They are throwing the ball all over the place, these 21st century football warriors.

They are coming out in formations so exotic, they could be a location for the next "Survivor."

No, I'm not talking about the NFL. If anything, the NFL has gone back in time to 1907, when Pop Warner whipped up the single-wing formation.

Anyone who saw Miami Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown go all Jim Thorpe on New England was probably rubbing his eyes Sunday.

I'm not talking about college football, either. No to indoor football leagues, too — all 80 billion of them.

I'm talking about high school football.

Maybe I am showing my advancing age, but when I broke into this business almost 15 years ago, high school football teams pretty much did the same thing week after week.

Run left, run right and if that didn't work, run up the middle.

Coaches were of the mindset that says when you drop back to pass, three things can happen and two of them are bad.

There was no spread offense, no West Coast offense.

It was the No Coast offense.

Fast forward to 2008. Formations are looking like constellations; I think Slippery Rock ran a set that resembled the BigDipper last week.

It certainly helps that quarterback play has evolved. The QB no longer is there just to receive the snap and hand off.

He's there to win games now.

In Butler County, it is the Year of the Quarterback.

Seneca Valley's C.J. Brown completed 62.4 percent of his passes for 1,120 yards in four weeks. Rumor has it Kansas City Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards is considering naming Brown his Week 5 starter.

The top three passers in the county are at a completion rate of 50 percent or better, which makes the Browns' Derek Anderson cry.

This is putting a lot of pressure on the defense. Middle linebackers need a PhD these days to make pre-snap adjustments.

The hair is graying on the heads of defensive coaches as you read this.

"The days of sitting in the same defense all game are long gone," said Grove City High football coach Jeff Bell.

He should know. Always looking for an edge, Bell briefly toyed with the idea of running a few plays out of the A-11 formation — a scheme concocted by the mad scientists doubling as football coaches at Piedmont HighSchool in San Jose, Calif., last season.

On any give play, all 11 players could be eligible receivers. The formation looks more like what you would see at a country and western line dance than on a football field.

But that is where high school football is headed.

Innovation is the name of the game. If your quarterback isn't flinging the football all over the field, if you aren't lining up in formations that spell out words in Braille, you aren't trying.

Who knows what the football alchemists have in tap on the high school football field tonight?

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.