airraid personnel

I honestly to an extent believe that it doesnt matter in the offense where you put them, you can formation the call to get the matchup you want and your Qb is gona find a way to get the best athletes the ball. BUT if I had to prioritize I would go Y and Z are my 2 best receivers. If I only had 1 good reciever, they would go to Y, the Y really is your stud who is a possesion guy with good speed but not neccesarily the fastest guy on the field..like I said just your best all around receiver. Reason being is because the offense is built around the Y. In Ace Flip the Y is singled up one on one backside, and you can move him around with a LEFT call. The second best reciever/ fastest reciever will go to Z, you need at least 1 game breaker out side. Z also moves around alot in your formations, flip, flop. With this said this puts alot of stress on a defensive coordinator to have your 2 best atheletes on one side of the ball when you want to. Usually ive seen in the past that since their your best athletes their also your best screen blockers/ screen runners. I will put my 3rd best/ next fastest guy at X. If you in high school can have a great athlete/ hands guy at Y, and 2 game breakers on the outside your gona score alot of points. H is a either your 4 best WR, a hybrid WR/RB or a RB/WR..most of the H's routes in this offense can be designed for just short routes except wheel routes. You really wanna guy that can make somebody miss in space. If he can also play running back, then its easy to go to BLUE ( 2 back gun), if he is the right type of athlete you can even line him up in the offset I as your Up back. Your F is your best running back. The F's routes are almost just like the H's, all short routes except for Wheel routes. Your running back will hopefully be able to make people miss in space. If you can find 2 good running backs that can catch short pass and make people miss then its gets really easy to call plays.. Just let your quarterback go through his reads, nothings their, pop it down to a back and get 4,5,10,15 yards..really makes life simple...

Hope this helps...

ps gave a good rundown I think. I think ideally, your Y would be a speedy athletic TE type guy. Fast enough, but durable too. A physical player.

I've actually been looking at rosters of BYU and Tx Tech because I have always heard that "The Spread"...Air Raid takes a certain type player. Namely fast! And most people think that you recruit to it by getting smaller faster guys. However, Tx Tech and BYU are not fielding those types. BYU's F back is a big bruiser, where as TT's are all around 5-11 200. I went back to Rivals and found Michael Crabtree and was amazed to find he came out of HS listed as an "Athlete" not a pure WR, and wasn't listed with but 4.55 speed (and that's usually 'optimistic'), but he sure seems to have game speed, and is a good sized WR. I don't get to see TT on TV much here in the south...but I suspect he plays Z as I saw him lined up everywhere when they played TX.

Crabtree does play Z, I agree with Warrior about the H and Y position. I would LOVE my Y to be able to do like Franklin did with Tommy Trott at Auburn and flex him somtimes and then bring him in tite sometimes, BUT there are pro's and con's. The pro's are is you can either A/ get better angles with a TE ...B/ dictate the strength of the defense, like get that 1 technique on the side you want it on..C/Somtimes get subsitution matchups .. some teams (NOT MANY BUT FEW) substitute a nickle back in when teams go 4 wide.. and a LB when people go 3 wide. The Cons are... A/ Practice time teaching a TE to block and run all his routes in the air raid.. thats tuff....B/ Finding a GOOD TE in high school C/ If you do have a TE, most are gona be slower than your speedy recievers, do you wana sacrifice speed for it?

The H is a tuff position to fill... because like Warrior said you want them to get back there in 2 back and block somtime. Thats why i look for a hybrid guy that can make people miss in space... I feel like I can turn these guys into being a blocker 5-6 times a game at most on a Db or Outside LB... Now putting him in as the Up Back in your off set I or regular I is another story... I usually like to substitute a BIG bruiser here if I know its a running situation or a Blitz situation.

Bottom Line is you need a good running back.. whether it be your QB or F, At least 1 good reciever,and you need a good quarterback to be successfull in this offense. The rest of the positions is just hypothetical. Normally most high schools wind up haing a good QB, a good RB, two solid receivers at Z and Y, a basketball sissy but Ok type player at X and there worst reciever but one that will bust their tail at H..

You also have to figure out what to do if that person that can be a hybrid goes down, because there are not many of these guys, that position, if you depend on it becomes big to your offense. If the backup at that position can't do what you are asking you may be in a little trouble if he goes down, esp. at a small school.

Why is it better to signal in plays than go off wristbands for personnel? I would think it would be easier to slap another wristband on a player that tells him what to do.

gotcha

Y has to be good, but my preference is to put one of the best who can catch at TE so they end up getting people who are run stoppers first on them. True, LB are usually the best athletes to an extent, but they are looking into the backfield mose than they are going to play pure coverage.

Last year I ran this system I didnt have a true TE. So my Y as my go daddy. Short throw for the qb, a tough blocker. He had 50 catches for 900. My H was a kid that can catch and run the ball if need be. He must be the most selfless out of all the Wr's because he has to block and is normally the last read. My X was a bigger kid that could catch the Fade and be a good target when we ran the mesh. We didnt get him the ball as much as I would have liked. That position probably caught 30 balls. My Z was the best route runner of the group. He ran alot of comebacks and could also catch the fade. I had a soph that caught 35 for about 500+.