Full Install: The 12 Personnel Double Detached Formation

By Mike Kuchar
Co-Founder & Senior Researcher
X&O Labs
@MikekKuchar

“The balanced formation gives you an opportunity to pick a side in your run game and what you want to do. You can run outside zone, inside zone and gap schemes in either direction based on what you’re looking at.”
- Power 4 Offensive Line Coach

Remember the Rich Rod days back in his first term at West Virginia when those 10 personnel 2x2 sets were all the rage? I do. And yes…I’m that old. Well, this is the modern football formation that has supplanted that balanced look. Slot receivers have been expended for the conventional tight end- the 6-4, 215-pound athlete that can both block and catch in space. And because of the athleticism of these “beasts,” football programs have gone about building in their entire offensive menu around what’s known as a double detached, 2x2 formation.

This is a balanced 2x2, 12-personnel look — two outside receivers, TWO tight ends (one to each side), and a single running back. It is a heavy, two-back-optional, gap-scheme personnel group dressed up to look spread.

We analyzed over 500 clips of how college football programs are using this formation around the country, and we found some interesting details. First, it is a RUN-FIRST operation. Offenses run it about 2 to 1 over pass and the run menu is narrow and physical: gap blocking and OUTSIDE ZONE account for nearly 70% of all carries.

When it hits, it hits big. Based on our data set, roughly 1 in 4 runs goes for 10+ yards, and outside zone is the most explosive high-volume concept (9.9 yds/carry, ~30% explosive).

The pass game off it is a SHOT / play-action complement, not a dropback attack. It’s low volume but nets a very high yards per completion which is built on deep and intermediate routes (Post, Go, Seam, Over, Behind-LB) that punish a defense crashing the run.

The nuts and bolts of our research detail which concepts were most efficient and most explosive against the types of coverage and front variants presented against it. We were able to uncover the “why” behind the success of each run and pass concept used in these double detached formations and we are thrilled to present our research.

Our Analysis:

Using our X&O Labs analytics, we studied 518 clips of efficient plays using the double detached formation from 12 personnel formations. These included a mix of both run and pass concepts.

Four things stand out:

1. Outside zone is the best call and it is not the most-called call. Outside zone produced 9.94 yards a carry with a 29.7% explosive rate on 101 attempts. Gap/man scheme was called more often — 132 attempts — for 8.61 and 24.2%.
2. The extra blocker is not what makes the run go. Runs with a cross-lead averaged 7.92 yards with a 21.4% explosive rate. Runs without one averaged 8.74 and 27.6%. The tight end crossing the formation appears to be worth more as a tell-breaker and a play-action setup than as an actual lead blocker.
3. Bear front is the answer and almost nobody played it. Against Bear the run game collapsed to 3.6 yards a carry on 21 attempts — gap scheme 3.0, inside zone 3.0, outside zone 5.7. Defenses showed Bear on only 31 of 495 snaps (6%).
4. The pass game is essentially one idea, run from many pictures. 78% of charted dropbacks featured a crosser, and the single most common structure — a high crosser and a low crosser from opposite sides with a vertical or corner behind them — accounted for 46 of 107 charted dropbacks at 17.5 yards a completion.

The rest of this report is the install itself — the run schemes, the pass structures, the coach interviews behind them, and the game film to go with it. Here's what you'll be able to do with it:

• Install tight zone with a built-in cutter rule. Minnesota's run game coordinator walks through how they decide who cuts and where — C gap or D gap — based on which tight end gives them the better matchup, plus the flinch-and-arc version of the same call.
• Fix your wide zone against Odd stack. Northern Illinois built two play-side tight end calls — "Bite" and "Blow" — to solve where defenses want to set the Spur. You'll get both, plus the miscadence rule they use to keep the back behind the guys he's supposed to leverage.
• Check the counter to the better side without ever changing personnel. Elon's "Rocky" formation put two completely different tight end body types off the ball, which let them pick who's at the point of attack and who's the second puller in G/Y — and gave them an arc tag for when the tendency started to show.
• Build the entire pass game off the same picture. Full charting on the crosser structures behind 78% of drop backs, including the high/low double crosser that produced 17.5 yards a completion, and the single crosser with the hi-lo underneath that went for 10+ yards on 70.4% of its snaps.
• Protect it and finish it. Minnesota's zone-protected power pass and the backside fit rule that makes it work, the boot that ties directly to your wide zone double cross, and the slide RPO progression — Glance, wheel, slide — including why some staffs read the Glance first instead of the flat defender.

Six game-film clips and the full formation diagrams are included.