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    Under front schemes.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    48 views8 pages

    Under Front

    Uploaded by

    Anthony White
    Under front schemes.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 8
    a STOP THE RUN WITH THE EAGLE DEFENSE — ‘Southern Methodist University ‘My topic tonight is stopping the run, The frst thing Youhave todois todevelopaphilosophy that wll ac- ‘complish that goal. viewll coaches.as teachers. To bbe agood teacher, youneed tohavealessonpian I'm ‘going to start off tonight with a progression of teaching that Ihave used over the years. t coach, the hardest thing for me to accept is getting beat bafore the balls snapped. That happens each time your defense ines up wrong, The one th todo on defense is align perfectly The : es align pert say ‘Ea entnes aamce sees, have tine up correct, } Tobe agood coach, you mist coach the tice The stance of aplayeris critical tohis ability toplay thegame give youn example. AB Fada my play erg; thy contd, sither in control of ouf of contra), id good tac- Th thing that Theirchange-of-trection skills were outstanding. Ali thosequaltesinadefensiveplayerstartwithhisstance. I'm going to talk about our linebacker stance, When teachourinebackers start withashoulder: width stance. want theirknaes bent an their back flat.\don't want the armshanging down. went them ‘oplay with a shight bendin the elbow and thei fin- gars pointing forward. want them to look ke they replaying thopiano with ther hands and arms. There isagoodreeson for that. thinkit eliminates wasted movement. Footballisa game of inches. Welost nd ‘won football games ths yearbyinches. A wastedstep cancauseplayers tomakeaplaylate.insteadof stop- ing the tir: down play we giveun the frst down, «gc gpetatep toying sia isadelen- ‘Everyoneon thedefensive teamhas tohave ‘aninitial key. Someone on the offensive team has to sive the defense arun-pass key. Someone on the of- ‘ense will give adefensive player the proper angle to ‘take and the proper fit into his pursuit schema, Defensive players must have /aséingReaction os back togettingin the proper stance tam forti- Nate tohave coached alot of good inebackers had akidat Toras ARM whoran about 47 secendsin the 40-yarddash,Butinreaction tim, heplayedicea 3 playor. Heneverwastedastep.A player's stance can reat probloms for that player. A good coach puts hisplayersintoapositiontobe fundamentally sound. If youcan got your players to pla fast andeliminate wasted steps, youare pretty good coech. The fpal thing conser in defénsive evaluation is teckfigt you tackle well asa team, you have a chance. Gdod tackling accurs when players are under ontrol. Having @ good base and playing under control ‘araessential to tackling. When we teach tackling we ‘overemphasize the wrap-up. Make your tacklingdrils ‘elatve to what you are asking your players todo, | was working at LSU six years ago, We had a strength coach who made the players work with hhand grippers. all tha time. He felt lke our players cht work on strength inthe hands and wrist. He ‘thought football was agamethatdemandedstrength in the hands and wrist, and we didn’t focus on it ‘enough. From that point on, everywhere ve been in ‘my coaching career, I've made my players squeeze ‘those grippers. The wrap-up in tackling comes from ‘trangthin the hands and wrist | start my defensive philosophy with those five points. Thats how | start teaching run “fit.” Our de- fense at Kansas State was very good. We had good players Iibe the first toadmit that But, we'vealways 9 hada philosophy. Our philosophy was to teach fi We taugtrur-fitevery day Beforepractceeachday took ‘Sminutestowalk throughout defensiverurfitsit0k ‘the topfiveruningplaysromourupconingopponents andhadadefensive walk-troughof our defensive rune fitsforeachplaytisnotcontacttisamentalappeoach totheruninggame. You cannot b Jess you know what your footwork is going to be” ‘Thatis somethinga walk-through can give your play? rs, It ives your players a mental vison of what is going tohappen when thediill ges fullspeed Wed itevery day, andit was very good for us. Kansas State was thebest third-doim percent- ‘agedfensein thenation. We gaveup 8 percent frst «downs on third-down plays. That was good, but third down was not the down that concerned me. The down that | talked to my players about was first down’ want us to be a great run/pass defense on first down.fyoucan put ateeminto second and third «down and long yardage, your chance for success on third down goes up considerably ‘Our goal on first downs simple: We want to give upnomora than? yards on frst dawn. Any offensive coach wil tll you, itis harder to calla play in that situation. If youcan get the offense nto thirddown ‘and 4 yards or greater, your chance for success rises. tm going to give you one of our defensive pack- ages today, That package sour eagle defense, Tobe ‘agoodrun-stopping defense, youhave toinvolve your safetiesinrunsupport.Thisis the way we taught the defense the lst four years at Kansas State, and the way we are going to teachit t SMU. ‘The first thing'mgoing to tak abouts the fitand alignment ofthe defense. We number our defensive techniques and letter defensive gaps. The gap tween the center and quardis called the A gap. The (quard-tacklegapis called the B gap. Thegapbetween ‘the tackle and tight endis called the C gap. Anything ‘outside the tight endis called the O gap. The gaps are the same tothe right orleft of the center, Our defensive techniques arenumberedas tothe alignment of the offensive inemen. On our eagle de- fense, Il start from the open side to show you our good run-stopping defense, un-* alignments. The end to the open side aligns in what ‘wecalla-technique. Althoughitappearshels onthe ‘ofthe tackle, heis wider. We want sure the defensive end knows hs alignment isnot a5-technique, but wider, ‘The defensive tackle to the open sides in a 3- technique whichis the outside shoulder ofthe guard ‘The Willinebacker is off the fine of scrimmage ina + technique, whichis the inside shoulder of the guard, Since heis off the lin of scrimmage, we addazero to the alignment. Hisalignmentis called a 0-technique. Our nose quardisina shade technique. don't give thatalignment arumber.His aignmentisa shade align- ment tothe tight end. That meansheis algned on the shoulder of the center toward the tiht-end side, 40-technique. He is headup theo fensive tackle andof theline of ser ‘mage. The end to the tight sdeisina5-techniqu the Semin eden. EAGLE DEFENSE QO 0 ° co8oaa © ET N ES c Ww M Cc FS ss ‘That groupis called our front seven To the front seven we add the two safeties. When the defense breaks the huddle, the only thing they know about the offenssis-the personnel grouping inthe game, ‘They don’t know how the offense is going to line up ‘and what distribution they will see, Whon the offense aligns, it always gives the defense an attack point, If the offense comes outina pro- formation, we willbe in our eagle defense. The alignment of the ‘eagle defense means there are bubble areas where the two linebackers are aligned, That becomes the attack pointfor the offense. They wil attack the areas. ‘where there is no ineman onthe line of scrimmage. ee 20 ‘TheBgaptothestrongsideandtheAgaptotieopen side are the attack points, Inrundefense, everyone knows the strengths of the defense. What you need to know isthe weak- asses. going to ive you some my thought pro- cess on the eagle Wefense. it we are playing a two- back offense, we are going tobe ina nine-front de- ‘ense. That means our safeties ar gong to play a imajorrolein the rundefense. Our strong safety alignment is going tobe 7 to8 yards deep, We have a couple of Nebraska coaches the room. Dan Young, the offensive ina coach at Nebraska, wouldnt belive that. moved them upto about 3 yards when we played them, because they id’ throw the ball much | want our safeties tobe effectivein stopping ther for short gains, ‘The free safety’ alignment will be somewhat tighter than the strong safety. The strong safetyhas. ‘vertical threat withthe tight end For that reason, he has a deeper aignmont than the free safety. The strong safety has to behesitant withhisreaction up to theline of scrimmage (Our strong safety keys the tight end tothe strong tackle. the tight endis releasing and the tacklehas ‘apass set, heplays the pass. {fhe sees the tight base blocking or blocking down, and the tackle with 4lowhelmet unblock, he plays run, The free safety always keys the end man on the line of scrimmage to his side. inthe case of the pro set, heiskeying the offensive tackle tothe open side of the set. Hes looking for ahigh or ow hat by the offensive tackle. The high hat means the tackle is {gettingintoapass set. Thalowhat means the tackle {is run blocking, The high hat is easy to see because thaoffensv taka ets epthinmedately backing off the ine, ‘When play my safeties down, | teach them asif they were linebackers. The keys for the linebackers and safeties are the same. There are four kinds of flow by the offense. Thereisinside flow toward and ‘away, and thereis outside flow toward and away. ‘The safeties andiinebackers aregotting the same kind of cutback reads. f the Mika linebacker reads inside flow toward him, he wants to take away the {uickestnorth-southruningroute He forces the ball ‘togoinaneast-westtirection He spills the ball out- sido. He fits the fullback in what we call an under- ‘neath ft. We don't want togiveupalinebacker ina {or-1 block. If the Mika linebacker takes his outside arm across the fullbacks block heis out ofthe play. | don't want that. The linebacker uses his fit tech rique forces theballtospil andgets back totheball ‘When the linebacker crosseshis shoulder tospill the ball, he becomes a perpendicular player. That meansheis not parallel tothe ine of scrimmage and becomes a one-way player. We want him to use his hands, stay square tothe line, and force theball out. Thiestrong safety becomes the hit man Whenhe ‘sees inside flow towardhim, he has to fit off what he seesin front of him. ‘The Will linebacker and free safety are reading inside flow away. The free safetyhas what wecalla ‘buzz technique He's shutting toward the strongsida ‘and becomes the inside-out player to the ball from. the backside, ‘We teach our defensivelinemanblocksandnamé ‘them. A base block tothe defensive linemanisarun block that attacks theinside shoulder of the defen sive tackle trying todrivehimoff the ball, Tereach block tris to get tothe outside padof the defensive lineman. The offenses gaining ground onthe block and trying to get outside, The offensive lineman is trying togethisbody between thedefensiveliteman ‘andthe ballcarrier. Onthe cutoff block, the offensive blockeris trying to get tothe inside pectoral muscle Of the defensive player. Heis trying to stop the pur- suitof the defensive player, ‘Ona down block the vision zone of the offensive blacker focuses onanother defender, Thenew block- ing scheme now comes from the bucket step of the offensive lineman. A lineman using the bucket step gives theimpression thatareachblockis coring, The offensive blocker, however, is not trying ta gain ‘ground, He wants to force the defenders wide, so the offensive back can cut north-south, a ‘TheWillinebackerisaslow player Hoknows the ‘Mike linebacker has asafety playing down tohisside. Heis playing stow through the backside A gap. If the ball cuts back, heis the hit man. INSIDE FLOW STRONG 8 0 999 c we Rg ° oe Fs. ss a a I'm going to show you the outside flow toward with plling guard. The Mik inabecker and strong safety read the outsie flow toward them. The tron safety reads thereachblocksby te tight end and tackle. He is in what we call fit support. That ‘means heis fitting off the 9-technique. Aslongas the ‘9-technique is keeping outside leverage, the strong safety is fitting up to what he sees. If he sees the ‘Sam linebacker has been reached, he fits outside of him As ongas the Samlinebacker continues tokeep utsdeleverege, he itsinside of tim Our freesafetyhas what we call primary support. ‘Thatis the difference between the two-man block ing side and three-man side, We don't want the free safety working off the defensiveend.Itmayhappen, but wedon't taachit that way. As the free safety reads the outside flow away hehas tobeaware that theball auldeutbackatany- ‘ime.Heistheinside-outplayer on theboallatalltimes nti the balls committed to the outside, The worst thing that could happen is the ball gets underneath the free safety. ss Oninside flow to the weakside, the attack point of the offense probably willbe in the A gap f the ballearvier bends his run back to the strangside, he will probably bend into the B gap. The double team ‘goes on the noseguard with one blacker coming off ‘on the Mik linebacker. The offensive guard end tackle blocks the 3-technique and the 7-technique to the outside. The Wil linebacker has to make surahe hhas a down safety. The Wil inebacker takes the in ‘ide fit He doesn’t cross shoulders. He fitsinside and ‘stays square If the ball breaks inside, the ‘makes the play because he has taken: tion f the ball goes outside, the linebacker is still alive topursue the bal. | don't want to ever tel afinebacker that giving bimself upis the way toplay the block. want take the block on as deep as he can but stay alivein the block sohre can pursue, ‘Thefreesafetyis thehitmanand fits outside the ‘Willinebacker. The strong sfetysthe buzz player, buthas asightly ferent responsibilty than the ‘ree safety in the buzz technique. He has to know ‘thatthe cutback by the runing back coud be a d- rect soamtohm. The Mike linebackers going toplay ‘over te topo the double team and fits outside, We have two quyslookng forthe spilt the outside. The strong sfetyis the cutback ployer. When you put nine players in the box, there are two players the offense can'tblock But the defend- cerscan't take themselves aut ofthe play because of ‘an alignment error, or by not having the progression read thatthe linebackers have. The safetieshave to read ike alinebacker. ee 2 INSIDE FLOW WEAK (n the outside flow to the weakside, the froe safety is primary support. Primary support means that the free safety has to turn everything back in- side Nothing can get outside of im. llhishepisin- side, The Wil inebacker becomes the inside-out player. He always fits underneath the fre safety ‘Whenihe strong safety knows hehssfulfiow away, hhecanbemoreaggressive.Sincehe doesn'thave the ‘threat of the cutback, he can come faster. 1 will zone the noseguard and tet him go. ‘They tel their tailback f the noseguard tackles him, he is going to the bench. The offensais going to do ‘everything they cantoblock theMikelinehacker. Tha (Mike linebacker has to do everything he can to get ‘over the top and ftinto the outside. OUTSIDE FLOW WEAK Ke Rope \Ne Lae “——~s5 Itis important that you stunt out of your base front. We want to make the blocker have to adjust: ‘0 our movement on the run. fa fullback or puling querdhas toreada different defensive look while he ‘sruning, youhave made tim a softer player. Hehas ta go ona search forhis blocking assignment. When heis looking forhis assignment, heis not going tobe as downhillinhis attack. twe were having problems with the Mike isola- tion play, we wouldcall an exchange. TheS-technique tackle stems toa 4-2ye technique and becomes aB- gapplayer. The strong safety has to change one part of his fit On inside flow away, he covers the C gap instead of the B gap. The strong tackle’ taking the ‘cutback run in the B gap on inside flow away. This stuntis called eagle ip. We build our system withhot words. As soonas the strong safety hears eagle rip, he knows on inside flow toward him the bal is going wider. Te fllba ‘onthe isolation play has to adjust his path togot to the Mike linebacker. The Mike linebacker fitsinto the gap and plays his spill tachnique. One of the hard- et things the offensive tackle has todo s take his initial stop toa block, then make an adjustment be- cause his blockis slantinginside EAGLE RIP 2g fete Mo ss This becomes a major adjustment for the offen siveblocking scheme, but nly aminor adjustment to ‘your defensive fit. The ball automatically has tomave Wider, which is where we want it to go in the first place. Tis ine stunt protects your Mike linebacker ‘rom getting hammeredall the time, nour gameplan, weuse these stuntseariyinthe game. Ifa teamhas four bread-and-butter plays, wil hhave four base fits that we are going to use to stop them. Inthe first series of downs, I'l use all of our defensive stop calls. want them to knaw from the first series how we are going to play them. | want them toknow from the first series that we are not going toallow them torun their base offense. ‘They are going to have to adjust and find another attack point Somepeoplecallitmakingaright-handed 3 ‘teambecomeleft-handed If youare going tobeagood defensive team, youhave to cancel their best euming play. The offense has to go to something they arenot ‘as goodat doing, That gives your defense achance to be successful ‘The stunt tothe other sides called eagle tam. ‘Tho3:-technique tackeisstantingint the A gap, and the Will linebacker is fitting outside in the B gap. ‘Nothing has changed on our fit scheme. The free safety is primary support. Ifthe offensive tackle blocks out onthe defensive end the freesafety fitis inside, off the Will inebacker. The Mikelinebacker is playing over te top, and the strong safety is buzzing ‘to theB gap forthe cutback. EAGLE TAM phe eg } wre FS “ss ke to get the noseguardinvlvedin our stunt- ing game. We call this stunt eagle nose. If @ center has ashadenosequard aligned on him, the fist thing he looks fr is the attack angle of the nosaguard. 1 want to make apoint that left out earlier. Thisis @# bigpoint onrundefense. The defense candictate the dopth of the offensive lineman. | expect the ump ‘to‘tell me two to three times a game that our play ersarein henedtralzoné. want our defensive front tacrowdthe ball asmuchas they possibly can Taget the angles they wantin blocking, the offensive fne/ has tomove back off the ballin ther alignment. That ‘means before the bllis snapped, the defensive line has taken half ayardfrom the line of scrimmage.) The eagle nose stunts a cross-gap stunt. This, protects your Wilinebacker. Thenosequerdattacks across the face ofthe centerinto the openside Agen. The Will linebackers gap responsibilty is the strongside A gap on inside flow away. Nothing else changesin the defensive fit scheme. The safeties are fitting exactly where they ddin the base defense EAGLE NOSE (ur defensive inemen are what we call anchor points. They can’t let the offensive linemen get off to the second level of our defense. These stunts change up the zone-blocking scheme forthe offen- sive linemen. It gives usa different look. | fike to do things that are minor maves for us, but are moves that don't affect your secondary coverage orrurfit schemes. ‘Wehave another linestuntwe call eagle tuff The noseguardis tina shade positionan the center, but he's playing heavier in the A gap. The strong tackle moves into a 4-eye technique, Our Mike linebacker shifts to a50-technique stack on the tackle, This alignment gets the defense into a version of the double-eagle defense. ‘The offensiveline has some decisions tomake. If the offenseuses azone-blacking scheme, theyhave to develop a scheme to get to the second level to block the Mike linebacker. Ppl a good adjustment fora strongsiderun. However, belive it is better against a weakside run. When we make these technique moves, we stem to them. The 5- technique tackle stems to the 4-2ye alignment be- fore the balls snapped, The cutoff block is almost impossible tomake.If the ballisrunto the weakside, tha backside defensive tackle is turned loosen the backfield The offensive guard and center is scoop blocking the noseguard. That leaves abig gap forthe 4-eye tackle taslantinto. Hebecomes abig disruptor for the offense. a EAGLE TUFF ce 9g Er, “\ FS Another simple adjustment isto use the word ‘stomas pert of our stunt. I we call stem eagle tuff the -technique tackle aignsina eye techniqueand ‘stems back to our base defense. The stem cal tells ‘our secondary theres no adjustment being ma ‘Thenext thing mgoing to talk aboutis what we call our plug defense. Thisis aforce-fit technique for us.Idon'tliketocall his stunt ablitz. Weare takinga linebacker and telling him to ignore the flow of the ‘offense. Hai going to fill his gap on the snap of the ball. | only use ths against a two-back set and with our eagle package. On this stunt, we are trying to make somethinghappen. We arelookng forpenetration. In this stunt we will be in man-to-man coverage in the secondary. Thecall tothe strongside wouldbe eagle Mite, That means we replayingeagledefense and thelMike linebackeris going toplug the Bgap. The strong safety playsnormal on any flow towardhim. On flow away, hehasno cutback responsibilty His playing over the top to the weakside. He has to be a factor tothe weakside un game. ‘The Mike inebacker plays everything the same as far as his fit on the fullback on flow toward him, However ifinside flow comes toward him, hei hit ting the fullback deeper and forcing the back tored- rect immediatoly. He becomes the aggressor on the fullback because he is coming full speed unblocked into the backfield On flow away, hehas a chance to run plays down from the backside. The offense is doing to continue to block the play the same way, ‘That means the Mike linebacker can come clean on his force fit and disrupt plays run away from him. EAGLE MIKE og® sag ET) ES iV M — FS Over the Top ‘The stunt to the other side is called eagle Will. lke to run this stunt against teams that are runing the inside isolation to the strongside. It gives us a ss ‘There is a possibility that the center will miss the plug because he is doubling with the guard on the ‘oseguard. This stunt willmake thecentersblockon the nosequard softer because he is looking for the ‘un-through of the Wil inebacker. EAGLE WILL Our Willinebacker at Kansas State this year was a litle kid. He was about 6'0" and 195, He was abso- lutely the biggest playmaker I've ever coached. He had great timing for this stunt. The plug stunts fit well against inside runs and power plays. But if you end up getting perimetor Plays, youneed to get out of them. Youhave to teach your Mike and Wil inebackers how to come aut of the stunts when they see perimeter plays. a ‘The play | want to show you is the power play. On this piay the offensive line to the strongside is blocking down. The center is blocking back with the backside guard pulling. The fullbackisleading toward the defensive end for a kick out or log block on the ‘Samlinebacker. Wehave to make tis play bounce to ‘the outside. One of ourdefendersin theblockingpro- sgressionhas to occupy two people.Inthiscaseit will be our Samfinebacker. When the Samlinebacker sees ‘the departure angle of the tight end, he has to get

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