itsalloverfatman
12-16-2010, 05:30 PM
Dave Nelson, Tubby Raymond and the Rise of the Wing T Offense
Doc Bear Dec 16, 2010 12:00 PM
In a recent interview, Wink Martindale commented that the Broncos are seeing a lot of Wing T running plays this year - he indicated that many of Denver's 2010 opponents (which tend to a heavy percentage of running plays) use it at least part of the time. The Wing T also is a very viable, deception-based passing offense too, but right now the rushing aspect seems to predominate when it’s used in the NFL. With that being the case, and with NFL games available on NFL Rewind and more and more fans enjoying watching film and learning from it, I wanted to give you an overview of the system. It was originally developed, as so many are, out of sheer necessity - you could even say desperation - by Coach Dave Nelson along with Harold Westerman and Mike Lude. Over time, however, most authorities would tell you that it was Coach ‘Tubby’ Raymond who brought it into its modern form. Let’s take it from the very beginning, then on to small Hillsdale College, onward to the University of Maine, the University of Delaware, and the Hall of Fame careers of Dave Nelson and Tubby Raymond.
David Nelson was a brilliant football mind with a knack for success. Like many of his era, he was a single-wing specialist, originally learning it at the University of Michigan where he shared a backfield with Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon in 1940. Nelson was a rarity - a 5’7”, 155 lb halfback. Needless to say, Harmon tended to take the majority of snaps and carries in the season they shared the backfield. That’s something that you still need to run a single wing/Wildcat system - a Ronnie Brown-type halfback, one with multiple skills who can hurt you in many ways. The following year, 1941, however, saw Nelson leading the team in rushing with an average of 6.3 yards per carry. He was, as Mouse Davis liked to say, one tough pissant.
The single wing uses extremely deceptive blocking schemes, with pulling and trapping on nearly every play. Stopping it is often a matter of finding out who had the ball and where they are going with it. It isn’t easy; hence the increasing use of it in colleges and in the NFL during that era and into modern times. It’s no longer a system that you use predominately (for reasons that I’m about to make clear), but it packs a hefty punch as a change of pace.
Nelson went on from Michigan to coach at nearby (100 miles west) Hillsdale College, where he had a talented two-way guard by the name of Mike Lude. It was just toward the end of the two-way player era, in 1946, and both men had recently returned from their military service in WWII. Hillsdale ran the system with success and Nelson’s record over two years was an enviable 14-1-2. After graduation, Lude provided him with a knowledgeable and talented line coach during Nelson’s second year there. After serving one year as an assistant coach at Harvard, Nelson was promptly poached by the University of Maine, and he brought Lude there with him. Their backfield coach was a man named Harold Westerman, and together they installed the single wing. Their first season, however, ended in only a 2-4-1 record, and the coaches put their heads together. What was going wrong?
The problem was, in the end, a simple one. The single wing requires a Tom Harmon/Ronnie Brown level of tailback, and the coaches already knew that they didn’t have one. In addition, as Tim Tebow found out on a TD run using a similar approach, the single wing can be very hard on the ballcarriers. Frequent injuries and a lack of the appropriate personnel required a change - but to what?
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5283/5248613788_55abb88620_z.jpg
At that time, the T formation was in vogue among the upper tier of football, both on the college and pro levels. It’s what the Chicago Bears used to dominate the Washington Redskins in the most lopsided Championship victory in NFL history, 73-0. The top colleges of the era were Notre Dame and Army, and both of them were running the T. Nelson sent Lude and Westerman to Notre Dame to learn it from Coach Frank Leahy.
Unlike the single wing, the T didn’t have much of anything in the way of deception - the blocking was straight ahead from a balanced line. It’s a very old system, generally considered the offspring of football legend Walter Camp, back in the 19th century. Most folks don’t seem to know this, but Walter Camp was the dominate force in systematizing American football, back in and around 1879. It was derived from rugby and soccer, but it was Camp - who had studied both business and medicine at Yale and actually headed a clock company, before becoming the athletics director for Yale in 1888 - who had played football at Yale and who helped evolve the rules of the game away from rugby and soccer rules into the rules of American Football as we know them today (http://inventors.about.com/od/fstartinventions/a/HistoryFootball.htm). Camp’s legend lives on in the foundation that still bears his name (http://www.waltercamp.org/).
Continued at IAOFM (http://www.itsalloverfatman.com/broncos/entry/dave-nelson-tubby-raymond-and-the-rise-of-the-wing-t-offense)...
Doc Bear Dec 16, 2010 12:00 PM
In a recent interview, Wink Martindale commented that the Broncos are seeing a lot of Wing T running plays this year - he indicated that many of Denver's 2010 opponents (which tend to a heavy percentage of running plays) use it at least part of the time. The Wing T also is a very viable, deception-based passing offense too, but right now the rushing aspect seems to predominate when it’s used in the NFL. With that being the case, and with NFL games available on NFL Rewind and more and more fans enjoying watching film and learning from it, I wanted to give you an overview of the system. It was originally developed, as so many are, out of sheer necessity - you could even say desperation - by Coach Dave Nelson along with Harold Westerman and Mike Lude. Over time, however, most authorities would tell you that it was Coach ‘Tubby’ Raymond who brought it into its modern form. Let’s take it from the very beginning, then on to small Hillsdale College, onward to the University of Maine, the University of Delaware, and the Hall of Fame careers of Dave Nelson and Tubby Raymond.
David Nelson was a brilliant football mind with a knack for success. Like many of his era, he was a single-wing specialist, originally learning it at the University of Michigan where he shared a backfield with Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon in 1940. Nelson was a rarity - a 5’7”, 155 lb halfback. Needless to say, Harmon tended to take the majority of snaps and carries in the season they shared the backfield. That’s something that you still need to run a single wing/Wildcat system - a Ronnie Brown-type halfback, one with multiple skills who can hurt you in many ways. The following year, 1941, however, saw Nelson leading the team in rushing with an average of 6.3 yards per carry. He was, as Mouse Davis liked to say, one tough pissant.
The single wing uses extremely deceptive blocking schemes, with pulling and trapping on nearly every play. Stopping it is often a matter of finding out who had the ball and where they are going with it. It isn’t easy; hence the increasing use of it in colleges and in the NFL during that era and into modern times. It’s no longer a system that you use predominately (for reasons that I’m about to make clear), but it packs a hefty punch as a change of pace.
Nelson went on from Michigan to coach at nearby (100 miles west) Hillsdale College, where he had a talented two-way guard by the name of Mike Lude. It was just toward the end of the two-way player era, in 1946, and both men had recently returned from their military service in WWII. Hillsdale ran the system with success and Nelson’s record over two years was an enviable 14-1-2. After graduation, Lude provided him with a knowledgeable and talented line coach during Nelson’s second year there. After serving one year as an assistant coach at Harvard, Nelson was promptly poached by the University of Maine, and he brought Lude there with him. Their backfield coach was a man named Harold Westerman, and together they installed the single wing. Their first season, however, ended in only a 2-4-1 record, and the coaches put their heads together. What was going wrong?
The problem was, in the end, a simple one. The single wing requires a Tom Harmon/Ronnie Brown level of tailback, and the coaches already knew that they didn’t have one. In addition, as Tim Tebow found out on a TD run using a similar approach, the single wing can be very hard on the ballcarriers. Frequent injuries and a lack of the appropriate personnel required a change - but to what?
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5283/5248613788_55abb88620_z.jpg
At that time, the T formation was in vogue among the upper tier of football, both on the college and pro levels. It’s what the Chicago Bears used to dominate the Washington Redskins in the most lopsided Championship victory in NFL history, 73-0. The top colleges of the era were Notre Dame and Army, and both of them were running the T. Nelson sent Lude and Westerman to Notre Dame to learn it from Coach Frank Leahy.
Unlike the single wing, the T didn’t have much of anything in the way of deception - the blocking was straight ahead from a balanced line. It’s a very old system, generally considered the offspring of football legend Walter Camp, back in the 19th century. Most folks don’t seem to know this, but Walter Camp was the dominate force in systematizing American football, back in and around 1879. It was derived from rugby and soccer, but it was Camp - who had studied both business and medicine at Yale and actually headed a clock company, before becoming the athletics director for Yale in 1888 - who had played football at Yale and who helped evolve the rules of the game away from rugby and soccer rules into the rules of American Football as we know them today (http://inventors.about.com/od/fstartinventions/a/HistoryFootball.htm). Camp’s legend lives on in the foundation that still bears his name (http://www.waltercamp.org/).
Continued at IAOFM (http://www.itsalloverfatman.com/broncos/entry/dave-nelson-tubby-raymond-and-the-rise-of-the-wing-t-offense)...