The "BEAST" formation (yes, in all caps) is the name that coach Steve Calande gave to the Yale formation when he rediscovered it around the year 2000:
Very little information on the original Yale formation and how it was used is available online. Based on the number of backs in the backfield, it may have been developed around the time the rule requiring at least seven linemen was phased in between 1895 and 1910, as a way of recapturing some of the brute force the offense lost when the flying wedge was outlawed in 1894. By the time the forward pass started gaining popularity after 1912, the formation's lack of split receivers may have started its decline. The football books of the time tended to focus on human interest stories about star players rather than play diagrams (like most football books today), so I haven't been able to find any specific information on this offense in old sources. If anyone has any information about which teams used the formation (Yale, presumably), when, and how, please let me know.
Once it had faded away, the formation remained largely forgotten for decades, with the exception of a few holdout Single Wing teams, particularly Notre Dame Box teams, who used it as a changeup. A related system, the Fat Offense, was created by coach Bruce Eien as a changeup to his spread offense, though the Fat uses a balanced line and a wingback, and it's possible that Eien got the idea from Calande.
