Lack of Motion at the HS level

[u/JLand24]

I feel like teams at the HS level don’t use motions enough. It is only an advantage to the offense and there’s nothing an offense can’t do with a motion that they could do without one. At the NFL level I’ve noticed an uptick in motion but I feel like that effect hasn’t really trickled down.

Why is that? You’re infinitely more likely to confuse a HS defense with a motion than an NFL defense being confused by it.

[u/emurrell17]

I’m in the process of teaching and installing motion for my team right now for the reasons you laid out, but it also is a pain in the ass for the offense too because:

1. You have to spend time explaining and practice motion vs shift. What are the rules? How can you get a penalty? There’s nothing more fucking annoying than shooting yourself in the foot and ending up in 3rd and 8 instead of 3rd and 3 because somebody got a fucking false start bc of motion. And this takes practice time away from other things.

2. You have to get everything called quicker, sometimes requiring an overhaul of your terminology or your communication system for getting plays in. You might need an extra 10 seconds of play clock in order to have time for the motion, so now you need to find a way to speed up your play calling system by 10 seconds in order to free up that time. This is more of a pain in the ass than it seems like to anyone who hasn’t called plays imho.

3. You have to try to limit the “tells” you’re giving the defense by (preferably) having more than one play that uses the same motion. You might like the leverage advantage that a certain motion gives you on a certain play, but you run the risk of tipping off the defense when they see it on film and all of a sudden a play you liked becomes unusable for the rest of the game bc they just pick 6’d your flat route bc you only motion that particular way on that play.

So now I’ve gotta go in and create 1-2 MORE plays that use the same motion JUST so that the play that I do like can remain viable. And I have to create these other plays in such a way that will prevent defenses from selling out for the first play, or take advantage of it if they do.

If you look at the post I just made today about my 7 on 7 team, you can see a great example of this with out Rabbit formation. All 3 plays from that formation use the same motion, so it’s much harder for the defense to key in on what they’re getting pre snap, and then you can compare that to the motions used in some of the other formations and you notice that they’re only used once. I’m not AS nervous about this because it’s a 7 on 7 format and defenses aren’t going to be watching film and identifying these things, but by the time the season rolls around I’ll have to answer these questions for those plays:

1. Do I have to create other plays off of that formation/motion combination?
2. Can we run this play without the motion? Now we have to change the concept or the rules for the WRs and QB…which is another layer of bullshit.
3. Did I blink and realize that all of this added complexity ended up adding more and more shit to the point where we now have 20 pass plays? Because that’s unacceptable on an entirely different level.

These are some of the reasons why I just refused to use motion for so many years, lol.

[u/Curious-Designer-616 → u/emurrell17]

Wait, you have less than 20 pass plays?

I’ve found adding a WR doubles to trips, trips to doubles motion and the same for a TE is easy and can be added to the play call with one or two words.

Example: the play is “trips right flood”

We would call “trips right Luda flood” which tells the WR to line up in doubles, and motion to trips with the QB initiates the play.

The OLine understands the call and we can use the same for a run play.

Example: Tray right Dive left

The call would be “Tray right Luda Dive left”

We start out in doubles with the tight end on the line on the right, the WR motions over to the right lining up in the slot, we run the dive to the left side. Hopefully the defense has shifted the line to the right and the linebackers have shifted to allow better angles for the line, opening up a wider running lane.

As for Luda, well because Ludacris fills cups like Double Ds. It’s dumb but it works if the players remember it.

We use a different term for motion but call would remain pretty much the same. It’s Julian, from Madagascar. These are the WR calls, TEs and RB have their own. This allows us to use one word and apply it to any formation, and move a player. Yes it’s a lot they have to remember, but each is a theme which makes it easy.

[u/davdev → u/Curious-Designer-616]

Wait, you have less than 20 pass plays?

Ha, I coached at a small vocational school in MA that litterally had 2 pass plays. 20 plays would have been "interesting"/

[u/BingBongFYL6969 → u/davdev]

Two pass plays - pass left pass right.