Untitled - Fast and Furious Football

116 FOOTBALL COACHING STRATEGIES
pen etration; however, you cannot penetrate with_
out being covered from th€ back side, or vou will
get bapped.And anltime youinvoJve one ofyour
outside linebackem in a run stunt, then one or
yourshort pass zones is Ieft uncovered. We try to
set away with that to the short side. Itwe catl
the "open m€," that involves the stronEside end
and tackle. In the Btunt, he si,eps to the offense
and then loops to the outsj de while the lineback€r
comes on a dowIl slant (see Figure 6).
FtouBE 6l-;
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If w€ wanted to run strongside, we caled
"open." One good thing aboutit was it allowed us
to play the I-fomation play pass. When we ran
the Tom game, th€ guard blocked dorrn and the
fullback picked up th€ stunting tackle. Coaches
donl like fullbacks pickrns up racklcq.
'heir
e"_
pccrarry rr the rackte is qomeone like Ernie
Holmes.It hetps us when we findt€ams thatlike
to run the playpass to the strongside (see Figure
7).
FIGURE 7
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The "open storm" is good against the play_aclron
pass into rh€ strong sid€. you give up rhe
srrong llal zone. bul we get the presqure and ler
the shong salety play both zones into the bound_
ary (see Figule 8).
The ram stunt can be run with a number of
other stunts. The Iam can b€ run with th€ Tom,
fo1lr game, and the open me. The middle line_
backer in this scheme stays liee.
FIGUBE 8
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Remember, technique is on€ of the keys in play_
ing tbis defense. The tackles crowd tire ball as
close as possible. The center can do only thrce
things. He can block stlaight. W}Ien the cenrer
has to snap the ball and block the tackle straight,
we have the advantage. It is 'rsually
difficutt be_
causp (hF I aclde is huger ng the balt in alignmenr.
Anolher I hing rhe ccntercoutdo is I he stip block.
In this block, the center slips past the tackle and
blocks the middle linebackex Th€ last thing the
centercan do is try to r€ach the tackle.To do this,
he has to step, open his hips, anal move down the
line. We drill these thr€e blocks time and time
again unlil our tackles leam how to.eact to them.
The middlc lineba.ker is reading rh^
-
triangte
ol lhp cen ier. srard. and qB. The sua rd cani rakp
an abnormal splittoblockthe middle lin€backer
We have stunts wh€re both the tackte and line_
back€r come on a stunt, so it b€comes danaerous
to splir too much. When the glard cur" hib sptil
clown io prot€ct rhe gap. rhe bu rr ofthe deten"ivc
tackle is in the euardh way and he can,t get the
shop on the linebacker. Thath why we angle the
tackle. Al times, we put both tacktes into Ure saps
and let the middle linebacker move ju6t b€fore
the snap from one sta€k to the other so that it
contuses the offense as to who's involv€d in the
stunt (see Fisure 9).
ThiE
_
confuses the oflensive line, and we get big
plays in the backfi€td. This screws up the btock_
rng assrgnment. This isn,t something that I
FIGURE S
Angled lackle in g.p, mtddte
rineback6r switches sr.ck
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