Kansas State is using the most compact football formation possible (and it works!)

This is a short-yardage formation favored by Kansas State, whose approach to winning involves controlling the clock, avoiding mistakes, and waiting for others to goof up.

It also involves breaking out farm-raised formations that look more like huddles. Here, something like seven offensive linemen (I’ve had a hard time reading jersey numbers, because players are so close to each other, perhaps they overlap, like in video games) and multiple other big blockers form a force field around quarterback Jesse Ertz and blob their way to a first down conversion.

A few years ago, the NCAA adjusted the rule against blockers pushing ball carriers. It’s allowed. They still can’t pull ball carriers forward, though.

NCAA rulebook

When K-State played Stanford earlier this year, they might as well have played that game in a studio apartment.

And here’s just about the same formation, making an appearance against Texas in October: