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
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Cripes! Get back to fundamentals...: Beginning & End Of Everything You Need To Know About Football...
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...
Cripes! Get back to fundamentals...: Beginning & End Of Everything You Need To Know About Football...
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Summer Schedule
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
http://www.google.com/calendar/renderOnline
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Bulldog Off-season Weight Training
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
See you in the gym.
http://www.scribd.com/full/27330410?access_key=key-ldx4084n6asjw4qmc1x
Friday, February 19, 2010
Off-season Conditioning
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Optimizing the Option Offense: The Importance of QB Play in the Pistol Spread
The following article was written by Scott Franzose, QB/DB coach at Madison Area Memorial High School. --Matt Friedman
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:
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.
"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.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Adding Power to the Pistol
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.
I've added a link that shows Power being run a number of different ways. Enjoy.
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.
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