Lombardi's Sweep not good enough for HS Ball?

The "Truck Toss" is BIG in the NFL, but MOST teams hand their hat on the "POWER-OH" - hitting DOWNHILL. To watch "LT" of the Chargers run IT is a thing of beauty.

Jerry is correct in that if you are playing vs "free access Corners" - it's better to run a HITCH than a sweep!

5 steps off the LOS gets you 6 yds everytime on the Hitch (vs FREE ACCESS CORNERS). I'll take 6 yds eveyrtime.

We don't have to many well coached teams in the district I'm in. Just alot of teams with athletes who like to just let them play. Since we are a mostly white private school and everyone knows we don't have alot of speed they just play man and usually pretty tight. We run, ALOT so they put 8 in the box and play man with a single deep. We formation our way around alot of what we get. We will put our TB in the slot and motion him back in and run the sweep. We will also leave the TB in the slot and run sweep with the QB. Formations and motions are our best friend.

We run a whole series based on the old Green Bay Sweep at the HS level. We run it out of split backs as a handoff, and we also run it out of "I" and offset as a toss play. It is certainly not dead as far as we are concerned. We get great productivity out of this play.

Of course, we also run a ton of isos and hitches too!

Each play serves a different strategic purpose either in exploiting or manipulating the defense.

I do think it is true, however, that HS coaches are unfortunately prone to go with the "flavor of the year" rather than develop their own system and tweak it as necessary. A few years ago, you couldn't wade through all the wing-t teams in our state. Then, we had a ton of Double Wing teams. Now everyone's either moving back to the pro-I or they are running the spread. We've run the same base 2-back based offense for over 15 years. The core terminology is always the same, the blocking fundamentals and rules are generally the same, etc. The differences are only in adjustments and FOCUS every season.

For example, we ran a lot of 3 WR looks last season, at least more than we ever had before. That was because we really only had one good TE, and he also played DE on defense. So, we wanted to get him off the field for a series or two each half on offense. We also had the state's fastest player (an overused term, but legit in this case) who had been an all-state WR as a junior. So, this last season, we moved him to TB, but in the 3 WR set, we'd always have him line up on the single receiver side and sub another TB in. This helped us either get 1-on-1 coverage with him, OR they would move an extra defender out of the box to help with him and we could execute our run game very simply. Several years prior to that, we had 2 very good TE's and not a lot of good WR's, so we ran the same system, but we were primarily in 2 TE looks. In 2003, we had 2 bruising TB's who could get good yardage all by themselves, so we ran more 1 back, 1 TE looks. We also installed the Fly Sweep because we had a couple of burners at Z.

But the point is, we didn't change our entire offense. Last season, when we knew we really only had 1 TE, we didn't say "well, we better get into 4 WR and run the Utah Spread Option." When we had 2 very good TE's, we didn't say, "well, we better get into the straight-T and the Double Wing." I don't think it's healthy at the HS level to change offenses so frequently. It sends a bad message to your kids, and it sends a poor message to the feeder programs in your town who are trying to help you. Consistency breeds winners.

One of the worst teams in terms of W-L record in our state has done the following since 1998:

1998: Wing T
1999: Wing T and Pro-I (changed mid-season)
2000: I-Option and Single Back
2001: Split Backs and 5 Wide Gun (changed mid-season)
2002: Double Wing
2003: Double Wing
2004: Wing-T
2005: Pro-I
2006: Shotgun Spread Option

Three of the most consistenly successful teams in the state have done just the opposite since 1998:

Team 1: Only non-playoff year in that stretch was 1999, and they won the last 2 division championships, and were undefeated in 2006. They also won 4 straight championships prior to that stretch, from 1991 to 1994, 2 of those years they were undefeated.
WING T EVERY YEAR

Team 2: Only non-playoff year in that stretch was 2004. They have been in the finals every other year in their division. . STRAIGHT T EVERY YEAR

Team 3: Won 5 Championships in thier division in 6 years. Only non-playoff year was 1998. PRO I EVERY YEAR

Team 4: Winner of the last 3 championships in OUR division, undefeated in 2004 and 2005: VEER OPTION EVERY YEAR

Now, some might argue, "yeah, well they have the horses so of course they stay in their same offense." That is not necessarily true. When Team 3's coach took over in 1992, they ran PRO I and they didn't win a game, the next season they only won 1 game. But they stayed consistent and achieved success. Team 4 was in a similar situation in the mid-90's.

Another thing about Team 4 is that they may change things up a little every year, such as Wishbone vs. split backs, or 0 TE and 3 WR vs. 2 TE and 1 WR, but they always run their core system.

Sorry, I am off my soapbox now. It was fun though.

GC i understand what you are saying about getting to the perimeter. I unfortunatly don't have control over what we run or when we run it. We really only have one run that gets us to the perimeter and that would be our toss play which is essentially outside zone. My HC (who calls plays) hardly ever called toss this year b/c he didn't feel our TB had the speed and wasn't a "breakaway" runner. We will however run the occasional T bubble out of an ace formation

Right, and they do. Then he wonders why we can't run G and trap

We run the sweep A LOT. It has been our most called play the past four years. It is the base running play in our offense. We combine it with Power, Inside Zone, Iso, and Outside Veer. We run out of multiple formations and backfield sets. For every game plan, we come up with at least three formations/set from which to run the sweep.

I agree with the other posters: the most important thing is to have an offensive system that you believe in and can adjust. This system should have at least one run and one pass that you can hang your hat on. The rest of the offense should complement those base plays.

Just my two-cents worth!

Coach:

If you have a problem running ISO's with 170 pound linemen, the Packer (Lombardi) Sweep would be even more problematic. While the ISO puts the FB on the ILB, the Packer Sweep assigns him to the PS DE- that is a 4-3 Pro DE, i.e. a 5-technique.

But if you have FB who can handle that, a TE who can handle his man block, a Center who can reach PS on the DT or MLB, Guards who are agile enough to pull and block DBs, and are able to leave the BS DE and LB unblocked, it can work.

As others have alluded to here, there are other, simpler ways to get outside. BTW. like the Buck Sweep the Lombardi Sweep also expected to hit off-tackle.