Help with run scheme

Hey Buddy,

How did your season go?

We had planned on going a lot more one-back at the onset of this season than we ended up with (we actually went much more 2 back than we had in 2003.). The initial plan was to go inside and outside zone, run an inside trap, a quick G trap, a draw, and a toss sweep. We had a very good RB that could have gotten it done, but the plan never materialized.

The thing about the single back (and when I say single back, I don't mean having a FB and a couple of WB's on the flank, I mean truly 1 RB is in the game and everyone else is TE or WR) is that you really do need a good group of receivers to make it happen. It really doesn't do much for you to deploy a bunch of non-athletes and expect the defense to spread the field. We really only had 2 good receivers this past season, so we stayed with a standard 2 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR look.

Really, zone blocking is not all that complicated. We have also been (as you know) a man blocking team for some time. But, we are forced to run combos a lot because of all the shading and stunting we see to stop our run game. Inside zone is really just a vertical combo, which we've been running for years, we just never called it or thought of it as "zone". It's really just a vertical push between two adjacent offensive linemen on a first level defender onto a second level defender.

What we HAVE found is that the single back shotgun running game is a bit more potent because your QB is now a possible ballcarrier as well. Unfortunately our QB is not exactly the fleetest of foot (great arm and ball handling skills, but not exactly Mike Vick) so it wasn't a huge weapon for us.

We pretty much stuck with the Belly Series this season. Even our Iso / Lead stuff was not as effective. It's probably a matter of personnel. We had the best run blocking TE I've ever had, and we had a 6'3 270 lb OT who is also a Track and Basketball athlete, so the C gap was a nice place for us to run. We ran a lot of variations off of it. We looped our Z back inside C-gap on what we call a "zap" block and this was very effective. We also put our X SE out on the same side as our Y and Z. If we put the Z in the slot, that would force a SS or invert type out to cover him, and we'd get that extra guy out of the box.

Let me know how things are.

Lochness - We had a disappointing end to our season and finished 7-2. It was rough. Anyway... We do use zone ideas in our lead, trap, and power game, so I guess you're right there.
We will have 2 very good running QBs the next 3 years and some good receivers. We will have good backs, but I feel like we will need to be very diverse and really spread the field to win in a very tough district. We had a very good throwing QB this season, and I think it will be tough for our future QBs to have the type of passing ability he had, but the future guys are great athletes and could be very solid passers themselves. One of these guys is very explosive - a special player, so I like the idea of going 1 back gun like you said and still running our base running plays to the QB. In your opinion, is it easier for a smaller QB to pass from the gun or not?
I guess it sounds like what we're doing is fine and we should consider the 1 back gun, and just run the QB? Kind of scary to have your QB running much, but we've got 2 anyway, right?
How did your season end up? Did you end up running the belly as a midline option? I sometimes think we do too many other things to really reap the benefits of the double dive.