The Wing-T Offense: An Offensive-Line Manual (15 pages, PDF)

Most Wing-T offensive lines carry too much in their heads: a separate blocking call for every front, and a set of false calls and tricks to keep the defense from reading them. This Special Coaching Report takes the opposite approach. Written by Tom Herman, assistant football coach at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., it lays out a Wing-T offensive-line system in which the linemen never call a blocking scheme at all — they simply say out loud how the defense is aligned, and they have memorized how to adjust the scheme to what they just said. As the report puts it, no matter what play is called the line can be saying the same things every time it approaches the ball and still be running a different play each time. It is a complete offensive-line manual for the Wing-T: the play-calling numbers, the alignment vocabulary, the blocking rules, the play-by-play assignments and the drills that teach them.

What's inside

• The 3-digit call system. First digit the formation, second digit the backfield series and techniques, third digit the point of attack — with the play number optionally preceded by a term altering the formation or suffixed by one modifying the blocking.
• Formations and spacing. The 100 and Spread 100 formations, plus the alignment detail: the wing's inside foot 4 yards from the outside leg of the tackle and 2 yards from the ball, guards and tackles at 2-foot splits uncovered and 3 feet covered, tight end at 3 feet (5 feet if the tackle is uncovered), fullback's toes 4 yards from the ball.
• The four base backfield series diagrammed — Buck, Belly, Down and Counter — all of which can be run with or without motion, toward or away from the wing.
• Points of attack. Nine holes numbered right to left over the seven linemen, 1 to 4 for flow right and 6 to 9 for flow left, the center as the 5-man. The last digit also tells the line where the down block or the block in at the hole occurs.
• Numbering defensive alignments. Defenders on or within 2 yards of the line of scrimmage, counted inside out: 0 over the center through 9 on the tight end's outside shoulder, even numbers for head-up alignments, odd numbers for outside shades and gaps.
• The line-call sequence itself. Center first (Odd, Even, Gap, Shade right or left), then the guards (On, Outside, Inside, Uncovered), the tight end (6, 7 or 9), and the tackles last, reciting the two-digit defensive techniques from the inside out to pull everything together — each lineman making his call twice, with worked examples of two different fronts.
• Rule application and the base “Gap, On, Backer” rule — take the first part of the rule if a defender is in that area, otherwise the second — plus the principle that every rule term tells a lineman three things at once: who to block, the first step to take and the type of block to use. The author gives his linemen written tests on the rules.
• A System Definitions chart with 17 blocking terms defined: Area, Away, Backer, Bump Lead, Cut Off, Down, Fan, Fire, Gap, Gut, Lead, Log, Odd Block, Post, Reach, Read Down and Wall Off.
• Thirteen Wing-T plays with position-by-position offensive-line assignments — tight end, play-side tackle, play-side guard, center, backside guard and backside tackle — for each one, against the 5-2, the 4-3, the 4-4 and Split Eagle looks (and 6-2 and 6-1 on the Power Sweep): 121 Sweep (Buck Sweep Right), 122 Gut, 123 Slam (Buck Off-Tackle), 124 Guard Trap, 124 Gut, 124 On, 23-27 Guard Trap, 121 Waggle, 121 Waggle Solid pass, Waggle Shuffle @ 2, 121 Waggle FB Middle Screen, 121 Waggle Throwback HB Screen and 131 Power Sweep.
• The complementary-play logic. When the tight end's call is a 9 the quarterback checks to 22 Gut at the line; on a 7 or 6 call he calls 21 Sweep. The single named blocking adjustment in the whole system, the “Klutch” call, blocks 124 Gut like a 24 Guard Trap.
• Four offensive-line drills with cone and bag setup, rotation and coaching points: the Sweep Drill (pulling guards for the Buck Sweep, kick-out and wall-off), the Lead Post Inside-Out Drill (double-team plus trap), the Gut Block Drill (timing off the gap blocker, with a shield-carrying linebacker so the gut block is made on the move) and the Waggle Drill (log block play-side, crossover pull backside to lead the quarterback).
• Seventy-one numbered diagrams across 15 pages, including every front variation for each play.

Who it is for

Offensive-line coaches and coordinators running the Wing-T, at high school or small-college level, who want a communication system rather than a memorized list of blocking calls. It is especially useful if you are installing or cleaning up line calls, if your linemen are guessing against multiple fronts, or if you want an alignment vocabulary that doubles as a sideline debrief tool — ask the play-side tackle what he was in on a given play, hear “05” or “36,” and you know which scheme he should have used and where the mistake happened. Coaches running the buck sweep, guard trap and waggle family from any Wing-T variation will find assignments they can lift directly. The report assumes you are comfortable with front and technique terminology (a 3-technique, a 7-technique, a nose guard shade), so it is written for a coach, not a beginner.

About this edition: this is a digitised edition of the printed Gridiron Strategies Special Coaching Report, delivered as a 15-page PDF with a searchable text layer. It is a single coaching report, not a full playbook and not a video — the diagrams are the scanned pages of the original.