ITHACA, N.Y. -- There's a storm brewing at Piedmont (Calif.) High School, and that's just the way football head coach Kurt Bryan likes it. After countless hours of brainstorming with Piedmont's head of football operations, Steve Humphries, the two created the A-11 offense, using it 60 percent of the time last season. The offense is the brainchild of these two innovative coaches with a penchant for pushing new ideas tailoring to increasingly fast and athletic players. The A-11 looks illegal, seems illegal, and is hard to describe. Think spread offense on steroids.

As it turns out, the A-11 is legal and the base formation goes something like this: A center lines up with two tight ends on each side as the middle "pod"; two groups of three receivers spread out wide, one on each side of the tight ends; and two quarterbacks line up behind the center, with one at least seven yards behind the ball. It gets a touch more unconventional as every player on the field is wearing jersey numbers that make them eligible receivers (1-49 or 80-99).

The key that unlocks this new-school offense is that as long as one of the backs lined up behind center is seven feet deep, the formation qualifies as a "scrimmage kick formation" in which the traditional rules for eligible receivers don't apply. On any play, all 11 players could potentially be a receiving threat (hence the name), and Piedmont attempts to further confuse opponents by using plenty of motion and shifting players at the last moment.

Aside from Bryan and Humphries' natural inclination for unique offenses, the creation was inspired by the fact that Piedmont regularly competes against schools that are up to twice its size in enrollment and just plain bigger physically. They looked at a group of offenses built around odd-shaped formations and scoured the rule books until they found the scrimmage kick rule that allows them to unleash 11-receiver sets.

And that is where the backlash comes in. The three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust purists have sounded off on online message boards and coaching sites calling for a rules committee to close the scrimmage kick loophole. Opponents of the A-11 say it violates the spirit of the rule and the game. The rule was originally created so coaches could get faster players on the field to cover kicks.

The Piedmont coaches say they are within the rules, and both national and California football governing bodies agree, as both reviewed the offense before last season. The coaches' vocal nature, and willingness to accommodate any media request, Bryan specifically, have not helped quell the negative feedback. Critics claim the coaches are quick to pat themselves on the back. The A-11 has been the subject of several national news features, including a recent story on ESPN.com's Page 2. Bryan and Humphries teamed with American Football Monthly to create a series of instructional videos and an installation manual.

As for the offense itself, last season, the team scored nine combined points in its first two games - both losses - before rattling off seven straight wins en route to a playoff loss.

Bryan argues that this kind of a change is inevitable as athletes get faster and the game becomes less rigid. It's hard to argue with the influx of spread offenses on every level. Every generation's athletes are faster and stronger than the previous. For a recent example, compare the world-record times Michael Phelps set in the Olympics with those Mark Spitz set back in 1972. Spitz was unquestionably the world's greatest swimmer ever until Phelps came along, but if the Munich Olympics version of Spitz attempted to qualify for the 2008 Games, he would be sitting home with the rest of us pondering whether Phelps is the greatest Olympian ever.

It's not just the athletes that have evolved. Do you think Vince Lombardi and his playbook of 20 plays would survive in today's NFL? There are kids who play entirely too much Madden who could scout a somewhat effective defense against Lombardi's Packers.

The old-school, Woody Hayes-type football guys will keep objecting, but the A-11 has already passed the litmus test once, and hundreds of high school and college coaches have sought advice from the Piedmont staff and are considering running some version of the A-11. It will take a rule change specifically disallowing the offense to see it go from the high school game. Rules in college and the pros prevent the possibility of using the A-11 full time, but there are 12-15 opportunities in a college game to use the formation.

Smash-mouth devotees need to relax. Football is all about innovation and this new offense is not a personal affront. It is not suggesting that your way of thinking about football is less sophisticated or that your first-born child is destined for failure. Bryan could save himself some criticism by calming down the quotes about how this is the next football revolution.

But Bryan almost seems to relish the criticism and attention. Bryan is a part-time author of the sports-thriller genre (his most recent book involves a female kicker, the president, and an assassination plot, and yes, all three are related). Both he and Humphries have noted how humbled they have been by the surprising attention. Any time spent talking to either of them and it is evident that they did this out of their enthusiasm and passion for the game.

Whether you are for or against the A-11, that means that you have at least taken the time to look it up and form an opinion on it. It's interesting. It's fun to watch. It's original, and it has cut down on injuries for Piedmont. In all likelihood, it is not the second coming of the forward pass. The A-11, and the spread offense, require defenses to become faster, and thus, smaller. As soon as this becomes a widespread trend, you are likely to see a wave of offenses built around huge offensive lines and bruising running backs that exhaust defenses and dominate the clock.

Football goes in cycles, and now more than ever, coaching staffs adapt quickly. For now, the A-11 is exciting, and it seems a large portion of the football world was waiting for something like this. If nothing else, people are talking, which is more than you can say for those ho-hum off-seasons when no one even bothers to create a radical new offense.