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Football: A-11 creator goes on the offensive

Los Angeles Times staff writer Ben Bolch
By Ben Bolch
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If things don’t work out for Piedmont Coach Kurt Bryan as a football coach, he might have a future as a lobbyist in Washington.

Bryan, who helped formulate the wacky A-11 offense, sent out a mass e-mail today touting a recent ESPN Fan Nation Poll that shows fans overwhelmingly characterize the formation as ‘innovative’ instead of ‘unsportsmanlike.’ Roughly 75% of the 11,000 fans who cast votes in the poll voted for the former category instead of the latter.

The poll comes in the wake of the National Federation of High School Athletic Assns. voting last month to ban the A-11 offense for the 2009 season. The only Southland school that would be affected is Saddleback Valley Christian, which won its first 10 games last season using the formation before losing in the first round of the playoffs.

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Bryan prepared a 56-page analysis of the ESPN poll that can be found here. Happy reading.

--Ben Bolch

Varsity Times Insider
Ben Bolch

Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. He is serving his second stint as the UCLA beat writer, which seems fitting since he has covered almost every sports beat except hockey and horse racing. Bolch is also the author of the recently released book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” He previously covered UCLA basketball from 2010-11 before going on to cover the NBA and the Clippers for five years. He happily traded in gobs of hotel points and airline miles to return to cover UCLA basketball and football in the summer of 2016. Bolch was once selected by NBA TV’s “The Starters” as the “Worst of the Week” after questioning their celebrity journalism-style questions at an NBA All-Star game and considers it one of his finer moments.

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