Defending the Power Run game out of 40 front

Hey coach

I had planned on wrong arming everything going into last season as well, but quickly found out that we didnt have the athletes to do it (I am a 34 guy, and two kids who I thought would be able to handle getting spilled to didnt take to it well). I quickly realized that I had to go back to contain principles.

The point being that in my opinion, you can always wrong arm with the interior guys, but if your spill to players are slower and less athletic then the team running the ball, you are going to have a hard time. You can start coming up with some bonus players to either side (like a secondary spill player in addition to your first) but that may put some coverage holes in your scheme and could be tough on play action.

Good luck

Allisojh:

is this your base?

having your 2 ILB's in a 40i and 10 tech what are their initial line reads?

do you have issues with weakside counter?

This is our base 31 Robber/1 front.

The entire line is taught to bend with their visual key.

7 tech's visual key is the outside hip of the OT
3 tech's visual key is the outside hip of the OG.
5 tech's visaul key is the outside hip of the OT

1 tech is a penetrator, he is just kicking ass trying to get depth and go for the Qb's ankle's, cut off any pulling guard, etc... We tell him to create as much havoc as possible. I LOVE A SMALL FAST SOB here. I put the hyperest kid I have here. Kids fight to play our Nose, we pump it up pretty much too.

We teach the line to BEND with any veer, pull scheme they see as they "get off".
We teach the backers to fill any opening and scrape if the see linemen pulling or veer blocking.

EVERYTHING is being spilled to the two OLB's and the FS.

Mike and Buc backers are two gap players and read FB to line keys. Buc is a D/A player, flow to him he fills strong D, flow away he fills Strong A. Downhill flow he hits Strong A if he can BUT if he goes to D, Mike is taught to fill Strong A when the FB flows away from him. Mike is a B/A player, flow to him he fills weak B, flow away he fills strong A.

To answer your question... if they block it with a veer or pull scheme = No.

If they base block it... like a double dive = FB hits strong A, I-back hits weak B and the line just base blocks.... YES. The simple Double Dive with base blocking (OT blocks 7 tech, OG blocks 3 tech, OG blocks 1 tech, and OT blocks 5 tech, FB dives Strong A, IB dives Weak B) That is the only "counter" that does cause us to SLOW DOWN our kids. Easy fix is to move the backers into 30 techs and tell them to read the LINE keys FIRST. We also move into our "22 stack" look. We put the two tackles in 2 techs and stack the backers and have the two tackles just shoot A or B and the backers play the other gaps. Easy fix and we run it a bunch against I-type teams

I will say this... I-back offenses that see our MIKE hammering Strong A with the FB read, they will counter with DD and just base block it. Kids are kids and they get watching the FB too much at times. Its probably the ONLY play I am searching for when stydying film and when we play the game. If we see it, we can start to adjust.

WHENEVER we see a POWER or I type team, we work this into the script EVEN if they never ran it. I will also really tighten the Weakside End to try to close off the weak B because of the "potential" of Mike getting caught. If we can get the counter to bounce off the edge, the olb and FS are out there untouched.

But... the line should disrupt Power, counter, etc... by reacting to their visual key's movement off the ball.

I say "SHOULD". Kids are kids.

Short and well said on sound DE run responsibility, Coach Mountjoy. The only other thing I'm always stressing to my DE's is to keep their shoulders parallel to the LOS.