Three minutes into the first quarter, the football team marched onto the field for the first offensive drive of the game against Willis, forming on the line of scrimmage prepared to snap into the star play: the Shotgun Formation.

High School Dominance

The shotgun’s formation holds dominance in pro football because the heavy use within high school offenses. 

“Even though what we run can still be run from under center we think tailoring it to our center, and our quarterback makes our offense more dynamic,” said Athletic Director and Head Football Coach, Kendall Hineman. “(You’re) 4 1/2 yards behind the center so you basically get a headstart from the defensive line rush when we are at full strength.” 

Hineman said players who go to summer camps usually use the formation making it an easy accessible offense to run early on while learning the playbook.

Another help for the offense in high school offenses is the shotgun’s ability to help any team be successful, according to a 2021 Sarasota Herald-Tribune article by Doug Fernandes. In that story, Parrish Community High head coach Chris Culton discussed why his team made the switch.

“At the beginning of the season, we had quarterback Jackson Volz taking the snap under center,” Culton said. “That didn’t last. We were just having too many balls on the ground. There wasn’t enough time to practice both. We were losing on both ends.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                      Image from CompuSports Media Exchange
Its Original Rise & Fall

According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the foundation of the shotgun was laid in 1960, by then Head Coach of the San Francisco 49ers, Red Hickey. Formulated from Stanford University Head Coach Pop Warner’s Double Wing B-Formation: the quarterback is under the center, while the fullback is behind, with two wingbacks positioned outside the two tight ends: Hickey’s formation was seen as innovative at the time as it used a similar formation, but used 3 quarterbacks alternating, throwing, and rushing the ball. 

This play was successful from the start, with the 49ers starting the 1961 NFL season 4-1 with blowout wins against the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions. The 49ers held both teams scoreless. Then defenses quickly adjusted.

The Revival 

Fifteen years later, approaching then-quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, Roger Staubach, Head Coach Tom Landry told him to make the shotgun formation a priority for their offense going into the 1975 season. Landry added the distance between the quarterback and his offensive line, after seeing the success of that strategy by the Houston Oilers (Now the Tennessee Titans), who implemented then-quarterback Charley Johnson snapping the ball eight yards away from his center after he suffered from shoulder separation , that would ruin their chances of winning if he wasn’t available to play. 

50 years since the recalled revival of the formation, according to a Substack article written by Dallas-Fort Worth sports journalist Bob Sturm, the formation in the 2024 NFL season teams used the shotgun 21,055 times, 62.03% of the snaps taken that year.

Finding Their Shot

For the rest of the season, Hineman said the formation can help the team grow into a more individually developed offense.

“Once we get more advanced, we will start using different formations out of the shotgun to put more stress on the defense,” Hineman said. “Because of the youth (and relative inexperience against varsity talent) of our offensive unit, once we have a good grasp of the shotgun, we can vary our looks formationally in ways that can mess up the defense we’re facing.”

The biggest example of its success recently in high school offenses is Caney Creek’s own district opponent, College Park, currently 6-0, use the shotgun as a primary part of their offense with wrinkles throughout the game to keep opposing defenses on their toes.

“Although most teams in our district utilize the shotgun, each team runs a different variation of it. One way to maximize the formation is a quarterback run game that will create an advantage for the offense,” Hineman said. “This creates a mismatch in favor of the offense since you are adding another player — the quarterback — into the running attack.”

With the season at its end, this formation has the ability to be a building block for the future of this program.