R&D Labwork: My take on Oregon's Swinging Gate PAT

If you have ever watched an Oregon Ducks game, you have probably seen their "Swinging Gate" PAT formations. Usually after the first touchdown, the Ducks will get into a standard PAT formation and then suddenly motion into another formation. You see the holder looking around and then either runs a fake or has the PAT personnel go back into a standard PAT formation.

I have decided to take the idea and put my spin on it, specially adapted to high school level players.

First, you have to decide how you want to start the play. Oregon will align in standard PAT formation and then motion out, which I think could work for HS, but my concern is time. Can my HS players align in the PAT set, motion out to FAKE set, then back to PAT if the FAKE is a no go?

Another route is to huddle up, then fast break the huddle into the FAKE set, and finally get back into PAT set if the fake is a no go. I almost like this better because if the call comes in fast and the huddle is efficient, you can break that huddle as soon as the whistle blows to start the play clock. I also feel that you would be a little more deceptive on alignment of the FAKE set if you broke from a huddle instead of motioning from the PAT set.

This is an example of how I would huddle my PAT crew. It is the same alignment as my offensive huddle, just different personnel. Now, it's all about tempo. As soon as the call is made, the huddle we be broke at a neck-break fast speed and people will SPRINT to their alignments for the FAKE set. That is how we break the huddle with the current offense I work with and it is scary how fast we can get to the line and run a play. My hope of doing this with the FAKE set is to enhance the chance that someone on the defense aligns wrong and gives my guys the chance to run the FAKE set.

Ultimately, I think you can do it either way (Huddle or start in PAT set). I just think I can get my guys in position faster with the huddle and be slightly more deceptive with our alignment in the FAKE set.

Next, we have to look at the formations you can get into and run fakes from. Oregon has many formations that they will configure themselves into, but I have condense it down to 4 main formations that players can align in. I also tried to tie the name into the actually configuration of the formation. 

For example, "33" means that 3 players (on the line) will align wide to the left and 3 players will align wide to the right. "42" means that 4 players align wide to the left and 2 players align wide to the right. So this really affects only the RG, RT, and RE. The left side of the line will always be on the left side of these formations. You just keep adding a right side lineman every time you change your formation.

For each formation, the people who do not change are the wings, the snapper, the holder, and the kicker. The wings will always align wide to their side of the field, no matter how many people line up in front of them. The snapper obviously has to be over the ball, with the holder and kicker in the backfield, acting as QB and FB/TE respectfully.

Here is what the formations (33,42,51,60) would look like:

When looking at each one, there are subtle changes that affect the dynamics of the play, especially to the right side of the formation. As you lose people on the right side, you start to get a look that could lead to a dynamic fake, with having such things as stacked receivers that run routes or a single receiver isolated to a side. These are also dramatically different formations that the defense has to work on and get the numbers game right or else we can attack them with the FAKE set.

Finally, the fakes themselves....there are thousands of plays that can be run from these formations. The limit of plays is the imagination, but since I am talking about HS, I want my holder to look at the defense fast and make his decision fast. He is going to scan the defense and make a call. The call could be colors or whatever you want. I used colors in my scheme. Green means no fake and the PAT personnel goes into PAT formation. If he uses any other color, its a fake and he will say a rolling "Set, Go" to get the ball snapped. You can have specific colors mean specific fakes, but again imagination is the limit to how in depth this can be.

So we now have to look at the numbers game that you have to play to see if a fake is possible or not. 

First, the holder has to look in front of him. If there are 3 guys, that part of the field is locked. He cannot have the ball snapped and he run it in. If there was less than 3, he can call for the snap and run it in. This never changes for any of the formations.

Second, you want to look at the Right side of the formation. This is the side that will have the lesser amount of players in most of the formations. If there are more defenders than what is the name of the formation, that part of the formation is locked. For example, if you have "42" called, if there is more than 2 guys to the right, you cannot run the fake. If there are only 2 guys, then you can run the fake.

Finally, you want to focus on the left side. The cool thing is that you shouldn't have to count the left side. The middle and right side of the formation should give you the information you need. If the middle and right side was balanced, the left is balanced. If the middle or right have an extra defender, the left side should be open for a fake. Counting should be done every time, but the other sides should give you clues to what is available. Again, just like the right side, if there are more defenders than what  is the name of the formation. For example, if you have "33" called, if there is more than 3 guys to the left, you cannot run the fake. If there are only 3 guys, then you can run the fake.

It is because of the counting system that I feel you have to simplify your fakes for the high school level. Again, you can have called fakes out of these looks with a specific color representing that fake. There is a lot of flexibility within this system of fakes and parts can be modified/changed according to the personnel/talent of your team.

After the counting system have been implemented, if the FAKE set cannot be run, then the Green call is given, the players get into PAT alignment, and we kick the PAT. Some people, including Oregon, have fakes out of the PAT look. That maybe be something you would want to look into as well. Again, there is flexibility here.

The part of this I haven't talked about is how this affects the defense. This whole process is done because we want the defense to have to work on this throughout the week leading up to our game. The more they work on this, the less they work on our offense. If they don't work on this, we will score a 2 point conversion on them and possibly cost them the game. It puts a defensive coordinator in a bind of how to balance out working on the offense versus working on the PAT fakes.

So that is my take on Oregon's Swinging Gate PAT. My version may be simplified versus their version, but my goal is to run it with a HS team. Hope it spurs some thoughts for your program and to think differently about your PAT.

Here is a link to an article written about Oregon's Swinging Gate PAT:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2015/01/10/oregon-ducks-swinging-gate-extra-point-taylor-alie/21568959/

Side Note:

I have thought about trying a new technology to see if can be applied to coach collaboration. I want to see if Periscope can be used to hold a webinar and other coaches can follow the broadcast and asks questions through the talk. Then the video can be saved and posted to YouTube or something like that.

I thought I could possibly have a test run with talking about this Swinging Gate PAT topic and see if anyone would be interested in following the broadcast live. We could have a Q&A or just a discussion of how others run their PAT fakes.

Check out Periscope and send me a tweet or DM to give me feedback on if you are interested in testing this out with me!!!