Secondary questions

Coach, I strongly believe in playing corners inside in cover 3. I've fought for it against two different head coaches and I have sold them on this. Now, if the corners are covering the Tight End, Wing, or a Tight Slot, we have them play outside technique.

Lou Cella

Coach,
I also am a firm believer in inside teh for corners on WR's in cover 3. It took some convincing for me to get my HC to try this tech, but I don't think he would go back now. I teach a man turn & tap on the fade route. I think that it takes away the quick inside routes away much better, especially if you don't have a great athlete at safety, and I would rather have my guys playing all fades in man coverage. If you would like to talk to about this more or discuss some blitz packages send me an email. dan_augustine@hotmail.com

when playing man to man coverage and the offense is either in slot or trips formation, how do you avoid your men from getting picked on crossing routes

Using straight man coverage against twins and trips will definately cause problems in covering pick or rub routes.
One way around this is to use a "Banjo" technique to twins. This allows the defenders in man coverage to exchange responsiblities based on the initial releases of the receivers. The inside defender has the man with the furthest inside release.
For trips, use a "Triangle" technique. We use a corner on the outside (about seven yards deep with outside shade), OLB on the inside (about 5 yards deep with inside shade), and the strong safety over the top at about 11 yards. Corner has the first receiver who releases outside, Safety has the first reciever to release deep, and the LB has the receiver who releases the furthest inside.
There are numerous route combinations which can beat these schemes. Hopefully your opponent will only have a few route combinations which you can identify off film study. If you have an opponent that runs a lot of rub routes you will really need to understand how these routes attack the secondary and try to teach it to your players. We're lucky because we do a lot of things out of the bunch formation, so the secondary players understand what the receivers are trying to do. The Banjo and Triangle techniques are really a zone with man technique after the releases

Do any coaches out there feel it is necessary to check cov 3 vs trips or stay in cov 1
Do you like to be in one more than the other

Coach Cella, On open trips do you ever lock man on the backside and play zone to the strength?


Keegan

This is a real good thread dealing with secondary play. There is a lot of good info here for us to use.

Big Chief- We play our corners inside leverage w/cover 3 our alignment is 7x1 (but usually its closer to 5x1 depending on our opponent). Once we have our alignment we turn our feet in at a 45 degree angle facing the qb. We either walk pedal or slide step out. By doing so it opens up the field allowing the corners to see everything. We teach our kids to read what level the qb is going and then we stress route recognition. Against the fade we play it both ways were we will turn into the reciever and run with them and play the reciever to the ball or we will squeeze to the reciever putting him on our butts and forcing him out of bounds if possible.

If the C is lined up over a TE or Wing we play 9x1 outside since we still have our bandit on the outside it basically becomes a cover 2 for them on that side.

Rose- When we go man and they cross we use a "banjo" call and switch men. Only the C can make the call. Now when we play vs trips we look at what they are trying to do and what their alignments are and from there we will run usually 1 of 4 different coverages. If you would like to know more email me. Ill be glad to tell ya what we do. But like Cella said dont let them dictate what you do, there is so much that you can do that you have lots of options.

Keegan- What we do on the backside of a 3x1 is usually solo up with the bandit dropping to the middle to help on #3. Now we will run games on the backside by using brackets and zoning at times but for the most part we lock up.

We use cover 3 as a base coverage but we check out of it to other things quite often. Most of the time we run combo coverages.

I hope this helps some of you. If you have questions please feel free to ask.

Coaches,

When playing cover 1 vs. a pro formation what is the alignment of your corners? We are going to align our corners parallel toe to toe on the inside. No inside release allowed by stepping with outside foot and punching WR inside shoulder. What are your thoughts and suggestion?
Also, in a 4-4 c1 how do you think we should play the TE?

DC

Coaches,

When playing cover 1 vs. a pro formation what is the alignment of your corners? We are going to align our corners parallel toe to toe on the inside. No inside release allowed by stepping with outside foot and punching WR inside shoulder. What are your thoughts and suggestion?
Also, in a 4-4 c1 how do you think we should play the TE?

DC

Coach,

When we run cov 1 against a pro set we can do several things with the corners.

1. Bump and run- we will line up with a slight inside shade and will let the reciever make the first move and then react. ( If you try to punch first the majority of the time you will miss and now are trailing the rec.) If the reciever tries to go inside we wash him down the los. If he tries to release out we we use our inside hand and punch the inside shoulder forcing the reciever wide, once we have turned with him we will then use our hand closest to the reciever and try to stab (punch the outside number) and then split (hit the reciever on the thigh) to reroute him.

2. Man soft - we line up about 5-7 inside ( showing a cov 3 look) and play man from there. Again we try to reroute the reciever.

3. Bail- line up and show bump but bail at the last minute to a soft man.

We teach all three of these tech and will use them at any time. Everyone can play zone but you have to really work your man techniques to be good at them. We will do a one on one period with our recievers at least once a week working our man coverages.

Vs the TE we have our ss cover him. He will cover from his normal position 4x4 If the te releases inside the ss will make a wreck call to alert the lb that he is crossing and will cause a collision. Basically this becomes a banjo between the ss and the lb (ss takes him outside and the lb takes him if he goes inside),

Hope that this helps.
Hit'em Hard