Football is Life: Simple Sprintout Passing for the Flexbone Offense-Part II

What better compliment than beans n' cornbread?!

As with any good play in football, there should be a compliment. Just like the old fashioned trap is to the buck sweep, there must be some compliment to go with a play or it's defense will become simplistic. Thereby I introduce to you the throwback concept and the sprint draw from the Flexbone offense! These two plays compliment the sprintout passing game nicely and take very little time to install. If you haven't read the first part of the article, please go here immediately!!!! Just kidding, but let's look closer at the two counterparts mentioned above and see what we can find out!

"And this is my counterpart...R2D2..."

The Throwback Concept
This concept is one I've rarely seen, but is easily executed and can really get a defense on its heels. To simplify, as in the first article, the route concept was called, but then tagged with the term throwback. What this did was simply tell everyone to run the route concept called, except for the inside slot in our trips formation (we only ran it out of this set by the way). The line and fullback (FB) blocked identical to the play being a sprintout play (again you can read that in the previous article). The inside slot, would delay as usual, and then would run a shallow, lazy drag, back against the grain of the sprintout play. What we had him to was look for the open area in the defense, or basically where the "void" was presented and settle there. Sometimes this could be on the line of scrimmage (LOS) or as much as 5 yards down field. We tried not to have him cross the center if possible, but the coaching concept here was simple. "Get to the hole and sit down, look for the ball". The quarterback (QB) would take his normal steps, but upon clearing the tackle box, he would then set his feet and deliver the ball to the open slot. On the backside of the protection, the backside guard (BSG) and backside tackle (BST) would invite their defender's up field, and club them by as they released outside after a 2 count. They would then count 2 more times and turn upfield with the BST looking to wall the corner, who had hopefully chased the backside crossing route, and the BSG would wall any remaining second or third level defender to show. We told the slot to catch the football and work opposite of the direction of the sprintout play.

Sprintout was a top play for us, so when we ran this, the linebackers (LB's) and defensive backs (DB's) had all gotten in to drops and angles that took them in the direction of the sprintout, thereby voiding the backside hook to curl area. This is where we were able to exploit their over pursuit to the sprintout. Is it a difficult throw, yes, but the good thing is, the receiver is generally wide open. We even found that he would be open vs. man to man coverage because the man coverage defender would lose the slot when the slot did his delay block. A very effective weapon when utilizing the sprintout pass game!

Ahh...the throwback...

The Sprint Draw
The Sprint Draw is nothing new in terms of football, and especially sprintout passing. Both Navy and Georgia Tech utilize the Sprint Draw in their arsenals as the bulk of their passing game lies in the sprintout concept. The concept is very simple, the offensive line (OL) would execute turn back protection as normal. The FB would arc block and either seal his defender down inside, or kick him out to the sideline, depending on the defender's angle of attack. The playside slot back (PSSB) would not delay block, however, he would simply block the C gap defender. What we told our guys was if you ended up engaging a man, then take him deep as you would on turn back or hinge protection. If you ended up free, then settle for a two-count, and then climb to LB level and start picking off defenders working second to third level. The receivers actually ran their normal route concepts. The QB would execute his sprintout technique, but once he cleared the tackle box, he tucked the football and was we simply put it..."run to daylight"! This play was very effective cutting back through the front side B gap and then hitting the defense in the back door where the flat/force player had vacated due to the play looking like sprintout.