Calling Best Option On The Line of Scrimmage

Patrick Montgomery

When it comes to preparing for midline and veer teams as a defensive coordinator it is extremely difficult to prepare for during one week of practice and preparation. For one, it is extremely hard to replicate in practice because our players are not completely comfortable with the rules and do not run it with the same speed and execution. It also is so physically demanding on your players. It is hard to replicate what they are actually going to see and experience during the game. In only a week’s time, it is hard to get our players prepared for the physicality that they are going to experience during the game. We created our defense to defend the spread teams because that is what we see 9 out of the 10 weeks of the season so it is hard to implement new rules on defense or completely change schemes in one week’s time to match up against an option team. In my opinion, the offense has the advantage every time they come up to the line of scrimmage. In the games in which I have coached against an option team, they have an advantage because of their ability to check at the line to a better call to match what they defense is giving them. This means, as a defense, we have to guess right with movement or stemming our front late to change the look or play simple and base the whole game and try to make the other team earn it the whole way down the field.



The quarterback has the ability to check the midline call to either side when he gets to the line of scrimmage because he wants to run it at the 3. A lot of times a team will simply call in to the huddle “midline check” as they play call because they want the qb to get up to the line and once the line is set make the call to the 3 tech and run midline at him. If he does not have a 3 tech he can look for the 2 and run midline at them as well. The qb also has a check call when veer is called because he wants to run that at the 5 technique and to have no invert on the side he is running it to, so usually away from the tight end. The other option the qb has is to check to the load option if there is no outside invert outside of the TE or if the defense is giving really wide ends in 6i or 7 techs with outside inverts. All of these options allow the qb to put the offense in the best situation possible. It also makes it difficult for the defense to key in on a certain area or sit in a certain front. If the front is consistently the same, then the offense will continue to run the same variation of play over and over again for positive yardage. This offense is also great to use in hurry up situations after you bust a big run and the defense is trying to get a call in from the sideline and you can line up and make a call or read and continue to put pressure on the defense.



This offense works really well if you have a quarterback who is physical and smart. We changed our offense one year, when I first started coaching, to a midline and veer offense because we had an athletic and smart quarterback who handled the ball really well. We wanted the ball in his hands making plays and we were loaded at running back and fullback. This allowed us to get the ball in our best players’ hands consistently. You also cannot have a quarterback that is greedy and constantly wants to keep the ball or go for the pitch because it has big play capabilities. Your qb has to understand that the right read is keeping the offense on track getting 3 to 4 yards a pop and they cannot put the offense in long yardage situations.



I believe that this offense still has the capability of being extremely effective, as we have seen lately in college football with Navy and Army. It makes sense these teams have had success with it because it demands discipline and execution - something that is engrained in those young men. It also puts a lot of pressure on a defense to prepare for something that is uncommon and causes them to be assignment sound and great tacklers. I think you still see high schools use this offense very effectively because their players have run the system consistently over the years. They know the read rules and the lineman understand playing low with leverage and how to get to the second level. I know that this is an offense I never look forward to preparing for because of the multiple looks that they can give you and the motions that they can use to get the defense in the front because they want to have success against it.