Despite what seems to be written in every story about the A-11, it is absolutely not true that all eleven players are eligible receivers.

These things are still true:

1. You MUST have seven players on the line of scrimmage. Must, must, must. No way around it.

2. Of those seven, only the two on the ends are eligible receivers. The five guys between them? Not eligible. No matter that they're in a scrimmage kick formation, no matter if they're wearing the number of an eligible receiver. An eligible receiver must be eligible by number AND by position. You five? Eligibility? Not yours.

3. The other eligible receivers are any backs. Now, do the math. Seven guys on the line leaves four backs. One is the quarterback (or passer). You're only going to have five eligible receivers, even if you go with an empty backfield and stagger guys. And you can't put all ten guys on the line because the guys on the end are still the only eligible receivers and they "cover up" anybody inside of them.

So that's a huge misnomer.

It is absolutely untrue that this offense has 11 eligible receivers because of the scrimmage kick formation exception to the rules (which only exists to get around the requirement that the five ineligibles between the ends must be numbered 50-79 - in scrimmage kick formation, often a long snapper might be a tight end and other players who might normally play a skill position could be linemen, and they idea was not to have them have to change jerseys every time there's a scrimmage kick).

The other deceptive thing they try to hang their hats on is the notion that you don't know which of the 11 players is going to line up where and be eligible when they break the huddle. This is true. However, that doesn't matter much, because you still have to have those five guys in the center of the line take an initial position on the line of scrimmage. They can't take it and then shift out of it or step back and let other guys come up to the line to replace them. At some point before the snap, you're going to have no more than five eligible receivers (outside of the passer) and they're going to be the two guys on the ends of the line and the backs (as long as they have eligible receiver numbers).

Could a guy play flanker on one play and right tackle on the next? Sure. But if he lines up at right tackle, he's not going downfield on a pass that crosses the line of scrimmage, else it's ineligible downfield. No matter what the formation. No matter what his number.

Football has long been a game of deception (draw plays, stunts, etc.). The A-11 exploits a loophole in the rules that may be closed before next season at the high school level (there is at least one proposal to do so).

But the A-11 does not make everybody eligible. And its power as a scattering-deceptive-who's-eligible-out-of-the-huddle mechanism is limited by rule as well.

I know this isn't funny and you're supposed to be funny here, but I hope this helped a bit.

/hs football official

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Lemme guess, running's prohibited?

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I thought auto-erotic asphyxiation was?

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I remember the last offensive formation to do that. It was called the "Let Black Players Into the League" formation.

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Hint - its begins with a "b" and ends with a "litz"

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But then comrade Ulyanov lined them up and Maxim-gunned them.

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