Talk:Wishbone formation

Formation Diagram Question

The diagram shown in the current article appears to be more consistent with the T formation than with the wishbone. My understanding is that in a wishbone formation, the halfbacks line up deeper in the backfield behind the fullback, so that the positions of the quarterback, fullback, and halfbacks form an inverted "Y" (i.e., a wishbone shape). However, the diagram shows both halfbacks lined up adjacent to the fullback, as in the T formation. Am I missing something basic about either the wishbone or T formation? Is one a special case of the other? If not, then I think that a different diagram with altered halfback positions would be more appropriate.Crosswalkcs 04:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Corrected. Sorry for the confusion. Excaliburhorn 17:28, 13 Oct 2006 (UTC)

Switzer

I agree with Coach Switzer "The King" when run correctly the wishbone is tough to get a hold on, I hope someone has the stones to run it again in major football. I just look at the 70's Oklahoma teams and the yards those guys put up winning a couple of national titles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.60.196.220 (talk • contribs) 07:28, 22 January 2007

There was a reason you could do that in the 1970s and no one could stop it. Back in those days, teams didn't emphasize sideline-to-sideline speed on defense, particularly at the outside linebackers, the way they do now. This made it easy to attack the corners of a 1970s defense with a Wishbone if you had superior athletes at quarterback and the two running backs. The Wishbone doesn't work anymore at the highest levels of football because the defense can get to the corners as fast as the offense can. Take this away, and the Wishbone becomes a straight-ahead power offense that can't work at all unless you can also pass. Even Switzer never understood this; in his book he says Miami was just better than his 1985-87 Oklahoma teams. They actually weren't, they were just built perfectly to beat his offense, with fast, rangy linebackers and safety men and good speed everywhere. OU was much better than the teams that did beat Miami in that era ('85 Florida and Tennessee, '86 Penn State), but those teams were better equipped to beat Miami. Jsc1973 12:46, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Very good points, but it is beautiful to watch it ran to perfection I love that option powerplay football. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KJL (talk • contribs) 08:09, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

This is all interesting but the reason it is likely we will never see triple option used at the major college level again is much simpler. Kids don't want to go to a school that runs anything the NFL does not use. They are thinking NFL from the moment someone tries to recruit them and you cannot get good offensive players to go to an option school. They all want to go where the running game is based on power and not options. And they want to go to a passing program. It is even hard to recruit top defensive prospects. Besides which, lots of great college defensive players are converts who were great offensive prospects at one time. Now I hear that _high-school_ players complain if the offense isn't NFL-vanilla. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.79.173.135 (talk) 20:00, 28 March 2008 71.234.37.99 (talk) 19:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Will in New Haven71.234.37.99 (talk) 19:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Why no longer used?

Article fails to explain why the wishbone formation fell out of favor. Why did the formation become popular, and now is not used? Maybe I missed it. I did see some explanation in the talk section. But the article seems to *not* explain what seems to me an important question. AAABBB222 (talk) 02:04, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Still wondering. AAABBB222 (talk) 21:17, 6 February 2018 (UTC)