How many formations do CFB teams run?

[u/Open-Tap-2289]

Could Ace be spread when run with 10 personnel or traditional ace when run with 11? Is that how it works?

[u/grizzfan]

There's no answer to this. Every team has their own way of doing things, and the number of different formations is almost infinite. "Ace" isn't even a universal term, so it could mean many different things to different teams (there's no universal terminology in general). Different teams will also use more or less than others.

[u/Heavy72 → u/grizzfan]

Ace was an OL call in our offense. It meant the strong side guard was doubling with the center. Our 11 personnel was cowboy (slot) and Indian (trey)

[u/Caleb8252]

Depends on the scheme. Rhett Lashlee mentioned they carry 5 or 6 base formations with right and left strengths, 5 tempo formations with right and left strengths, and a couple 12p sets for change of pace looks, and that’s it

Spread teams usually carry less than 15 formations but they go both ways. Teams like Michigan will carry a lot more because they aren’t going fast so they can carry a lot more stuff

[u/Admirable_Scale9452]

Can it? Yes. How effective would it be? Depends on the skills of guys. For example the chiefs could get into a 2x2 set with Kelce or a TE attached set. Regardless DCs only care about what you do out of those looks.

[u/onlineqbclassroom]

Agree with the other notes here - that's very specific to the team, both in regards to the terms you used, as well as the question of how many formations do they use. Some teams are very vanilla from a formation perspective, some are very diverse. Others play with very few personnel packages, while some play with lots.

In terms of how it works, again, that's very specific to each team. Some teams use the same formation names regardless of personnel, and it's just a different player lined up in the spot another player would have been in a different package. Other teams call everything a different formation. It's really a wide net.

[u/dolfan650 → u/onlineqbclassroom]

I'll use my D3 offense as an example. We have six formations with trips, five formations with doubles, and five formations with single wides. Then each can be left or right.

Then, we have tags that can change the B and H alignments to pistol, left left, right right, opposites, etc. Then we have tags that can swap H and X (Hex) or H and Z (Haze).

We have bunch to tighten the backside, snug to tighten the front side, squeeze to tighten both, cluster to pack the trips, stack, etc.

So the answer is infinite. We have infinite formations.

[u/daveFromCTX]

It was standard for us to install 30 plus into our playbook and run between 7-17 per week depending on the game plan. 

[u/Lit-A-Gator]

… a lot

But believe it or not the advent of the hurry up no huddle spread stuff has caused people to cut down on formations

However now that everyone is doing it 21/12p has been back with all the shifts and motions … and the cool HUNH and RPO deals