Veer "Q"

I cannot take total credit for Veer Q, but I have to admit, that once I learned the play, it was a staple in my offense.  Veer Q was a play we ran out of  our trips formation seen below.

Most high school defenses when they see trips will do 1 of 2 things.  First they will roll the secondary to the trips, and play cover 3, or man on the single side with a 1/4, 1/4, 1/2 zone (I consider these 1 adjustment).  The other thing they will do is keep both safeties deep and slide the LB's over toward the trips to stay balanced.  I know, I know, that's not all they do, but in all my years that is what 95% of them do!  Anyhow, the first adjustment had me licking my chops as we'd just run inside veer away from trips as they had nobody on the pitch!  The latter adjustment required you to come back to the trips side to get your advantage.  So here's what I learned.

When I was putting together my flexbone play book, I had noticed that Paul Johnson at Georgia Tech was utilizing a wild deep motion by the Z back (in the above diagram) and having him twirl back the direction he motioned to become the pitch back.  This motion can be seen at 1:05 in the video above.  This seemed neat, but remember, he's at one of the top academic schools in the nation, with some bright kids he's coaching.  Not all of us have that benefit.  I scratched and clawed trying to find a way to make that motion work.  All our motions were based on the type of play (veer, midline, rocket etc.) and the cadence we used.  This new motion was long, and slow, so timing it up with cadence didn't seem right.  So, a fellow flexbone coach showed me a play they called "Veer Q".  Here are the basic rules of the play.

PST: Veer, (Inside gap, playside LB, backside LB)
PSG: Base (On, over, inside, can Ace with Center)
C: Scoop
BSG: Scoop
BST: Scoop
PSWR: Stalk
BSWR: Cutoff
Z: Block 1st overhang player, if no overhang player, check with A back for a you/me call.  Me call= block near safety.  You call= block 1st threat outisde the PST.
A: Block the 1st threat outside the PST.
B: Veer Path
QB: Veer steps/rules.  Pitch phase is dead, handoff phase is live.

Here is a diagram of the play vs. the vs. a 4-3 defense that has rotated the secondary to trips.

In this look you can see the A back gave a "me" call basically meaning there were 2 threats outside the tackle, and the A is going to take the 1st one.  This play was great, but the variations were awesome.  Here were the variations for us.

1. Loop Q- Instead of veer blocking the play, the offense utilized the loop scheme.
2. Load Q- This was basically a QB sweep play with the FB blocking the handoff-key (HOK).  The OL blocked the play just like veer, and the QB would read the FB's block, if he kicked the QB turned up inside and followed the PST, if the FB hooked, the QB kept it around the end following the A and Z's blocks.
3. Twirl motion- We did this vs. the above look, because we would run away from the trips side a bunch vs. that look.  We'd catch teams trying to rotate back into cover 2 or quarters from this look, and we'd twirl motion and come back with any of the above plays.

As you can see this play offers no motion keys, so it is tough on defenses that choose to jump motion.  Where it really opens things up is in the playaction game to the trips side.  You can now run the W/Z on numerous concepts from post/wheel, to curl/fade etc. 

The major drawback of this play was obviously it's only a double option.  However, it has merits because of what it opens up in your passing game to the trips side.  The other drawback is that it is not very good vs. the 50/3-4 looks where the DE/OLB is on the line of scrimamge.  This puts your slot, blocking a much better athlete right at the point of attack.  If you have the matchup, take it, if not I would suggest against running it at that defense. 

Just thougth I would share with you a very good play out of my flexbone days that really opened up our trips playaction passing game, and gave us another option play to run into the trips side of the offense.

Duece