Untitled - Fast and Furious Football

4 FOOTBALL COACHING STRATEGIES
the com€rback. We don't want him to body block
just run right over him.
Our Z-back's (flankers) job changes, depending
on where he is set. If he is set wide, we ask
him to crack back on the first man inside, usually
the shong safety. If he is sei in th€ Power-I
position, then he leadE outside the tight end, and
helps him with th€ defensive end.Ifourtight end
has his man, then Z leads straight up for the
safety man.
Our taitback'sjob is to open step toward the sideline,
catch the pit h from the quarte$ack, and r.un
as fast as he can for the oulside. always keeping
hie eyes up the field. Ifhe can get all the way outside,
then we want him to run off the tullbacks
block on the corner: If there's a fttnnel there, we
tell him t" tul'rr upfield and go (see Figur€ 2).
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fIOUBE 2 Pirch, assignments lor backs
If p€ople are overylaying this play with an
unbalanced defense, we will shift, or motion, our
Z-back to balance up or take advantage of the
defense. This year, for example, we laced a rover
defense, which put two m€n on the line outside
our tight end or Z-back (see Figure 4). So we put
our Z-back in motion through tbe backfield, and
ran thc pirch a$ay frnm the rorer, as shown in
Figue 5.
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FIGUBE 4 Fover det€nse versls pltch
vv
VV
B VV V V V
ll
I \r-ln
\@
rrl.lr-lr-l
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\ .l \_-/ \/ L l \_/ \_,/ \-/
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fIOUBE 5 Pirch versus rover delense wirh
VV>
If the defensive end, or rover (R in the diagrams),
ever gets upfield or outside too fast, then
our tailback will cut up inside and pick up the
blocks of our backside pullers (see Figure 3).
FIGUHE 3 Pitch, tailback curs inside
The Blast
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No\ we get to the blast play (see FiCue 6). One
coaching poinr on lhis play is pxlremely impor
tant: We want our backs to stay deep. The fullback
should be at least 4 1/2 to 5 yards deep, and
the tailback should be 6 to 6 1/2 yards de€p, so
that they can option r-un vemus all th€ potential
siuntd $c ma) see. Where you line up is as impo
ant as where you wind up. If you want to
crowd up, it m€ans you're too slow to play in the
backfield.