Choosing a defense

Coach... Others may disagree with this, but it was successful for me. I ran a defense that had a seven man front and four defensive backs. The front seven had different fronts, you can make them as simple as possible (just make sure each player has a gap responsibility). I primarily played (except in obvious passing situations) a deep cover two with safeties splitting the field and two corners playing flats close to the line of scrimmage. With the two corners playing flats and PLAYING THE RUN FIRST, you actually have 9 players playing the run. You must teach your safeties to only come up after the ball has crossed the line of scrimmage, not to get caught in a trick play. Your corners are good athletes and tacklers and tell your safeties they are interception machines.

I hope this helps.

Coach, we had success with the 44 about 6 years ago. We had 2 stud DT's and one stud in a 7 tech. After that, we became a 52 team. Our only success was when we went straight man and sent the house while moving the front around. We played head up on the TE and never let him get to the lb. We will not have a lineman over 210 this year. We can score, but stopping people will be an adventure. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Run the 3-3-5.... you can get into lots of different looks and do lots of different things.