Bob Kenig's 60-combination D

This is just an opinion. We played against this defense in a game scrimmage. Our adjustment was double tight or te/se wishbone. We put 5 up in the first half and the subs were in the whole 4th quarter. If you spread them out, they have a good shot with all the slanting and blitzing. They played 4 deep and rotated fast and hard. Double tight made them choose a side and they were not successful. We powered them and they really didn't have an adjustment. I have met Bob Kenig and he is an awesome person. Like anything else, if you have the horses, any O or D works very well.

Coach, I bought this book back in the mid 80's and used some of the ideas over the years.
What I didn't like and never used, which actually was the heart of the system, was being so far off the ball, before slanting.
This book was written before the Miami 4-3 system came about. Like so many books I have from the 80's, everything was in transition defensively in those days, we used the 50 varients and the split-4 varients. The offenses were option from the 70's and nobody had an answer for them-that is, until the Miami 4-3 changed the world.

Coach, the newest thing I've seen, which is something old, was used by New England in the Superbowl. It was the old split-4 and two inside linebackers alternating blitzes with a 4 deep secondary. It's so old that it might give people fits, I don't know. Good luck.

If you describe your particular situation in a little more depth, I know that there are coaches here that can help you. OJW

Hey Chief,

Do you find your kids getting out of position a lot with all the moving around?

Coach Easton

I think I need help too. Today I've got nothing to do, but type on this here computer!
Coach, I like the Chief's slanting idea, I want to talk to him more about it.

I've coached a long time-retired from coaching a few years ago after 25 years, then was asked to take a private school varsity job(why I did I don't know yet). However, I have similar problems to you.
I tried to teach what I knew, but with kids that had never played and no upper class, nothing worked. Out of just desperation I tried something that was not sound at all, but worked.

I've tried to get other coaches on other defensive web pages to help me, but no one was interested in helping me. If any coaches reading this can offer ideas to help me I would greatly appreciate it.

Here's my idea, I will use both tech. numbers (Coach Bryant/Bum Phillips system-you'll like that) and will use letter gaps to illustrate my point.

Mike(meanest kid) put in strong A gap in a 10 tech. Put my heaviest kid in a 3 tech strong side B to hold the ground-beat double team by falling down and making a pile, put a smaller kid at the weakside B or 3 tech tackle, put my most athletic offensive tackle at a 6 to 7 tech on the T.E. and told him to just beat the crap out of the T.E. (he could do that), he was responsible to tackle anyone who came to the C-gap no matter what they were doing-blocking, going out for a pass, optioning or running (he could do that)
Put my fullback at strong side outside linebacker in a 3 X 3 from the end if there wasn't a T.E. If there was a T.E. he would come to a loose 9 and just play football (he could do that)
On the weakside I put my tightend from the offense and he played a standup 5-playing the typical Miami 4-3 end's job with all the corrrect 4-3 end reads.
Right behind him I put my Free safety, the #2 H back from offense( we are a blue/red formation wing-t team.) This kid would either play Down Low in a robber positon to force anything on the weak side, drop back deep for a cover 2 postion depending on down and distance and of course, formation. I called him a Free Safety this year but I'm gonna' call him a Rover this next year. We played cover 4 robber with him, most of the time and the results were really good for him. (SuperChief is a coach that can really help you with this robber thing, it's a lot easier than it sounds.)

The thing that I wanted coaches to help me with this year, was what I did with the Nose. I put him in the weakside A gap and turned him in a 45 degree angle to sent him across the centers thigh pads, attacking his opposite shoulder. I know this sounds crazy, but it worked, I still don't know why, but I'm gonna' do it again this next year. This made him a tilt-nose. I recently bought a book on the Tilt-Nose defense and will use some of the concepts. But at the time I was just desperate to get another person over to the strong side of the formation. This nose was a running back side player with decent speed, but a kid I was trying to find a place for, he had no ability to learn the proper noseguard tech (but he could do this one thing)
I guess no one had ever seen this before because the center wouldn't even block him most of the time, later in the game the center would usually trip him all fall down on top of him. But he would be cloggin up the strong-side A gap and grabbing for the legs of somebody(he could do that)

Spead Adjustments: We also didn't see much option, we saw a lot of spread and I formation.
My spread adjustments were unsound and kooky.
If there was a slot on the weakside the End would flex out and knock the slot down/fight with him/push him down/grab him and rough him up. Then he would either drop to the flats or rush the QB depending on what I told him to do.
The Weak Corner would bale everytime.
The FS/robber would know if the the Weakside End was playing a normal 5 tech, if he was Whacking and covering the flats, or if he was doing his Whacking and Rushing the QB tech.
I know this is unsound and kooky but we baited several QB into throwing fades to their WR off of this because they thought that the end was doing a cover 2 bump and run but all he ever did was the bump part. But the FS knew what we were doing on that side.
If I could have taught my corners to play cover-2 I wouldn't have had to do all this, but with everybody going both ways there just wasn't time.

Here is the line play idea: If the end was out there on the slot or WR, the B-gap tackle would move to a 5 tech. Sounds hard but I told him, if the end was next to you go B-gap, if he out there-move outside (he could do that)
I told the nose, if the tackle is next to you-turn sideways, if he not (because he moved over to a 5 tech) turn straight ahead and attack the A gap weak (he could do that)

On the Strong Side, if it was shotgun with two backs the Sam would just play it normal, stay in a 9 and playfootball. If there was a no tightend for the 7tech end-would just reduce down to a 5 and rush the QB (he could do that)
The Sam (FB) would be sure the QB didn't get outside. If there was a running back coming out, he knocked him down and covered him. If there was a flexed TE in the shotgun the Sam went out there and hit him as hard as he could, and dropped to flats.
If there was a slot to the Sam side he would go out there and push the slot down and drop back or rush depending on what I told him to do-simple but we don't know anything.
The Strong Corner would bale.

The MLB just stayed in front of the QB and knocked down anyone who tried to run a crossing pattern. If he weak slot came across the middle for a mesh, hen just hit him with an elbow as hard as he could-he could do that. He also didn't let anybody run inside first.

The Strong Safety was our best running back so he had to run Sky cover on everything. If there were any runs strong side, he would just come downhill from 8-10 yds. and force everything, if there was a run to the weakside, he would run to his right on a line and replace the Rover's position. He could understand that.
He would take #2 vertical (if #2 could get away from the 7 tech. end, usually not) He would jump #1 on pass with the cornerback.

Trips to strong side. Sam would take the inside man and bump and run with him. The Strong Safety would take the next one and the Corner would take the outside one. This would mean the FS/Rover would go play middle of the field robber FS position, when the other coach saw my Sam lined up on his inside receiver, he would run a post or fly with the receiver that the sam with lined-up with, not knowing that the FS was sitting in the middle of the field waiting on anything down the middle. I know it's cooky but it worked. It's really easier to do than it sounds.

Trips to weakside. The weakside end (who I'm calling dropend this year) goes out and whacks the first man, grabs him, pushes him down whatever he can do then usually drops back-sometimes not.
The Strong Safety has come to weakside of the field and plays everything deep.
The Corner locks-up the outside man #1, the FS/Rover picks up #2. By the time the inside #3 receiver can get free from the End, we kinda' have an idea of what's going on and the MLB and get overthere and knock somebody down. I know it's unsound, but it is easier to do than it seems.

That's it in a nutshell, I know that it's simple and coaches can punch holes in it. But for a bunch a kids that went both ways with no varsity experience it was the best we could do.
If you want to talk about it, just write. OJW

TIGER ONE:
No, not really. First of all, we don't do all this moving on every down. Secondly, we try to match up stunts according to where the offense is going to run. We have a couple of generic line stunts that we run at any time (like on any run down or vs any formation). Some of the stunts in this package are geared for TE side plays while others are SE side plays. But overall, having our kids slant and/or twist has not been a problem.

Roll Tide:

You can reach me at eushulman@lrhsd.org. I am more than willing to help you out.

Superchief,

We use front calls quite a bit. My posts sometimes ramble and are disjointed but I was trying to elude to that. I make calls based upon scouting reports, D & D, what they are doing during the game, etc. probably like most coaches. Take away what the O does best and force them to their second and third options.

In our league we face a couple of teams that will sit in a Pro set all night. On those nights I call a vast majority of the fronts, stunts, blitzes, and coverages. Against the rest of the teams we face I will make a call and often it is changed on the field. In reading some of your threads I know that you like to bring heat and keep your defense moving. I am the same way. I can not stand being vanilla and I won't allow an offense to force me into that situation. As you know, we sometimes make calls that don't look good when the O comes out in something that you weren't expecting. We use front calls for those situations. If the O comes out in certain formations, one of our MLBs has the option to switch to a different front and call a stunt or blitz from a list of choices that we give him. Some times he will have only two options to choose from and other times he has more. It all depends on what they can handle. Against a very tough team in our conference we make all of our calls based upon their main set. Anything else they come out in is called on the field because they become very predictable so we can have automatics in place. We have gone into games where one of our MLBs would call fronts, etc. based upon certain formations while the other MLB would call them against other formations because we were facing so many looks. The biggest thing is that we want to put the kids into something sound vs. what they are showing. We have literally been in games where my only calls were when I wanted to go goalline or short yardage. The more the kids can do, the better.

Automatic Front Calls make everyone more responsible. The coaches have to be ready to go with a game plan on Monday and the kids can not simply be robots that follow directions. They have to keep their heads in the game.

Am I talking the same thing as you are here?

Superchief,

What do you do to keep a call on regardless of what the O comes out in?