The Minnesota shift is an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

offensive maneuver that was a forerunner of other shifts and pre-snap formation changes in the game. It consists of a sudden switch into a new offensive formation immediately before the ball is

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with the intent of keeping the defense off balance and disguising the intended point of attack.

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

Golden Gophers coach Dr. Henry L. Williams is credited with its invention in the first decade of the 20th century, and his institution lends its name to the shift. The maneuver gained national attention when it was adopted by period powerhouse

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1910. Williams, an 1891 graduate of Yale, had earlier repeatedly offered to mentor his alma mater in the formation, but was rebuffed because the Elis would "not

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football lessons from a

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university." In 1910, the

Elis Elis also known as Ellis or Ilia (, ''Eleia'') is a historic region in the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. It is administered as a regional unit of the modern region of Western Greece. Its capital is Pyrgos. Until 2011 it ...

suffered early season setbacks at the hands of inferior opponents, and sought an advantage to use in its game against strong

Princeton Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...

and

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

squads. Former Yale

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Thomas L. Shevlin, who had served as an assistant coach at Minnesota, taught the team the shift. Yale used the Minnesota shift against both opponents, and beat Princeton, 5–3, and tied Harvard, 0–0. In 1917,

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

head coach John R. Richards claimed that

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, despite inventing the shift, had never been able to develop a counter to the Minnesota shift. In 1921,

Ohio State The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one of the largest universities by enrollme ...

employed a maneuver it called "guards over" that "checked the touted Minnesota shift more completely than any other

Conference A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always d ...

team has ever done," which forced the Gophers to resort unsuccessfully to the

forward pass In several forms of football, a forward pass is the throwing of the ball in the direction in which the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line. The legal and widespread use of the forward pass distinguishes grid ...

. The following season,

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

also effectively shut down the shift behind good line play. The Minnesota shift lost favor as an overriding offensive strategy during the 1920s as more complicated systems were developed, and later rule changes required shifting offensive players to remain stationary for a full second in their new positions before the snap of the ball. However, the basic idea of shifting, or motioning offensive personnel to confuse the defense is still widely used.

References

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