The 1999 Kodiak Lions football team had an undefeated season largely due to the talent of the players. Our 6-0 record came about because of a stellar defense (The Gap-8) and the athleticism of the team.

My inability to find a good offensive playbook led me to believe that I could create one. I chose the I-formation because of its simplicity, and drew my own playbook, something I caution every youth coach to avoid like the plague. The first playbook below is the one I drew up at the beginning of the season. It's worthless. Please don't use it. The second playbook was drawn in July of 2001, after almost three years of study. It's a much better playbook than the one we ran.

The I-Formation has a number of faults, but with an expert coach and the right talent it can be a fairly successful system. 

This is a short yardage offense. You will bang your tailback into the defensive line over and over again before you finally break a big one. Your players must be very well trained in penalty avoidance in order to prevent those big gains from coming back due to clipping. What makes this system particularly successful is the fullback. If you have a big, strong player at that position that can strike fear into the hearts of the defense you can make the 31/32 Dive work and lead block effectively for the tailback, who needs to be the smaller, and quicker type. 

If you don't have players to match this criteria, you're in for a long season if you try to use this system. Along with the fullback and tailback, you need, at minimum, three decent quality linemen to play center, (best lineman) right guard, (number two lineman) and left guard (number three lineman). If your system is left handed, which I recommend to take advantage of defenses with their talent stacked to your right, then the number two lineman needs to be the left guard. 

After years of research it has been rather humiliating to realize that the playbook I created in 1999 is really useful for only one thing: evidence of how not to set up an offensive system. 

All of the rookie mistakes I could have made are evident in that early playbook. My linemen had no mechanical advantages. I did not take advantage of even the limited misdirection potential of the system. My passing game was atrocious. I depended on my weaker linemen to block the opposing team's studs. I understood precisely nothing of offensive football.

In short, I was the average rookie head coach, running the I-formation because I thought it was "simple". It is simple. For the defense. 

I won't dwell on the problems of the I-formation. They've been adequately discussed in the past. Suffice it to say that after nearly 500 hours of research, I've managed to overcome some of the problems with the formation. I still wouldn't run it, but below are two links. Take a look at the first one and silently acknowledge the caliber of players I must have had in order to win with that playbook. Then compare it to the second, which I feel is a much more viable playbook, based along the same plays. The blocking is improved, and the angles of attack are considerably more accurate.

Note that there have been some pretty significant changes to the system. Number one is that all the plays have similar characteristics. This adds to the limited misdirection of the I-formation.

I still would not run this playbook. I don't like the rules for blocking that are needlessly complex, and I don't like featuring only one player, the tailback, 80% of the time. I'm also not fond of the sweep. Even with the crack block, it's a long way for the tailback to run in order to get outside. All outside linebackers start at least two yards closer to the sideline than the tailback does, which means that he needs to be blazing fast, or the flanker absolutely must make his block if the play is to succeed. A better idea would be the option, using the fullback and corner to block downfield, and letting the quarterback option the defensive end. This is possible, but requires a great deal of coaching at the lower levels. (The youngest team I know of to run the option is eight. Their coach has 26 years of coaching experience.)

So far I have not seen any books on this system. I have seen, but not purchased, books on the Power and Offset-I formations, but these systems are not precisely the same as the I-formation. Be forewarned, if you install those formations you will be forced to alter your blocking schemes. Effectively, it will mean doubling your practice time because each play will have to be relearned from the new formation.

If you know of a good book on the I-formation, please send me an email with the name, author, and where it can be found.

Good luck,

~D.