Melting Pot-The 46 Nickel and Nickel Tracer

Mmmm...bringing heat...that's tasty!

For those that don't already know, I'm a junior high defensive coordinator (DC) now, and I have found this job to be quite challenging.  I am coaching a team that a good 80 to 85 percent have never seen a football field, much less know what the "A" gap is, or a strong safety is.  So, the quest for keeping it simple has been paramount in my quest to have a good defense.  However, this has led to us being very "vanilla" and only being able to run 1 coverage and a few stunts in our first two games.  Then...it dawned on me!  I was rereading some of my older posts and came across this one on the University of Florida's Nickel Tracer blitz.  I got to looking, and the light went off in my head!  What's funny about this story is how I came about meshing these two defensive ideas, and so I thought I'd share.

Now I'm not trying to be "innovative" or cutting edge here, I'm just a guy trying to bring some pressure and get a bunch of kids to have a little fun.  I'm a big believer that your punt return unit should be your starting defense, possibly minus one player you sub in for a good returner.  Anyhow, so I put in our punt return/block team about three weeks ago and we've done fairly well with it.  We call the front "Bronco" and we use colors to described what we want to do with it.  Red is return, and basically we block the man we align over and the returner picks a lane and runs with it.  Blue is block left and brown is block right.  I'm not going to go much further than that, but I will show you the alignment.  As you can see, we keep the standard Bear 3, 0, 3 up front.  The Mike and Whip safety will walk up over the offensive tackles to their side in a four technique.  Our Sam and Rush linebackers maintain their one yard outside the EMOL, standard Bear alignment.  The free safety will walk down and stack right behind the nose.  We jump in to it right before the snap so the punt team has no clue who to pick up, or if we are even coming yet or not.  We haven't blocked one yet, but we've been VERY close a couple of times.




Bronco alignment


Anyhow, like I was saying, the other day I was figuring out what blitzes I wanted to install and was having a hard time picking what I wanted to do.  I wanted something to get everybody involved, as about two weeks ago we put in the "single" blitzes (most Bear guys know what these are, but basically they are one LB or one safety blitzing a called gap) and have only been able to get one of these installed.  Anyhow, I wanted something simple, and I wanted something that we could easily get in to, with very little adjustments.  Then it hit me...Nickel Tracer!

The Tracer blitz (or "Fire" as we call it), is very simple (you can go here to read more about how UF did it).  Basically if you have a man to cover, cover him.  If you don't, or your man is in the backfield...blitz.  Now that's the kind of simplicity I need.  So, I lined us up exactly the way we rush punts and all the pieces fell in to place.  Let's look at the basic alignment and then go from there and talk about adjustments.

So, vs. the standard pro set we get our 3, 0, 3 alignment, with both the Mike and Whip (weak safety) in four techniques.  The Spur (strong safety) is in his standard seven technique alignment and is covering the tight end (TE) man to man.  The Sam and Rush LB's are in their base alignment and are "peel rushing".  The peel rush for us is to rush at the near shoulder of the near back and if he attempts to release on a pass route, cover him man to man.  The FS will walk down and stack right behind the nose.  Now we call our version of the blitz strong or weak to tell the Nose where to go.  The FS will blitz the opposite A gap of the Nose.  The defensive ends (DE's) will rush their assigned gap and the Mike and Whip bull rush the offensive tackles and take the C gap.  I have them bull rush so they can't kick out on our OLB's.  The corners will cover the number one receiver to their side respectively.  If you read the old post on the Tracer blitz you will see the running backs (RB's) are handled by the peel coverage of the outside rushers and the inside rushers will grab and run with any RB they encounter on their way to the QB.  The simplicity of the blitz, is that we utilize all our standard adjustments that we do out of our normal Bear front.  Again, this goes back to the basis of the Tracer blitz, if you are covering, cover, if not, rush.  Very simple.  Now let's look at some of these standard adjustments and how they effect the blitz.




Bronco front vs. Pro Alignment





Fire with a "weak" call.

 Twins and twin open sets are a breeze.  Against twins we just get in our "flip" alignment (corners over) and everybody aligns and gets after it.  Both receivers and the TE are accounted for and the offense has eight potential blockers and we are sending eight.  Pro sets are not the best to run the blitz against because the numbers are even (eight on eight), however at my level of play, you find that the FS in the A gap is almost NEVER picked up.  Since he's our best tackler, he gets a lot of tackles for a loss in this scheme.

Looking at 11 personnel, we see that vs. the Ace set, both the strong and weak safeties must play the 7 techniques to their side and cover the TE man to man.  The Mike can still rush, as can the FS.  This allows us to bring seven to the offenses six, so the defense still wins.  When they go 2x2 with one of the receivers being a slot, then the weak safety moves out to cover him, just as he would in our regular Bear front (I know some of you use the Jayhawk adjustment vs. this look, I however do not).  Again, this keeps the rules and adjustments simple.  When they go Trey or Trips closed, the opposite corner must come over and cover the remaining receiver that's left over, still allowing the blitz to outnumber the offense.

Now on to 10 personnel.  Against the 2x2 looks both the weak safety and the strong safety go out to cover the number two receiver to their respective sides.  This puts the defense rushing seven to the offenses six potential blockers.  If the offense moves into a 3x1 look, then the weak safety moves over and covers the number three receiver to the trips side. 

Empty poses a little adjustment that you have to work on, but it is nothing major.  In my standard cover one scheme, when we get empty we check to cover 0 anyway, so that's not a big issue.  The FS will follow his rule by covering the number three receiver to the strong side.  The only thing different is he tells the Mike LB "I'm gone" and this puts the Mike back where the FS was and the Mike replaces the FS in the blitz scheme.  Again, the defense is sending six to the offenses five, so the numbers do not lie. 

The key portion to this blitz is to show it, and back out at the last minute.  In our last game, I ran the blitz six times and ran the show look nine times.  The last defensive play of the game was an interception by our FS when they tried to hit a slot in the seam because they saw no FS back deep.  The offense even audibled at the line to change the play to four verticals because of the pre snap look we gave them.  I have our guys go ahead and show the blitz and then bail out at the snap and just play our standard 46 front with cover 1 behind it.  As you can see, this is a blitz that echoes the "simplicity through multiplicity" theory in football (thanks to Coach Tony DeMeo for that line). 

Like I said, not trying to toot my own horn, but I thought I would share this with some of the 46 coaches that have emailed me here recently to show you a very good way to get pressure that is easy and simple to install.  I literally installed this blitz in a ten minute classroom setting and a 20 minute on the field presentation (this was with both the starters and the backups).  I hope this helps someone in the future, it is a very good blitz scheme that's very simple to install.  Good luck!

Duece

If you want to know all about the TCU defense...

...then go here!  Brophy has some excellent links and video clips on Gary Patterson (head coach TCU for those that don't know) breaking it down in clinic videos and film review.  This is as "in-depth" a view as you can find available to coaches today, so don't miss out.  These videos are exactly how I learned the nuances of the 4-2-5 defense.  Great post Brophy!




Thanks Brophy!


After spending an entire day re-living 9/11, I am proud to say that I'm an American and that WE WILL NEVER FORGET!!!!

Duece

Why I do What I do

Today was one of the best moments I've ever had in the game of football.  No, we didn't win, nor did we lose.  There were no championship trophies hoisted in the air, or the sounds of fans screaming their heads off in the stands.  No, today, I was visited by some players I coached last year, and in one way, shape, or another, I was told "thank you for what you do coach".  I know this is an odd blog post, but I will digress some so you can understand.

Eight months ago a majority of the high school staff I was on, was basically run off.  The "higher ups" had decided we weren't good enough and didn't want to hear anything we had to say about what we needed to do to right the ship, so they kicked us to the curb.  One of these guys was a guy that was my offensive line coach when I played in high school.  This man had dedicated over twenty years of his life to the game of football in this small town in south Florida.  He was now basically exiled and never told why he was let go.  Twenty years of anything is a lot of time, but twenty years of football in this town, can be detrimental to your health.  Nonetheless this past summer when the local junior high head football coaching position opened up, he jumped at the chance.  Changing not only his coaching position of the last twenty years, but even his job.  The first guy he asked to go with him, was me, and I did.  I haven't looked back, as I've not wanted to.  The high school has been in a shambles with a young rookie coach, making tons of rookie mistakes, and numbers waining in the forties for an entire JV and varsity.  It has been a town divided over the past few months, even though I really don't think many people give a rat's ass about football here.  Anyhow, I've tried to ignore all the talk, and the kids have lit my phone and Facebook pages up over the past few months wondering how I was doing, what I was doing etc.  This as been nice, because as a coach you always wonder if you are making an impact.  Well, today showed just that. 

We don't have very good practice facilities at our junior high, but we make do.  The head coach decided that today we would load the kids on a bus and take them down to the high school and practice on a field with lines and hashes so we could learn to line up.  I had been reluctant about the idea the entire time, but I never said anything because I knew our players would enjoy the change in scenery.  Well, we were teaching them our pre-game warm-up routine, as we play this upcoming Thursday night, and that's when it happened.  I looked up to see some of the high school players climbing the fence around the practice field.  They were there to watch Saturday films, and had seen us practicing so they came over and hopped the fence.  It was as if the world stopped turning.  Hugs and tears were abound as we exchanged greetings and "how are you doings" and talked about last nights game.  To some, it might not mean much, but for what some of us have been through in such a close-knit community, to have this happen is actually a blessing.  The head coach resumed practice, but the players hung around, even after the time when they were supposed to be at their meeting.  Coach then talked to our players, and showed them, that our goal as their coaches was to get them ready to play high school football and turn around this dismal program.  He talked about the love of the game and the love of the fellow man, and it could not have been any more of a surreal experience. 

I don't write posts like this, as I'm not an emotional guy, neither is my buddy (the head coach), but both of us were moved by this wonderful moment today and I just had to share.  This is why I coach.  I haven't won in so long I've forgotten what it even feels like, however I won today.  Today was a victory, and one nobody can take away, even though there is no record of it, and there never was a scoreboard.  Today was what you work so hard for, and yet talk about very rarely.  Everyone talks about championships and trophies and winning state, but today, I got my biggest victory of all.  Most of all, I got reminded why I coach this wonderful game...the game they call football.

To those kids that showed up today and hugged my neck and shared a tear with us, I thank you.  From the bottom of my heart I thank you so much.  You will never, ever know just how much that meant to me today.  You've given me a new lease on coaching, and rekindled a flame that had almost gone out, and for that I'm forever indebted to you.  To the coaches that read my blog, never forget why you're there.  You're there to make a difference, to be a mentor, to love, to teach, and to hold dear the young men who's lives you touch.  Never lose sight of that, and no matter the wins and losses, you'll always be a winner in my book...

Duece