Installing & Understanding The Single Wing Offense
Having Studied and researched the Single Wing I have incorporated terminology that will allow you to run this offense by itself or incorporate it’s formations and plays into a multiple formation approach which also includes the “Wildcat Offensive Philosophy”. I will attempt to illustrate how you can add a tradition offense all the way through the spread offense into the Single Wing.
If you’re not used to this offense you will find the Single Wing to be very interesting with all it’s deception and misdirection that is incorporated into it. The Single Wing features an unbalanced offense with the quarterback also known as the “Spinner Back” working from a shotgun position, thus, the potential for expanding the passing game. The Single Wing offense, as illustrated features both the quarterback by himself as a “Spinner Back” or both him and the fullback together creating the spinner plays, known as buck lateral plays.
The running game with the Single Wing is broken down into three areas, one aspect identified as the quarterback as the spinner back, the second, the power game which you will see no spinning action, and then, the buck lateral series that has the fullback (also known as the blocking back) spinning and becoming a very active participant in receiving the ball.
The Single Wing features a different backfield alignment then most defensive coaches are used to seeing, also abnormal line splits, and an unbalanced line. Because of the spinning action and the exchange of backs from one side to the other, it makes it more difficult for the defense to key on just one player. Once the Single Wing philosophy is incorprated into a traditional style offense, which features many formations and backfield sets, I believe you can cause many problems for opposing teams by adding the Single Wing and Wildcat formations to your offense.
Take a good look at the huddle procedure section because, I have illustrated how you might set and break your huddle to move in and out of the Single Wing formations when breaking the huddle without causing confusion with your other formations and alignments.
Comparing the Single Wing vs. The Wildcat Offense
How To Call Single Wing Plays
The next aspect of the Single Wing is the Buck Lateral series which consists of four digits because of the potential of handing the ball off to the fullback by the quarterback and then the fullback handing the ball off to another runner or ball carrier. Once the Buck Lateral has been alerted in the huddle, it is now telling the fullback that he will be pivot off his outside foot and may be receiving a hand-off or carrying out a fake as if he received the ball from the quarterback as he runs by him. The fourth digit tells the back carrying the ball which hole he will be running through.
Illustration Example: Buck Lateral Rt. 1348 Sweep
Thus, the center will snap the ball to the quarterback (1st digit) because its a Buck lateral play the quarterback will do a 360 degree spin and then attack the L.O.S. handing the ball off to the fullback (2nd digit) pitching the ball to the tailback (3rd digit) running through the 8 hole (4th digit).
Illustration Example: Buck Lateral Rt. 1134 Tight End Around
Thus, in this example the center will snap the ball to the quarterback (1st digit – one) because its a Buck lateral play the quarterback will spin faking the ball to the Tailback coming around keeping the ball (2 digit – one) running to the outside shoulder of the Fullback the ball will be handed off with his left hand and to the Fullback (3rd digit – three) and the Quarterback running at the 4 hole (4th digit) Fullback handing off to the Tight End coming around (the tag alert) receiving the ball from the Fullback.
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About the Author of this post:
Jerry Campbell has over 30 years of high school and college coaching experience. He has experience as a head coach, offensive coordinator, and various position coaches. He has written numerous football coaching articles in various publications, is the author of over 30 books on coaching football, and has produced 12 coaching video series. Additionally, he is a nationally sought after speaker on the coaching clinic circuit.
Jerry Campbell is making a good chunk of money writing books on every offense created in football.
Yes, he has a basic understanding of the single wing offense just like any other coach who has read a few books on the offense. He then makes an attempt to meld the single wing with the Wildcat and other modern offenses.
I played in the single wing and ran the single wing during my 49 years as a head football coach on both the high school and college level. I can tell you Mr. Campbell doesn’t even come close to explaining all the complexities of the single wing offense.
I bought his book just to see what he was doing with the single wing offense-not my single wing.
If you want to understand the and run the single wing you go to 2 sources: Caldwell’s Single Wing and Keuffel’s Single Wing.