Creating an Eight Man Front to Defend the Spread Offense III

In the first post I touched on various ways that one-high (MOFC) coverages can be utilized in a sound manner to defend the spread offense.  The second post touched on some adjustments you can make via the front and the coverage to attack certain things the offense is attempting to do.  Now, I want to touch on a couple of the finer points of the eight man front such as:

• The Free Safety (FS) and his role in MOFC coverage in the eight man front.
• Simplifying alignment in the eight man front.
• Blitzing in the eight man front.

The Free Safety's Role in MOFC Coverage
The FS in most MOFC defenses has a tough job, especially if the coverage is cover one, or some sort of two-deep rotational coverage.  Robber, and Cover One are not too strenuous on the FS, the reason being, in Robber the FS is pattern reading, and it's basically man, and in Cover One, the FS is free to roam based on the QB's eyes.  However, introduce Rip/Liz Cover Three and you now have the best of both Cover Three and Cover One.  Let's look at the pros cons of each and then display them with Rip/Liz and see what we get...shall we?

Cover One-Pros

• Aligns to and covers virtually everything with guaranteed MOF help.
• Simple, cover your man, run with your man if he goes in motion (you can bump, or motion blitz if you'd like, but again, this is simple man-to-man defense here).
• Provides a stable defense for the MOF, having both a MOF deep player and a MOF shallow player (Rat-in-the-hole). 
• Affords sending up to six defenders on a blitz if using peel coverage rules.

Cover One-Cons

• Run force-the force defender can be "run off" by a receiver he's supposed to cover man-to-man (although catch man alleviates some of this, it is still, nevertheless worrisome).
• Not all 11 eyes on the football.  Zone defense affords 11 eyes watching the football, whereas man defenders cannot always eye the football for the threat of being beaten in pass coverage.
• Outside 1/3's vulnerable to match up issues.  Corners are on an island in Cover One.
• Suspect to picks and rubs, as is any man-to-man defense.
• FS must have very good range.

Cover Three-Pros

• Aligns to everything.
• Very simple to install (should be able to do this in one practice).
• Good run support (dedicated force players at or near the LOS with a solid MOF alley player).

Cover Three- Cons

• Covers nothing.
• Weak in the seams.
• Weak in the curl.
• Weak against flood routes.
• Every offense in the country has several "Cover Three Beaters" installed in their offense day one (which means EVERYONE's seen it).
• FS has to have excellent range.

By utilizing Saban's Cover Three, you end up with the following:

Rip/Liz-Pros

• Aligns to everything.
• Excellent MOF defense with a MOF safety deep and MOF underneath player (ROBOT).
• Can keep same rules for zone blitzing (Number one and two droppers are identical in both Cover Three Rip/Liz and most three deep, three under zone blitz schemes), which alleviates teaching time(multiplicity through simplicity).
• Force players not as apt to be run off by receivers.
• All 11 eyes are on the football at the snap.
• No need to worry about picks and rubs (you're not in man-can run banjo schemes).
• With flat players funneling the number two receiver inside the hash, FS doesn't need to be as "rangy".
• Has the same run support structure as "Country Cover Three".
• Very strong in the seams and curl areas because of the pattern read.
• Works against most "Cover Three Beaters" and is hard for offense to distinguish between Cover Three and Cover One.

Rip/Liz-Cons

• Not as easy an install as "Country Cover Three" or Cover One, due to the pattern reading nature.
• Force players can still be run off somewhat, providing for a "soft edge".
• Corners are still on an island (match up).

Whew!  I know there are some more, but these are just the basics.  What you can see here is you get a lot of bang for your buck with Rip/Liz.  You can still run some Cover One if you need to and it's a great disguise for when you do.  You also can zone blitz from the one-high look and don't have to afford any pre-snap rotation to give away what you are doing (which many QB's are being taught for what to look for pre-snap nowadays). 

The biggest benefit I think is the protection of the seams, and the fact that the FS doesn't have to be a guy that can cover a TON of ground. Sure he has to be able to move, and read on the run, but he doesn't need to be a Major Wright!  The funneling of the number two receivers also helps the FS in the run game.  The FS can get a clearer read because the number two receiver is being pressed and thereby has to make his intentions pretty quickly (am I blocking or running a route) so the FS can get into his run/pass read quicker and is thereby a little better factor against the run than a traditional Cover Three FS.

So, we can see, the addition of a pattern reading Cover Three is the top priority if you are an eight man front and you want to consistently defend what spread teams will do to attack you.  It does not hurt to mix in some Cover One however, which will keep the opposing coach guessing and off track when trying to call certain plays.

Simplifying Alignment in the Eight Man Front
The eight man front is one of the easiest of all defenses to align.   The reason is, it's balanced with five defenders on each side of the ball and a MOF safety.  The thing I recommend, is to take a page out of our split field concept brethern's playbook and play field and boundary.  Let's look at the alignment shown below and I'll explain.

I chose the 3-3 defense for it's simplicity, but you can use the 4-4, 4-2, 5-3 or whatever eight man front you run out there.  However, the simplicity is that the Strong Safety (SS), who is usually the better of the two overhang safeties always goes to the field.  The WS (B in the illustration), would be the weaker of the two, and would be set to the boundary.  In most 3-3's I've seen, most coaches utilize right and left defenders which is super simple.  However, if you wanted to, you can easily set your strength to the field and still be quite sound.  Putting your best players to the field is not a bad idea either.  Here is how the 4-2-5 would align to the same look using field/boundary alignments.

Again, the defenders on the right side of the image are the strong side defenders, and are probably your better football players whereas your lesser player play into the boundary and are on the left side of the illustration above.

The simplicity of aligning the eight man front, affords your players one less thought that must tumble through their testosterone laden minds during the course of a game.  This lack of thinking keeps these players comfortable and playing exactly how we want them to...FAST.

Blitzing in the Eight Man Front
For years most folks new me as a Miami 4-3 guy, and to this day I still love that defense.  The one trouble I always had though, was blitzing out of it.  It may have just been me, but having been introduced to the TCU blitz scheme and after studying tons of 3-3 playbooks over the past few months, I can see there is no simpler front to blitz from than the eight man front.  Again, the balance affords simplicity in alignment, so teams have trouble getting you out of your base alignment.  What this does is affords for less of a chance that a blitzer will have to widen with an adjustment and thereby be caught out of position on the snap of the football.  The "six-in-the-box" concept keeps blitzing simple as well (both the 3-3 and 4-2, as well as some 4-3's keep this principle as well).  What I will show you, is some blitzes I used out of TCU's playbook, that despite us being a MOFC defense, we were still able to execute.



Bullets Away, my favorite!



Smokes

Strong/Wide Dog



Weak/Short Dog



Mob (cop)

As you can see, quite simple really.  All the blitzes listed in TCU's playbook can be run with the same adjustments and calls that TCU uses.  You don't have to limit yourself there either, the 3-3 defense has a myriad of blitzes that can be run from a MOFC defense.  Whatever front you choose to run, will find blitzing is quite easy and not too terribly taxing either.  Another "cheap" blitz from the 4 man front is the zone blitz sending one LB.  The rules for coverage are very simple, with the number three dropper being the only one who really changes from the standard Rip/Liz coverage rules.




Sam "B"



• Corners- Deep 1/3, all of 1 vertical
• OSS- #2 dropper, all of 2 vertical and out.  2 shallow and inside squeeze to the 3 dropper.
• ILB- #3 dropper, cut all crossers.
• FS- Deep 1/3, all of 3 vertical.

There you go!  Very similar to standard Rip/Liz reads and assignments.  Again, this is multiplicity through simplicity, which is a time tested manner for being able to attack your opponent in multiple ways with very little teaching time. 

In conclusion, I think it is VERY possible to be a one-high, MOFC defense and succeed against today's spread attacks.  I think there are multiple reasons for doing so, from anything to poor match ups or solving tricky alignment problems to being able to bring pressure without having to roll coverage are just some of the numerous benefits you get from staying one-high.  Hopefully you've been able to use this and can couple this with some other things I've posted on the site to have a very successful defense in the near future. 

Don't forget to check my other blog, The 12th Man, and as usual you can follow me on Twitter @theduece02. 

Duece

Creating an Eight Man Front to Defend the Spread Offense-II

The drink of all eight man front coaches!

In the first post, I gave you a brief history on the defense my staff and I developed out of the 4-2-5  personnel to defend a schedule, heavily laden with spread offenses.  In this post, I'm going to talk about our match up issues and what we did to alleviate these issues to help with being able to compete against vastly superior athletes.  Now this isn't to say we were successful, however, the ideas that were learned through a season of innovation, I think, are worth sharing.

Force Issues
Rip/Liz cover three is a great adaptation to defending the spread offense, but does have one drawback, and that is that your force player is responsible for the vertical of the number two receiver.  But Duece, that's no different than in any Quarters coverage scheme, so what's the big deal???  The big deal is the Quarters coverage force player is doing this from a depth of eight to 12 yards.  In the eight man front, with a one high safety look, these players are doing their job from an invert depth of five yards off the LOS.  This means that these players, must make their reads very quickly.  The other issue, is that the outside safeties (OSS's) must align in outside leverage on the number two receiver, which means they can be out leveraged to be able to engage in their role as the force player.




SS has a long way to go to force the ball, but must also handle the vertical of #2




The way my staff and I handled this issue, was in a couple of ways.  The first thing we did was not to change anything but the way our defensive line (DL) would play, a topic that we've already talked about, the Two-Gap/One-Gap scheme better known as TGOG.  We would set the three technique to the field, so that the DE to the field side would be a one-gap player, thereby having him come up field hard and "box in" the play. 

This technique serves us well on inside runs that spill outside, however, the jet sweep killed it, and we had to do something else.  I looked high and low, and came up with two solutions, the first was to align the tackles in double 2I techniques, and the ends in five techniques.  Utilizing TGOG principles, this meant the tackles were one gap players and the DE's were two gap players.  By doing this, we were able to move our LB's out to a "hip" alignment stacked behind the DE's which allowed them to "fit" better on outside run plays. 

Now even though the LB is not the force player, by making taking away any reads he has and forcing his "flow to" read to be an automatic C gap fit, the offense is not in a position to block this player very well.  Even if they lead the back, the LB will allow the WS (in the diagram above) to get his read, come off any block that may occur and force.  Ok, I know, what the heck do you do with the inside run game, as those B gaps sure to look inviting.  Remember, utilizing the TGOG principle, makes things seem as though they aren't!

Another thing we did to add confusion was the 3-3 stack front talked about earlier, and we simply had the DE's play the two gap responsiblility and had the two tackles attack the A gaps in tandem based on our call. 

As you can see, the idea was to alleviate the immediate pressure on the force player by putting the LB's in a position to support the C gap immediately.  However, our defense against the run was less than successful that season.  It was not the outside run that hurt us as much as the inside run, and it had little to do with scheme, as we once again saw a weakness in our match ups.  Teams really hurt us with a good running quarterback and running isolation and power run plays.  Desperately seeking a solution, one presented itself via the Huey board in the form of an old defense, made popular by Buddy Ryan...yep, the 46!

Defending the Inside Run
Now, the 46 Nickel was something that was born out of this, but how I actually got in the 46 was very interesting.  At first, the idea was to simply have the tackles align in three techniques and be one gap players as well as letting the DE's align in wide nine techniques and also play a one-gap technique.  The strong side LB would walk down and stand over the nose while the weak side LB stacked behind as shown below:

We did several things out of this.  The first was have the Sam read the hat of the center, and go to the opposite A gap if the center tried to cut him off.    This allowed the Mike to scrape to the play, virtually unblocked.  Coverage wise, the Sam would always drop to the short side of the field if he got a high hat read, and Mike would drop to the wide side of the field.  If the ball was in the MOF, then the Sam dropped left and the Mike to the right.

The other great thing about this was we could rush the Sam, play cover six (three deep three under fire zone) and have the Mike be the three dropper quite easily.  Another less expected result was to bring the Mike, and drop the Sam, all the while playing a fire zone coverage behind it.

Sam rushed based on call (strong/weak/right/left), Mike responsible for A gap away from call

Bringing Mike and dropping Sam yielded some good results!

The fire zone coverage was an easy install because relatively little changed for the underneath droppers.  The only changes were that to the weak side or the short side, these defenders would play pure man to man defense.  On the strong side, or wide side of the defense we used fire zone principles with a true number two dropper (SS) and a number three dropper (Mike/Sam-whoever dropped).  So the final outcome would look like the illustration below:

Because of our athleticism at DE, we eventually went pure cover one for simplicity's sake.  As you can clearly see, you can run the fire zone concept from this look quite easily. 

The three, zero, three alignment freed up our LB's to play the run so much better because it eliminated the double teams that are present when you leave two gaps open instead of one.  Once this was installed teams really struggled to run on us. We did give up some passes across the middle, and we began mixing in some cover one.  We could do this because of the wide DE's as we could use them to force now. 

A lot of folks would argue, "Duece you are no longer really a 4-2 anymore!", to which I would say, no we are, we just had to use some tricks to make things work better for us in areas where we did not match up very well.  I think this is the goal of any good coach, as the idea that you must "stick to the scheme" will eventually get you fired.  Adaptation and teaching are what are traits of all good football coaches.  This ability to "make the parts work" is essential in finding success.  For us, the schemes shown above took a defense that was giving up an average of 450 yards per game of total offense and allowed us to reduce that number to around 240 yards per game.  Still not great, but the schemes helped to stop the bleeding.  I know, scheme isn't everything, but when you are teaching the players correctly, and their God given abilities are failing them, you have to try to find ways around these deficiencies to try and find success.  These schemes did just that.

In the last post, I'm going to discuss the role of the free safety (FS) in making the eight man front successful against the spread.  I hope you find these post insightful as you do your off season homework.  Remember champions are not made overnight!


Duece

Creating an Eight Man Front to Defend the Spread Offense

Did someone say eight man front?

When I first went to the 4-2-5, my team struggled to grasp the concept, but it wasn't just the concept alone that hurt us.  There are some glaring weaknesses in the "Pattersonian 4-2" that if you are "out-athleted", you simply are setting yourself up for failure.  I will explain further, but after some miserable seven-on-seven outings, I had to do something.  Well, what I'm going to present you is what I came up with, and a bit of it was stolen from our 3-3 brethren, as well as from Brophy's blog on Nick Saban's adaptation of Cover 3 to the spread offense.

I was forced into the 4-2, because like a lot of coaches in struggling situations, we needed answers which correlated to wins.  Now, this story doesn't have a happy ending, however, there are some excellent things to be learned from the trials and tribulations of ANY coach.  So when the switch was made, things looked good on paper, then enter the seven-on-seven league we played in.  Where we got hurt the most was in the curl area to the away side of the coverage.  Blue is a great coverage, however to the away side, you are essentially giving up the curl, and if you play Bronco, you are giving up that out route to the flat due to the leverage issue of the Weak Safety (WS).  Well, after four disappointing games, and four weeks of not seeing any progress, I became enamored with finding a solution.  I needed something simple and quick to install.  Well, I found my answer on the pages of Cripes, Get Back to Fundamentals in the posts on Saban's Rip/Liz adaptation.  So, the following Monday we installed Cover 3, and Mable, and went on to look a whole lot better in seven-on-seven.  After losing our first four games, we ended up winning three out of the last four, to finish three and five for the summer.  The kids liked the new coverage better and I just knew we were going to succeed.  Well, enter the pre-season!

Prior to the start of the season, the goal was to keep the defense simple so the kids could play fast.  Well, our base coverage to any 2 back set was Robber, and then if we got any one back set, we moved on Cover 3.  Trips check would be Mable, and we were going to blitz empty if we got it (we only saw empty five times that year, even though we played seven spread teams).  What I'm going to do in the following paragraphs is explain the coverages we used, and then go through the "rights" and "wrongs" that we did so you can see how we came to an end result which was an eight man front that was sound against the spread. 

Robber
Robber coverage is nothing new, and since I was a Quarters guy, it fit with my mentality of pattern reading.  Trouble is, we only faced two, two back teams that year, and both were at the end of the season.  Sure, we saw some mix of some spread two back, but not much, so Robber was no the first coverage I taught.  Now, the Robber I ran, was the typical Virginia Tech Robber scheme that so many people have become familiar with over the years.  There's been so much written on the topic that for me to write more, would simply fall into the category of "white noise" as there is very little I can bring to the table on the subject that hasn't already been written about.

Cover Three
Cover three, has also been written about a lot, and most know, by now, the links to Brophy's site where he speaks about Saban's adaptation to this age old fundamental coverage.  Most who really know me, know I can't stand cover three.  Anyhow, after reading the beautifully written pages of Brophy's blog I was hooked.  Saban's cover three is everything you love about cover one, and everything you love about cover three, all rolled into one.  I heard one person even comment to Brophy that Saban's cover three was much like a one-high version of Quarters.  This comment really caught my attention, and got my wheels to spinning.  I'm going to re-hash the rules for Saban's cover three, in case anyone missed them.

For the corners, Rip/Liz (what Saban calls his adaptation), is basically like cover one with some zone principles.  The corner's rule is he has all of the number one receiver vertical.  If one is shallow and in or out, he zones off his deep third.  Pretty standard, yet vague enough of a description to be dangerous.  What I added to this to help our corners was to put in a depth of the route, and more specifically a time. If the corner was able to count to three after the snap and the receiver was still running vertical, then he locked on to him man to man (ala cover one).  If the receiver had made a break before this, then the corner would zone off into his deep third.  This gave the corner a feel for the three step game, since you can roughly count to three and be at the third step of the quarterback, and allowed the corner to anticipate whether he was getting a three or five step drop ( I can't tell you the last time I've seen a seven step drop in high school football).  Anyhow, that was really the basis for the coverage for the corners.  Now I did tweak one thing, that if the number one receiver broke off his route in a hitch or out, that the corner could cushion back and think smash and help play under the deep corner route.  This technique helped our outside safeties (OSS) who were sometimes a little outmatched by the opponent's slot receiver.  Ok, speaking of the OSS's, let's move on to their reads and techniques.



Corner reads

The OSS's rules for Rip/Liz were that they were to take the vertical and out by the number two receiver.  Here I had to tweak the term "vertical" a bit more as well.  What I found out worked for us, was that if the receiver took two steps up field, he was vertical.  I know this is slightly different than the corners, but had to be done this way to combat some of the spacing concepts such as all hitches or all slants.  This allowed us to play the short throws much like cover one would, in a basic man-to-man concept.  The OSS was to align in outside leverage so long as he did not cross the top of the numbers if the ball was in the MOF.  This allowed the OSS to maintain leverage on his run assignment of playing force.  If the number two receiver went shallow and inside, then the OSS would break immediately to the flat based on the corners call of what the number one receiver had done (in or out).  If the call was out, the OSS would flatten his drop and look to get in the "window" of the quarterback's vision.  If the call was in, the OSS would "sit down" and hang on the edge of the curl/flat zone boundary line looking for the slant or dig routes.  Again, we can see, Saban's adaptation has taken two of cover three's known weaknesses, the seams, and the curl flat divider and removed them from existence. 

OSS reads/reactions to number two vertical or out

The free safety had the very simple rule of playing the middle third of the field.  What I liked about the coverage is it took a huge strain off the free safety playing those seam routes against four vertical teams.  The free safety did not have to be such a good athlete as a typical MOF safety does, which was our case. 

So, in summary, the Rip/Liz adaptation really helped, and this help immediately showed in seven-on-seven.  However, like anything else, this adaptation had it's disadvantages too, which I will speak of later. 

Video Courtesy of our main man Brophy

Mable
Mable, which is Saban's adaptation of cover three to defend trips, is a very sound way of playing any three by one set you may see.  However, one weakness that stood out in seven-on-seven was that by pushing the linebacker to the trips, he was barely in the box, and really was asking a tall order of one of my inside linebackers to do what his rules were.  The rules are simple, but my adaptation was shown below, in what a friend of mine (Outlaw Josey Wales on the Huey board) called "dogs over".  This concept was one of many I borrowed from the 3-3 Stack guys, and it was simply to move the weak OSS over to the trips side and slide the linebackers one full shade to the weak side of the coverage.  This did two things, first it put our linebacker in man coverage in a situation with a better match up, our linebacker against their running back (which was much better than our linebacker against their number three receiver).  Second, by sliding the linebackers away, and utilizing our Two-Gap/One-Gap defensive line play, we were able to use this weak side linebacker as our force player.  Thirdly, this scheme, which I aptly named "30 backer" (cover three strong and cover zero weak with weak backer force) put our three better athletes on our opponent's three receivers creating the match ups that we wanted. 

"Dogs over" adjustment to trips in the 3-3 stack



"Dogs over" adjustment in the 4-2



Mable's reads are not that tough, and is nothing more than an overloaded zone pushed to the strong side with a man to man concept on the backside.  This is nothing new, and Brophy has detailed this quite a bit in his posts on Mable.  The key to Mable is that the two underneath droppers (the strong and weak safeties) have got to get the number two or number three receiver on a different level if the offense is running four verticals.  Fortunately for us, we didn't see four verticals from trips, and even though we worked the dickens out of it, this concept still concerned me. 

Coverage Summary
As you can see, that is a very simple and small list of coverages.  Much smaller than the standard TCU fare I've talked about in the past.  I'm not knocking TCU, I'm just saying, that it does require some athletes at certain positions to run.  If you don't have these athletes, you don't scrap the defense (although some would), you make the defense fit what you have.  Saban's adaptations have made this possible.  The ability to play an eight man front against spread teams, and especially the spread option teams has been a huge victory for defenses around the country fighting to keep up with spread football.  Sure, are there weaknesses, yes there are, and I will talk about those in the next post.  I'm going to cut this one up into a few posts, so hang in there, these should be some informative posts to those who don't have the athletes to run some of the seven man front coverage schemes!

Duece

Putting it all Together-Run Fits in the Two Gap/One Gap Scheme

Since writing the piece on the Two Gap/One Gap (TGOG) scheme for defensive line (DL) play, I've had a lot of coaches ask about the linebacker reads and run fits when utilizing this scheme.  The TGOG is one scheme I've seen that makes your LB's play extremely fast.  The reason: there are basically little to no reads.  Most of us have some sort of read or recognition scheme in place for our LB's.  Whether it be guard-readers, back-readers, cloudy/clear, etc., all of us defensive coaches have a system in place that allows our LB's to get their reads and keys.  The difference with the TGOG scheme, is that there are no more reads, only keys. 

Let's take a look at the "typical" run fits you will see from a standard 21 personnel I formation team.  I'm going to look at these three plays in this article:

1. Isolation
2. Power (G)
3. Counter (GT)

Before looking at the individual play, let's look at LB reads in a generic fashion so as to display the glaring differences between the read/key system and the key system of the TGOG scheme.

As I mentioned, most schemes use a visual key to stimulate the LB to read the play.  Some coaches use near back, far back, offensive line or a combination of two or all of the above.  Whatever it is you use, there is a key and then a read that must occur to allow your players to decipher the play.  The key is a visual object, such as the near back.  Most coaches use and "if/then" approach to coaching the key read system.  What this means is, we teach by stating "If the near back does X, then you do Y".  So your player is looking to decipher the key's initial movement (X) and then react to what he's been trained to do if he sees this movement (Y).  There is nothing wrong with this system, so before the lynch mob shows up at my front door, please understand I've done this very same system for many years with mixed success.  However, upon being introduced to the TGOG scheme, I realized that by reducing the reads to a very simple and clear cut reaction, you get faster LB speed, which thereby puts your players in a better position to make a play.

How it works is simple, because you as the defensive coach know what gaps are filled pre-snap, you can convey this to your LB corps.  What happens is that you can now tell your LB's instead of seeing a key make a movement and then having to scrape to the open window, you can simply say "run through this gap".  This type of attack reaction is nothing new, our odd front brethren (especially the 3-3/3-5 guys) have been doing this for years.  All you are doing now is utilizing the same philosophy of the odd front guys, but out of the even front.  Pictures are worth a thousand words, and I'm sure by now I have you thoroughly confused, so let's look at the run fits of the three plays mentioned earlier and clear some things up.

Isolation
The Iso play is quite simple and is shown below.  This play can be seen from two back 21 personnel teams, to one back spread teams.  The idea is to "isolate" one LB and use a lead blocker to block this person while the offensive line (OL) blocks everyone else. 

Look at the reaction by the defense, one can see it's the usual run fits for the 4-2-5.  However it's the "how" the defense gets to this point that makes the TGOG scheme such a great system.  Looking from strong to weak, the strong DE is a two gap player, meaning he has the C gap and doesn't have to honor the arc release by the TE. The three technique, is also a two gapper, so he's in a very, very tight three alignment.  He's thinking bull rush and stop the trap.  When he gets the base block, he simply comes underneath and slides into the A gap.  The strong side inside LB (SILB) will see the B gap open and will attack the outside breast plate of the lead blocker.  This LB is the "box back" player, meaning he is to box the ball in to the backside LB.  On the weak side of the play, the Nose, is a one gap player, meaning he is getting up field and upfield quickly.  This technique of upfield play will not allow the center to come off for fear the backside guard (BSG) will not be able to cut off the Nose and the Nose will make the play.  The weakside five technique is a two gapper, so he's thinking bull rush and spill any puller or kickout block.  If they zone away from him, he comes screaming down the LOS looking to spill any puller.  If they hinge block him, he will come underneath and then work down the LOS to the football.  The weakside inside linebacker (WILB) is the key to defending this play.  First off, I do not coach my LB's to have cutback.  The number one way to slow a LB down is have him play the cut back.  I want fast LB's so the WILB, knowing (because you've coached it this way) that both the A and B gaps to his side are taken, only has to react to flow strong one way.  He is to intersect the path of the lead blocker from the inside and look for the ball.  The WILB in this case is known as the spill LB.  Simple, fast, and easy to coach.  So, the WILB only has to react one way to his key's movement.  There is no open window/closed window etc. you are TELLING him where to go based on his keys movement.  The Strong Safety, (SS), Free Safety, (FS) and Weak Safety (WS) all handle cutback and force duties.  This way your LB's can play fast and your opponent will swear you either have a copy of their playbook, or are blitzing every down.  Now let's look at the weakside isolation play.

To the weak side, the weak DE, being a two gapper, will come underneath the base block by the tackle and play outside the fullback's (FB) isolation block.  The nose is getting upfield, so he is constricting the run lane from the backside, thereby helping with the cut back.  The WILB, knowing the DE has B gap, the Nose has A gap, and the SILB will be inside the fullback, he can scrape outside for the spill.  To the strong side, the three technique is purely thinking king of the boards (KOB) and stop the trap, so when the guard scoops, he's coming hard down the LOS looking to spill any puller.  He's doing this as he drives the OG down inside, thereby keeping the OG from being able to cut off the SILB.  The strong DE is getting also a two-gapper, so he comes screaming inside the TE and forces the OT/TE to combo him thereby keeping the SS free for playing the cutback.  The SILB, knowing that the A and B gaps, as well as any threat of the cutback has been taken away is the "free runner" here.  He can fly across the hip of the Nose to inside the lead blocker.  So to the weak side the WILB is the box back player while the SILB is the spill player.  This concept is not new and has been referred to on other sites as "lever, spill, lever".  What is different is how the LB's get into their role.  The TGOG LB, runs to a certain spot, while others have to "read" their way there.

Power
The power play, is similar to the isolation play, but the play side DE is being isolated now instead of the play side LB.  Here is how the run fits in the TGOG scheme look when the Power is run to the strong side of the formation.

Here the strong side DE is the isolated player.  The strong DE is thinking get up the field, however once he sees the near hip of the OT go down inside, he's coming flat down inside to spill the kick out block by the FB.  The three technique is two gapping as well, which puts him under the double team and helping with the cutback.  The SILB knowing that the A and D gaps are taken care of can scrape over the strong side DE's spill and play the C gap.  This LB is the lever LB, and will take on all blocks with his outside arm free.  To the weak side, the Nose gets up the field and helps to contain the runner from the backside.  The weak DE is a two-gapper, so when the OT either scoops or hinges this player will come underneath and play the cut back through the B gap.  The WILB knowing he has no cutback responsibilities is a free runner and can scrape across the midline to play the strong side B gap.  This LB is the spill LB, and will take on all blocks with his outside shoulder.

To the weak side nothing changes for any player.  The weakside DE is a two-gapper so he mashes the OT down inside and spills the FB's kickout block.  The Nose works upfield and plays the cutback.  The WILB, knowing all the gaps to his side are filled, can scrape outside and is the box back player to the weakside.  To the strong side both DL are two-gappers so they are coming down hard and flat and trying to eat up two blockers in doing so not allowing any blockers to come off on the SILB and SS.  The three technique is also working to get in the hip pocket of the puller in an attempt to chase the play down from the backside.  The SILB is the free runner, and the spill player, so he is free to scrape across the formation and spill the lead block of the pulling guard.

Counter
Defending the counter requires one hard and fast set of rules.  These rules, which I have used for many years were stolen from legendary defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan.  To properly defend the counter, or as I call it the GT counter (for Guard and Tackle pulling-some call this the Counter Trey), you need:

1. A defender allocated to be outside the first puller.
2. A defender who plays inside the first puller, but outside the second puller.
3. A defender to play inside the second puller.

Looking at the diagram below we can see how the TGOG scheme defends the Counter Trey.

The strong side DE, being the two-gapper will come down inside and spill the first puller (this is the player inside the first puller and outside the second puller).  The three technique, works down inside the A gap and plays for any cut back runs by the running back (some of the most dangerous runs on Counter Trey come in either the weak or strong A gap cut backs).  The SILB, will step with his key (the running back for me) and rock back, knowing the A and B gaps are taken, he can scrape outside and play for the spill by the DE (the SILB in this case is the "outside the first puller" player).  On the weak side, the Nose helps to keep the RB contained by clogging up the weak A gap.  The Nose also makes the pulling guard and tackle's job difficult too by trying to create a "bubble" in the weak A gap for both the guard and the tackle to have to work around.  Good Noseguards can even pick off one of these players so the front side of the play doesn't have a chance.  The weak DE, being a two-gapper is going to try and get to the tackle, and once he sees the kickout block by the FB, he will spill this block and attempt to chase the play.  This is good technique for holding up the FB's release on waggle or counter-boot plays that are common playaction passes off of GT counter action.  The WILB will react to his key,  then rock back to the strong side coming off the hip of the Nose and playing for the cutback.  This LB is the "inside the second puller" player mentioned in the list above.

To the weak side, the weak DE, being a two-gapper, will mash the OT's release down inside and spill the first puller (inside the first puller, outside the second puller).  The Nose gets off the ball and works upfield to create havoc for the pulling guard and tackle and to control the RB cutting back into the weak A gap.  The WILB, once he knows the play is counter, is free to scrape outside the weak DE and play outside the first puller, as the box back player.  On the back side of the play, the Tackle attempts to get in the hip pocket of the guard and is working hard to keep one or both pullers from doing their job while he attempts to chase the play and help with the cutback.  The strong DE, being a two-gap player is working into the C gap and will spill the kickout block by the FB.  The SILB, will work off the hip of the Nose and play inisde the second puller (this is the spill player).

Uniqueness of the system
I used to be an open window/closed window guy in terms of what I taught my LB's to read.  At one point this did speed us up, but I never felt like my guys were fast enough to their reads.  I ran across this scheme and a friend of mine was doing it, so he and I had several discussions and what I found out was, no longer do you teach LB's reads, you teach "fits".  In other words, based on the alignment of the front, the LB's now know what gaps are open and closed presnap.  No longer are they wondering "will that three technique get reached?", instead they are reacting to flow and getting to their point of attack.  This system takes all the guesswork out of high school linebacking.  This scheme is also what has allowed our odd front brethren, such as the 3-3 stack to make it appear as though they are blitzing on every play.  The reason these teams look so fast, is that their LB's are not reading, they simply "fitting" where the are supposed to be based on backfield flow!  The simplicity of the linebacking when playing behind the TGOG scheme will free up your LB's to be runners and attackers instead of readers and reactors.

Nothing like a little reading!

Hopefully this will be out in time for you guys going into spring football.  I challenge you to install this system and let it work for you.  You will see LB's playing much faster than ever before, and it's all because you've freed those "big uglies" up inside!  Good luck!


Duece

The 46 Nickel and the Flexbone...Defending Against the Adjustments

In part one on the series on defending the flexbone with the 46 Nickel, we learned how to handle the base offense, and the inside veer.  Now for the "cat and mouse" game to begin.  Any good triple option offensive coordinator (OC) is going to roll the dice and adjust to what you are doing defensively to take away the flexbone's base play...the triple option. 

There are two methods this OC can perform to try and outmaneuver what the defense is doing and these are:

1. Formation the defense into a bad situation
2. Run plays that attack what the defense is doing to take away the triple option.

This post will look at both these adjustments by the offense, and show you exactly how to react to them out of the 46 Nickel.


Formation Adjustments
The easiest method for the OC to employ, is that of utilizing formations to hurt what the defense is doing to take away the triple.  A couple common formation adjustments are listed below:

1. Ends Over
2. Trips (Open and Closed)
3. Nasty
4. Heavy (Tackles Over)

Ends Over

Trips Open

Trips Closed

Nasty

Heavy

Now, let's look at how you should attack each of these formations adjustments.

Ends Over
The Ends Over, or Over adjustment, is meant to give 8 man fronts a problem, and will if you don't adjust in some manner.  The simplest manner is to treat this as a twins closed formation and go corners over as shown below:

The defense is balanced with 6.5 defenders to the offense's strong side and 4.5 defenders to the nub side.  I like to play my corner on the outside shade of the inside receiver.  This gives you a good leverage point to defend the pitch, and to defend any screens the offense may try to use out of this Over formation.

Trips Open
Trips Open, is a tricky formation to defend.  On one hand you can simply move the Whip and Spur over to the trips side, however this leaves the offense with some good angles to the weak side.  What I prefer to do in this situation is use the Jayhawk adjustment and have my defense use Saban's "Mable" adjustment to trips formations.  What this does is keeps the defense sound against any of the trips passing game, and gives the offense poor blocking angles to the weak side.

The reason for this adjustment is the threat of "return" motion.  Return motion has become popular in recent years with Georgia Tech. leading the pack at the FBS level.  Return motion is simply where the middle slot in trips motions to the backfield, but the play "returns" to the side he came from.  This makes life difficult for teams looking for a key on overplaying the flexbone's motion ability.  The problem is, if you simply treat this formation as a twins open formation, you are down in pass responsibility to the trips side.  The key here is to gamble on what you are facing.  You are NOT facing a prolific passing team, usually, and sometimes you have to roll the dice.  I say, make them beat me passing, and see what happens.  So I DO treat this as a twins open formation, and that is why the adjustment above is shown.

Return Motion





With motion trips open becomes twins open



Trips Closed
Trips closed is a set rarely used by Flexbone teams, however, it can be a tough set to defend if you are not prepared.  The key to the trips closed formation is not to treat it any differently than the over formation shown above.  They are one in the same.  The only thing I would do, is bump the Whip down to a seven technique and have him plug the C gap, playing off of the block by the offensive tackle.  If the OT blocks down, have him take dive and utilize the BDSD principle discussed here before.  The coverage should be the standard 3 deep 3 under fire zone match up man coverage.  The only difference is, the inside corner and the FS will trade assignments.  So the inside corner is the MOF player, while the FS will take all of 1 vertical.   The Whip safety will take #2 out only, as he drops off the LOS.  If #2 is not out, then you can have him rush, or better yet have him spy the QB (we all know Flexbone QB's are usually runners first, so not a bad idea to spy him).

Nasty
The Nasty formation is just as it sounds...nasty.  The main reason Flexbone teams use the Nasty formation is when they are facing a defense with the force players on the LOS.  There are a couple of ways to defend this, the first is to simply widen your force players.  This is a simple adjustment, but does have the drawback that the WR's now have some clean shots at some players to the inside.

The other option is to align these players in their normal alignment and utilize a combination of two calls we learned about in a previous post.  The Jet call puts the OLB down hard inside looking to take dive to QB (whichever shows first).  The Heavy call, puts the OSS driving hard down inside for the very same thing as the Jet call.  Combining the two calls into the "Blood" call looks as follows:



Blood Stunt

The FS must see the block by the slot on the OSS and get on his horse to get to the pitch, as running this stunt will usually result in a quick pitch.  Now if the offense decides to crack the OLB with the WR and still load, my advice is to simply run the Jet stunt shown below:



Jet Stunt

Here the FS fits inside the load and plays the outside half of the QB to pitch.

Finally, if the offense chooses to align this way, yet leave your force player alone, and use a "double load" scheme as shown below, then utilize the Heavy stunt mentioned in a previous post.  Now the OSS is inside the load and the FS will overlap and play outside the load. 





Heavy Stunt

Now we all know the old saying "He who has the chalk last", however, the more bullets you have in your gun, the better off you are in a gunfight is my motto.  Only having one way of defending the triple option is exactly what the person meant when they described someone "Bringing a knife to a gunfight".  I prefer to have some answers, and the three stunts mentioned above are good ones (Jet, Heavy and Blood).

Heavy
Heavy or Tackles Over is the toughest formation to defend.  Upon recognition of this set, the defense should check into a front called "Kick Strong".  Kick is a term in the 46 Nickel that "kicks" the front 1 shade to the call side.  So out of our base three-zero-three alignment, the new alignment would be four-eye, one, and two-eye as shown below.

The coverage must change as well.  The coverage is a rotated zone based on motion.  If there is motion to the weak side, the corner will take the first receiver outside and will carry the second receiver through the zone (swing deep of 2).  The FS has the first vertical.  If there is no motion, then the weak corner takes the flats and the FS will take the weak half of the field.  The Whip is the hook to curl player and Mike plays the low hole.  To the strong side, that corner is a deep half player.  The OLB will take the flats, and the Spur will take the hook to curl zone.



 Vs. motion, the coverage "morphs" into a two by four zone coverage as follows:



Looking at run assignments, there must be some calls made to help the defense be in a better position to defend the triple option.  Looking to the strong side first, if a team tried to run the inside veer, there must be two things they can do.  First, if they choose to run the veer scheme, then the option simply becomes a double option and the offense is playing right into the hands of the defense (the defense has taken away the dive by alignment).




Inside Veer Strong

The ideal play for the offense to try and run is the outside veer.  The best stunt to call in this situation is either the Jet stunt, or the Blood stunt.



Jet Stunt vs. OSV



Blood vs. OSV

 
To the weak side the offense will think it has easy pickings for the inside veer play, but the Jet and Blood stunts will quickly deter them!






Jet vs. Heavy ISV Weak





Blood vs Heavy ISV Weak

As you can see, the Heavy formation is not as tough to defend as some might think.  The defense is also very sound against some of the other staple run plays of the Flexbone offense.  The key here is getting the players to recognize the alignment of the offense and check into the proper front (Kick Strong). 

 Play Adjustments

Flexbone coaches will not only adjust with formations, they will run complimentary plays that attack other areas of your defense to attempt to take away what you are doing to stop the triple option.  Some of these plays are:

1. Midline
2. Triple Pass
3. Rocket
4. Counter Option or Counter Iso

Knowing the opposing coaches' counter moves are essential to defending the offense you are facing.  The Flexbone is no different, so let's break these plays down and see how the 46 Nickel defends them.

Midline
Midline is one of the toughest plays in football to defend.  There are several ways to run midline and they are listed below:

1. Midline blast (double power play-both slots inserting)
2. Midline load (double option, only one slot inserting)
3. Midline fold (double option, backside slot goes for pitch, front side inserts)
4. Midline arc/switch (triple option)

So now that we know what we are facing, let's look at how the 46 Nickel handles each of these situations.  First to the Midline blast.  Blast is one of my favorite plays (for more on midline, go here) in all of football.  It combines power football and option football all in one play.  The good news for the 46 Nickel, is that with the standard three-zero-three look, that makes life tough on midline football.




Midline Blast

 The key to defending midline is for the OSS's to key the OT.  If he fans, and the window opens, they fill it.  If the OT blocks down, they fill and the window closes, then they fill outside (see Veer examples above).  Here, you can see, the Spur, inserts because the B gap window opens.  This puts a defender outside the lead block by the slot.  The Mike inserts and is inside the lead block of the folding slot and outside the lead block by the trailing slot.  The End and Nose make up the two defenders inside the lead block by the trailing slot.  You also have the FS filling to the ball as your "plus one" player.  The offense has chosen to put 2 blockers in one gap, thereby creating three more gaps to that side, but you have countered that by having one more than they can block by the play of the FS.

Now let's look at Midline Seal.  Flexbone teams that see you keying their slots will attempt to "load" or seal the LB with the slot instead of folding as shown below.  The idea here is that it removes a player from the B gap so the QB is free to run.  Again, this proves useless because of the reads by the OSS and the FS.

Midline Seal/Load Scheme

Flexbone teams are notorious for switching players assignment, as to try and confuse the defense and get a defender out of position.  The next tactic they utilize is that of folding the front side slot and having the backside slot go for pitch. 






Midline Fold Scheme

Once you've finally frustrated the offense, you will now see the wrath of the dreaded Midline Triple.  Midline Triple, or "mid veer" as I call it, is not an easy play on the offense.  This play puts tremendous stress on the option quarterback as the reads happen so fast.  A defense must be careful in the way they handle the mid veer play, because if not handled properly this play can "get out the gate" on you in a hurry.



Mid Veer

The FS will more than likely be slightly out of position as he's used to jumping motion (most Flexbone teams run this play with counter motion), however he's more than likely having to deal with being blocked by an OT, a match up I would hope most FS's would win in the open field.  The keys to defending this play is that you have your players inside and outside the dive (End being read and OSS away from action).  You have a defender inside the load and outside the load (Mike inside OSS to option side outside), and a player inside and outside the second load by the slot (OLB is outside, and FS is inside). 

There is nothing wrong with stunting this play either, and a good stunt is the Jet stunt.  This forces the QB to make instantaneous reads and will more than likely result in the ball being pitched on the ground. 



Jet Stunt vs. Mid Veer

Triple Pass
Good Flexbone coaches are going to notice the FS in the 46 Nickel scheme and try to exploit his aggressiveness.  Again, with a solid foundation of keys and reads, these tactics should not thwart the attack of the 46 Nickel.  The two most common versions of the Triple Pass are to run the play side WR on a takeoff route with the slot mimicking a load block and running a Whip route.  Secondly, some coaches choose to send both the WR and the slot on takeoff routes to try and put an aggressive safety in a bind.  Both passes, and how they should be defensed are shown below.




The FS's read on the play side slot is what will save the FS from being burned deep on the second diagram.  The FS must know, he has time to react to this route and must always approach the LOS patiently until he has diagnosed the play correctly.  The famous phrase "Don't go til' you know" rings very true when defending the Triple Pass.

Rocket
Once the Flexbone OC has seen you are stunting to stop the triple option, more than likely you will start to see a heavy dose of Rocket toss.  Rocket is a play that can really hurt a defense if their force players are not coached very well on defending it.  Some keys to teach your players when looking to defend this play are:

1. Situation- If the offense has been routinely stuffed when trying to run the inside veer, outside veer, or midline (whatever their staple option plays are), then you can expect Rocket.  To the OC, Rocket is a "cheap" play as it's easy to install, and can get some big yardage against teams stunting inside against the option.
2. Motion- The motion by the slot is usually "tail motion" as opposed to two-step motion that is utilized on the triple option.  This is not always the case, but another difference is the motion once it hits the heels of the fullback (FB).  On Rocket, the back will turn his shoulders to the sideline which will be a dead giveaway that the play is Rocket, or at the very least the force player is about to see a pitch back come his way.  If the shoulders turn up field on the motion, you are getting some sort of inside lead play by the slot.
3. Near Slot- It is important to note that the force player in the 46 Nickel reads the lane of the ball (LOB), but against the Flexbone, he should make this read, through the near slot.  If that slot is attacking at him, he knows, the play is Rocket. 

Once the force player recognizes the motion, he need not take any steps forward, yet must keep himself flat and in outside leverage on the pitch back.  Even if he has to turn his shoulders to the sideline that's being attacked to outflank the runner, he should do so.  All other players should run to the football.  Now, they do not run blindly, but find open windows and play the Rocket inside-out.  The FS is the alley player and should fill the void between the force player, and the inside spill players.  You have now successfully eliminated the Rocket toss from the Flexbone's arsenal.



Defending Rocket Toss

Counter Iso
If the backside of your defense begins to fly to the football and are making plays on the front side of option plays, you had better expect the counter iso play to be come soon.  First off, this play does not need to be handled by scheme, but merely by coaching.  You are seeing this play because the backside of your defense is playing unsound.  Looking at the diagram below, we can easily see how if players are not in the proper position, the offense will have leverage on them with the counter iso play.




Counter Iso

The reads are what is key to defending this play.  Again, as with midline, the OSS sees the B gap open up, then he should fill it.  You have two players on either side of the lead block (the DE and the OSS) and you could add the Mike depending on whether the Nose prevented the jump through block or not.  The only player who should be slightly fooled by the motion and counter direction of the play is the FS.  The FS is aligned at enough depth though, to effectively redirect and fill to the football as needed.

I know this one was a long post, and I probably should have divided it in two, but things didn't quite work out that way.  Anyhow, that's how the 46 Nickel breaks down the flexbone offense.  Now as with anything, there is no substitute for fundamental football.  No scheme works if you cannot run and tackle, and that is what 99% of defensive football is all about.

Duece