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The No-Huddle

We use the no-huddle almost exclusively, and I firmly believe no matter what scheme you run, this is a powerful tool. Even if you run the wishbone, and this is the only thing you wanted to know about on this site, I think this will certainly be of use.

The no-huddle emphasizes conditioning, discipline, confusing the defense, setting the offensive tempo, and it also allows your offensive staff to get a look at the defense before you call a play.

In practice, the no-huddle allows you to rep and practice more plays, and it reduces the need for extra conditioning drills because your 20 minute sessions of plays versus air (when we run all our plays vs the air emphasizing perfectly executing their assignments and hustling) will leave them winded, and you will have gotten a maximum number of possible reps.

In the game, your players are coached to always run the ball to the referees after each play and to hand them the ball to help them to spot it sooner and to get behind the ball and to look back to the quarterback or sideline. (The linemen need to stay about a foot or two back from where they would be in their stance, because when they get in their stance they don't want to give away the play based on adjustments to splits.)

Calling Plays in the No-Huddle

The coach will signal in the formation (and motions, etc) to either the entire offensive squad, or just to the quarterback who will either check an arm band or will recognize it and turn to his teammates and relay it to them in normal terminology. (example: Doubles Y Jet) The coaches will analyze this, confer and quickly organize sending in the play. Two coaches(or players, like the backup quarterbacks. Though if you do that, have backup people in case your backup has to go in.) will signal it in, one coach, made known to the QB by half, game or series basis, will have the real signal, the other will have a dummy signal. The hand signals are whatever you want, either gestures, fingers with digits if they can see that. I've even seen coaches hold up signs with numbers on them. The quarterback will then say two numbers once to the right and once to the left making sure the linemen can hear. (example: 92, 33) The first number is the play, the second number is a dummy call. Unless he says "Deuce" first. (example: Deuce 81, 93)

I've seen the snap count handled a variety of ways, but we always go on hut unless our QB, and this is his discretion, calls a term after the play signal. It can be anything, just whatever is indicative.

Then everyone sets, and the snap count is "Go, [color] [number], [samecolor] [samenumber], hut" or on 2 means "hut, hut". We also go on "go". An example is "Go, Blue 22, Blue 22, hut". Mostly the color and number are dummy calls but a hot color, whatever you choose, designates it is an audible. If the hot color was black, and they said "Black 191" it'd change the play to the hitch route with the strongside of the pass protection to the left. I'm sure almost all of you all already have a similar system. (In shotgun if the QB needs to move the back he should just do that, but the back should always go behind the quarterback, in case of errant snaps. It's a good habit to have.)

The only other point I have to make about the no-huddle, is it needs to be practiced at a slower tempo for ball control after building a lead. The system still functions it just needs to be slowed down, still controlling tempo, in order to conserve the clock.

The other contingency is the no-huddle in a 2 minute situation. This is more common, but is easier for us since we are always in no-huddle. We just have to make adjustments. We make a call to the offense, or on the sideline that we will be going to this, and we have a code word. It can be anything, but we call it "lightning". But after a stoppage of the clock, we'll often call "regular" and go through our normal routine of calling the formation then lining up and calling the play. But we have a hand signal, usually just a winding of the arm, and a call, "lightning" any time the clock is running. Anyway, we pick one formation during the year, or week, based on our best personel and get them on the field where they are most comfortable. This becomes our set for lightning, it won't change at all. However, it shoul be noted that receivers have to come inside to the hashes after every play in High School. We then can call anything in our offense just as normal, using the same signals. However, all plays wil be run on "go" instead of the normal snap count. We also have a call for the stop the clock play.

However, we also have a two-minute philosophy. We have to understand how much time we have, and how many time outs. Each pass play usually takes around 6 or 7 seconds. If we have two minutes, with time outs, that is a lot of plays. So we try to minimize the time between plays if the clock is running, so on the plays themselves we can take our time. Our quarterbacks are drilled to go through the same progressions as always, and we generally pick bread and butter type plays. We always use some 3 step and possesion type passes, and if the situation permits always run some. Not just draws either. We've spent all our practice time a certain way, the rest of the game a certain way, so why get frantic and change things. People need to be mindful of what is going on, and get out of bounds, but at the same time, not to make things happen to the point of making mistakes. The quarterback especially. He simply needs to hit the open receivers and distribute the ball. Often we've had quarterbacks try to hold on to the ball and force it downfield to the receivers in these situations, when he had a crossing route or a swing pass wide open udnerneath, and this type of mistake was uncharacteristic. When asked about it, they usually replied "I was trying to make

something happen." We've also had quarterbacks pass up open receivers and wait for other receivers to try to get open later downfield and it has worked. However, we tell them the same thing, get the ball to those guys right now so they can get upfield. Worry about those other guys when they get open later. Because that is the type of habit, in any situation, but often becomes evident in the 2 minute drill, that leads to poor decisions and interceptions. The biggest goal is to make first downs. That's all. The rest will come.

The other variant I want to mention about the no-huddle we do, is we will practice a series of 4 plays in practice, usually plays that make the defense run, like screens to either side, maybe a draw, a sweep etc. and practice running those in order and running the play as quick as possible. At any time if we have to, we can stop and tell them to huddle up if the situation makes itself neccesary, (3rd and long) but we usually do this package once or twice a game. We just pick a codeword, you could call it anything, but we call it "thunder". We usually go on our normal snap count, but there have been games we've decided to go on "go" on these plays, which is our quick count. This is intended to control the tempo, keep the defense off balance, they are simple base plays for us but each has the potential to break, and it often really winds our opponents who are not prepared for this type of faced paced attack. We keep the same personel in, but we can go to any formation we use within that personel group, and if we wanted to run say a sweep to the sideline we could easily run guys in and line up if we so choose, but that's rare when we do that.(Remember the referee has to spot the ball before you can go and the receivers have to come in to the hashes after each play.)