But What Would Scissors Mean?

I was teaching a little option football yesterday morning. I stopped two-thirds of our guys, an entire scrimmage, just to get a point across about blocking the midline as compared to blocking our regular option.

I won't bore you with all the details of that, for which I'm sure you are quite pleased.

But almost as an aside, I also mentioned that a quarterback could give a hand-signal behind his back to indicate his pre-snap read to the fullback. (Pre-snap read means the look of the alignment of the defense that the quarterback sees, and what his expectations are based on that look.) Basically, if we see the dive key read aligned inside the gap to which we're trying to dive - be it A, B, or C gap, depending on the option we are running - chances are we will not be handing off, and a hand signal prepares the fullback for a quick jump around the hole to help with the blocking.

I thought the hand signals we'd invented for them were pretty clever. If the quarterback sees that the dive gap looks promising, he clenches his fist behind his back, because the fist is equal to the rock, and the fullback is going to get the rock.

If the quarterback holds up an empty hand behind his back, he tells the fullback that he will get the empty hand - in other words, nothing at all, meaning a fake.

Being a wise and sagacious coach, I taught, then tested with a question:

"Now boys, if I use the closed fist behind my back like this, it means THE ROCK, and the rock means the ball, and the ball means the quarterback believes he's going to give the ball to the fullback." I said that and was mildly encouraged that nods of understanding were seen all around. So I continued, "Now boys, if I use the open hand behind my back like this, that means THE EMPTY HAND, and who can tell me what that should mean?" to which Jack B, nearly bursting with newfound understanding, shouted out, 

"Paper?!" 

It was a very entertaining moment for our assistant coaches.