Editor’s note: This article appears in the special Thanksgiving football section published the week of Nov. 28, 2014. It has been updated to include statistics through the end of the season.
Scoring points has always been a bit of a specialty for the Woodland football team. Just a dozen years into their varsity existence, the Hawks have put up some of the biggest offensive numbers the state has ever seen.
Woodland’s coaching staff, from Chris Anderson to Tim Shea and now Tim Phipps, has never been afraid to change offensive styles to suit the personnel on the squad. They make good offseason projects.
But when Phipps and his staff recognized it needed to move from a spread variant back to the wing-T, the Hawks didn’t have an offseason. Their time was much more limited.
“Usually when you implement an offense, it takes months,” says Phipps, in his first year as head coach after a dozen years on staff. “The last version of the spread we ran, we started to install that in January 2012. We didn’t have that fully in until September 2012. Eight months of working on that, and we had to get this shift done in three days.”
That’s right. Three days.
Woodland entered this season hoping to run a more run-based version of the spread offense that helped the Hawks reach the state playoffs in consecutive years. With the graduation of quarterback Tanner Kingsley, the state’s all-time leading touchdown passer, there was bound to be a transition.
“I felt that we needed to stay in the spread because we had a good returning group of linemen, so I wanted to keep them and Sean (McAllen, the running back) as comfortable as we could,” Phipps says. “I thought staying in a different form of the spread was the way to go. Even through the Watertown game (a 24-0 win in Week 1), we had mistakes but I thought we were headed in the right direction.”
That direction started to change, though, when Woodland found success in its hammer set — a wing-T formation with backs offset on either side of the line and a tailback, originally only intended as a goal-line offense — in a 28-27 overtime loss to Torrington in Week 2.
“When the Torrington game ended and we ended up on the losing end, I thought that we could not only go with the run-oriented spread, but that we could implement more of the hammer,” Phipps says. “Between (the) Torrington and Wolcott (games) is when I decided to start shifting gears from the set. We evolved the hammer back into our wing-T offense.”
The wing-T is an offense familiar to most of the coaches on Woodland’s staff. The Hawks first used the offense from 2007-10 under Anderson and Shea, an era that came on the heels of a pair of state and Naugatuck Valley League championships thanks to the spread.
Phipps recalls the transition from the original spread to the wing-T being a difficult one as the team had prided itself on its spread identity through its formative years.
“It becomes kind of like your fingerprint,” Phipps says. “It’s a representation of who you are. But you can’t be like college or the NFL and say that this is going to be your program offense because it’s high school. Coach Anderson knew that we had kids who knew the spread, but he felt we could have more success with our personnel in running the wing-T. He was right.”
Anderson and his staff didn’t make the decision to jump into the wing-T until the summer of 2007, when Anderson traveled to the University of Delaware to learn from Tubby Raymond, one of the wing-T’s modern innovators.
The switch turned out to be a good decision that year, as Woodland averaged 267 rushing yards per game en route to the first NVL Copper Division title and a berth in the Class SS state semifinals.
Phipps and assistant coach Chris Moffo were both on staff when the Hawks first implemented the wing-T. In addition, a pair of former Woodland standouts who ran the wing-T — Jack DeBiase and Cody Kingsley — are assistants on Phipps’ staff now.
“The knowledge was already there on staff,” Phipps says. “One of the offenses that had been brought up in the staff meeting (last February) was the wing-T.”
Phipps has added knowledge since the Hawks’ first incarnation of the wing-T. He’s taken up some reading about the offense and bounces ideas off other coaches in Connecticut who run similar styles.
“I started reading a great book by Ron Carbone, a phenomenal coach here in Connecticut, and he wrote a very good book about modern-day wing-T football,” Phipps says. “I’m still using it today in terms of philosophies and game planning. Coach (Anthony) Sagnella at North Haven is very familiar with it. The wing-T was born out of the single wing. He runs single wing, and there are elements of that in wing-T.”
With just a few days of practice under their belts, the Hawks entered their Week 3 game against Wolcott as a wing-T squad. Naturally, they struggled. The Eagles held Woodland to 115 yards and a touchdown on 30 carries in a 26-7 game. It was enough, though, to keep pressing on.
“We went into Wolcott with the basics of a wing-T offense and we saw signs of it working,” Phipps says. “We ran into a really, really good Wolcott team so we weren’t allowed to have a very big learning curve. But to the kids’ credit, they didn’t doubt it.”
Soon, Woodland began to reap the benefits of the new — or old — offense.
Phipps credits his offensive line, which includes four veteran starters, for making the wing-T work this year. Seniors Jake Laliberte, Max McSperrin, Alex Varhol and Will Flormann all started up front in 2013 and were used to blocking — mostly pass blocking — in the spread.
“We had some things work in our favor. The biggest thing was the kids,” Phipps says. “They jumped into it pretty quickly, and I think it had to do with the installation of our hammer set. They were very confident in it, and a lot of our leadership comes from our offensive line. They were excited about it.”
While the spread and wing-T are almost polar opposites in terms of offensive styles, Phipps says the philosophies share similarities — particularly in the way they try to keep defenses on their toes.
“The way we ran spread and how we communicated in it, there was a sense to get on the ball right away to keep the defense on its heels,” Phipps says. “In the wing-T, you still have to have that mindset. You still want to keep the defense on its heels, but now there’s more of a physical aspect of having to put the defense on its heels. You’re executing blocks and being physical. It’s two completely different mentalities.”
Woodland enjoyed a successful breakout night in a 30-13 win over St. Paul in Week 4, when the Hawks ran for 264 yards and three touchdowns.
But they were dealt a pair of major blows in October, when tight end Chris McDonald and wingback Joe Poeta both suffered season-ending injuries. Those injuries took away the team’s best run-blocking tight end and shifty second option for the run.
“Joe was one of the big keys in how it was really starting to work,” Phipps says. “He went from wide receiver to running back, and he put a lot into that. My heart broke for him when he suffered a knee injury because he had put so much effort into it. He was evolving into a really good wing-T running back.”
Even though wins have been tough to come by this season — Woodland has lost four one-possession games and was either in the lead or tied in the fourth quarter of all four — the Hawks’ offense has played well since the transition.
McAllen, a junior, bumped up his rushing average from 113 yards per game last season to 141 yards per game this year. Junior Dave Bobbie rushed well in switching between wingback and tailback, and senior quarterback Mike Kenney added a mobile element from under center.
While the decision to leave their beloved spread was a tough one, the Hawks appear to have made the right one — an outcome Phipps attributes to his players.
“It was difficult. We won our two rings with the spread, and last year we got to the state championship with it. But you have to run what helps you,” Phipps says. “They enjoyed the transition. They’re excellent players to begin with and they were ready to take on that challenge.”