Steps on outside veer

Lou,

I have always run mine a bit differently than most. We point the ball, not ride it. In the OSV, the QB releases at the 4 o'clock with his playside foot, gathers his opposite foot and DRIVES DIRECTLY DOWN HILL AT THE OUTSIDE LEG OF THE PST, NOT PARALLEL TO THE LOS. IF HIS PATH IS BUBBLED BY PENETRATION HE AVOIDS AND DRIVES RIGHT BACK DOWN HILL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! IT IS IMPERATIVE TO GET A GOOD DOWN HILL SURGE BY THE LINE IN ORDER FOR THE QB TO RUN AT THIS ANGLE. BECAUSE OF THE DISTANCE OF THE EMOL(READ MAN) THE QB IS ALWAYS FORCED TO TAKE EXTRA STEPS IN REACHING THE MESH POINT ON THE OSV. YOUR QB WILL FIND THAT HE IS MUCH CLOSER TO HIS READ THAN IF HE COMES PARALLEL AND HELPS AVOID THAT FUZY READ ALL QBS THAT RUN THE OPTION COME TO HATE. Just my way, but never found a better one that works for us. Critics say that by gathering, you are taking unnecessary time that step would have given you to get closer to the mesh had you ran parallel to the LOS. My contention is to make your QB's feet faster by getting him on the dots and jump rope!

JC

mg,

I do not want my QB taking any kind of stutter step, as I believe that would be counter productive to the momentum of the play. Rather, we drill our Fb incessently on exploding on his path to the mesh point and BEATING THE QB THERE. We set him 4yds. off the ball and will only play a guy at FB who can win this race 99% of the time. I'm sure, on the HS level, you are not always afforded that luxury and have your own methods of compensation, such as the stutter step described above in your post. Just a word of caution about your toying with the idea of changing up from "I" to split backs for varying packages; in a different time period we used to teach defense by recognizing offensive formations, rather than reading keys as is the common practice of today. When breaking film down, I still use it and imo, it is just as effective as it ever was. if you are going to that practice, be sure and throw in enough other things to disguise what you are really trying to accomplish. IMO, there are enough DC's out there who will pick up on the tendency of changing sets to run a particular package. Just a suggestion.

JC