Maddog Football Spot

Ways to Attack Defensive Ends

2011-04-05T13:44:00.000-04:00

The following video is extremely helpful when trying to decide how to attack athletic defensive ends. As you can see in the video, DEs can be blocked or optioned many different ways. The key, I believe, is to keep them guessing so that they cannot tee off from the edge.

http://vimeo.com/21975358

Cripes! Get back to fundamentals...: Beginning & End Of Everything You Need To Know About Football...

2010-06-29T11:11:00.001-04:00

I took the liberty of linking this post from Brophy's blog because I believe it should be seen by as many players and coaches as possible. Enjoy.

Cripes! Get back to fundamentals...: Beginning & End Of Everything You Need To Know About Football...

Summer Schedule

2010-06-01T08:37:00.001-04:00

Hopefully this works. This is a link to my google calendar that has the summer outlined. If you have any questions, you can pose them here in the comments section, or send me an email.

http://www.google.com/calendar/renderOnline

Bulldog Off-season Weight Training

2010-02-23T09:15:00.000-05:00

As promised, the three day weight lifting program is below. I know many of you have customized workouts that you would like to stick with and that is fine, however I would like to have a copy of those workouts and I may suggest some additional lifts.

See you in the gym.

http://www.scribd.com/full/27330410?access_key=key-ldx4084n6asjw4qmc1x

Off-season Conditioning

2010-02-19T08:36:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder to all student athletes that the weight room is open every day after school from 2:00-4:00 pm. For those students interested in starting a weight lifting program, please stop in and I'd be happy to assist in designing a program that's best for you and your goals.

I will attach a copy of the MAMHS off-season football workout soon. This is a three day weight lifting workout (Mon-Wed-Fri) that is supplemented with plyometrics, agilities and medicine ball workouts on Tues-Thurs.

I've also included a link to a short video on proper power clean form.

See you in the gym.

Optimizing the Option Offense: The Importance of QB Play in the Pistol Spread

2009-12-16T14:49:00.003-05:00

The following article was written by Scott Franzose, QB/DB coach at Madison Area Memorial High School. --Matt Friedman

"The heartbeat of a football team is the quarterback position and I think everyone who has any intelligence about the game understands you must have consistency at that position to be a championship team."
-Ron Jaworski

Football is a team sport. It takes 11 men executing on the field to enjoy success. But most coordinators will agree: the offense often lives and dies with quarterback play.

Any QB in any offensive system needs to perform fundamentally to succeed: improving throwing mechanics, increasing arm strength, proper footwork and timing, defensive pre-snap reads, and learning offensive plays, concepts and systems. All are integral in becoming a great quarterback. However, in the Veer/Option offense, the QB must become a duality: a throwing QB can make us good, but a dual threat at the quarterback position can make us dynamic.

But before any quarterback can succeed in our offense, he must first understand our philosophy, and that begins with the Option concept. My playing days in Madison were strongly rooted in Veer football, and throughout my years of competition and coaching, I've fielded numerous questions and concerns regarding option football.

So why do we make Veer the focal point of our offense? First, the option is the best way to get the ball on the perimeter. Not only can we attack sideline to sideline, spread the defense and force them to play assignment football, but when the defense spreads to contain the option, the inside running game (Iso, Power) now becomes explosive. The option also neutralizes dominant defensive players, forcing them to defend the option with every play and remain disciplined. Even more, option football controls random blitzing: one wrong stunt by the defense could lead to an easy six points for our offense. And option offense helps the passing game dramatically. The option often dictates defense and makes secondary coverage predictable.

You can see why an Option/Veer approach to offense is an attractive system for coaching winning football. But just "running the option" sometimes isn't good enough; it also involves designing successful systems from option football and how you run it. Coach Friedman has well explained our philosophy on Pistol Spread Option offense. Now let me tell you why the Pistol Spread optimizes option football and exactly why QB play is what truly drives this offense.

The Pistol set puts the quarterback four yards deep. This lets the QB see the defense better. He is now more easily capable of reading secondary coverage and flat defenders, and most importantly in our system, it allows him to better read the EMLOS, the primary Veer/Option read. Instead of reading close to the line of scrimmage through traffic, we put our offense at an immediate advantage by allowing the QB to see the defense better.

The Pistol puts the H back six yards deep. This allows two things to happen: the QB now "meshes" with the H back almost instantaneously, and the mesh happens deep in the backfield and away from the LOS. The QB now has more time and depth to read the EMLOS, and the H back has more depth and time to read the running lanes. This also puts our backfield at a distinct advantage over the defense.

The Spread formation puts the slots (F/Z) "in space." Instead of a traditional Split Veer backfield--where the pitch back must sprint through the backfield, to the perimeter and into pitch relationship--the Spread allows the slot backs free release into space and spreads out our option attack. The more field we cover as an offense, the more field the defense must now defend.

The Pistol gives us better attack angles to "Option Alley." The following diagrams show traditional Split Veer v. Pistol Spread Veer:

As the diagrams show, the Pistol Spread not only helps make option football successful.....it gives it the full potential to become truly dynamic.

Most important to running this successful and explosive offense: We must commit to option philosophy and commit practice time to it--not only in-season, but during the offseason as well. And that is where our quarterbacks really enter into the equation.

The following diagram outlines some teaching points and highlights of our option mentality:

You can see where our QB play, more importantly than any other position, really drives this offense. Our QBs must not only possess the mechanics and physical skills needed at the position, but they must also make the proper reads and sound decisions needed to make this offense run. They must commit to becoming a true "dual threat" in order to make the triple option veer successful.

"Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck."
-Don Shula

Coach Shula makes a good point in his tongue-in-cheek way. But in our offense here at Madison, luck means little.....and execution means everything. Every quarterback at every level needs to firmly root themselves in Veer philosophy and learn what we expect at the position. They need to be working hard in the offseason not only on strength and speed conditioning, but learning the offense cold and how we use the Veer as our "bread-and-butter" play. They need to turn themselves into fundamentally-sound passers as well as ultimate weapons in our run game by learning their reads and how to attack the defense from multiple option angles. They need to be smart, sound and dedicated to improvement in order to help develop the offense into an explosive system.

With this type of committed approach to option football, we'll be able to make our own luck.

Adding Power to the Pistol

2009-12-02T17:45:00.013-05:00

While I stand by the option aspect of our offense as a truly dangerous weapon that is extremely difficult to defend, I do concede that a couple man-type blocking scheme runs can really add some pop to this, or any offense. Last season we ran iso with pretty good success. We plan to add power to our arsenal this coming season so that we have multiple man scheme runs to bolster our option attack. Iso is shown below.

Power should be an easy addition as the blocking for the line is identical to our shovel option with one major exception. Instead of leaving the playside EMLOS uncovered and pitching (or shoveling) off his movement, we will make a kick-out block on this defender by a tight end or a lead back.

The backfield motion will look like veer first, then read or trap with the H back starting in one direction, then bending back after receiving the hand-off. We will leave the backside EMLOS unblocked and will watch his reaction from the sideline. The backside slot will run the bubble route just like on veer and read and if we get an EMLOS that chases the H back down the LOS, we will have the Q pull the football and either run, or throw the bubble. The following diagram shows H Power from Spread.

As you can see from the diagram, even though we a running a more traditional man blocking scheme, we still have two backside defenders that we do not have to block. Both the BSDE and the backside OLB are left to make critical decisions that will affect who will ultimately carry the ball for us.

We can add another dimension to this play by adding jet motion. Not only does this present problems for the defense as to what part of the field must be defended, it also gives us another blocker. In the following diagram, the F back fakes jet sweep then turns into the c-gap and looks to block the playside OLB, who will most likely be fast-flowing outside to intercept the set sweep. In addition, the jet motion should widen the PSDE making Y's block more effective. Q can still keep if the BSDE chases, but he no longer has the bubble option so he should be sure that this is the right decision.

I've added a link that shows Power being run a number of different ways. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PQdKJhZFwI

The Pistol Spread Option Offense: Why we run it

2009-11-18T08:54:00.008-05:00

Since I got the Head coaching job here and installed this offense I've fielded numerous questions as to why I chose this offense. I decided to make my inaugural post my explanation for this question and why I think that the offense will help us maximize our potential down the road.

For starters, I cut my teeth in coaching running the flexbone from under center. We had moderate success running mostly man blocking schemes, or showing triple option, but making the call for the QB as to who would carry the football. We were very good running iso, power, dive and counter, but we lacked any explosiveness and the passing game was merely an afterthought.

The next season I moved up to the Offensive Coordinator role as we had a head coaching change. We worked hard to diversify the flexbone offense. We added a whole new passing attack based upon the work of Andrew Coverdale and Dan Robinson, and we also installed a "true" triple option with the QB making the reads. We also added some shotgun formations. This is where the light bulb went on in my head.

From the shotgun we were able to run all of the plays that were successful from under center and some became even more successful. Jet sweep took on a whole new dimension and our passing attack flourished. We added Mr. Tony Demeo's version of triple and "flip" option that same season and we were off. The next three seasons we had one of the most prolific offenses in class C West football.

For personal reasons I took a three year hiatus from coaching, but I never stopped learning the game. Through the wonders of the Internet and the coaching fraternity that flourishes on here, I was able to look at what we did during those years at Jay High School and try to find more concepts and packages that could potentially fit into an offense that I would bring to my next position.

In the spring of 2009 I interviewed and was named the Head Football Coach here at Madison Area Memorial High School. During my interview I presented my version of the shotgun spread offense as we ran it over the years at Jay. I was still looking for a new wrinkle though. I found it when I ordered the videos on the "Potomac" offense, developed by Anthony Pratley.

Once again, a figurative light went off in my head. Here was a shotgun based offense that featured the option (both veer and zone read) and a downhill running game. My old shotgun formations were easily altered to fit this system and my passing game (which I really like and feel comfortable with) did not change at all. I had found my offense.

The Basics

The Pistol Spread Option Offense revolves around the veer. As you can see from the diagram below, the veer is a "triple option" with a twist. Since there is often no second back to be the "pitch" man, we have the slot to the play side run a bubble screen behind the stalk block of the outside receiver. The QB first reads the EMLOS (end man on line of scrimmage) for the give/pull read to the "H" back. If he gets a "pull" read, he then attacks the force defender who is put in a tremendous bind. This player's responsibility on pass plays is generally the flat (where our slot receiver has run his bubble route), but he is also often the player assigned with attacking the QB on option. So if the force player attacks the QB, the QB makes a quick throw to the slot who has remained behind the los. Alternately, if the force player runs with the slot to the flat the QB should have a nice lane to get up the field. The following diagram illustrates this.
Many coaches and players have asked me, "can't you do the same thing from traditional shotgun formations?" My answer is yes, but the added advantage of having the H back directly behind the QB is that you do not tip the defense as to which side you are going to run. As you can see from the diagram, we can run H veer either right or left. Also, the next play in the series is what truly aids in the defensive confusion.

On veer the QB is reading the play side EMLOS in order to determine whether to give or pull, but on the Read play, while everything looks like veer, we are going to read the backside EMLOS. Everything looks the same as veer, but the H back will plant his outside foot after taking a hand off or being faked to, and he will cut back in the other direction. This counter type action gets the linebackers taking a wrong step (hopefully) so that they find themselves in a trailing position from the start of the play. The diagram is below.
There are many other factors that eventually led me to choose this unique offensive system, but the two base plays, their simplicity in execution, yet their complexity to opposing defenses and the ability to retain my established passing concepts ultimately sealed the deal for me.

I will show more of our version of the Pistol Spread Option Offense in later posts. I hope this first attempt to explain our offense will be of interest to some out there.