Boothbay has used the double-wing offense to rise to prominence in the Class C ranks.
LISBON FALLS – Football coaches usually fall into two categories when it comes to the venerable double-wing offense.
“The guys that run it love it, and the guys that don’t, hate it,” Leavitt head coach Mike Hathaway said.
Judging by that formula, most of the football coaches in Maine hate it.
A variation of the ancient Wing-T formation, the double-wing offense has found a home in the modern age.
The single-back offense, which clusters all 11 offensive players at or near the line of scrimmage, is so popular in some parts of the country, particularly the Midwest, that there are numerous Web sites dedicated to its various formations, pulling schemes and philosophies.
Here in Maine, only a handful of programs, such as Cony and Gorham, subscribe to the offense.
But no program has run the double-wing with such devastating results as Boothbay. The Seahawks will be playing in their third straight Western Class C final this Saturday at Lisbon as they seek their third state championship in a row.
Boothbay coach Tim Rice introduced the offense when he took over a moribund football program 11 years ago.
“A lot of people say you need big kids to run it. You don’t,” said Rice, whose offensive coordinator at Boothbay, Jack Tourtillotte, is considered Maine high school football’s resident double-wing guru.
“We didn’t have very big kids when we started to run it, but we needed something that was going to fit our kids,” Rice said. “We weren’t very good, so we went to it because it’s unique, because it helps keep scores down and keeps the clock running and helps you be more competitive.”
The Seahawks went from competitive to dominant as their linemen grew bigger and stronger and as talented running backs such as Ben Smith, Max Arsenault, Alex Rand, Justin Wood, and this year, Jon Farrin, filtered through the school.
“Their offensive line is real big and physical, and they’ve had good fullbacks,” said Hathaway, who had to devise ways to stop Boothbay as defensive coordinator for Oak Hill for four years. “I think the other key is that their quarterbacks and running backs are very good at carrying out the fakes.”
The double-wing gives defensive coordinators indigestion for many reasons. For one, because so few teams run the offense, defenses are usually unfamiliar with it. To that end, it’s difficult to practice against. Many varsity teams have to prepare for it by giving their freshmen or JV underlings a half-hour crash course on the offense so they can at least give their defense a live look at the plays that are run out of it.
Coaches sometimes have to get unconventional to prepare their teams for this unconventional offense.
“One of the things with Boothbay, you never know where the ball is going to be. A lot of times when we practice for them, we don’t use a football,” Lisbon coach Dick Mynahan said. “We’ve got all of our kids on a read, and we’re going to have our reads take us to the ball.”
On the surface, the double-wing would seem easy to defend, if only for the fact that many teams run as few as a half-dozen plays out of it. But the offense has many hidden layers and contradictions. Even the formation itself is contradictory to modern football logic which calls for spreading the field.
“You’ve got the two tight ends and the two wings. It puts four wide receivers on the line of scrimmage,” Hathaway said. “It’s a single-back offense, but its designed to run the football. It’s not something you can defense with a base defense. You have to make changes, or they’re going to run the ball down your throat.”
For an offense that relies so much on deception and misdirection, the double-wing has some simple constants. On most plays, one side of the line blocks down, while the other pulls and the center blocks the back side. This is why coaches stress reading “keys” to their defense. The “keys” are usually the guards or the center.
So how can an offense that is seemingly so simple give defenses such fits?
“I’ve been asking myself that same question,” Mynahan said. “Every time (Lisbon coaches) meet before a Boothbay game, we start from scratch. We don’t ever do anything the same year after year, because it’s all about personnel for us. One of the things we try to do is match up skill people, if we can.”
On Saturday, Mynahan said, the Greyhounds’ defense will try to attack at a number of different angles, do some guessing and hope good fortune goes their way.
“Just tackle whoever’s in the backfield. Most likely, they’ve got the ball,” said Lisbon senior defensive end Tony Walker. “You just get lucky.”
Some coaches feel fortunate that only a handful of schools run the double-wing. Hathaway finally got a break this year when Leavitt moved to Eastern B, where not one team uses the dastardly scheme that previously forced him to endure some long autumn nights.
“I don’t miss it,” Hathaway said. “As a coach, I guess I miss the challenge of trying to come up with something to stop it, but I don’t miss it on game night.”
Put him in the “hates it” column.
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