Some teams even shotgun the victory formation. Good grief.
The under center snap only requires maybe 10 minutes a day to perfect, but apparently even that is too much for most teams. And if you aren’t willing to do even minimal preparation, you fumble. I think maybe the coaches who are familiar with it are dying out.
The shotgun requires tons of practice and leads to really disastrous fumbles, but everybody is fine with that. They just dog cuss the poor center. The center didn’t come up with the stupid shotgun idea, but it’s his fault when there’s a problem. Sometimes it’s the center, but usually the qb takes his eye off the ball to look downfield. They still blame the center.
Under center the qb never has to look at the ball. All he has to do is take it. But he does have to practice footwork: reverse pitch, reverse handoff, 3 step drop, 7 step drop. They can master all that by 9th grade, but they don’t do it. Learning it all in college is tricky, so instead of the qb learning and practicing a little bit, the poor ol’ fat boy is expected to do 60 or so no look passes between his legs without missing. If he takes anything off of it, the quick passes aren’t quick enough, certainly slower than a pitch to get to the edge. But if he drills it back there and misses you lose 20 yards or worse.
If he concentrates too much on the snap, his first step is too slow and he gets beat. But if he even leans too quickly to make that step, the snap will miss.
The shotgun is just a way to make life even easier on qb’s at the expense of under-appreciated linemen. Everybody prepares for it. It’s all they’ve ever played against or coached against. The I is now a gimmick and most teams don’t even have the right guys to stop it. I wish we’d at least put in a few plays and master them: reverse pitch sweeps, off tackle to either side, a dive/ inside veer and a couple play actions (to TE preferably). Work on it a little now and let qb’s master the footwork over the winter.
