40 Nickel vs. Trips Part II

I would not automatically scrape the SILB to the shallow flats. I would drop him wider, but not automatically to flat. He should, however, be the force man if the QB rolls that way--keep the OLB in coverage and use your ILB to press the issue with the QB. Other than that, your approach is pretty close to what I've seen and done in the past.

I like to go corner over if they are open on the backside (as oneback does) but prefer to go backer over (both OLBs to trips side) and preserve the integrity of our front.

Coop,

Here is how we teach everything.

Because this is a change up type defense we make it so everyone always lines up in the same place against any formation or strength.

What you are seeing is how we align the kids. We teach right hand side/left hand side personnel.

Here is what we tell the 3 linemen.

Nose shoots to the field/TE. If they are a zone read team we may have him shoot the gap opposite the back to have the back really wind back if he is looking cutback. Its a weekly thing but base is to tell him to shoot to the field or line strength. I don't want to tell a one gap kid all the suddon he is now a 2 gapper and have him attack a head when we always teach attacking 1/2 man.

Tackle/Evil are in 2 pt stances if there no TE and are outside contain rush. Basically I tell them to go hell bent for the QB but not to lose outside contain. If there is a TE the OLB tells the Tackle/Evil to get down into a 3pt stance and play C gap. Feel for the DT with ISO off tackle. They already do this with our 31 defense so there is nothing different. Evil is playing his regular position anyway so there is nothing different with him either.

OLB will rush if there is one receiver removed and will reduce over top of a TE jamming him and playing D gap.

Everything else is Cover 2 or Cover 2 man.

Cover 2 is the same cover 2 for everyone except the backside OLB. He will play in his ususal 31 defense with either playing seam or rushing depending on how many receivers are out his way.

Single width TE sets bumps the Corner/Nickle to the single width set stacking the Tackle/Evil. The other 2 ILB's then stack the nose and the other tackle. It makes a 53 stack look out of it. OLB reduces and attackes the shoulder of the TE. Base 53 defense stuff. BUT.... there is nothing different than we already teach the kids.

ITS REAL EASY. When we first starting using it a few years ago, i was still coaching the JV team and after watching the varsity game friday night I knew I needed to do something a bit different because they ran a lot of empty sets and were sending 5 verts and getting all kind of crazy. We literally installed this on the bus ride over and ran it in the game. The kids loved it, it was simple and no one was out of place. Everyone was covered and the qb was boxed in and they had no answer for it. Yes it was JV... but what I want you to understand is how easy it was to install and run.

I brought it up to Varsity and we've been using it in its exact form since. No problems with anything. Remember... its a change up.

I know you can get intricate with it but we use it as a changeup not a base. There are all kinds of coverages with having all those backers and Db's but it will just confuse us.

Cover 2, 2 man and 4 are used because all the kids are always lined up the same way. I toyed with quarter, quarter, half on the hashes but.... I haven't felt we've been in trouble.

KISS and this is KISS at its finest.

Best of all, Line techs are completely different which screws the offense up a bit and we have 8 in coverage instead of our regular 7.

We use this against pass happy teams. If they are running the hell out of the ball we play our base stuff. We feel our base defense is great against everything.

This is just our changeup Nickel defense.