Split Field Coverage Concept - The Underneath Players

What's underneath there???

I get a lot of questions about this topic, especially regarding TCU's Blue coverage and how they deal with crossers.  Now, I've not heard it from the man himself, but from what I've watched on film and broken down, here is what I've come to find out.  To first illustrate, we need to look at how traditional zone coverages, that are not split field in nature deal with crossing routes.

Traditional Zone
In a traditional zone, much like in basketball, routes get passed off to other defenders when the run through a zone.  In the early years, if you were to have run with the receiver after he passed through your zone, you surely were getting yelled at as a player.  The idea behind zone is that all eyes are on the football and that in an attempt to minimize spacing, you pass routes off to one another.  This works good in basketball where things work on a much tighter scale, however in football, OC's found out that there was just too much ground for a traditional zone player to have to work with to effectively control passing concepts by simply passing one receiver from zone to zone. This "passing off" is where many zone coverages fail and it's for two major reasons.  Reason one, is sheer athleticism.  Most underneath zone guys are linebackers or inverted safeties who are not as fleet of foot as their cornerback counterparts, yet they are still having to cover receivers within their zones.  As the spread has evolved, instead of the number two receiver being a tight end or a running back, he's now a slot receiver, which makes this match up that more lopsided in the offenses favor.  Secondly as offenses have advanced through the years, passing concepts have become more and more advanced, and are using this "passing off" technique against the defense by overloading zones with multiple crossers and/or high lowing a zone AND adding a crosser.  These two factors are the single most important reason to pattern read in my opinion.  That's for another post however...

Anyhow, in traditional zone, if a hook to curl defender expands to his landmark and gets a receiver coming into his zone, he runs with him, until something makes him stop.  Now this can be the edge of zone, or another receiver entering his zone.  A lot of people call this passing the route and looking for work.  In the beginning of pure zone coverage concepts, I'm sure this was the bees knees, however as offenses have figured this out, the stress put on these underneath coverage guys by both horizontal and vertical stretches have become so great, most folks are not using any "pure zone" concepts anymore (if you are, please proceed to the nearest mental hospital, put on one of their fancy white coats and stay awhile).  With two speedy receivers crossing in a linebackers zone, or high-lowing his zone, the idea that you ask him to split the two and rally was a good answer in the beginning, but as QB coaching has progressed, even in high school football there are kids who can fit the ball into the tightest of windows.  So now you get pattern reading.  But how does pattern reading and the split field concept tie together?  Let's take a look.

Reading...you're doing it wrong!

Pattern Reading
I would venture a guess that ALL major college football defenses pattern read.  I'm sure there are a few that still use some landmark drops, but most are now at least using a progression type read, reading from two to one, or one to two and so on.  Other pattern read schemes have very definitive rules, such as "all of number two vertical and out", which gives a clear cut picture of what the defender is doing.  This pattern match principle can be easily seen on display every Saturday afternoon in the fall.  Pattern matching is not really all that new either, but it's refinement is what's really taking pattern matching to new heights here lately.  Anyhow, what I really like about pattern matching is the definitive answer to reacting to what a receiver or offensive player is doing.  This leaves very little gray area for the defender to have to deal with.  Gray areas are what force your players to play slow, because it makes them think. Now many of those that argue against pattern matching, don't really understand the concept and just how concrete it is.  It's the best of both worlds is what it really is.  It's zone in nature, which means we have all 11 eyes on the football at the snap of the football, helping immensely with stopping our opponent's run game.  Secondly it's man in nature in that once the man trigger has been pulled by the defender, he simply covers the receiver man to man.  We all know that man is one of the simplest coverages out there, so all you are really doing, when pattern reading, is giving qualifiers to man coverage.  Anyhow, I could go on for days here, but even in pattern matching, defenders can still pass off routes to other defenders.  In Saban's Mable adjustment to trips, if there are two crossers, the inside linebackers will pass them off to one another, they do not run with them man necessarily, even though their base rule would say to do so.  This can lead to some confusion though and lead to open receivers.  It can also allow the offense to use this passing off feature against the defense, much like offenses exploited it back when it was still a pure zone concept.  So how does the split field concept alleviate the stress put on a defense by crossing receivers?

Split Field and Crossing Receivers
Now I'm speaking of how TCU's split field concept works and what makes it so solid, I'm sure there's plenty of split field coaches out there that will disagree with this approach, however the TCU scheme is by far the BEST I've seen for dealing with crossing routes.  Let's set up a two-by-two set up playing Blue to both sides (though TCU does not do this, we could simply say playing quarters to both side etc.).  Anyhow, does not matter where the read side is, just keep in mind what the underneath players are doing.  Let's look at the following concept (similar to the levels concept) out of the two-by-two formation shown below.

The corner to the away side has to honor the vertical of one to help the weak safety get over the top, so the out will inevitably be open, however the Mike, is the slice player so he will exit 90 degrees in an attempt to undercut this route.  Now, if the read side linebacker (Sam in my illustration), passes off the shallow crosser, the QB can have a field day!  Here's where the man trigger of pattern matching comes into place.

As we can see from the illustrations, if the read side linebacker passes the crosser off, there's a large void and an open area for that receiver to sit down in.  If he runs with the crosser, which he should, then this window is immediately closed.  Also, from the illustrations, you can see there are still elements of pure zone coverage as look at the strong safety, who sees two go inside and knows now I look to work under number one's route.  He is, in effect, "passing off" the crosser to the inside linebacker, which as stated above, is a pure zone concept.

Now, the other beauty of the way TCU plays things, is that behind everything they do, there is a "common sense rule".  Which basically means, "don't do anything stupid".  For instance, one would say, "What about mesh coach?".  This is a valid question, since now you have two crossers and as we all know (or should know), crossers can severely damage man coverage, ESPECIALLY when they cross.  Here's where the common sense rule comes into play though.

The two linebackers will communicate to each other on the crossing routes and come off and switch.  Here the switch makes sense because Mesh attempts to beat the tar out of man coverage with these crossing routes.  Had the two defenders stayed locked in man a natural rub would occur and one defender, or both, could be compromised, thereby leaving a receiver open.

The Weakness
Much of the questions I get on the subject of underneath coverage defenders has to do when one of these defenders is assigned to the vertical of a certain position.  For instance, in Blue, the read side linebacker is the middle hook dropper and will have all of number three vertical.  This scares the hell out of folks, because they are not accustomed to having their linebacker run with any vertical threat.  This is not a big deal IF you've done your scouting homework.  I once faced an OC in that would get in stacked twins, two-by-two look with the receivers out on the top of the numbers and would run the running back vertical down the seam because he knew we were running quarters.  They had a major down and distance tendency for doing this, and had a damn good running back who could catch as good as any receiver on their team.  When we saw this look, or expected it, we simply rolled into good ol' country cover 3.  They ran fade/hitch with the other receivers which cover 3 took care of nicely.  The safety would roll to the MOF and we ended up picking off that route once and breaking up another to where they quit running it.  My point is, don't make one coverage fit everything.  That would be like you waking up in the morning, trying to find an outfit for the office that would also look good for your job interview that afternoon and be comfortable enough at your son's Little League game later than night.  CHANGE YOUR FRICKEN' CLOTHES DUDE!!!  C'mon, don't ask one coverage to cover everything, I mean that's what everybody supposedly loves about cover 3 is that it aligns to everything.  BIG DEAL, it covers NOTHING, so why use it?  If you know a team likes to do a particularly thing you need to have an answer for that.  It may mean another coverage, it may mean tweaking what you have, but Lord knows, whatever you do, don't just "hope" your linebacker can run with their back if he can't.

We have found a weakness!

The other thing I get, is coaches saying "Well that's just man, I don't like my linebackers to play man".  Well why not?  I mean, the best way to see man to man coverage, is to go to a playground and watch kids playing tag or a pickup game of football.  If you watch, there will be mismatches everywhere, hell that's LIFE.  But watch closely and time up the time that the kids begin to run or chase the other kid and the time that one either separates or closes the gap between the other.  You will see this time will be around three to five seconds.  Sound familiar?  Any kid can run with a receiver for three to five seconds, anywhere on the field.  This is not a major issue in my book, and I always roll my eyes at that question, but go check it out for yourself.  The other thing to remember is that 75 percent of pass defense is pass rush.  So if your guys can run with their guys for three to five seconds, you need to be able to apply pressure in that same amount of time.  That, my friends is EXACTLY how good pass defense works.

The face of your pass defense.

To me, the major weakness of the underneath coverage in the split field concept is communication.  If communication is missed it can lead to open receivers or defenders running into each other.  It is imperative that you, as the coach, make sure that your players know not only why they should communicate, but how to effectively communicate.  I worked for a guy that used to have underneath guys yell "crosser" when a receiver would cross in front of them and leave their zone.  I always wondered why, because trying saying the word "crosser" with a mouthpiece in.  I came to him one day, and said "Why don't we just say in, instead of crosser?  It's shorter and easier to say than crosser."  He looked at me, as though he'd never thought of that, which to find out, he hadn't and we immediately changed that and our communication with our underneath players got much better.  These are the things that you, the coach, can do to facilitate your players and help them be successful implementing the underneath coverage in a pattern read scheme.

Conclusion
The underneath coverage  in the split field concept is not as tricky as folks make it out to be, especially if you build communication into your system and a set of fail-safe rules.  I always tell folks, using the word "always" in building your rules is a bad thing, because good OC's find out your "always" and then exploit it.  Keep your rules open and flexible as possible to allow for your players to adapt to what they are seeing.  Just as in the example above, both the inside linebacker's man keys were triggered, but because of communication and common sense (which should be ingrained in how you coach the coverage to your players) these players knew what was coming and were able to adjust.

Always...not "always" a good word...

Duece

Setting the Record Straight

I was talking with a very knowledgeable colleague yesterday and had some things dawn on me about this blog.  As everybody knows, I had a recent meltdown where I got frustrated with some things and basically shut everything down.  Well, I've cooled my heels since then, been keeping my nose to the grindstone, heavily studying TCU's defense and writing my book on the flexbone offense.  This is why my posts have been few and far between lately.  I have some things on the horizon that may get me back into the high school game.  I'm not 100 percent sure of it yet, but hopefully with a little luck, I will be back to coaching on Friday nights.

Anyhow, back to the reason for this post.  My colleague, who is extremely knowledgeable about the game of football, has pointed out some glaring flaws in my blog with some of my posts, especially those about TCU's defense.  Now this flaw is that I have reported in a manner that would leave folks to believe that I was sitting in Gary Patterson's office taking dictation.  This was not my intent.  When I first started looking into the TCU defense, it's manner of divorced front and coverage, split field concept and the pro-style play calling, I did what a LOT of coaches do with college schemes.  I took it and tried to mold it to what "I'd always done".  So instead of an eight word call for Tite Tank Tank S-Dogs B Silver, I made that into Boston Dogs to shorten the call and turn it into a concept call instead of using the pro-style method.  So in those regards, a lot of that stuff was my adaptation of TCU's principles.  My colleague pointed out that this can, and has been misleading.  Not my intent whatsoever.

Also, some things have been PURE mistakes, which I'm not afraid to admit.  It doesn't mean that what I wrote was necessarily bad or you shouldn't use it, it's just maybe not EXACTLY like TCU does it.  The reason for this is because all I had in front of me was clinic notes, the 57 page playbook most TCU gurus have in their library, and some game film.  Well, I sat down to digest this stuff, because I wanted to install the 4-2-5, but I molded it into "my defense" with my terminology.  Looking at film, it's easy to see where Blue, and Robber look so much alike.  One clear mistake I made is to make the statement that TCU plays Blue coverage to both sides.  Having done further homework, I have been shown that this is actually not the case. They rarely if EVER play Blue to both sides.  However, I do, and have done it this way, because I like Blue better than their cover 2.  My posts on the matter have been a bit misleading in that they are really my interpretation of what teams are doing based on studying.  You have to realize, using this information can come with a price (remember this shit's free, so you get what you pay for).  Again, doesn't mean it's wrong, but if you are arguing with a GA from TCU you COULD undoubtedly look like an idiot.

What I did when I started out with this blog is to try and study the game and put things into terms and perspectives that the high school football coach could use at that level.  I never meant for this to be a blog where I simply reported what teams did verbatim.  I don't have the money or the resources to fly all over the country and clinic with all these staffs to figure all this out.  I, like many of you, am DVR'ing every game I can on Saturday's and then breaking these films down in the off season, studying them and reporting my findings.  Do I misinterpret things?  Yes, hell I'm human too.  The thing of it, is I'm not too proud to admit that I've made a mistake, and here's the correct answer.

Lastly, a LOT of the stuff on here is stuff I have run or friends have run and shared with me that has been successful.  The Two Gap One Gap (TGOG) stuff is something I did YEARS ago BY ACCIDENT.  I wasn't sitting around being a mad scientist in a lab figuring this shit out, I was a quarters coach, trying to figure out how to contain this new generation of running QB's using a pirate stunt when both OLB's in the 4-3 were walked out on number two in a two-by-two set.  We simply stumbled on the principle and a friend of mine actually learned how Iowa does it, and uses it to this day with tremendous success.  The same thing goes for a lot of the stuff I've posted on here (the 8-2-1 kickoff return, the BOSS blitz, the zone read stunts etc.) are all things I've had a hand in using or developing that have helped coaches and I wanted to share them with you.

The frustrating part is the coaches that email and act like I sold them something with a warranty.  Dude, I'm not Sears and you just bought a set of Craftsman wrenches and had one break.  I'm not going to rush right over and help you, if I'm busy doing other things.  This was the major reason I shut the blog down, and the major reason I'm writing this post today.  Now, for those that haven't done this, don't worry, I plan to keep blogging as I feel it's a great outlet, but I want the blog to be special, because since I've started it seems every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks they should start a blog too.  Good for them, but I want to do things that set me apart from the crowd.  I'm going to keep writing about things I learn, or do, or develop, from MY perspective and not try and mislead folks that, this is HOW somebody else runs something that in all honesty I haven't heard from the "horse's mouth".  I hope that will clear some things up, and keep folks happy, and yes I plan on getting back into blogging once things settle down a bit.  So have no fear, Football is Life will still be around, just maybe not as many posts as your used to, so please be patient.

For those fixing to start spring ball, I'm hoping and praying I'm among your ranks here soon.  Lord knows I miss those Friday Night Lights!!!

Duece

University of Nebraska Linebackers Clinic

I had the opportunity, back in December to watch the University of Nebraska practice for their bowl game against the University of Georgia Bulldogs.  After that practice, the coaches held a small breakout session that was quite informative.  Since I've been a LB's coach over the past 3 seasons, I figured I'd go check out their LB's coach and see what he had to say.  Needless to say it was a very informative session, and here are my notes from the clinic.  Hopefully you can find some good information in this stuff like I did.  If you are interested in their defensive backs, Coach Hoover went and listened to their DB coach speak, and you can check out his post on the matter here.

Linebackers

·         Tackling Progression

o   start from scratch

·         8 Drill Categories

o   Agility

§  General footwork

§  Types of game movements

·         Duplicate and repeat game movements

o   Watch film to see how to do this (never lies)

·         Make players bored with your drills

§  Quick Box

·         Align a 5 yard box with LB's facing coach.  LB approaches and coach points to cone, LB must get to cone, and then react to coach's next signal. 

·         Great change of direction drill with constant movement

§  10 Dots

·         Align dots or cones in a series and have LB's try to get through them as fast as possible

§  Flip Hips

·         Use a line and stay on that line

o   LB must sprint

o   Don't make drill predictable

§  45 Degree Break

·         LB drops away from you and reacts to your pointer

·         LB should break and open hips when you change the pointer

·         If the LB jogs, then simply make him keep running until he gets the idea

o   Footwork

§  1st step is based on the RB's movement

§  They take a lateral step and replace

§  They move with that shuffle until something declares

§  Shuffle Drill

·         10 yards

·         LB's shuffle between yard markers (1 yard), back and forth staying between the tick marks (use dummies)

§  Shuffle Break Drill

·         Same as shuffle drill, but at the end make them break and intercept a pass, or scoop and score

§  Shuffle with bags

·         Good drill with high reps

·         1st LB on command shuffles to end of 1st dummy and reacts to coaches command to either go forward (sprint to the next dummy), or break and cross over to the opposite side.

·         Once 1st LB goes, 2nd LB aligns on same side as the 1st LB on 1st dummy.  Both will then react to the coach's command.

·         The 3rd LB will then repeat what the 2nd LB did, so that you don't have guys standing around waiting on 1 guy to do the drill.

§  Leverage

·         Don't give a RB a 2 way go

·         Set 1st cone 3 yards deep and 2nd cone 5 yards deep

·         Put RB between the 2 cones

·         LB aligns on deeper cone

·         RB will run to shallow cone and can either cut upfield or cut back (no juking)

·         If RB cuts back, LB makes good physical tackle

·         If RB cuts upfield, then LB must flatten and run feet, driving like crazy as he has no leverage.

o   Drill is done to prevent the cutback

§  Double Leverage Drill

·         Same as leverage but now with 2 LB's

o   Double the work

o   Same reactions for both LB's

§  Space

·         LB aligns on hash and WR on top of #'s

·         Coach throws ball to WR (can just make motion if you can't throw-better this way b/c WR doesn't have to catch the ball)

o   If you don't throw it, have coach hold WR for a second to mimic game speed on fast screen

·         LB attacks landmark and does not allow WR to cutback (similar to leverage drill but done in a much larger space)

·         WR goal to get 10 yards, LB goal to stop him from getting 10 yards

§  Shuffle-Alley-Shuffle

·         RB starts out jogging down yardline, and will alternate between jogging and sprinting (you can control with whistle if need be)

·         LB should shuffle when RB jogs (don't give up the cutback, backside leverage) and sprint with shoulders square when RB sprints

·         RB has 2 way go after 3 or 4 reps and can cut back or try and out run the LB

o   Vs. cutback LB makes tackle, Vs. run away LB runs feet and makes leverage tackle (combo of leverage drills)

o   Blocks

§  Shock the blocker (head and hands)

§  Shock and then get off

§  Keep it competitive

§  Shock sled

·         Sled they have they use in early season and off-season

§  Shock drill (vs. a man)

·         Set up OL and LB with LB in a shade in one direction or the other

·         LB/OL should be the same distance apart as they are in a game

·         Have OL execute a scoop or zone block, LB should attack (shock) the blocker and then get by with a push-pull move (doesn't care to rip, only after push-pull does he tell his guys to duck their arm under)

·         Set up a cone to either side that the LB/OL cannot go outside of

·         LB should shock the OL, release and then burst upfield

·         Can do this drill in multiple groups

o   Tackling

§  Leverage drill

§  3 yard box

·         RB on 1 end, LB on the other of the 3 yard box

·         On command RB will move lateral between cones, while LB shuffles to mirror him

·         On command, RB attacks LB head up (no juking) and LB must make a face-up tackle and drive legs

o   Similar to "mirror drill"

§  Low Tackle

·         Tackler wants his body at the center of gravity of the ballcarrier

·         Step on the RB's toes

·         Wrap and twist once contact made

o   Wrap dummy, land on dummy and then roll completely over

o   Pass rush

§  Attack the middle of the RB & flip hips to get by

§  LB should slap RB hands down as he's flipping the hips

§  Can create this using a standup dummy and have LB blitz the dummy, slap at the dummy and flip hips to get around the dummy

·         Once clear of the dummy LB should accelerate

·         Can also do this drill to imitate a blitzer coming off the edge

o   Play on Ball

§  Teaches the strip

·         "Start the lawnmower"

o   Many kids nowadays not familiar with lawnmower tech

§  Key is to lift elbow and punch the ball downward

·         Only done when ballcarrier is secured

§  Can add scoop and score to any agility drill

§  Play on Ball

·         Reach with long arm, knock ball down and turn back to QB

o   Make them do the drill 1-armed -no pass interference

§  Put their near hand in their pants to do this

·         Reads

o   They key RB's, because when you focus on something further away you can see more than focusing on something that is close

§  OL can give false keys

o   If LB's having a tough time reading, vary their depth off the ball

o   Make their first step lateral, then have keys that make them attack downhill

§  "Slow til' you know"

§  All their drills are shuffle and read

§  This depends on the leverage of the LB too

·         This also depends on what your opponents run

o   They see a ton of inside/outside zone