Stemming the DL

From my days as an O Line coach I have always believed in stemming the D Line. We play a 4 man front as a base. If you are not going to be a multiple front team and you stem to the same alignment everytime there is no point in stemming.

We stem or stunt every down. We designate one of the tackles to make a stem call. The other D Linemen stem off of his call. We just simply say stem. The 1 Tech's initial alignment is head up on the Center. The 3 Tech's initial alignment is head up on the Strong Side Guard. The Ends initial alignment is head up on the Tackle or Tight End.

On the Stem call they will then move from there based on the front call. We do not use numbers but are old fashioned and use names. However, our Tackles calls are different from our Ends calls and I then match up the calls to make sure we are sound. We try to stem as late as possible but if we are getting quick counted we will stem as the QB gets under center. If we get caught stemming at the snap we just stunt to our gap.

Also, when we stunt we will stay head up(we still make a stem call because tackles could be stunting and Ends stemming and vice-versa) and execute our stunt tech from there.

There are a lot of ways to get this done but this gives us a specific plan rather than telling the players to stem on their own.

Coach Williams

If you have 7 in the box stem the front is the saying that i know alot of people go by. Its better to stem the front post snap then pre tho. If you move them pre snap linemen can still make advantage calls and their is no real benifit to it. You want to have the "pen" last so stem the front post snap, show them a natural hole or bubble and then take it away. Thats always been my philosophy.