More on the Five Wide Offense

Hmm...Five Wide huh???

So we learned from our previous post that the Five Wide Offense contains basically four formations and offers up ten route concepts when it comes to the passing game.  The first thing I want to discuss is how these ten route concepts transfer from formation to formation.  The example I'm going to use was our favorite concept, known as Shoot.

Here we see Shoot run from the Thunder formation.  The W runs a Post, while Z has a slant, and B runs the swing.  On the weak side, A runs a shoot route, and X runs the takeoff.  Now, the illustrations below show how this route translates into the other formations.

Shoot from Hurricane

Shoot from Storm

Shoot from Tornado

As you can see the routes adapt quite easily.  What puts the defense in a bind is the fact that who may be covering said routes via the alignment they start in.  Maybe a team has their middle linebacker (MLB) in man coverage on the RB when in 1 back.  Well, Shoot from Hurricane or Storm might benefit you because of match up issues with your A or B being a better athlete than your opponent's MLB.  Another thing to look at is how the swing route translates into a bubble for the B when he moves out of the backfield.  This is very good against man-to-man coverage as the Slant and the Post routes act like pick routes and can easily free up the B on the Bubble.

You can also tag routes with any other route you want to make any combination you want.  For instance say you can tell the flat player is taking a really flat angle to come under the Z on Shoot out of the Tornado formation.  One way to combat this is to simple go Tornado Shoot B Wheel.  Now the B runs a wheel route, and defeats the poor angle of the defender trying to come under the slant route.

Sprintout Package

The routes in the FWO, plus the ability to tag routes makes sprintout an easy concept.  Our OC at the time would simply tag a directional call to the concept (ie Hamburger right) and this would tell what side we were sprinting to.  Our sprintout rules were as follows:

1. The side the call is going to is live, these players run the normal concept routes.
2. The side away from the call is dead, the rules are as follows when running routes on the backside of sprintout:
1. If only 1 receiver on weak side run shallow drag (in front of LB's).
2. If 2 receivers on weak side, then inside receiver runs shallow drag and outside receiver runs deep drag (in front of safeties).
3. If 3 receivers on weak side then inside receiver runs shallow drag, middle receiver runs deep drag and outside receiver will run a post route.
3. For players in the backfield all routes are dead, you are blocking.  Blocking rules are as follows:
1. If only 1 player in backfield, and ball is coming to your side, block 1st threat to show outside the PST.
2. If only 1 player in the backfield and ball is going away from you, Flop motion will be tagged.  QB will flop you over to call side, then execute assignment #1.
3. If 2 players in the backfield, then player to call side will block, and player away from call side is treated as the inside receiver and will run the shallow drag.

Let's see how some of these concepts translated to the sprintout game.  Here's three examples of running sprintout out of the 2x2 formation Hurricane:

How does this translate to the 3x1 formation of Storm?

The adding of tags simply gives you another way to attack the defense and create even more route combinations.

The one formation we did not sprint out of, was Tornado.  With no RB in to block, we felt no advantage by sprinting out of the empty formation.  One thing we did a lot of was to sprint to the weak side of our Storm formation (3x1) because a lot of times you got single coverage on that backside single receiver.  Remember from the first post, the X is your best WR, so him in a one-on-one scenario is a good thing.  Add a mobile QB to the mix, and now the defense can no longer overload the trips side of the formation.

Pass Protection

Pass protection was pretty simple in this offense.  There were two basic schemes, big-on-big (BOB) for all drop back passing and turn back for sprintout passes.  The last season I was there, the OC switched to zone reach for the sprintout passing, but you get the idea, there were only two schemes our players had to learn.

Having five receivers out in the route meant that you had to have hot routes built in.  The OL would handle the down four and the Mike (against odd fronts they declared who the down four were and the Mike with calls, but I never knew them).  The remaining six players were all declared by the receivers.  The A and B generally had the OLB's while the Z took any overhang to his side while the X and W looked for corner blitzes.  The rule our OC had on hot routes was to simply turn around and call for the ball.  Now we didn't always do so good with picking up hot receivers, and we had a pretty good screen game to handle teams that wanted to go blitz-happy on us.  Another thing the OC could do is add a "Stay" call to any play call and this meant that whoever was in the backfield was to stay in and help block.

Hot reads

Now I know what you are saying "That's it???" and you're right, but those were the two basic schemes.  We did have a double read tag for odd fronts, but that was later in my tenure, and to be honest if I tried to explain it, I wouldn't do it much justice.  Remember, this post is basically from memory, and reading a playbook I stole over ten years ago!

Drawbacks and Disadvantages to the FWO

Here were some things I never cared for about the FWO, again, these are just my opinion, so take them with a grain of salt.

1. No good "power" run game.  I've know some teams that adopted this style have added a backup QB similar to Tim Tebow or the "Belldozer", but that adds a bit more the teaching style and really changes the landscape of the offense.  75 percent of the run game was some sort of zone scheme, which doesn't always lend itself to be too "powerful" on the three yard line.
2. Pass protection was sketchy at times.  Good teams we faced that ran a lot of zone blitz stuff really threw us off.  Odd front teams, especially the 3-3 and the 3-4 (we saw a lot of 3-4 teams back then, only 1 3-3 team), really could get after us and make our OL's life miserable.  Even with the "Stay" call added in, because we spent so much time working on catching the football and timing, our A's and B's never really were that good in pass protection (remember, these guys were basically WR's , NOT RB's).
3. Relying on a high school QB just never sat well with me.  Our second QB was terrified when it came to throwing the football down the field.  He would leave wide open receivers and take off and run, because he was confident in his ability to do so.  He was being asked to make reads that were too much on him.  Now this isn't really a system complaint, but I was felt if there was a way to tag who we wanted him to throw the ball too, that would be so much better for those QB's who needed a little "help".  
4. When the offense is off, be ready to have a long night, especially defensively.  We were a big enough school that I only had two, players on defense that also played offense.  Thank goodness, because we got in some games where my guys were on the field A LOT.  The lack of a true running game, did not allow us to run the clock and we had several three-and-outs that didn't burn much more than a minute off the game clock.  This factor alone is one reason I would never recommend this to a coach that has a lot of two-way players on his team.  
5. Having OL that work an innate amount on pass protection was extremely detrimental to our run game.  The sled we had at that school was bought the same season I got on campus.  In the four years I spent there, I saw the OL hit that thing maybe ten times.  Run blocking took up maybe ten percent of the practice time, and it showed.  Much like flexbone, wing-t and single wing OL have trouble with pass protection, the same could be said of the FWO and run blocking.  Our guys were finesse guys who were decent at pass protection, but weak when it came to knocking our opponents back and creating a new line of scrimmage (LOS).

These are just some of my concerns about the offense.  I will say, I like the way the offense is organized and packaged, but my love pretty much ends there.  Anyway, I hope this has been informative and helpful and as usual, email me if you have any questions.

Duece

The Five Wide Offense

You really have five WR's on the field at one time!!!!!

A post on the Huey board about this very topic intrigued me enough to write a post about an offense that I do have some association with.  Now, I was just the defensive coordinator (who stole a playbook when I left) at the time, but I always paid attention to what my cohorts on the opposite side of the ball were doing.  The Five Wide Offense (FWO) was a very interesting concept at the time we were running it (late 90's early 2000's), because almost everybody we faced was a run the football, grind it out type of offense.  When I first joined the staff, we had a stud QB who could really zing the pigskin around, plus a very good group of WR's (we had 2 that signed D-1AA scholarships and the other 2 went D-III and NAIA).  Our OL, was suspect for most of the time, and we were not very good at running the football.  By the time I left, the offense had morphed into more of the traditional "spread to run" or "spread option" as our QB was more of a runner, and our receivers were not all that good.

What intrigued me about the offense was the setup and layout of the offense and just how simple it was for the players to understand.  I'm going to take you through and look at the basics of  the offense from the ground up.  Now, most people think FWO and think "Oh, you're just in Empty all the time, you're gonna get kilt!".  Well, that's not necessarily the truth.  As a matter of fact, from what I remember, we were in 2x2 and 3x1 a majority of the time.  Five wide, does not mean Empty, it means you are using five WR's on the field at any given moment.  The formations just put these five receivers in various positions that can create a mismatch or alignment problem for a defense. 

That kind of empty makes me sad...

Personnel

Offensive Line
The OL when I was a part of this offense was never very good, especially at run blocking.  We had a lot of finesse guys, or what I would call "tight ends that couldn't catch".  The OL was set up very similarly to that of a flexbone OL in that the center was one of the better OL, but maybe not a tremendously athletic OL.  The guards were whatever you had leftover after selecting the tackles and the center.  The tackles were lanky, rangy guys that could match up with speedy DE's or OLB's that would blitz off the edge.  Obviously the best OL was saved for protecting the blind side of the QB.

Receivers
In the diagrams below you will see the positions, and they are the X, A, W, Z, and B.  The W is purely a possession guy.  He does not have to be a speed demon, but is probably your best pure route runner of all five.  The Z is a "wild card" type guy.  He's a slot that can run the ball, but is good when matching up against underneath coverage guys.  Don't sacrifice on athleticism here.  The B and the A are almost universal in that they are basically RB's that can catch.  These guys need to be able to run and catch the ball.  They are by far the most versatile athletes within the offense.  The X is the stud, speed burner you have that can give defenses one-on-one match up problems.  He's by far your fastest receiver and probably the second best route runner you have.

Quarterback
I was fortunate enough to go through a couple of types of QB's in this offense.  Our first QB was your prototypical passer.  He was big (6'4" 200 lbs) and had a cannon on the left side of his body (yep, he was a Southpaw).  The second QB was more of a runner, or scrambler who was only 5'9" tall and about 175 pounds.  This guy would have been a great triple option QB, but he could also throw the hell out of the football.  The offense was made to fit around both of these guys, but some essential traits were still needed.  The QB obviously had to be a leader, but physically he had to be able to throw the football and throw it well.  There are some throws in this offense, that some of our younger QB's couldn't make.  They had to be developed to do so, and if you don't have the time to do that, then this is not your cup of tea.  The QB must also be able to make some plays with his feet, but he DOES NOT have to be RGIII either.  He just needs to be able to move and slide around in the pocket as you are usually only going to have five blockers.  He also needs to be able to get rid of the football QUICKLY.  With only five blockers, you end up seeing a lot of blitzes, and the QB has to see this and adjust to whoever is the hot route.

Formations and Alignment

There were four basic formations to the offense, and they were all named for weather events.  The alignments were very simple, if no direction calls were given, the W, the Z and the B would all align to the wide side of the field.  The X and the A only had to know where the W, Z and B were, because the X and the A would align on the opposite side of the offense.  If a direction call was tagged to the formation (example: Hurricane Left), then the W, Z and B all went to the call side, and the X and the A simply aligned on the opposite side.  This made alignment very simple for the players to pick up and to be honest, we very rarely ran out of left handed formations.  Here are the basic four formations:

Thunder

Thunder was the base set for the offense.  All routes and run plays were based from this formation.  Alignment-wise, the W would align as wide as the game plan or route tree called for and the Z would simply split the difference between the tackle and the W.  The X aligned the same way as the W did, while the A and the B flanked the QB, and had variable alignments.  If running routes out of the backfield the A and Z may align as wide as behind the tackles, whereas if running the ball inside they may align behind the guards.  The guard-tackle gap was the base alignment, and that was adjusted in or out based on the play being run.

Hurricane

Hurricane was by far the most popular of all our formations.  I would venture a guess that we were in this formation close to 50% of the time.  The only thing that changed between Thunder and Hurricane was that the A adopted the same alignment rules as the Z would.

Storm

Storm was the next most popular formation we ran, and is a standard 3x1 trips formation with back offset weak.  Here the Z reduced his split by 1/3 and the B aligned halfway between the Z and the EMOL.  The A simply took up his home alignment in the backfield as he would if running from the Thunder formation.

Tornado

Tornado was the least used formation that we had, however we did use it, and was particularly favorable later on with our running QB and using the A and B as "sweepers" to run the jet sweep and complementary plays off of jet action.  The W, B and Z simply aligned in Storm, and the X and the A aligned in Hurricane, so there was no new teaching of alignments to get in our Empty set.

Running Game

The run game varied over the years I was there from a more traditional inside zone and outside zone scheme to more QB iso and power runs, zone read, traps and jet sweeps in the later years.  I really think the sky is the limit when it comes to what you can do in the run game in this offense.  In the early years our bread and butter play was simply the draw to either the A or the B.  This was very good to us because of just how much we threw the football (our OC was a Spurrier guy, so we averaged about 70% passing to 30% running when I first got on campus).  Later, our bread and butter became the jet sweep and a QB trap play off of jet action.  Since our QB was such a threat to run the football, teams couldn't just attack and take away the sweep, because it would leave the middle of the defense vulnerable to QB trap.  QB draw also became a good play for us as well.  Anyhow, the run game is pretty much what you want out of it.  As mentioned earlier, we were 70-30 pass to run in my first two years there.  The last two years I was there, we moved to almost 50-50 and were quite balanced really.

Passing Game
The passing game, at that time, was unlike any I'd ever seen. I had always been a part of a route tree, or mirrored route concept system.  This concept system was unlike any I'd ever seen, however, it is eerily similar to what you are seeing nowadays in NCAA football and the NFL.  The first season I was there, our OC numbered the concepts zero through nine.  Midway through the season he was calling them things like "Middle" and "Wheelies" and the numbers were thrown by the wayside.  Later, he simply named all of his concepts, and as you can see some of them were pretty strange, but our kids understood them and we rarely had busted assignments due to guys not knowing what to do.  Here is the route concept tree from the Thunder formation.

Shoot was our bread and butter pass play.  We gained more yards and scored more touchdowns off this one concept than any other in our playbook.  The routes as they were named going from right to left are Post (W), Slant (Z), Swing (B), Shoot (A), and Takeoff (X). As a side note, these are not what I called these routes, these are the names taken directly from the playbook.

Smash easily was our second or third favorite route concept.  The routes are Slant, Corner, Takeoff, Corner, Hitch.  In this diagram, the A and B would probably have widened out behind the tackles in order to get a better release to run their routes.

Middle was a route concept that was later developed into a good sprintout concept.  The routes are Post-in, Wheel, Post, Swing, Slant.  We did not run this much as a drop back concept, but as I stated earned large dividends when sprinting out to the strong side of the formation to this concept (which I will explain later).

We did not use Zebra all that much, but later started sprinting out to the weak side (X/A side) and that later influenced some of my sprintout passing that I did from the flexbone.  The routes were Hitch, Post, Slant, Takeoff and Comeback.

Panther was a pretty popular route concept the entire time I was around the offense.  Our Z receivers loved it because they always seemed to be open on this one (we saw a lot of cover 3 in those days).   The routes are Post, Hitch, Shoot, Slant and Post.

Oreo was one that was run some with our pure passer, but not much.  Later with the running QB we sprinted to the strong side to this look for some good gains.  The routes that go with the Oreo concept are Out, Takeoff, Comeback, Post and Out.

Taco was one that when we began moving our QB around, we ran this to both sides with a TON of success.  I have no clue why it was called Taco, but that's what they named it.  The routes are Takeoff, Out, Post, Wheel, Post-in.

Hamburger was a rarely used concept, but I like the Smash-like qualities on the front side of the formation.  The routes are Now, Hitch, Corner, Hitch and Takeoff.  I know we would throw this if the defense was playing way off our W, yet later we simply tagged the receiver we wanted to run the Now route and ran it that way, which ultimately led to our not running Hamburger very much.

The JV DB coach used to always call this one "Stained Shorts" and he was right!  Streak we used quite a bit, but not as much as many would think.  It's also not the traditional Run-n-Shoot Streak concept either.  The B on this play was almost always open.  We hit the B for some serious gains off of this one.  The routes are Takeoff, Takeoff, Slant, Takeoff, Takeoff.

Tunnel is one we ran a bunch too, especially early on with teams trying to blitz our less-mobile QB.  The routes are Tunnel, Wheel, the B would block anybody trailing the W, Wheel, and Tunnel.

Now comes the really good part, and that's how these routes translated from formation to formation.  Our Shoot concept was our favorite and that is the one I will focus on for the next post.  I'm also going to talk about how we adapted to our running QB by giving him a pass/run option in the sprintout game and pass protection.  Stay tuned for more on the FWO!

Duece

Flexbone Passing Tidbits

Looks like it's time to throw the ball

Just thought I'd switch over the offensive side here for a moment and drop off some passing tidbits in the flexbone offense.  I know, the flex is mainly a run oriented offense and most coaches want to hear about veer or midline.  However, the flexbone offense can be a very dangerous passing offense as well, when used correctly.  I'm going to build on some concepts I discovered while running this offense, and hopefully you can use these as well.


I constantly here the statement by defensive coaches "The idea that the flexbone can attack with four vertical routes is absurd!".  Well, I'm here to tell you that the four vertical combination is alive and well in the flexbone offense.  Why most coaches who run the flexbone, will tell you that the idea that four verticals is this "magic pill" is somewhat skewed, the threat is always there for this play to be run.  Another one I get is that the defense can be ready for four verticals because the offense can't run motion AND run four verticals.  What I'm going to show you in this post, is how to make four verticals a more deadly weapon, and how you CAN run four verticals with motion, and even run the play off of playaction!

Run and Shoot Concepts
Just because you run for verticals does not mean you have to run the routes straight down the field.  There are many good variations on four verticals you can run that it can be mind boggling.  The Run and Shoot Streak Package is the best way to work on a defense with four verticals.  Heck, you could base your entire passing game off this one concept in the flexbone and not have to burn too much time during the week working on the passing game.  This is jut one way to get more mileage out of your four verticals package in the flexbone offense.

Adding Four Verticals to the Playaction Passing Game
How I stumbled across this concept, was as usual, by accident.  I had a play that I stole from when I worked under a split back veer (SBV) coach, that is shown below.

The A back was usually wide open and a key coaching point was to turn this into a wheel route if the QB didn't throw the ball immediately.  In the flexbone the play looks like this:

Same concept, and I had decent success with it, but the play did not seem to time up as well from the flex as it did from split backs.  I think this was mainly due in part to the motion by the slots not always being as consistent as the alignment of the halfback in the split back system.  Anyhow, one day, I called triple pass with all vertical routes (shown below) and a rookie slot back goes in twirl motion and runs the vertical route away from his normal assignment (blocking outside the B back's block).  Well, needless to say the slot was WIDE OPEN, even though he didn't get the ball thrown to him.  I got in the huddle and told the offense to run the very same play, but this time I told the QB where to throw the ball.  BAM!  It goes for a TD, nobody even touched the backside slot.  It was an easy pitch-and-catch for a touchdown, and the play we simply called "14 Veer Pass Streaks" was born!

All the receivers ran their normal routes, but the backside slot would go in twirl motion (three steps) and on the snap would wheel around and run his vertical route as well.  Now I know what you are thinking "four verticals is supposed to have all four routes on the same level if it is to stress the defense!".  Well, when you add in playaction, this is not the case.  This is an excellent play vs. defenses that like to rotate their coverage and against overaggressive LB's on the backside of plays.  For an interactive look at the play go here, otherwise the play is shown below against a 4-3 defense.

Before



After

 As you can see, the playaction holds the LB's and allows the backside slot to "slip" out undetected by the defense.  The other reason this technique works so well, is that the corner, seeing the backside vertical by the number one receiver, and having saw the slot go in motion, is now playing off of his divider and cannot play the inside throw.  The rotated middle third safety is also out of position and in a quandary.  If he rotates back he runs the risk of leaving the front side vertical open, however if he doesn't rotate back or doesn't see the backside vertical, then the back side slot is wide open. 

The benefits of this play are two-fold.  First, it can be a serious home run for the offense, especially if you don't overrun it during the course of a season.  Secondly, this play HAS to hold either the backside safety, which will keep the offense from jumping your motion, or it will hold the backside LB, opening up the triple option once again (which is EXACTLY what every play in the flexbone offense is designed to do).  This is a great play, that is "cheap" to add when it comes to time to install and develop this play.  Who knew when one backup slot did the wrong thing, it would lead into a very dangerous weapon for the flexbone offense?!

Playaction Four Verticals and the Trips Formation
Probably one of the most under used concepts in the four vertical scheme is to throw playaction from the Trips formation.  If we remember the Veer "Q" play, this is a deadly double option out of the Trips formation that requires very little time to adapt to your offense.  Playaction off of this look is no different, in that it is a very simple addition to the offense, that requires little to no new teaching time to install.

Playaction Screens
I have always been a big fan of the screen game.  Whether it be quick screens, running back screens, or simply a jailbreak screen, screens have always been a big part of my passing game.  Here are some that I have run off of playaction that are some pretty nasty little compliments to the flexbone running game.

Triple Pass Jailbreak
The jailbreak screen takes a bit of time to implement, but when you run it off of playaciton, you can really gut a defense's backside.  Most defenses are hell bent on getting players across the midline to stop the triple option and this is their downfall, especially those that rotate coverage.

I particularly liked to use this play when I had WR's that could move in space.  The QB sells the triple and drops off on the pass and instead of his normal one and a half steps off the mesh, he takes another one and a half steps and turns and delivers the football to the backside receiver.  The blocks by the front line do not have to be devastating, but the key coaching point here is to force the defender into an outside release (which is why this play is best run to the three and five side of the defense).  Anyhow, again, not a huge time intensive play  to add to your playaction passing game.

Screens off Rocket Toss
Rocket toss is one of the toughest plays in all of football to defend because of how quickly the play attacks the flank of the defense.  In order to stop the play, the defense must pursue, and pursue quickly.  In order to slow this pursuit down, use the rocket screens shown here.

The first screen is a screen to the B back off rocket action.  This is a flow screen that works to counteract the overreaction by the defense to the rocket.

Another good one off of the Waggle play (off Rocket action) is the throwback screen to the slot.  Here the QB will sell Rocket, then roll to set up Waggle.  Once clear of the "box" he then turns and throws back to the slot that went in motion.  Talk about having the defense's head spinning!

These are just a few ways you can "spice" up your passing game in the Flexbone offense.  The book should show more of these and go into greater detail on playaction passing in the Flexbone.  Anyhow, I'd written about defense enough, thought I would get into some of the offensive side of the football for a while.




See, I can be offensive


Take care,

Duece

The Screen and Go

For those that are lovers of the screen game (as I am), here's one for those of you that like the quickscreen.  To start, a few years back we had some decent athletes at wide receiver (WR) and would often throw quickscreens to them when teams showed us favorable match ups.  Two of our favorite looks were the wide bunch, and the diamond formations shown below. 

The 2 screens we ran off of this look were out of the bunch we would throw a quickscreen to the Z if you put 3 or less players to that side.  The play was quite simple, the Y would block 1st most dangerous outside in, and the A would do the same.  Basically I felt our Z could beat your deep guy one on one, so that was our reasoning there. 

The same idea was behind the Diamond formation, except this is where we through it to our B back with a convoy of blockers in front of him.  Now, being a flexbone guy, you know the B back is one of the best athletes on the field, so this presented a lot of problems for the defense.  As time went on, these two plays became some of our bread and butter pass plays and teams began to adjust to them, by overloading.  As with any good scheme, when they counter, you better have an answer.

The first answer was to throw backside.  Most of the time the defense had rolled coverage over to the multiple receiver side, and were playing single coverage backside.  This was fine if our X receiver could beat the opponent's corner, but unfortunately for me, this was rare.  So I needed a better answer...enter the screen and go concept. 

In the bunch example, the screener would actually run the "go" concept as well.  The A and Y would lazily attempt to block their defender and would then settle to an underneath zone as a hot read for the quarterback (QB).  The Z would take his normal 1 step up and back, but then would plant and run a "go" route down the field.  The first time we ran this was at a football camp, and did it out of just "what if".  Well, we hit it for about a 40 yard touchdown!  So a concept was born.  Well, after utilizing this for a few games, we decided to add even another dimension to the play and run it out of the Diamond formation.

When run out of the Diamond formation, the B back would still screen and the A and the Y would act as though they were blocking and then settle to shallow zones, while the Z acted as though he was blocking and would then run the go route.  We ran this Diamond formation a lot on the goal line, as it was usually easy pickings to just toss the ball out to your best athlete with three blockers in front of him.  Well, when we added the screen and go concept off this look, the fade to the back corner of the end zone was just pure nasty! 

As you can see, a very simple concept that I have run for years now, both from under center and in the shotgun.  If you utilize the quickscreen as a large part of your offense, I recommend putting in the screen and go!

Ok, so I strayed off my 46 Nickel posts, I PROMISE the linebacker (LB) manual is on it's way!!!!

Duece