Happy Birthday Wildcat!

One year ago today, the Miami Dolphins unveiled the Wildcat offense against the New England Patriots, and, well........wait......I think Ronnie Brown just scored another touchdown.  The Monday Night Football crew is getting plenty of coverage out of this anniversary tonight.  Enough to make me sick.  And so, I figure its as good a time as any to take a look at exactly what this formation is all about.

But its not like this was the first time the "Wildcat" was ever actually used.

Any college football fan can tell you the modern wildcat was really started by Arkansas in 2006 with Darren McFadden. In fact, Miami Offensive coordinator David Lee was the OC at Arkansas in 2007.

You could even argue that in 1997 and 1998, the Kansas State "Wildcats" began using this formation with Michael Bishop some.  Bishop though was an actual quarterback and even played one in the NFL....or at least played one the bench for Drew Bledsoe for a few years in New England anyways.

Now, just about every team has a Wild-whatever.  You have the Ole Miss Wild Rebel, the Oregon Wild Duck, the Auburn Wild Tiger, and the Alabama Wild Elephant just to name a few.

But its not like the Wildcat is actually even new.  Its just a variation on the old school Single Wing and Wing-T formations.

The Single Wing and Wing T

Glenn "Pop" Warner invented the Single Wing formation back in 1906 and it was used extensively through the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.  Its popularity really waned after World War II when the passing attack and the option game took hold.  The key to the Single wing is that any number of three backs can take a snap from center - a quarterback fullback and tailback.  Other variations have just a quarterback and another wing back instead of fullback (called the Double Wing), but the same basic premise exists.  Combine a series of motions, switches, spins etc., and you've got a pretty potent offense.  May not be very explosive in the yard per play category, but its very hard to stop.

The Wing T is basically the same formation, but you add in the element of a hand-off to the mix.  This is more what the Wildcat is today.  For more info, check Wikipedia.

This is what the Base Wildcat actually looks like on the board.  What you have here is an unbalanced line.  On the left of the Center you have a Guard, an eligible Tight End, and a Slot receiver  On the other side you have a Guard, and two tackles on the line with a receiver and another player, usual the normal quarterback, on the outside.  Behind the center you have the Wildcat Quarterback (McFadden, Brown, etc) and another running back.

This formation is not new, but it is very hard to defend for modern defenses.  Today, defenses are faster and used to being spread out.  With this formation, you have the ability to pound it inside, or, if you have a back who can throw, you can really spread the field out with teams having to account for the pass.  Brown had a passing TD for Miami last season, and McFadden had several for Arkansas.

There are three basic plays you can run out of the wildcat:

Speed Spread - Or, if you play Madden or NCAA video games, you might know this play as the "Jet Sweep."  In this formation, the slot receiver goes in motion, ball is snapped and handed off while he is running past the quarterback.

QB Counter - Sets up much like the speed sweep but instead of handing off to the slot receiver, the QB keeps and runs to the left of the line.

Split Zone - Standard direct snap to the quarterback with an inside run.  Think Tim Tebow vs. Florida 2006.  Or, think of what Tebow tried to run against Ole Miss in 2008 but was stopped giving Florida their only loss of the season!  Of course for Florida, they don't really call it the Wildcat.  It really is more of a standard Single Wing.

Of course on top of all that you can run all kinds of options and switches and whatever else.  You could run a play where the normal quarterback takes a lateral and throws it down field to a likely uncovered receiver.  The possibilities are nearly unlimited.

So Happy Birthday to the NFL's version of the "Wildcat" offense.  Thank you for destroying my Patriots one year ago today, and thank you for destroying my mind tonight with the commentators saying the word Wildcat like 5,679 times at least!