The split-T is an offensive formation in American football that was popular in the 1940s and 50s. Developed by Missouri Tigers head coach Don Faurot as a variation on the T formation, the split-T was first used in the 1941 season and allowed the Tigers to win all but their season-opening match against the Ohio State Buckeyes and the 1942 Sugar Bowl versus Fordham.[1] Bud Wilkinson, who coached under Farout with the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks during World War II, brought the split-T to the Oklahoma Sooners, who won a record-setting 47 straight games and two national titles between 1953 and 1957.
Although the forward pass was legalized in 1906, most teams continued to focus on running the ball (except in desperate situations) into the 1930s. During this time, the University of Minnesota football team used the T formation to great effect, winning five national championships. In the basic or tight-T formation, three running backs would line up about five yards behind the quarterback. The offensive linemen would form a fairly tight group in front of the backs. In the split-T, the offensive line was spread out over almost twice as much ground. This forced the defensive front to widen as well, which created gaps for the offense to exploit. The use of a split end to aid the passing game was optional, and was not an integral feature of either the split-T or the tight-T.
Faurot used the new formation to create what may have been the first option offense in football, which was a precursor of the wishbone, veer, and some modern run-first spread offenses. With the defense spread out, the offense would leave only two defensive players unblocked. The blocking schemes were simple, with very little of the pulling or trapping of the more traditional power-running offenses.
The two unblocked players could be called the inside player, usually the defensive tackle or an end, and the outside player, usually the defensive end or a linebacker. If the inside player had been charging upfield or swinging outside, a play could be called for the onside halfback to get the handoff and dive inside his position. This was eventually developed into an option, where the handoff could be quickly withdrawn to allow the play to actually go outside.
If the dive play had not been called, or if it was an option and the quarterback kept the ball, the quarterback would run toward a spot just inside the outside defensive player. If that player closed on him, he would pitch the ball back to the outside trailing halfback, aiming for a spot outside that outside defensive player. When executed correctly, this resembled the two-on-one fast break of basketball, from which Faurot originally derived the concept.
In 1941, Don Faurot of the University of Missouri developed the split- by doubling the space between the offensive linemen (causing the line to stretch 14 instead of 7 yards from end to end) and "splitting off" a wide receiver to one sideline while keeping a tight end in close. When he combined this new formation with the athletes he had at running back and quarterback, Coach Faurot created an offensive juggernaut. In that year, the Missouri Tigers finished the season 8 and 1 and received a bid to play Fordham (then an elite football program) in the Sugar Bowl. The Tigers lost that bowl game 2–0 because rainy conditions and a wet field did not allow the split-T to be used effectively.
Faurot got the idea from the "two-on-one" fast break in basketball when he was a player at Missouri in the 1920s. He knew that these types of plays forced the defensive player to make a decision about whom to guard and "that made [him] wonder if the same thing couldn't be done in football." The idea worked and teams using the split-T were able to run into gaps created in the defensive line by those decisions.
In 1946, Jim Tatum became the Oklahoma head coach. He installed the "split-T" offense that he had learned as an assistant coach under Don Faurot at the U.S. Navy's Iowa Pre-Flight school football team during World War II. In his first year, he turned around Oklahoma's losing record and delivered a Big Six Conference championship.[2] In 1947, Tatum left Oklahoma for Maryland, where he saw even more success with the split-T, including a consensus national championship in 1953.[3]
Bud Wilkinson, also an acolyte of Faurot at Iowa Pre-Flight, was the next Sooners head coach. In 1953, after losing to Notre Dame and tying Pittsburgh, Oklahoma beat arch-rivals Texas, 19–14, and went on to win their next 46 games in a row, setting an NCAA record that stands to this day. Notre Dame book-ended the streak when they again beat Oklahoma in Norman, 7–0 on November 16, 1957.[4]
Other top football programs used the split-T during this period as well. These included Alabama, Houston, Notre Dame, Texas, Michigan, Penn State, and Ohio State.