How many coverages do you run?

Coach,

That is a good selection and should prove to be adequate on the HS level. Always recommend that you have a disguise coverage as well, just to keep them guessing. I have a great cover 2 disguise that really has been good to me over the years. Email me at: jerryeaston1@aol.com if you would like to discuss it.

Coach Easton

SUPERCHIEF,

BREAK DOWN 2 READ FOR ME WILL YOU, NOT FAMILIAR WITH THAT TERMINOLOGY, I PROBABLY CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE. THANKS FOR YOUR TIME, WHEN YOU GET TIME.

Coach Easton

TWO READ is simply a form of cover 2(some coaches call this scheme a form of 1/4's), but without the funnel of #1. The corners can play from an off position. We like it because it lets us play cover two (when we have to) without getting too involved. As I mentioned in my post, we don't play this much; but we will use it versus certain opponents/situations.

Corner and FS read the release of #2. If #2 vertical, corner has #1 man and FS has #2 man. If #2 goes to flat, corner will jump #2 and FS will play inside and over top of #1. If #2 goes inside, the corner will stay ontop of #1, but be ready to jump anyone crossing his face.

Coach Tinglof -

I like Cover II for the exact same reason. The past few years, we have been fortunate to have big, tough kids play the CB position. In Cover II, (against Wing-T and 'Bone teams) those CBs are nothing more than glorified DEs!

The darndest thing about running Cover II is that we never quite got our safeties to realize that they could not let anyone get past them. Our CBs and LBs did a great job. It was the darn safeties that gave up TDs!

Govertical,

Have you been watching some of my game tapes!!!! That was exactly the same thing we did, we played a lot of wing-t teams and wanted to have the corners help with the run and short playaction, then teams would realize this and hit us deep and to thepoutside and our safeties never got over the top to get the deep outside routes??? I know that the best way to defeat cover 2, but we were more concerend with the run and it did hurt us also?

JC,

You are right thats what teams have been doing in the last couple years are looking to defeat those safeties!!!

The new team that I coach is in a very run oriented league 10 team league(6 wing-t, 1 flexbone, 2 "I", 1 multiple formations). I am now trying to figure what coverages would be best to mix up. I like my DB's to be invovled in the running game???

I also like the corners to not be involved in the run fits as much as possible. They are just not big enough or aggressive enough sometimes. I heard a coach at the Mega-Clinic talk about defending the Wing-T from his base 4-4 package. He uses the OLB as the force player to set the edge, lined up 1-2 yards outside of the Wing/TE side. The CB is a fill player, lined up 5 yards deep on the TE. I asked him at the break if he truly had the corners to play that way, and he said that often, the #3 OLB is the player in that position against Wing-T.

As far as coverages go, being a secondary coach, I want to run as many as I can, however, they must all be understood by not only the DBs, but the LBs as well. I think the limiting factor in the amount of coverages you run (and we play in a league of Wing-T and Spread teams) is the ability of the LBs to understand the coverages. They have a lot to learn in terms of run/pass reads, blocking schemes, and then pass responsibilities on top of that. We ran pretty much all man-free last year becauase of that, although we worked in some C2 and C3 against trips sets.

Coach,

We are a base 53 team that will also play a 43. We run the following coverages out of the 53: 0, 1, 3. Out of the 43 we will run all of those as well as 4 (we run it as a prevent) and what we call 7. Our 7 is a Man Under, Cover 2 look. Honestly it is Cover 1 with 2 Safeties for deep help. I firmly believe that at the HS level you are better to commit to being a Cover 2 or Cover 3 team. The techniques are completely different and I would rather do one really well, then to do neither really well. All of our coverages are based on either Cover 3 or Man principles.

billatlas,

That scheme outght to work well, coach, as you have 12 guys on the field! (9 playing run and cover 3 behind it) Just kidding.

Coach Easton

We run 6 coverages: 1 (a lot of people call it 0), 2, 3, 4, 5 (man Free), 6 and 8. Cover 6 is a quarter, quarter half concept that is used mainly versus Trips, cover 8 is a scheme used vs 2 x 2 sets, very similar to the Read C/2 concept described above. Cover 4 is quarters only used in prevent situations.

We are a base c/3 team that uses c/2 or c/1 when blitzing - which we do a lot of the time.

I am a 50 team. I would probably stay in that and have a cloud force on runs. When the ball is handed off (or pitched) the corner comes up hard as primary run force, the safety to his side is secondary force behind him playing in the deep third, other safety has middle third and opposite corner has cut-back.


On drop back passes, each DB has his own 1/4.

Lowry,

Good sound thinking!

Coach Easton

we run 3, 3 robber, 2, 0, 1, 6 all out of varying fronts....but as a general rule, you can run only as many as your LINEBACKERS can handle (they are the crux of coverages)