Young coach looking for advice on defensive schemes

Coach:

I realize this may be rather basic but this fundamental. You cannot be effective unless your team is fundamentally sound in getting off the ball, gaining leverage, inside hands, neutralizing the blocker, angles and so on. Since there are three parts to a fooball game (offense, defense and kicking), you have to control any 2 of these to win. It's all about the ball.

Why we do what we do on defense is to control the battle of tempo, time and space. It has a lot to do with physics, in my opinion. Different defensive techniques are used to defeat the offensive attack. Whatever scheme(s) you use, your defense must, first of all, be balanced. You want to have the same number of men on each side of the midline as the offense has. When they motion or shift, your defense must have a response ready (follow the motion, rotate or something). If they shift and out-number you somewhere, you have to balance up.

The team you play will have certain tendencies that you want to be able to offset. Here is where shades, stunts, stems, blitzes and games are used. They surprise, pressure or overwhelm the offense.

Down and distance tendencies give you a good idea what defense to call. Many coaches rely on this alone. The score, time remaining and weather conditions are other variables to consider. Don't be predictable in what you have your defense do as offensive coordinators will pick that up. You are looking to gain an advantage.

We teach the DL to attack the edge of the man. So, regardless of whether we are in an inside or outside shade or head-up, we don't want them taking on the whole man. We stem to confuse blocking assignments. You can change your front at the last moment by having your D-linemen slide to one side or another. Twists are also used to confuse blockers and give you a better chance to make a big play.

We blitz to force the offense to react to us and to overwhelm them somewhere. We blitz to surprise, out-number and to make the offense hurry. We show and don't show that we are blitzing. In long yardage situations, we may bring a heavy blitz or from just one side. We may bring the band, in short yardage situations. Sometimes you want to show blitz then have your ends move out in pass coverage.

That may help give you some basic ideas. I'm sure other coaches will add things. Study and read articles and you will gain a lot of knowledge. Contact coaches writing responses in other topics on this site. I have learned a ton from men all over the U.S. And, don't be hesitant to ask. They are all too willing to share.

Firstand10 did a great job of explaining the basics of what you asked for. I would like to add a little something. Twists, slants, blitzes, games etc they are all used to create confusion within the offensive line. If you can get them thinking about what is coming at them then they will start to hesitate. When they start to hesitate they become less agressive because they are spending too much time trying to figure out who they are suppose to be blocking. All of this make the o lineman less effective at carrying out their assignments. Im quite sure just about everyone on here has heard this saying that my old oline coach use to say to me. "Don't think, just be a football player."

A great point made by DLO. Bluffing your blitzes and/or stemming your Dlineman is a very effective way to confuse the oline without sacrificing that extra man who could be back in coverage.