QB help, please

Coach Mark,

If you are looking for info on running the option then you have undoubtably stumbled onto the best possible website you could have found. There are many coaches that post on these forums who seem to have an endless amount of knowledge. I can't even begin to tell you how much I have learned since I found this site. If you are willing to shell out a little cash Coach Campbell's manuals and tapes are defenitly worth the money. I have his "How to Install the Complete Option Game" and a couple of his tapes and they are defenitly the best coaching materials I have. Welcome to this GREAT site!

Teach them the philosophy of an option offense and the fundamental concepts (like creating an inside seal to isolate a defender) before (or at least while) they are learning footwork. This is a teaching progression for inside veer. All drills are done both right and left, with a QB-center exchange for timing.

1. Teach the QB's steps on air (no FB) but use cones for the dive path. Stand where his dive read would be and make him get his eyes on you immediately. We flash him numbers to make him focus on something.

2. Once he gets the footwork down, we start to give him different looks. Show him what a pull read looks like...anything else is a give read. Again, no FB.

3. Add the FB and do mesh drill. We rep the mesh with no read (that is, everything is a give for now) until it's smooth, but it's especially important to force the QB to get his eyes on the dive read immediately...we flash numbers at him. We also paint lines on our practice field to make the dive path consistent.

4. Do mesh drill, but add the pull read. We also will put a second defender where the pitch read will be. This can be another QB or coach. If he get a pull read, he steps around the mesh point and gets his eyes on the pitch read. We teach him to attack that defender until his intentions are clear. Once he has pulled the ball from the dive back mesh point, its a keep, "unless" the pitch read attacks the QB. To this point there has been no pitch back.

5. At this point we back track, and talk about pitching the ball. We do a couple of pitch drills (QBs in a stationary triangle, then jogging with a partner across field). We talk about feathering with the pitch.

6. We go back to QB steps with no FB, but add a pitch read and the pitch back. The coach will still give the QB a dive read to look at, but now it's a pull every time. The QB goes through his steps, pulls the ball and attacks his next read. We call this "second level read". Sometimes the ball is pitched, sometimes the QB keeps. We also talk to the pitch back about being "in phase" with the QB...pitch relationship.

7. Now we have all three players in the backfield and both reads going during mesh drill. All of the looks the dive read can give are drilled, as are the pitch read. We keep it very simple. Everything is a give, "unless" the dive read attacks the FB. It is a QB keep "unless" the pitch key attacks the QB. We also begin to vary the location of the dive and pitch keys and teach defensive recognition. (this is also going on in a classroom setting) If the pitch key is up, the QB is ready for a quicker pitch, etc.

8. We then add the receivers and do outside drill. We do this drill to the left and right simultaneously. The defense has a dive read, a LB, pitch key, corner, and safety. We tell our scout team DEs to give the QB a pull read unless we tell them other wise. We start with the look we see most often, and then vary it after a few times. We add one or two play action passes by this point to help keep the defense honest. It also helps the QB and receivers understand what defensive reactions we're looking for and what we do to counter it.

9. We then go half-line. Add the Center, PSG, and PST and do outside drill. Vary the front, and tell the dive read to mix up his reactions.

10. TEAM-O.

This is how we teach inside veer. This is done during our summer camp.

Thanks coaches for the help.
The teaching progression is very helpful and well explained.
This weekend I will be at a clinic on the veer option with Bill Yeoman
That will be of great help too.

If your QB is sharp, it is a very simple progression to the OSV because of the single read on the LOS, if you teach the ISV first.

Coach Easton

Hey Lou,

If your referring to the "soft squeeze" on the mesh, have to disagree with your above post. All you have to do is discard the "ride and decide" and go with the point. I have run the triple for the last 18 years without ever once employing the "soft squeeze" technique". If your terminology is intended to mean something else, please excuse this post.

Coach Easton

Lou, I have posted a ton on this subject here on the forum. I will run it down for you here, but check the archives for threads on "Ride & Decide vs, The Point " or things similar to that wording.

The point technique was first introduced to me in the late 1980's. I was the QB coach at Raines HIgh in Jacksonville, Fla. and we ran the triple out of the bone and pro "I". As an ex-QB it appealed to me instantly in as much as it allows the QB to KEEP HIS ENTIRE BODY(INCLUDING HIS ARMS) HEADING STRAIGHT AT HIS READ MAN. As you know, Lou, when you ride the ball to the dive back your QB's head and eyes are focused on the read man while his arms are reaching back toward the dive back, a very unnatural and uncomfortable position that was always awkward to me. One of the first things you have to teach your QB when utilizing this technique is to keep his head forward and don't look back to the mesh with the dive back, which is a very natural reaction by the way, for most QB's no matter how well they are coached, imo. All the pressure, the soft squeeze, etc. is a thing of the past when you point the ball. I do not teach the QB taking his escape step and coming flat down the LOS. I always teach deep escape step, GATHER, step down hill to your read behind the surge of the offensive line. THE POINT = AS THE QB APPROACHES HIS READ MAN IN A DOWN HILL POSTURE WITH THE BALL ENCASED IN TWO PRESSURE POINTS ( THE QB'S HANDS) AND HELD DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF HIS NUMBERS, INSTEAD OF REACHING BACK WITH THE BALL TO THE DIVE BACK ON HIS FIRST STEP, HE POINTS THE BALL DIRECTLY AT HIS READ. IF BALL IS EXTENDED TOWARD THE READ MAN WHEN MESH OCCURS IT IS, WITHOUT QUESTION, THE DIVE BACKS BALL! PERIOD! IF IT IS A PULL, THE QB WILL FLASH POINT, PULL THE BALL A MICRO-SECOND BEFORE THE MESH OCCURS AND IS UP FIELD TO HIS NEXT READ. Lou, I swear to you, all I could visulize was mass fumbles when I first heard about the technique. But, in all honesty, the exact opposite happened! The first year we went to the point, we almost eradicated fumbling all together on the mesh! ( really, there is no mesh if it is a pull, and that is what accounts for the tremendous percentage drop in fumbles, imo.) IF IT IS A PULL, THE DIVE BACK NEVER TOUCHES THE BALL WHATSOEVER!!! THE QB WILL FLASH POINT AND WITHDRAW THE FOOTBALL AS THE DIVE BACK SELLS THE FAKE WITHOUT TOUCHING IT!!! I got the technique from Carson Newman, who IMO, invented the technique. I may be wrong on this, but I think they did. If they didn't invent it, they surely are to be given credit for making it a very viable alternative to the ride technique. Several coaches on this forum asked me for some help in getting them started on the new technique, and have since emailed back how successful the method has been for them also. Once I installed it, have never looked back. To my way of thinking, it is just a far better technique and the reduction of fumbles on the mesh speaks for it'self. Entering every scrimmage or actual ball game I always have six goals for my QB's: 1. no fumbles on the center/qb exchange. 2. no fumbles on the QB/FB/RB mesh. 3. no bad reads. 4. no bad pitches 5. no sacks, get rid of the ball or pull it down and get some yds for the team! 6. NO INTERCEPTIONS
I found out a long time ago, Lou, that if your QB can play clean in these 6 areas your chances of winning are greatly enhanced. That # 2 cateagory listed above can be greatly reduced, if not eliminated, by the using the point method.

Coach Easton

Lou,

I would start by contacting Carson-Newman college. Although I haven't been there in a number of years now, if they still run the option I would bet they point it and not ride it.

Coach Easton

Coach,

If we were talking about any other facet of football option game than the all critical QB/DB mesh I would probably offer a different opinon. But, in this area I would only recommend that you stay with the ride and decide technique if you have no reason to change! If you had zero fumbles on the mesh, your QB is comfortable with that tecnique, far be it from me to influence your thinking to change. Change isn't always bad, and is certainly not always good. But the " if it ain't broke, don't fix it "philosophy has always worked well for me! As for play calling technique, I always felt when I coached on the HS level, that it was our job to get the kids ready to go to the next level. The next level does not always keep it simple, for whatever their reasons are. So, I always tried to teach the kids a method that I knew that would not put them behind when they got to college. If your only concern is winning on the HS level, I would go with whatever method is the absolute easiest for the kids, without doubt! Knowing that a very small percentage of players go on to compete in college, ( I was blessed in this not being so in Florida) you will not be affected by it at all, more than likely, imo.

Coach Easton

Coach,

That is a real plus for you, having two more years to help him develop. Here is one suggestion I think that will really help you if you will heed it: Get down to the lower levels starting on the 7-8th grade level and pick yourself a couple of candidates to groom over the coming years in your system. Don't let any grass grow under your feet, get right after this project. Then, absolutely insist that the lower levels are running your program!!! Not their own!!! As the HC in any program worth it's salt, you can absolutely insist on this. Why subject a kid to having to learn a new system each year as he is coming up??? Absolutely ridiculous in my opinion! Especially a Quarterback. Just a suggestoiin as always, but feel strongly enough about this topic to add, I hope you will accept the validity of what I am saying, because it will make YOU a big winner.

Coach Easton

mtk,
I am the QB coach for coach campbell. On midline, we push off with playside foot and open up at 6 o'clock. On load speed, we drop step @ 45 degree, get parallel, and work down the line tracking inside jersey number.