 years, and ran it when they would run the wing-T sometimes previous to that. Not to try to insult you, but I've seen several teams figure out how to sompletely stop the single wing, the proof-Giles 6, Powell Valley 41, and James Monroe 22, Weir 63, and James Monroe and Giles were 10 wins teams.

[BigBlue02 11]

I think Richlands should run the Unbalanced all the time with the line we had this year just imagine how many yards Cain could have had on the ground. Eh maybe I'm just old fashioned but I still love the Power-I. But then again I did Graduate in 2002.

[mountainman63 10]

That doesnt insult me Mavs Rocks. Its just not an excuse for losing. There are going to be teams out there that are better than Giles and JM both. If you execute the single wing right, you will be successful. If you run into Weir, and Bluefield (which both were just better than JM in every way) they may stop it. They would have killed JM even if they were still running the wing t. Bluefield figured out how to shut Wayne down also, I dont even know what they ran, but it didnt matter. Giles still had around 250 yards on PV. Giles made a lot of bad mistakes. PV was just better. They had better athletes. They didnt completely shut Giles down. I may not be crazy about JM's version of the single wing, but if your schools would work together, and everyone was on the same page, JM would be hard to reckon with in 2-3 years.