This is an offensive scheme I learned many years ago (too many!), and have used ever since in Youth Football as well as football video games, and I’ve really enjoyed using it in Maximum Football since I got in on the early release.

Most often when offenses talk about a split-field scheme they’re calling plays that have weak side and strong side route combinations, typically with one combination suited to Open defensive looks, and the other side suited to Closed defensive looks.

But this Split Field Option Scheme acts like a middle ground between that and an RPO based offense.

The concept is simple, call a pass to attack the sides or middle, and if the defensive alignment isn’t the right fit to your route combination when you lineup, audible to a run. The idea being to snap the ball as quickly as possible and prevent your opponent from making adjustments.

How can this be applied in Maximum Football?

You start by calling a pass play, then as your team lines up and you read the defense (really you’re only reading the safeties, are they 1 high [closed] or 2 high [open]?), this answers the only question you have: is your route combination a fit to the defensive formation? If yes, snap and throw your pass. If no, audible to a run (usually to the strong side): a blast (off guard), off tackle, or a toss/pitch to the outside.

NOTE: This scheme has always worked best with a slot receiver and a TE, in Maximum Football this can be the Doubles formation, Gun Solo formation, Gun Spread formation, or even the Singleback formation treating your TE #2 as the slot receiver. You can run it with other formations, but these are just the ones it works best with.

This makes it super easy for the quarterback (you in a video game) to make a quick decision and execute the play best suited to exploit the defense you see.

The only other thing the quarterback (or you) needs to know is what route combinations work best against Open or Closed defensive formations in order to determine whether the pass play called is viable or not.

In youth football we’ve always kept this as simple as possible by limiting it to 11 combinations, all of which come down to High-Lo reads:

• 4 combinations that attack the outside against Open defenses
• 4 combinations that attack the outside against Closed defenses
• 3 combinations that attack the middle

Route Combinations (all shown in the feature image of this post above) I use in Maximum Football that fit this scheme (I’m using Maximum Football’s route naming):

Vs. Open Defenses (2 high safeties):

• Dog – Outside receiver runs an Out and inside receiver runs a Flat route
• FadeNine – Outside receiver runs a Fade (can’t hotroute this so must pick a play that has it built in) route and inside receiver runs a Flat route
• Ohio – Outside receiver runs a Go route and inside receiver runs a Flat route
• Dagger – Outside receiver runs an In route and inside receiver runs a Go or Corner route

Vs. Closed Defenses (1 high safety):

• Hawk – Outside receiver runs a Go route and inside receiver runs an Out route
• Slay – Outside receiver runs a Slant route and inside receiver runs a Flat or Whip/Zig (can’t hotroute this so must pick a play that has it built in) route
• Snag – Outside receiver runs a Drag (can’t hotroute this so must pick a play that has it built in) and inside receiver runs a Go or Corner Route
• Mills – Outside receiver runs a Post route and inside receiver runs an In route

Attacking the middle:

• Portland vs. Open defense – Weak outside receiver runs a Corner route, Weak inside receiver runs an In route, Strong Inside receiver (or Tight End) runs a Post route, and Strong Outside receiver runs a Comeback route.
• Shallow Cross vs. Closed defense – Weak outside receiver runs a Corner route, Weak inside receiver runs a Drag (can’t hotroute this so must pick a play that has it built in) route, Strong Inside receiver (or Tight End) runs an In route, and Strong Outside receiver runs a Comeback route.
• Y Cross vs. either Open or Closed defense – Weak outside receiver runs an In route, Weak inside receiver runs a Slant route, Strong Inside receiver (or Tight End) runs a Flat route, and Strong Outside receiver runs a Go route.

Keys to Working this Scheme in Maximum Football:

You’ll want to try and guess the defense you will face when picking your pass play (against other players it’s about reading their tendencies). Pick a play that either has a route combination against the guessed defense properly, or that is a fast hot route or 2 for you to make the desired combination.

For example, if you predict a Closed defense and want to run the Slay combination, pick a pass play that has the slot receiver on a Flat or Whip/Zig route already then you may just have to put your outside receiver on a slant to make the combination.

After picking your play when you begin to line up look at the defense, is it Closed as you guessed? If yes, run your play. If no and the defense has come out in an Open formation, you can either hot route your receivers into one of the combinations that better attacks an Open look, or just audible to a run play. This is situational, on 3rd and long plays I opt to changing the route combination and still pass the ball, otherwise I typically audible to a run. My goal is to snap as soon as I can and limit my opponent’s time for making adjustments.

Since every passing concept in this scheme sets up a High-Lo read the quarterback (or you) doesn’t have to read defenders post snap but rather focus on reading the field. Which of the receivers is heading to open grass? That’s your target.

One noticeable drawback with this scheme is to form a tendency to only plan your pass plays to the slot side, don’t do this. Your Tight End has hands and can run routes, use him too by running your route combinations to both sides of the offense and keeping your opponent from keying in on defending just half the field.

In the video game you’ll be picking in your head which side of the field you want to attack with your combination, in real life we have the QB call it in the huddle, and the 2 receivers (or receiver and Tight End) on the opposite side will run Tossers, basically double slants.

So if we wanted to run a Slay combination to the boundary (short) side, the QB would call Slay Barney (Barney indicates boundary) in the huddle. To call it to the field (wide) side he’d call Slay Fred (Fred indicates field); and the receivers on the opposite side will know they’re both running slants (Tossers). If the QB sees the defense we predicted but also sees something in the alignment that makes him want to flip the play, the first word of his cadence will start with an F. Any word or name that starts with an F, this tells the offense we’re Flipping the play. And if he doesn’t want to flip it then the cadence begins with blocking assignments, none of which start with an F-word.

Whether to Flip or not tells the receivers what routes they’re running on both sides, it informs the linemen what techniques they’ll be using, very thorough but simple.

For use in Maximum Football you can call your play with one side in mind, but if you see something like an obvious blitz or overload in the coverage just use hot routing to flip it to the other side.

If you use this scheme in the game please come back and let me know how it worked out for you and what you think of it.