During football games last season, those of you who listened to Dave South often heard him describe a "broken pyramid formation" during some of our games. The actual formation is the Hanover Bunch, a trips formation we would run often during the season. The bunch formation typically consisted of three wide receivers (or two WRs and a TE) in an alignment with the front WR on the line of scrimmage (LOS) a yard off the strongside tackle, and the two back WRs aligned 1X1 (one yard back, one yard to the side) to either the left or right side of the front WR.The QB will be aligned under center, the TB will be aligned 6 yds behind the QB, 7 yds off the ball, and the backside WR will be split out wide. See diagram below:

The formation gets its name from Hanover College, a small, private liberal arts college in Hanover, Indiana that plays D-III football. The coaching staff at Hanover actually used the bunch formation, which they called Quarters Under, as a way to isolate their best WR (X) on the left, and their worst WR (R) on the right in their empty set (0 personnel). They would put their other three wide receivers (W, Y, Z) in the bunch formation, with the R-receiver flanked out as wide as possible on the quads side. Their reasoning was simple: they figured the defense would put their two CBs on the two receivers split out wide, and this left the three bunch receivers covered by safeties and linebackers, a mismatch they could take advantage of. See diagram:

Hanover Quarters Under Formation

The X receiver would run a called route signaled to him by the QB during his pre-snap read, the W-receiver would run a swing, the Y-receiver would run a hook, the Z-receiver would run a shallow or underneath route, and the R-receiver is acting as a decoy, just going deep on a vertical route to try to take the CB coverage away with him, away from the concept side. See diagram:

Hanover Quarters Under Routes

The quarterback will decide during his pre-snap read if he is going to throw the call route to X, or if he is going to throw to the bunch side. If he to throw to the bunch side, his progression is underneath to hook to swing. Because this is in five-man protection, the read, decision, and throw has to be done quickly, because an empty set usually means a blitz is coming.

A&M has added the Hanover Bunch to their playbook, but while the Hanover coaches were using Quarters Under as an addition to their spread passing game, Mike Sherman & Co. have used it to add to both their passing and running game. The Hanover coaches used Quarters Under in their empty set, only; the Aggies run the Hanover Bunch almost exclusively with 10 personnel. Having a TB in the backfield expands what you can do from this formation, both from a running game standpoint and in pass protection, and it even allows you to run some trick plays.

We ran the Hanover Bunch multiple times in our game against Texas Tech, so plays examples from the series will be drawn from there. As you can see below, we have the Bunch formation on the left, with Uzoma Nwachukwu split out to the right. The bunch formation has #5 Howard Morrow in front, #4 Jamie McCoy aligned left, and #84 Brandal Jackson on the right.

Bunch Left

This was actually an attempted trick play in the first quarter against Tech, though, as the bunch shifted to the right, then we faked a power sweep and ran a halfback option; EZ was covered, so Cyrus Gray kept the ball and ran for a few yards.

Now we're going to look at a designed passing play from the Bunch Right formation, with Jeff Fuller isolated as the X-receiver on the left side. Fuller is the target, he fakes an inside release, then goes outside, and he actually catches the ball out of the end zone as Tech is flagged for pass interference.

Now we have your standard run off left tackle, which in this case is a run to the left by Cyrus Gray out of a Bunch Right formation (Ryan Swope, Jamie McCoy, Uzoma Nwachukwu).

Notice how simple the blocking scheme on the left side is: center Kevin Matthews seals the DT inside, LG Evan Eike goes to the second level to take on the weakside LB, LT Michael Shumard does a nice job kicking out the DE, opening the alley for Gray to run through untouched. Watch how Swope, McCoy, and Nwachukwu all block backside, and Swope keeps going, moving to the secon level. So beautiful, it almost brings a tear to your eyes.

Now we get to my favorite play from the whole game, against from the Bunch Right formation. Swope is at the point, Nwachukwu is aligned right, Jamie McCoy is aligned left, and Brandal Jackson is split out left, at the bottom of the screen.

Bunch Right

At the snap, Swope goes downfield to block the safety, Jamie McCoy pulls back to the left to kickout the backside DE, and Nwachukwu goes into motion and meshes with Jerrod on the end around after he hands the ball off to Christine Michael, who sprints for the end zone. The nice thing about this particular iteration of the play is there are two more possibilities in the series; fake the dive to Michael, and give it to EZ on the end-around, and fake the dive and let EZ fake the end around, counter step, and run counter option back to the strongside.

Christine Michael's TD run to begin the second half.

Finally, we have another example of the Bunch passing game. In a Bunch Right formation, Howard Morrow is on point, Jamie McCoy is aligned left, and EZ is aligned right. Brandal Jackson is split out wide to the to the left side of the play.

Bunch Right Pass Play

Notice how Brandal Jackson curls inside to sit in the zone down at the bottom of the screen, while Morrow runs a comeback to catch the ball; this gives Johnson two options of where to go with the ball, and both are safe plays.

The Hanover Bunch is a formation that allows you to attack the defense in many different ways; hopefully A&M will continue to use it and add to the play series during the 2010 season.