Another Must Read

Tons to do today but an eagle-eyed reader has shared a link to a story in the New York Times that has to be read to be believed. From the story about a quickly spreading high school offense that began with coaches thinking about how to play with two quarterbacks on the field ...

By placing one of the quarterbacks at least seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, and no one under center to receive the snap, the A-11 qualifies as a scrimmage kick formation — the alignments used for punts and extra points. Thus interior linemen are granted an exception from having to wear jersey numbers 50 through 79. (The exception was intended to allow a team’s deep snapper not to have to switch to a lineman’s jersey if he was a back or an end.) Any player wearing jersey numbers 1 through 49 and 80 through 99 is potentially eligible to receive a pass.

More from the story:

According to Scientific American magazine, a standard football formation permits 36 possible scenarios for taking the snap and advancing the ball; with the A-11, the possibilities multiply to 16,632, providing a controlled randomness to the offense and potentially devastating chaos to the defense. Even the center becomes eligible to catch a pass if he is at the end of the line of scrimmage.

One more thing shared by the same reader ...

The Daily Dartmouth story Big Green Football: A hard-hitting tradition linked to earlier this morning said of the postgame fracas between Dartmouth and Holy Cross two years ago, "Hanover Police and team staff were finally able to separate the combatants after 15 minutes of fighting." To be accurate there really should be a decimal point between the 1 and the 5. That's right. The actual pushing and shoving probably went on for 90 seconds. Two minutes at most.