Things couldn’t be going better for the Plant City Dolphins Pee Wees. As the only undefeated team in the division the Pee Wees has seven wins, no losses, an offense averaging nearly 40 points per game and a defense allowing just under five per game.
Ask head coach Chad Morrow about it, and he’ll say that it’s all about teamwork. Given the familiarity that these players and coaches have with each other, it’s not hard to see why that would help them collect the wins.
FINDING SUCCESS
This is the first year that Morrow has coached the Pee Wees, but far from his first within the Dolphins organization. Many of his current players were with him when he coached Mighty Mites for the past three years, and they moved up with him.
With so many familiar faces, everyone on the roster is comfortable with their playing styles and capabilities. And that helps Morrow and his staff create game plans that have been working about as well as they could have dreamed up in their best-case scenarios.
The team has been dealing with some injuries, but Morrow credits the boys for stepping up to make sure that the Dolphins don’t miss a beat.
Most recently, the team played the East Bay Bucs and finished with a 20-0 shutout.
Last week, against the Pinecrest Pilots, it was a 38-6 win.
The week before that, against the second-place Brandon Lions, the Dolphins walked away with a 41-6 win.
The rest of the box scores look similar, besides the week when the Lakeland Eagles hung 15 points on the Dolphins — and lost by 30.
Going beyond the talk of great teamwork, how does this team do it? The answer is simple, yet maddening for other coaches.
THE OLD WAYS WORK
Morrow and the Dolphins are running the single-wing offense these days.
Back in the day — as in, the late 1900s — the single-wing was the newest phenomenon to take hold of the gridiron. Invented by Pop Warner, the formation allowed just about every skill player on the offense to get involved on any play at any time.
For defenses, that proved to be tough to plan for.
The formation puts four backs on the field at one time, and the tailback, rather than the quarterback, will often take direct snaps from the center.
The center is also thrown into a different alignment, moving one spot over from the position’s usual spot in the middle of the offensive line.
Passing plays aren’t exactly the bread and butter of this offense, and the Dolphins would agree: Morrow only calls a tiny handful of them per game, normally two to three. The quarterback will still manage the game, but will often end up blocking for runners or even taking a handoff from the tailback.
The result is a lot of rushing yards and touchdowns, coming from a lot of plays that resemble the reverses, sweeps, play action plays and pulls that the pros and amateurs use today.
The formation is rarely, if ever used in collegiate football, and it’s nonexistent in the NFL.
In both cases, offenses have simply evolved into the spread and other pass-heavy schemes that dominate both leagues today.
Even the triple option, the run-heavy scheme used most famously at Georgia Tech and Navy, is markedly different.
Maybe that’s what makes the Dolphins’ single-wing so dangerous. How can one prepare for an offense that they may not face again because it’s no longer widely used?
Everything’s working to near-perfection, but don’t expect Morrow to pencil his team in for a Superbowl victory next month.
“We’re just taking everything one game at a time,” he says.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
SCHEDULE
Oct. 10: at Brandon Cowboys, 2807 S. Kingsway Road, Seffner.
Oct. 17: vs. Lakeland Gators, 726 Hollingsworth Road, Lakeland.
Oct. 24: at Antioch Redskins, 8510 Franklin Road, Plant City.
Games begin at 9 a.m. and run until 4 p.m. All Pee Wee games begin at 10:30 a.m.