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3rd Level Add On Pressures to Defend 12/21 Personnel Run Game

Posted by xandoadmin | Feb 29, 2020 | Defense, Pressure, 3-Deep 3-Under Zone Pressures | 0 |

By Mark Theophel
Defensive Coordinator & LBs Coach
Hartwick College (NY)

As an odd front, zone pressure defense, we look for opportunities to pressure our opponent’s top run plays every week. If teams can run the ball, they will run the ball, so the challenge when formulating a game plan is to find ways to make the prospect of leaning on the run game seem discouraging. This means not only being sound vs. the run but also utilizing aggression to create negative yardage plays. We usually do this in the form of 5-man pressures, with a variety of patterns involving inside and outside linebackers. However, teams that run out of 2-RB and 2-TE formations present a unique challenge of defending extra gaps that are not present in single-back/spread formations. To meet this challenge, we have been leaning more on secondary blitzes to gain additional unblocked players at the point of attack. These are still 5-man pressures that utilize familiar blitz patterns. However, these pressures will involve a safety or a corner in place of an additional LB.

Philosophy of DB Blitzes:

Our game plan philosophy every week is to attack what our opponents do best. The formations that present the biggest challenge to this are ones that utilize multiple RBs and/or TEs to create additional numbers in the run game. The “8-man box” gets talked about a lot to get the extra defender, usually a DB, involved in the run fit. However, just having the extra DB in the box doesn’t necessarily help us pressure these heavy run formations. If we still only run blitzes that involve our front seven against 21-personnel (or heavier) formations, a well-designed run play can still get blocks on those defenders, and in some cases even use their blitz angles against them. This means that regardless of whether we are in a pressure or a base call, we will often still be relying on our DBs to make tackles on the second level.

Adding DBs to our pressure package, however, opens new possibilities to attack our opponent’s run game while limiting our risk vs. the pass. This fits our philosophy of being aggressive, while at the same time being easy to teach and fun for our DB’s. Here are some advantages that come with running a DB blitz as opposed to a “traditional” zone pressure.

1) We gain defenders in the backfield who are unaccounted for in the blocking scheme.

Most power and man blocking schemes do not account for defensive backs, and RBs are taught that if the front is blocked up, he is responsible for making the “extra” man (usually a DB) miss. By adding the extra man to the pressure, we ensure that he will meet the play at or behind the LOS, rather than having to make a difficult open-field tackle. This gives our defender the advantage in that matchup against the RB.

Diagram 1

2)It allows our LBs to pursue more aggressively and chase plays down.

In a 5-Man pressure, we account for counter/boot/reverse with the widest outside rusher when the play goes away. That responsibility would normally fall to an LB in a base call or a typical zone pressure, so adding the safety as the D-gap/outside rusher allows other players involved in the blitz to chase down anything that goes away, knowing that he doesn’t have to worry about containing anything that comes back to his side.

Diagram 2

3)It clears up the fit for second-level defenders not involved in the pressure.

When we blitz DBs, we are running blitz patterns that normally occur with multiple linebackers, so adding a safety/corner will mean subtracting an LB from that pressure scheme. That linebacker then becomes a second-level defender with a coverage responsibility. If an offense can diagnose the pressure and block everyone up, the extra man is now a linebacker who is closer to the ball than a DB, and his progression will take him directly to where he is needed to “clean up” and ensure a minimal gain on the play.

4)The movement up front wrecks the vertical run lanes and forces runs to the edge.

Most of our DB pressures are edge pressures that involve collapsing the front by stunting our linemen to inside gaps on the side of the blitz and crossing down-blocks away from the blitz. By taking away the vertical run lanes with our front and containing the play with the blitz and with the run support opposite the blitz, we can swarm the ball and create negative yardage plays.

5)We can run them as add-ons to our base defensive calls.

Most of our DB pressures are simple add-ons to a base defensive call. A base call for us will involve an OLB rushing to one side of the formation and the DB to that side will be involved in the perimeter run force. Turning that into pressure is simply a matter of blitzing the run force player (DB) off the edge and playing man coverage to that side. On the side of the defense opposite the blitz, our coverage can still function as called, and we can use the same terminology we use in a base call.

To study game film of this concept, click on the video below:

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Targets and Tracks in Inside Zone Blocking

Posted by xandoadmin | Feb 29, 2020 | Offense, Run Game, Tight Zone Run Concepts | 0 |

By Matt Lester
Defensive Coordinator, Linebackers, and Offensive Line Coach
Madeira High School (OH)
Twitter: @matt_lester_

The offensive line is arguably the most nuanced position in football. Offensive linemen must react to a wide variety of situations and have tools to make proper adjustments pre and post-snap. The pre-snap procedure tells the linemen “who” they are going to block, and the post-snap procedure tells the linemen “how” to block. In this report, we are going to explore the post-snap procedure in the Zone Blocking scheme and explain how specific aiming points on a defender (target), the path to arrive at the block (track), and footwork to support makes the play successful.

Targets

We use the Covered/Uncovered rules for Zone Blocking in our program. The communication of those in our pre-snap procedure sets up the identification of whom we will block which determines our target and track. We define our target as the aiming point we want to block on the down lineman. This is dependent upon being covered or uncovered.

Uncovered – Near number of next down lineman play side

Covered with Combo Call – Far number of down linemen covering

Covered with no help – Breastbone of down lineman covering

The first step in finding a target is locking in with the eyes. Our philosophy is “aim small, miss small.” From the time we take our first step, we lock on the target with our eyes. On the second step, we strike the target with our hands. If the offensive lineman is comboing to a linebacker, he is splitting the down defensive lineman in half. The uncovered lineman will strike underneath the shoulder pad right at the pectoral muscle with his backside hand and at the breastbone with this play side hand. The covered lineman will strike under the shoulder pad at the breastbone with his backside hand and at the pectoral muscle with his playside hand. The strike of the target will lead to the path (track) the offensive line will take.

If the offensive lineman has no help, he has the responsibility of blocking the defensive lineman one on one. His eyes go the middle of the chest in order to size the frame of the shoulder pads directly underneath the pectoral muscle. The eyes will always lead the hands and feet.

Tracks

On Inside Zone, our track is going to be as vertical as possible. We want to create vertical displacement of the defense. In scenarios where teams are blitzing five or more defenders, lateral displacement is acceptable. We ultimately need to account for everyone; however, we want to move the line of scrimmage down the field.

Our first step is a 6-inch lateral step to the playside, towards our target.

Diagram 1

We want our shoulders square to the line so we can react to a defensive movement or blitz. Our second step will aim through the crotch of the defensive lineman we are comboing.

Diagram 2

This step sets our track. From there, both linemen will be working in a co-operative mentality trying to block their assigned defensive lineman and linebacker. They will stay on the path that their second step takes them down the field.

Their track is as wide as the frame of their body and starts at their assigned gap moving to the playside. Once on their track, they are like trains. They will not leave this track and will destroy whatever crosses their path.

If a lineman isn’t involved in a combo, he is Big on Big (B.O.B). His job is taking a jab step with his inside foot and block his assignment outside. He has a target, but not an assigned track. His only assignment is to keep his defender from crossing his face while using proper technique.

Coaching Points:

Target Steps/Punches – Drills and Pointers:

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Defending 2 Back Runs and Heavy Formations from the 3-4

Posted by xandoadmin | Feb 28, 2020 | Front, Defense, Odd Front Structures | 0 |

By Lawson Green
Defensive Coordinator
Oak Grove High School (LA)
Twitter: @lawson_green45

We are a base 3-4 cover 2 team with our defensive linemen aligned in a 4-0-4 front. Our defensive line is usually bigger kids that must demand a double team and can eat up blocks. Our End is the more athletic of the two tackles. He will bump to a 5 at times. Our Tackle is a true Defensive Tackle that will have to play 3 at times. We teach our defensive linemen a shade technique for when they are lined up on the shoulder of an offensive lineman and a head technique for when they are lined head up. Our inside linebackers are decent runners, but they have to be able to get off blocks and make tackles. Our outside linebackers must be able to play the curl area in pass and set the edge or play a 9 tech against a Tight end. Our Corners are our best cover guys and our safeties need to be our best tacklers. We have adapted our defense over the years to try to stop the spread attack. We no longer start our defensive installation with defending the Pro formation. We now start with defending 2×2. The way offenses are utilizing H back/Y off formations and TE’s now can pose a problem for that. When defending 20, 12, or 21 personnel offenses the first thing we want to do is make sure we can account for the extra gap created by the H back or TE. The second thing we want to do is make sure we account for any passes off their run concepts. We use our OLBs and our Safeties to account for both issues created by the offense.

Defending 2 Backs 0 Tight Ends

The Front Five:

We keep the alignment of our front five the same when defending 20 and 12 personnel. We want to take way gaps from the inside out. We play our tackles in 4s, they will utilize our head technique. They are responsible for the B gap on runs and they are contain rushers against pass. Our nose is aligned in a zero. He is the backside A gap player. We want our nose to disrupt the middle as much as possible while maintaining the backside A gap. Our ILBs align in 20s and are frontside A gap players on runs away and scrape players on run to. The ILBs are fast run fitters.

Diagram 1

Outside Linebackers vs 20:

Our Sam will apex the #2 receiver and the offensive tackle. They will align 5 yards off the ball with their inside foot up. Our Jack will align 3×3 from the offensive with his inside foot up.

Diagram 2

The Sam and Jack are force players vs any run to them, and they are cutback players vs any run away. Because they do not have to fit fast into the box, they can hang in the slant window for a second to prevent any pass off of the run action.

Safeties vs 20

The Strong Safety will align 12×1 off of the #2 receiver. He is a pass first player. His job is to fit outside in vs any run to his side and to play long cutback away from him. The Free will align 5×7 off of the offensive tackle to the single receiver side. He has the same responsibility as the Strong.

Diagram 3

Corners

The Corner to the 2-receiver side is aligned 1×5 outside the #1 receiver. He is a pass 1st player with secondary contain responsibility vs run to him and last man pursuit vs run away. The Corner to the single receiver side is aligned inside eye of the single receiver and has him man to man.

Coaching Points:

Defending Power/Counter

Diagram 4

Diagram #4 shows a typical way that people block us when running power. The H back will create a new gap on either side of the center depending on whether they are running Power or Counter. I will describe how each position is to play the blocks they are given.

End- Attack the breastplate of the Offensive Tackle. fight the cut off block and get into the B gap the guard is pulling from. If the Tackle gets down really hard, we can come off his hip. He just must make sure the b gap is secured.

Nose- Attack the breastplate of the Center. Try to create knock back and fight pressure. When the guard doubles he wants to get his hips in the crack and hold his point as much as possible to keep the backers free.

Tackle- Attack the breastplate of the Offensive Tackle. Squeeze the down block. Splatter the kick out block from the H by attacking his inside pec and getting under the block.

Mike- Attack front side A gap. If it is closed, scrape to B anticipating a block from the Opposite offensive tackle.

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Three High Safety Pressure Fits to Defend 11 Personnel RPOs

Posted by xandoadmin | Feb 24, 2020 | Three High Coverage Structures, Defense, Coverage | 0 |

By Chris Bunting
Defensive Coordinator & Safeties
Millbrook High School (NC)
Twitter: @bunting36

Here at Millbrook, when I was hired here, we transitioned away from a 4-2-5 look. We installed a 3-4 mostly due to a lack of quality depth at the defensive line. Our 2019 defensive line had 2 starters that weighed 205 or less. We also knew we would have a lot of “tweener” type guys. Our 3-4 has given us lots of answers, but not all that we need. When looking for answers to stop Air Raid offenses, defend RPO’s, and to find ways to win 3^rd down, we looked at incorporating a 3 high safety package. Our Psycho package accounted for 25% of all calls in 2019 and we gave up almost 1 yard/play fewer than our base package calls. We used it predominantly for 2^nd & long or 3^rd down calls, though it can be far more than that. We used it as our primary package against an RPO-heavy conference opponent to limit the conference offensive player of the year at wide receiver. We also used it as a major part of our game plan against the eventual state runner-up in the highest classification in NC. We held that team, averaging 32 pts/game, to only 4 field goals. In this report, we will discuss our run fits out of the Psycho package.

Installation:

Our goal when implementing our Psycho package is for simplicity to win out. We want to limit any new teaching that needs to occur. We want guys playing techniques they know and allow them to play fast. When we meet as a staff, I always ask position coaches how we can teach concepts with our terminology & minimize confusion. Because of our 3-4 structure, we only must teach one new position when we transition to our Psycho package- our Prowler (P) who replaces a linebacker. We use Hudl to share installs, we draw it up on the board in our Monday install meeting, and we include drawings in our scouting reports during the season. The only time investment we use on the field is during our group time (9 on 8 run period, ½ field pass, 7v7, etc.) or during team time.

STRUCTURE

We keep our run fits the same as our base defense when possible. Again, we want guys playing what they know and limiting over-thinking. We use our Prowler as the replacer when needed for overload pressures or sim pressures. Our Tite front was used on 56% of all calls out of our Psycho package, so, we will use that front when discussing how to defend RPO’s.

Position Responsibilities:

D- Devil is field side defensive end in a 4i. Responsible for strong side ‘B’ gap.

N- Nose either in a strong shade or 0 tech & slanting to the strength. Responsible for the strong side ‘A’ gap.

E- Edge is the boundary side defensive end in a 4i. Responsible for the weak-side ‘B’ gap.

W- Will linebacker is our plugger. Responsible for the weak-side ‘A’ gap.

S- Sam linebacker is our field-side overhang. Responsible for strong side ‘C’ gap and has seam/curl responsibilities in Cover 3. Force player with seam/curl responsibilities in Invert (Quarters).

J- Jack linebacker is our boundary side overhang. Responsible for the weak-side ‘C’ gap and has seam/curl responsibilities in Cover 3. Force player with seam/curl responsibilities in Invert (Quarters).

LC- Left corner, will know coverage from the nearest safety.

RC- Right corner, will know coverage from the nearest safety.

F- Free safety is our field-side safety. We will play the post in Cover 3. Communicates coverage to the nearest corner and makes all coverage checks.

R- Rover is our boundary safety. Communicates coverage to the nearest corner.

P- Prowler is our middle safety and is like our queen in chess. He is the RPO player for us and has the freedom to move around. He is the adjuster for trips checks and replaces linebackers on overload or sim pressures.

Pressure Patterns

TITE TORNADO (Cover 3 variation)

Tornado is our RPO coverage and we change up how we play it is based on our opponent’s tendencies or formations. In Cover 3, we like to play our Sam & Jack a little tighter to the box unless we get a Trips check. Against Trips, we can give the Jack multiple calls. He can play base, he can pressure through the ‘C’ gap, or he plays ‘Walk” technique where he walks out to jam the #1 receiver. Whichever Safety is playing the post is also an alley runner in run fits. The Prowler will be the force player to the RPO threat.

Diagram 1

Against Trips formations, we keep the box intact and adjust with the safeties. We have multiple Cover 3 checks for Trips, but this was our most common check this past year based on our personnel’s abilities.

Diagram 2

TITE TORNADO (Invert variation)

Invert allows us to play quarters and still have the RPO defender we need. We will play our Sam & Jack a little looser and allow our safeties to insert. The Rover will now have the boundary ‘C’ gap.

Diagram 3

Playing Invert allows us to get an extra body on the H side while getting some pass help to the RPO side. We play by our ‘Sky’ quarters rules where corners are MOD (man on deep) and safeties take #2 receivers vertically or play post/dig/curl of #1. The Prowler is still the RPO player as well.

OTHER VARIATIONS

We can also pressure to maintain gap integrity and still play our coverage rules. In the next diagram, we call an overload pressure in the boundary and get the same Cover 3 run fits as shown earlier.

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Adjusting Route Progressions in Air Raid Staples

Posted by xandoadmin | Feb 24, 2020 | Offense, Air Raid, Offensive Systems | 0 |

By John Haberman
Offensive Coordinator & Quarterbacks Coach
St. Stanislaus High School (MS)
Twitter: @johnolaf15

In 2018, our offense struggled to throw the football, completing less than 50% of our throws for less than 150 yards per game. We scored just 19 points per game and our inability to consistently throw the ball was a huge part of that because it limited our ability to create big plays and we struggled to convert 3rd downs.

Things changed drastically last season. With the same QB and WR core, we scored 33.5 points per game, led the state in passing yards per game (280/game), completed 65% of our throws, and were second in passing touchdowns (39) in all classifications in Mississippi.

The biggest reason for this jump in production was a complete overhaul in the way our offensive staff taught and communicated the basic tenets of the Air Raid. We adapted routes, reads, and language to make the offense easier to understand for our players.

I’m going to go through a few of the concepts that were most responsible for the success we had throwing the ball last year. I would love to discuss all our passing game with you if you reach out via email. I’ll also go into how we changed the way we taught and installed the concepts during the off-season, which gave us a more efficient way to communicate during games and while watching the film.

Before I do this, I know the Air Raid has a sort of cult following to it and that in many ways we have changed not only the concepts themselves, but the way that we teach them, including the route progressions. Although the basic structure of this is ‘Air Raid’ some of it is substantially different from what most would call traditional Air Raid.

The Concepts:

One of the major advantages of the Air Raid system is each concept has a name and corresponding number. We are primarily a no-huddle team, and although we do not always push the tempo, the ability to signal plays from coaches to players and from players to players in multiple ways was an advantage all coaches should be utilizing. I mention up-tempo because this multifaceted communication system would be even more useful in high tempo situations. The numbers we used were totally arbitrary, though you could easily develop a numbering system that would communicate more than just play. For example, 40’s concepts are supposed to be mirrored, but we don’t mirror anything, so it has lost that meaning for us. The names of the concepts are what we use to communicate with each other in the classroom and on the field. This gives us another way to signal our base plays (for example, we have a number signal for Smash and a hand signal for Smash). This is useful not just for coach to player signaling from the sideline, but in two-minute situations our QBs can call Smash by yelling either “61” or by using a hand signal to their receivers, which means nothing to defensive backs, whereas yelling the more commonly known “Smash” would likely give the play away to the defense.

Our base drop-back concepts are as follows (I’m going to leave the numbers out that we use, but would happily share more info via email with coaches) :

# – Mesh

# – Flood

# – Cross

# – Seam Read (Dagger)

61 – Smash

# – Spacing

# – Drag

# – Choice

# – Levels

# – Four Verticals

Each of these concepts can also be ‘flipped’ by tagging a receiver to the concept call (if no letter is attached to the concept it means Y, so in 2×2 ‘ace’ formation, we can run ’61’ which is Smash to the Y or ’61-X’ which is Smash to the X).

Additionally, you can help add more depth to your language by naming your concepts (we do this with our run game but are just starting to do this with our pass game). For example, most defensive players would immediately pick up on a ‘mesh’ call from QB to WRs but having a verbal call of ‘Leach’ would take some time for defenders to figure out.

Philosophy Behind the Base Concepts:

Regardless of the defense, each play has a progression that doesn’t change. The most basic part of our passing game is that all our plays have a constant set of defined reads regardless of coverage. This process is not complicated. We want our quarterbacks to play confidently, and these straightforward constant reads help them do that.

Almost all our plays are based on reading one defender and making him wrong, most commonly the overhang defender and/or the deep hash defender. I know this sounds rudimentary, but the simplicity of this process is its strength because our QBs don’t have to spend extra time memorizing different ‘plans’ for different coverages which can lead to uncertainty during the game. We don’t want our QBs thinking “is it this coverage and I do this, or is it that coverage and I do that”. It is also important to realize that we as coaches can understand the subtle and not so subtle differences between cover 2, read 2, cover 4, cover 6, roll 3, etc. and apply that knowledge to make quick decisions, but can our high school quarterback do the same under pressure? (the Bum Phillips quote: “coaching is not how much you know. It’s how much you can get players to do”) I believe it is vital to free your quarterback from being bogged down by the burden of over-processing. Equip him with a plan that will make him successful, rep it relentlessly, and then just let him play confidently.
Make the defense cover the whole field. Almost all of our concepts have either a pre-snap ‘gift’ throw or a quick 3-step throw built into the read. Making the defense defend the box and all the under zones, makes it much harder for them to disguise what they’re doing and properly cover the deep zones. This also allows an offense to essentially use the passing game as an extension of the run game. We stress our quarterbacks not to shy away from deep throws in a 1 on 1 situation. Even though those are lower percentage throws, going 2-6 on deep throws in a game could be 14 points and the difference between winning and losing. We completed a crazy amount of 5-yard hitch and speed outs which helped us

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Weak Side Overload Fire Zone in the 4-2-5 Defense

Posted by xandoadmin | Feb 23, 2020 | 2-Deep 4-Under Zone Pressures, Defense, Pressure | 0 |

By Ed Raby
Defensive Coordinator/Safeties
SUNY Morrisville (NY)
Twitter: @CoachRabyJr

One of the biggest issues in the 4-2-5 defense is blitz angles. Particularly when blitzing from the weak side; you are presented with numerous issues in terms of angles that your players will have to blitz from. In this article we will look at our weak side overload fire zone pressure that we run out of our base 4-2-5 defense called “Waco.” Waco comes from the boundary using our boundary corner and Will LB. In this fire zone we will cut the Mike to cover the weak side for coverage; and drop our strong side DE in the hole. In order to help with the back in coverage we will peel our corner on the blitz. We will also discuss our “Switch” call when presented with 2 quick receiving threats to the boundary.

In addition to discussing the specifics of this weak side pressure we will dive into a couple of different items as well.

What situations we are looking to use this pressure in

The specific defensive line and linebacker teaching points of the blitz

Coverage rules and teaching points for this pressure

The Scheme:

As I discussed above, blitzing from the weak side out of the 4-2-5 can become problematic, because the angles are not as good as some other defensive alignments. When you start talking overload blitzes on the weak side with the 4-2-5 it can be even more challenging because of coverage. When we came up with this pressure, we had 3 goals in mind:

Design a weak side overload blitz that could be disguised out of our base look

Design a weak side overload blitz that could be used as 3 under 3 deep fire zone option

Design a weak side overload blitz that would be effective against both run and pass

In order to accomplish all three goals, we came up with our Waco blitz. In this blitz the defensive line will stunt strong. Typically, we will run this out of a Field Over front, but we can go with a Bench front and change up the DT’s stunt responsibilities if we want. Most teams in even fronts will marry this with the 2 under 3 deep coverage that has become popular over the last few years. We wanted a way to stay in 3 under 3 deep coverage but keep the blitz pattern. We will drop our strong DE to the hole and have our Mike LB cut to the weak side when he reads pass to accomplish this. The Mike would have a hard time covering the back if he flared; so, we have the corner peel on the blitz. This has the added benefit of helping vs option to the boundary as well.

Diagram 1

The Defensive Line

The defensive line stunt in the blitz is key for the success of the blitz against run or pass. The Hawk (Our Field DE) is an edge to fold run fitter against run and the hole dropper against pass. He must take a settle step to the outside before his drop. This settle step allows him to read run/pass. If run comes outside to him, he can fill and stay in the gap. If run is inside or away, he has freedom to fold, and will become the cutback player with wide runs away. With a pass read we want to keep it simple on our DE’s. In the hole drop we tell him to drop to the middle, with awareness of where #3 is, and key the QB for pass intentions. As he reads the intentions, he should work for depth to help take away the middle of the field and lean towards the QB’s eyes.

The other 3 defensive linemen are executing the stunt. The tackle is a contain player to the strong side vs pass and will play C gap vs run. As he stunts outside his key is the OT. If that OT tries to reach our Hawk, he can play the run through the backside hip. All other blocks he will work to defend C Gap or contain vs pass. The Nose will usually be aligned in a 2i alignment (inside shade of the OG). He will long stick the OC; that is the term we use with our DL. In Long Stick the technique we teach is a face to butt read on an offensive lineman; not just blindly going to A gap. Face to butt read means we want to put our face to his backside. The Nose will read the OC; if the OC blocks to him, in either run or pass, he is crossing face. If OC works away, he will work to the opposite A Gap off his backside. This will be illustrated easier in the film clips later. The Rush DE (Boundary DE) will execute a long stick on the OG to his side; working to A gap.

Diagram 2

The Blitz Path

Now let’s look at the blitz path of both the Corner and Will LB. For the Corner we want him to make sure he understands that his alignment must not tip off his intentions. Looking like our base is important in order to have the element of surprise. We tell our corner to align in his normal open stance at 5 yards or in a press alignment with inside leverage; depending on how much we are pressing that game. On the snap of the ball he should blitz off the edge aiming for the near shoulder of either the RB or the QB depending on which one is closest to him. He is the force player in this particular blitz, so he must match that shoulder at all time. In pass he will be the weak side contain player. If the back flares weak than the corner must run with him (this is the peel portion of the blitz). The Will is what we call a B Gap read blitzer. He is going to blitz the B Gap on the snap of the ball reading the OT to determine his path. Like the DL long stick technique, we will tell him to execute a face to butt read on the OT. If the OT blocks down on the stunting DE, the Will wants to fit tight off the outside shoulder of the OT; vs run he must spill all other blocks that could show up. If the OT works outside, he will fit tight off the inside shoulder of the OT to fill B Gap.

The beauty of this read for the Will is the advantage it can give us vs. multiple pass protections. If we see full slide protection, he will fit outside creating a 2 on 1 with the back vs the Corner and the Will.

Diagram 3

Against a half man half slide protection, we can usually get a 2 on 1 vs the OT if either the OC or OG follow with the Nose or DE crossing their face.

Diagram 4

The Coverage

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Complete Training Progression for Kick and Log Scenarios in Counter Concepts

Posted by xandoadmin | Feb 16, 2020 | Offense, Run Game, Gap Run Concepts, Run Game Mechanics, Offensive Line, Position Groups | 0 |

By Justin Vorhies
Head Football Coach
Cloverleaf High School (OH)

During the last two seasons we broke an 8 season streak of losing records (5-5 in ’18 & 6-4 in ’19). We have also set the school record for total yards gained in each of the last two seasons and set the scoring record this past season. A huge part of our success started mid-way into the 2017 season. During this point in time we stopped running our zone schemes and ran primarily gap schemes. During the 2017-2018 off-season we committed to becoming a run concept offense, using primarily gap schemes along with the Sweep/Jet blocking scheme. We ditched the zone scheme and the number system. This simplified, yet enhanced our playbook. We now have five base concepts that we use out of a variety of formations.

Cloverleaf Over the Past 10 seasons:

Year	Wins	Losses	Points Scored	Total Yards
2010	4	6	212	2776
2011	4	6	239	2740
2012	3	7	273	2803
2013	2	8	182	2851
2014	0	10	49	1484
2015	1	9	82	1657
2016	0	10	120	2044
2017	3	7 >> X&O Labs Members: Login here to continue reading Join X&O Labs to Continue Reading… Plus, get 4 FREE books! When you join X&O Labs, you’ll get instant access to the full-length version of this report — including access to everything in The LAB and Film Room. That’s over 4,000 reports and videos. Plus, if you join with a Staff Membership, you’ll also receive 4 FREE books mailed directly to your home or office! Read More Drop 8 Coverage from “31” and “32” Box Structure Posted by xandoadmin \| Feb 16, 2020 \| Front, Defense, Odd Front Structures \| 0 \| By Josh Franke Head Coach Toronto High School Toronto (OH) Twitter: @Coach_Franke Heavy passing offenses have slowly trickled down from the NFL to the collegiate level, and now they are becoming commonplace among high school teams. With the ever-growing popularity of things like 7on7s, the Elite 11, and private quarterback coaching, high school quarterbacks are better today than they ever have been. Having to defend these heavy passing offenses a few times a year put a huge burden on our defense. Although we traditionally run a 3-3 stack, we were still getting beat in coverage. If we played quarters, slants, hitches, and bubbles would hurt us. If we tried to stop those underneath routes with different coverage, we would get burnt deep on vertical routes. We used to play by the old adage “If they want to nickel and dime us down the field, that’s fine, no one has that patience”, well, those days are over because these offenses will do that. We had to develop something different that would allow us to play max coverage but also allow us to be solid in run support. I have to give credit to my defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach Steven Rebich and Matt Ludewig because together we sat down to develop our 31 and 32 defenses to counter the rising trend of the spread pass-heavy offense. Alignment: The 31 and 32 defenses were designed to be played against teams who love to pass the ball out of 3×1, 2×2, or any type of empty set. We wanted it to be a “defend everything” type of coverage but we also wanted to take away any type of jet sweep and stop the inside zone with a QB read off it (which is usually a complimentary run play for these offenses). The term 31 and 32 are used to determine the number of box defenders we have. We are traditionally a 3-3 stack, therefore, when we go 31, we will have three down linemen and one linebacker, in 32 we have three down linemen and two linebackers. The trick and one of the most important pieces of this defense is that your tackles line up in a 4i position. This is one of the most important coaching points in this defense. The tackles are responsible for the B gaps and must be prepared to take on double teams, especially against the pass. You can play the NT in a variety of different ways, you can slant him opposite of the back alignment, you can have him control double-A gaps by playing straight up, we also have incorporated a couple of different defensive line stunts we like to integrate, which works well because of the closer alignment of the tackles and nose tackle. The interior linebacker/s will be responsible for the A gaps and are responsible for all inside runs and will act as the alley or fill players on any outside runs. Our interior linebackers tend to love this defense because they have no major responsibility and are freed up to play instinctively against what they are seeing and reading. Coaching Points for Run Defenders Force Players: By far the most important position on the field because they’re the only two players who have both run and pass responsibility. In this defense, the secondary is a pass-first responsibility and the box defenders are a run-first responsibility. Your force players must be able to force all outside runs, jet sweeps, and QB pulls on reads back inside to help. We tell all our force players that their first responsibility on a run is to make sure they don’t get the edge if they can make the tackle, great, but it’s not their primary responsibility. We have our force players pivot their stance to face the backfield. This way their backs are already turned to the potential WR block. As I mentioned before, we’ve had several blocks in the back called because of this alignment. I cannot stress enough that they must attack the outside shoulder of the ball carrier so they don’t give up the outside alley. 4i Tackles: Our tackles hate this formation and alignment because they always get double-teamed, almost every play, regardless of pass or run. They will often try to play head up or even sneak themselves outside, or they’ll say, “I’ll line up outside and rush into the B gap.”. Make sure that they’re lining up in that 4i technique and just work on splitting double teams by getting skinny through the hole with a solid rip move. We’ve learned that having speed guys on our line has been more effective than having strength guys on our line and it helps with this alignment and we still got a lot of penetration. 32 alignment vs 2×2: Against a 2×2 set, we would align in our 32 defenses. Our Mike and Sam linebackers will stay in the box, our boundary safety will drop to give us a two-high safety look, we will press our corners, and play a press quarters coverage. This allows us to defend against four verticals but also, by pressing our corners, we can defend any quick hitches, slants, or bubbles. Another very important and key aspect of this defense is that we apex our will linebacker and field safety between the tackle and slot receivers. They have the most important responsibilities of this defense. They must serve as force players on any outside runs. By alignment, they can defend against any jet sweeps, bounced inside zone runs, or any pulls by the quarterback on a read play. Against the pass, they are responsible for taking away any inside slants or hitches by the #2 receiver, because we are playing press quarters, the corner would be responsible for any bubbles or out routes. By aligning this way, we have now taken away all short game passes and the four vertical threats. With our will linebacker and field safety, we have taken away any outside run or quarterback pulls on read plays, and with our alignment by our box defenders, we’re safe against any inside run. 31 alignment vs 3×1: Our front three alignments on the defensive line don’t change, tackles in 4is and nose in a zero tech. However, we will only play one linebacker, our Mike, and we will stack him over the nose. Now, the NT has to take one A gap and the Mike will be responsible for the other A gap. You can communicate this however you choose, whether they communicate it to each other or you always have your nose slant one way or the other. Regardless, you will still be gap sound inside the tackle box. >> X&O Labs Members: Login here to continue reading Join X&O Labs to Continue Reading… Plus, get 4 FREE books! When you join X&O Labs, you’ll get instant access to the full-length version of this report — including access to everything in The LAB and Film Room. That’s over 4,000 reports and videos. Plus, if you join with a Staff Membership, you’ll also receive 4 FREE books mailed directly to your home or office! Read More The Four Quarter Calendar in Building Culture Posted by xandoadmin \| Feb 16, 2020 \| Program Development \| 0 \| By Jake Novotny Head Football Coach Fountain-Fort Carson High School (CO) Twitter: @Coach_JNovotny Football teams are built in the off-season. As coaches, we know the importance of the seven months before the season in laying the foundation for our program’s culture. During this time, all programs are embarking on a similar process including strength and performance training, spring practices/skill development, summer programming, and leadership building. For most high schools, there is a premium placed on your players being together during this process throughout the year, for all four years, and at several schools, as they grow-up in local feeder programs. This philosophy allows several schools across the country to build rich history and traditions, align cultures, and refine skills and schemes for their players as they grow-up in the same football program over the course of many years. At Fountain-Fort Carson High School (FFCHS), we believe in approaching our off-season no differently than anyone else. However, our school district is partnered with an active U.S. Army Base (Fort Carson is less than 10 miles from campus), resulting in the added challenge of a transient student population. With 60-70% of our student population identified as a “military child,” we must have a plan to “on-board” players that move into our school as well as develop players knowing that they may leave at any time because of their parents’ military orders for relocation. Though many coaches may see this as a difficult situation, we believe this to be a great opportunity for us to build lasting relationships with players from several different backgrounds. Most importantly, serving as a coach at FFCHS allows our coaching staff to give back to those who willingly fight for our freedoms daily by actively investing in their children. In the following paragraphs, I will outline our philosophies and plan to build a competitive team environment yearly while supporting a transient student population. Culture Life Cycle: The life cycle of our program starts over every year at FFCHS. This means that we believe that each team will have new leaders, cultures, and identities. Even though many coaches may believe this at the high school level, it is exacerbated when you have a significant portion of your program’s players coming from military households. As mentioned before, students will move in or out of school at any point in the calendar year. Therefore, as a coaching staff, we must have a clear plan for the development of our players and program yearly. The following guidelines outline our staff’s general philosophy when it comes to growing our program on a year-to-year basis taking into account our military student-athletes: They are all OUR players while at FFC no matter where they came from, or if there is potential, they may leave – coach them the same way, they deserve that. Instill our program culture (expectations, values, schemes, skills) into the players that are non-transient (usually those that are non-military or those that are military who have arranged to stay until graduation). These will be the “Carriers of the Culture” and will ensure that newcomers to the program are both “schooled-up” and welcomed. Build and grow a healthy feeder system through community engagement for both our military and non-military families. Create multiple access/entry points into the program throughout the year for student-athletes to seamlessly transition into our program (also important for our multiple sport athletes). Be “okay” with the fact that students will leave! If we have done everything in our power to build a young man athletically, academically, and socially in our program, we have created a lasting impact on his life that will make him a better person. That is WHY we coach. This is the general philosophy that we focus our off-season programming around each year. With that, I will take you through the different phases of our off-season and highlight the focuses for each phase, as well as explain how each phase allows for seamless student-athlete entry and exit. Post-Season Phase: (Last Game – January) As soon as our season is over, we begin the post-season phase of our program. Just like many programs across the country, this phase centers on putting the season to rest and preparing for the upcoming year. This phase is a lot of administrative work for me as the head coach. During this time, I will compile final stats; do equipment inventory and set-up several meetings with our athletic director, coaches, and academic counselors. One of the most important things done during this phase is our senior exit interviews. I will meet with every senior that finished the football season within two weeks after the last game. This is a priority for me. In my opinion, there are several things gained from hearing the opinions of the players who will be leaving your program as they reflect on their time here. Again, as I have stated before, we have several players, including seniors, who move in at any time during the year. I do not care if they have been in our program for all four years or moved in the day school started, all of their opinions and perspectives are valuable and can help us grow our program to be a great experience for next year’s players. I believe that your out-going seniors will give you a valuable perspective on what is working and not working in your program because they can give honest reflection without the pressure of still being in the program. During these meetings, each player fills out a questionnaire *(see diagram 1)* and has a 10-15-minute meeting with me. I explain to them that I want their honest opinion on our program and their experience. These meetings are humbling, but I value them very much because it has helped us shape our program to be more player-focused every year. >> X&O Labs Members: Login here to continue reading Join X&O Labs to Continue Reading… Plus, get 4 FREE books! When you join X&O Labs, you’ll get instant access to the full-length version of this report — including access to everything in The LAB and Film Room. That’s over 4,000 reports and videos. Plus, if you join with a Staff Membership, you’ll also receive 4 FREE books mailed directly to your home or office! Read More One Coach’s Perspective on Never Punting Posted by xandoadmin \| Feb 15, 2020 \| Special Teams, Punt \| 0 \| By Tyler Hales Head Coach La Jolla Country Day School (CA) Twitter: @Coach_Hales Introduction: Over the past few years there has been a lot of talk about the no-punt philosophy thanks to the great success of Coach Kevin Kelly at Pulaski Academy (AR). Coach Kelley has done a tremendous job explaining the reasoning and benefits behind this uncommon strategy and his analysis was something that I researched extensively when I took over as head football coach in January 2014. Our 4^th down philosophy (“never punting”) not only fit our desire to play aggressively on 3th down, but it also best suited our personnel. Over the past two years, we have implemented this philosophy with great success. In 2014, La Jolla Country Day won the first 11-man CIF title in school history and in 2015 we lost in the CIF semi-finals to the eventual State finalist Coronado. Additionally, we averaged 4,476 total yards and 423 points per season since making that change. That is over 800 yards and 40 points more than the average over the previous 9 seasons. There is no doubt in my mind that consistently going for it on 4^th down has led to this offensive improvement. But the analytical part of me wanted to make sure that the numbers matched my gut feeling. This article will dive into our philosophy and the numbers that support the use of this approach at La Jolla Country Day. It Starts with Assessing Personnel A few other coaches and I had talked about the no-punt philosophy for a few years, so when I took over the program we immediately began to seriously discuss this approach for our varsity squad. While on paper this philosophy looked great, we wanted to really do research and a self assessment to make sure we were ready to take on this style of play. While we scoured the internet to read everything we could find about not punting, we also took an in depth look at our roster. We were coming off our worst season in over a decade (2013), finishing 5-6 and losing in the first round of the playoffs for the first time since we became 11-man in 2005. Our 2014 team would have some good senior leadership but was relatively inexperienced and very undersized. The question we asked ourselves was what do we need to differently to compete in our tough league and in playoffs? In assessing our personnel, it was obvious that our strengths were going to be on the offensive side of the ball. We had a returning quarterback who had started every snap as a freshman and is one of the most highly recruited QBs in the nation. Surrounding him in our air raid offense was a group of good receivers and running backs. Conversely, our defense was going to be young and inexperienced. We surmised that we were likely going to be counting on our offense to lead the way in 2014. Add in the fact that our punting game in 2013 was unimpressive, averaging only 28.5 yd/punt and you can see why we were looking for a different approach. After analyzing the research and our personnel, we decided that we were ready to be “all in” on the “never punting” philosophy. With our personnel and with the data in mind, we wanted to keep the ball in our playmakers’ hands and keep the ball rather than voluntarily punting. The prospect of having a 50% chance of converting the 4^th down rather than give our opponent the ball 20-30 yards from our spot simply made sense to us. Defining Our 4^th Down Philosophy Of course, we knew there would be challenges in implementing this philosophy. As Coach Kelly has discussed in detail, getting your people to buy in is huge and players typically aren’t the ones you need to worry about. One of the biggest challenges our coaching staff discussed was those “what if” situations. For example, it’s late in the game, we are up by 2 points and backed up in our own zone facing a 4^th and long. To address situations like this, we had a contingency plan of bringing back what we called the “field goal punt,” which is a little known rule in HS that you can line up your FG unit and simply kick the ball as if you were kicking a 90 yard FG. Because this is a scrimmage kick it ends up like a punt and the return team can return the ball from wherever it lands (which in our plan was out of bounds). Doing this allowed us to still be all in on going for it on 4^th while also giving us flexibility in certain situations. We also had our QB practice quick kicks once a week as another options to utilize in certain scenarios. When we presented our plan to not punt to the team on day one of fall camp, I allowed players to process this philosophy and push me with questions. After about 15 minutes of this discussion, players were excited and ready to go. Here is a look at our complete “Philosophy” that all of our staff is agreed upon going into the season: Torrey Football: 4^th Down Philosophy and Guideline Philosophy: We are an aggressive 4^th Down team. >> X&O Labs Members: Login here to continue reading Join X&O Labs to Continue Reading… Plus, get 4 FREE books! When you join X&O Labs, you’ll get instant access to the full-length version of this report — including access to everything in The LAB and Film Room. That’s over 4,000 reports and videos. Plus, if you join with a Staff Membership, you’ll also receive 4 FREE books mailed directly to your home or office! Read More Combo Coverage 3-High Alignments Posted by xandoadmin \| Feb 9, 2020 \| Three High Coverage Structures, Coverage, Defense \| 0 \| By Jeff Zerfas Safeties Coach Northside High School (GA) Twitter: @zerfas_atc With the use of 3-high safety defenses becoming more prevalent at the high school, collegiate and professional levels, many coaches have asked what kind of coverages they can run within this scheme. Our answer is to run a coverage that combined many facets of our other coverages into our 3-high covers. Combo coverage involves man and zone principles and is played with the Middle of the Field closed. Combo coverage is a coverage meant to be run on 1^st or 2^nd down that allows the maximum number of defenders playing the run and pass at the same time. The 3-3-5 is designed to be able to bring 3/4/5/6-man pressures and combo coverage lends itself to being able to be paired with any pressure package that you want to run. Combo coverage is unique that in its base call, all 5 secondary players align at 7 yards and it stresses the opposing QB to identify who is and is not in the box pre-snap. Base Structure/Alignment Our base defensive structure is a 3-3-5 with a base alignment of 3 Safeties stacked over 3 Linebackers stacked over 3 DL. Our base defense strength is called to the field and we flip our 2 LBs and Safeties on each play. Our position names are F= Field Backer, B= Boundary Backer, W= Wide Safety, S= Short Safety, M= Mike, A= Adjuster. The Field Backer and Wide Safety always align to the field and the Boundary Backer and Short Safety always align to the boundary. Alignment of Secondary Players: Combo Coverage can be called and played 3 different ways but the only alignment/technique that changes is the corners. The base call of Combo aligns the Corners and Safeties at 7 yards. The corners are playing “Loose Man” on #1 Wide and Short Safeties are playing “Seam” Technique on 2/3, the Adjuster is “Run Support/MOF”, and the Linebackers are playing “Hug” Technique on #3. Bump Combo: The first adjustment that can be made is to call “Bump Combo” and this changes the alignment of the corners and brings them from 7 yards off the line of scrimmage to 5. It also changes how they play man coverage. Press Combo: The second adjustment we can make in Combo is “Press Combo”. This changes the alignment of the corners from 7 yards off LOS and brings them down to the LOS and they play in your face man to man coverage. Techniques: Corners: (Corners are 10 and 11 to the ball on run and have no responsibility to stop run) Loose Man: Align 7 yards from LOS inside eye of #1 WR. On the snap of ball will take 3 backpedal read steps reading the release of the WR. If WR breaks at any point during 3 backpedal put foot in-ground and drive on break. If WR runs vertical, then collision inside the hip of WR and force them towards the sideline. The points of emphasis with the corners in loose man are to really work with them on getting good to backpedal steps that are not too short but are not too long. If the corner steps to close together on his backpedal, he will get to his third backpedal step before the WR has gotten to their route break. If the corner takes too long of a stride in his backpedal, he will be off-balance and will not be able to react quickly to quick game concepts. Bump Man: Align 5 yards from LOS and head up on WR. On the snap of ball buzz feet and wait for the WR to come to you. Collision the WR at 5 yards and attempt to reroute him away from his intended route. In bump man, the corner is going to chop his feet on the snap and mirror the release of the WR. If the WR steps out the corner will side shuffle out, and if the WR steps in the corner will shuffle in, these do not have to be big shuffles the corner just needs to stay square and in front of the WR. It is also important to work with the corner so that they do not try to put too much into their jams. Most high school corners think that they need to jam the WR hard to get a reroute and that is not what is needed in this instance. The corner forces the WR to reroute himself by simply not moving out of the way as the WR runs up the field. Press Man: Align at LOS head up on WR. At the snap of the ball mirror release of WR and offhand jam him as he steps toward you. For the press man technique, the area that needs to be emphasized the most is that the corner does not try to be overly physical on the jam. Most corners will try to jam hard because that is what they think is important. We found that this puts the corner out of position for the rest of the route that the WR will run. We teach our corners in press man to “inch out”. This means that they will take small steps backward almost a back-ward shuffle and when the WR steps one direction the corner will then punch with the hand opposite of the step by the WR. This does not need to be a very hard punch, but it does need to be firm. Safeties: >> X&O Labs Members: Login here to continue reading Join X&O Labs to Continue Reading… Plus, get 4 FREE books! When you join X&O Labs, you’ll get instant access to the full-length version of this report — including access to everything in The LAB and Film Room. That’s over 4,000 reports and videos. Plus, if you join with a Staff Membership, you’ll also receive 4 FREE books mailed directly to your home or office! Read More Rotating Strong/Quick Side Offensive Line for Gap Schemes Posted by xandoadmin \| Feb 9, 2020 \| Offense, Run Game, Gap Run Concepts, Run Game Mechanics, Offensive Line, Position Groups \| 0 \| By Will Theobold Offensive Line Coach/Offensive Coordinator Park High School (MN) Twitter: @CoachTheobold My first season at Park High School we as a staff decided to install a gap scheme offense with a strong and quick side to accentuate our personnel, reduce teaching and techniques to those players executing them the most frequently. Why? The question from my head coach prompted this whole process: How can we maximize our OL’s talent and practice reps at the same time? As an offensive staff, it was decided that since we were implementing new blocking rules, going from zone blocking to gap scheme blocking, that we could help our players gain “extra reps” and truly use their strengths to our team’s advantage. As a Gap run scheme team our players only need to know a handful of different types of blocks to master and thus have a narrowing of their overall focus. The reasoning for Strong/Quick side is so we can put our players in the best situation to be successful along with giving them as many practice reps as possible at their specific job. We were inspired by the idea of an assembly line. You have one worker specializing in a certain part of the overall product. They keep getting reps and over time they can become an expert at their one job in the overall process. We feel like if we can limit our player’s input of their job and technique, they can more easily master it and then execute better than the defense. Also, there are some Air Raid coaches who, similarly, never have their receivers switch sides to increase reps and reduce teaching. Personnel For our team, we considered going with the conventional OL play with specializing with a side (i.e. RG, RT) but ultimately decided to go with a Strong/Quick Sides. Here are some traits and characteristics we look for in our offensive line. Strong Tackle: Great at Down blocks, great first step, big dude Strong Guard: Bigger of two guards, needs to have great feet, needs to be nasty Center: Needs to have size, cannot be pushed back, have consistent shotgun snaps Quick Guard: Smaller of two guards, needs to have great feet, needs to be persistent to reach those log blocks, great football IQ as he will have to adjust on the fly to the strong guard’s block, “The adjuster” Quick Tackle: Any size, needs to have great feet >> X&O Labs Members: Login here to continue reading Join X&O Labs to Continue Reading… Plus, get 4 FREE books! When you join X&O Labs, you’ll get instant access to the full-length version of this report — including access to everything in The LAB and Film Room. That’s over 4,000 reports and videos. Plus, if you join with a Staff Membership, you’ll also receive 4 FREE books mailed directly to your home or office! Read More Using a Count System to ID Apex Reads in Pre-Snap Relief Throws Posted by xandoadmin \| Feb 9, 2020 \| Pre-Snap Relief Throws, Offense, RPO's \| 0 \| By Matthew Bishop QB Coach South Johnston High School (NC) At South Johnston, we were primarily a run-first, power-based offense. Originally the head coach’s offense called for a sniffer/H-back to handle the defensive end and a WR to handle the extra man in the box. Due to base personnel, teams were able to put 8 defenders in or around the box or send an extra edge rusher. These two things forced the offense to adapt. In doing so, we progressed to handle the extra man and pressure by adapting the pin and pull system to an option-based system. Originally: What gave us a lot of trouble as an offense was the inability to handle an extra defender in or near the box. Slot receivers were never our best blockers, nor should they be in the offense. To think that they would be able to dig out an alley defender to help us pick up another run threat, run great pass patterns, and catch passes was not something we believed slot receivers could do. If they were great run blockers, they wouldn’t be receivers. In order to help get us an extra offensive threat and not another run blocking liability, we used Kirk Ciarrocca’s ideas from his time at Western Michigan. The cornerback is counted as 1. The alley defender, who was the next 2nd level pass defender inside the corner was going to count as a 1 or a .5. If this alley defender was outside, stacked, or partially covered the slot receiver in any way, he would be a 1. If the alley defender was inside the slot, such as aligning as an apex defender, he would be counted as .5. This total would be added to the 1 from the cornerback. So, the Qb would have a count of 1,1.5 or 2, when talking about the defensive alignment to the first two detached threats. The quarterback had to count the defense’s alignment to decide as to what we were going to run. The most quarterback they had to count to was 2. If the defense’s alignment was 1.5, he would throw the blaze to the slot receiver. If the count was 2 or more, he would run the play call. We were comfortable if the QB threw the blaze every time. Our reasoning was that if we could get out slot receiver the ball against a defender, he had leverage on, chances were we were going to have an efficient play. No matter what formation we came out in, the split receiver would block the cornerback and the slot receiver would run the blaze. In my opinion, it’s far easier to begin using this concept with a right-handed quarterback if the receivers are on his left, and vice versa for a left-handed quarterback. The reason for this is that by having a right-handed quarterback throw the blaze route to his left, he doesn’t have to change his feet or flip his hips around. I had the quarterbacks, all right-handed, simply step laterally and throw down the line when throwing the blaze to the left. By doing this, it allowed the running back clear their throwing lane and allowed a quick release out the QB’s hands. If the QB was throwing to his dominant side, he would stagger his step with his dominant foot behind his non-dominant. This would allow him to roll his hips over as he stepped across to throw. Again, the purpose of this was to speed up his release and not have him take an exorbitant number of steps. This was not a run-pass option. If the quarterback liked the count before the snap, he would throw it. If he did not like the count, he would not throw it. The goal is to reduce as much of the guesswork for the quarterback as possible, especially for a high school QB who doesn’t spend hours upon hours watching the film for tendencies and practicing. Can you tell the quarterback to be aggressive or conservative on his alley defender count? Of course, you can. In fact, I think you need to. The less indecision you give your QB, the better. Also, adjusting the aggressiveness of the QB can give you a quick in-game adjustment if the alley player is giving you trouble. Regardless of the aggressiveness of the week, our QB could not be wrong running the power read play and not throwing the ball. Can you add a single side WR pre-snap option? Again, yes, you can. I am not in favor of it. I think it adds one more layer of thinking for a high school QB. Running the Ball: >> X&O Labs Members: Login here to continue reading Join X&O Labs to Continue Reading… Plus, get 4 FREE books! When you join X&O Labs, you’ll get instant access to the full-length version of this report — including access to everything in The LAB and Film Room. That’s over 4,000 reports and videos. Plus, if you join with a Staff Membership, you’ll also receive 4 FREE books mailed directly to your home or office! Read More 11 Personnel Empty SRO Package Posted by xandoadmin \| Feb 8, 2020 \| Screen / Pass Options, Offense, Pre-Snap Relief Throws, Screen Game, RPO's, 11 Personnel Concepts, Personnel \| 0 \| By Josh Barge Assistant Coach Red Mountain High School (AZ) Twitter: @RMCoachBarge The new craze in offensive football is to spread the defense out and chuck and duck the ball all over the field. Empty looks are a great formational edge, because it helps your coordinator and offensive players recognize defensive schemes much quicker. We are primarily an 11 Personnel program; our Empty package is 11 Personnel. Our Empty Package is a count-based package where three different schemes are being run at the same time, and our QB decides where we have a numbers advantage and that’s where the ball goes. Very seldom do we throw the ball past the line of scrimmage on this play, which leads to a very high conversion rate. We have been running this set for the last 7 years with a QB rating well over 150 and have yet to have a season with under 5 YPC. Base Formation Our Primary set is a boundary trips look with our X and H receivers to the field with our regular 2×2 field alignments. Our Y (TE) sets the trips set to the boundary side with our Z and RB flanking each side in a 1×1 alignment. We tend to run our plays out of this package as a one-word quicks. We are not changing out of our base personnel to run then. We can get lined up and run a play super-fast as the ball is being spot. This allows us to get lined up and either our coordinators or the QB can decipher were the ball needs to go with plenty of time to adjust as needed. 3-Man Spartan Screen The boundary is running what we call our 3-man spartan screen. The Y (TE) has the key block we call our “ooze” block. It is essentially a down block in space, but it sets the crease for the Z receiver running our Spartan screen. He takes one step forward and then shuffles back one step and catches the ball. He needs to get up the field, make at least the first guy miss and get at least five yards. The running back has what we call the “kick or carry” block. He will take a flat angle with an aiming point of one yard in front of the receiver getting the ball. He has the corner. If he comes downhill quickly, kick him out. If he stays at depth, make the turn and carry block his declared angle. Our field side is just running our 2-man bubble concept. The X is blocking first force. If everything is equal, we ask him to block the corner with slight outside leverage and stay square. But his initial track will always take him into the ally player. Find the guy that has the best chance of making the tackle and block him. Our H is always our speedster. He will cheat his alignment back a half a yard. Bucket step, cross over gaining depth and width. The quarterback, who is in the gun, will turn his shoulders on the first two steps. If he is under center, his shoulders must stay square to line of scrimmage. Catch the ball and get it to the edge. If the ball hits the ground, treat it as a live ball. Get on it! Our line really has a week-to-week run set, teams that get upfield with their ends, we will block it as a draw. Teams that hang around and 2 gap everything, well block inside zone steps to the 3 tech. Teams with inside big men that wreck shop, we trap them to slow them down a bit. This can also be transformed into any scheme that fits your program the best. Here is what the play looks like against some the of most common defensive schemes we see. Coordinator/QB’s Rules Because this is a pre- or post-snap SRO, the quarterback or the coordinator has the final say on which concept (screen or QB run) to use. Not surprisingly, it’s all about numbers. In any five-man box, the QB/coordinator can activate any of the runs in our menu that week, including zone, trap, draw or pin and pull. In any six-man box, the screen game should be activated because of the numbers advantage. Essentials in Making Concept Efficient: Surprisingly, you don’t need a dual threat QB to run this package, we have run it with pocket-passer and scrambling/wildcat style QBs and have had great success with both. Depending on your QB’s football IQ, these plays might need to be run as “Check-With-Me’s.” Have the eye in the sky (coach in the box) decipher the defensive look and signal in to the QB the best option. As he gets better at seeing it himself, start adding more responsibility on him. When teams start playing games with their alley defenders, the QB can make or break this play. Have them get their eyes on the alley defender and read his movements. The biggest coaching point is regardless of which screen or run play gets utilized, it’s important that everyone still does their job. If the QB gets a run read, the wide receivers need to still run their screen full speed. The QB knows that there isn’t a guy blocking the second level perimeter players for his run. Teach your receivers to embrace blocking, their blocking ability makes this play work. “Return-the-favor” block for your buddy and everyone gets stats. This is a toughness play, we are going to out physical our opponent in this finesse set. Catch the ball and get to your landmarks as fast as possible and win your individual battle. >> X&O Labs Members: Login here to continue reading Join X&O Labs to Continue Reading… Plus, get 4 FREE books! When you join X&O Labs, you’ll get instant access to the full-length version of this report — including access to everything in The LAB and Film Room. That’s over 4,000 reports and videos. Plus, if you join with a Staff Membership, you’ll also receive 4 FREE books mailed directly to your home or office! Read More “Expand to Build” Teaching Progression for Play Side OL in Wide Zones Posted by xandoadmin \| Feb 1, 2020 \| Offense, Run Game, Wide Zone Run Concepts \| 0 \| By Shawn Byrnes Offensive Line Coach Ottawa University (AZ) Twitter: @fbcoachbyrnes Wide Zone blocking can be employed in a variety of different ways. Here at Ottawa University – Arizona (OUAZ), we determine our lateral vs horizontal displacement of defenders depending on their alignments, structure of the defense, and where we would like to create the running lanes. We teach our Offensive Line, Fullbacks, and Tight Ends that we need to “Expand and Build.” We define that by expanding the front-side running lanes and building a backside wall to prevent the backside collapse. We believe these concepts can put your offensive line and running game in a great position to be successful. The coaching points for the Offensive Line and Tight Ends are identical when it comes to our front-side zone blocking. We use multiple techniques when it comes to our blocking assignments and teach them across the board from Center to Tight End. In our front-side blocking system, the coaching points we emphasize are body landmarks of the defenders, footwork techniques to get you to those landmarks, and your helmet/body placement once you fit the defenders. We blend or combine a bunch of techniques from week-to-week. Body Landmarks of the Defenders We use two landmarks when talking about attacking the body of a defender. We use our outside armpit landmark and our helmet landmark. We practice attacking these landmarks every day in pre-practice and individual in our combination pod work. We work different DL shades, linebacker alignment and style of play i.e. slanting/read defenders, scraping or downhill LB play, etc. These practice clips below show you how we practice and execute our landmarks for the covered/uncovered lineman. Covered Lineman: Outside Armpit Landmark Regardless if you are in a solo assignment or you are the covered linemen in a combination assignment, we teach our blockers to aim their helmets to the outside armpit of the defender. To study game film of this concept, click on the video below: >> X&O Labs Members: Login here to continue reading Join X&O Labs to Continue Reading… Plus, get 4 FREE books! When you join X&O Labs, you’ll get instant access to the full-length version of this report — including access to everything in The LAB and Film Room. That’s over 4,000 reports and videos. Plus, if you join with a Staff Membership, you’ll also receive 4 FREE books mailed directly to your home or office! Read More 1 … 20 21 22 … 96 About Us X&O Labs Mike Kuchar Login Join X&O Labs Login Forgot Password Contact Us Contact Us Customer Service Twitter About Us X&O Labs Mike Kuchar Login Join X&O Labs Login Forgot Password Contact Us Contact Us Customer Service Twitter