Word: multiflexed
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...after a lifetime of total immersion in football, Restic not only had a system but a name for it, too. Multiflex had the requisite crypto-military football sound, and it stuck. To understand--or, more realistically, to begin to understand--what that union of multiple and flexible means, one must consider Restic's football background...
...John Yovicsin quit after rejuvenating the Crimson in his 16-year tenure. Harvard went coach hunting, and eventually settled on this complete unknown from the North, whom one member of the search committee called the "best football mind in North America." Since then, Restic says, the Multiflex has changed little. But despite his repeated protestations that the system, at its core, is "very simple," neither Restic nor his top quarterbacks has ever been able to tie it up in a neat one-sentence package...
Essentially, this is the Multiflex: Restic believes he can convert the best instincts of a defense--instincts that normally serve a defense well--into advantage for his offense. By changing formations on every play, by setting several men in motion before the snap, he forces the defense to react to several changes before the play has even started, leaving the opponents confused and vulnerable. The coach's favorite phrase for the effect of the Multiflex is that it "negates defensive ability." And, Restic says, "The better the football player, the more the ability is negated." He explains: "Because when...
...they don't get what they think they see. At the core of the Multiflex is the assumption that an offense can take an unstoppable advantage in a play before the ball is snapped. And the way to do that is with men in motion. Men in motion have become so much a part of Harvard football-indeed all football-that it's easy to forget how revolutionary an idea this was not too long ago. A 1972 article on Restic in Harvard Magazine reflects a widely-shared amazement: "Against Princeton, Restic had an end in motion. In the Brown...
...absence of a standard "look" from play to play renders the Multiflex difficult to define or even see on a given play, but the myriad variety of combinations is the whole point: Restic will borrow sets or even entire plays from a veer, or Wishbone or Power I offenses, but will never stay with one formation long enough to allow the defense to know what to expect. As he talks about it, Restic grows animated, actually improvising a play-by-play analysis of the havoc wreaked on a defense: "The ball's coming, they don't know where...