Disciplined Destruction

Analyzing Furman\'s 4-3 Defense
by: Steve Wilson
Defensive Coordinator, Furman University
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We have been fortunate to have many really good defenses at Furman over the past 20 years and that system has evolved from what use to be the 50 Defense to what we now call our Stack Defense. This is not the only defense that we run but it is our primary system and what we start teaching with. Like most schools it is our primary objective to stop the run first and then the pass. We do have some consistent goals that we would like to accomplish every week and then some we try to establish from week to week depending on what type of team that we play.

Our constant goals are these:
• Beat opponent
• Allow less than 13 points
• No mental errors
• No pre-snap or post-play penalties
• No big plays: A rush of more than 15 yards; a pass completion of more than 24 yards
• Allow no points in the 4th quarter
• Absolutely no loafs
• Win the physical battle

Our weekly goals (goals that vary from week to week according to the opponents offensive scheme and past performances) are set to help us win this particular game:

• Yards/Rush
• Yards/Pass
• Minimum of takeaways
• Percentage of pass attempts

We will come up with these from week to week as a coaching staff. We set our defense according to the tight end and make our call to him. Our rush end, junk tackle, and Sam backer go to the call and our bandit, noseguard, and Willie LB (we call him Dealer) go away from the call. The Mike LB lines up in the middle shaded slightly toward the called A gap.

An example of our alignment and call will be given here: For us we would call Eagle Stack 2 Float-3.

Diagram 1.

Here is our alignment versus a Pro Set:

As you can see from Diagram A our rush end is shaded in a 9 technique on the tight end and our junk tackle in a 3 technique on the guard. The noseguard and the bandit are shaded away from the Y call on the center and the bandit in a 5 technique on the tackle. The Sam backer is approximately 5 yards in depth lined up on the inside shoulder of the tight end in C gap. The Mike LB is 5 yards in depth shaded slightly to strong side A gap, and the dealer is 5 yards deep lined up in B gap stacked behind the bandit. We have a two receiver corner and a one receiver corner. The Strong Safety goes to the two-receiver side and the free safety goes to the one-receiver side. The corners are 6 yards deep and about 1 yard inside the receivers in their alignment and the SS is 10-12 deep and 2-3 yards outside the tight end but never more than a yard outside the hash. The FS is 10-12 yards deep and splitting the difference between the offensive tackle and split end but never more than a yard outside the hash. Our coverage call is 2 float-3, meaning that we would play Cover 3 to a twins or trips formation with a backside tight end. Otherwise, we would be in some type of Cover 2. So we could look like this (Diagram 2) in our alignment verses twins or trips with the same call. You will notice our y call would have been the same and the same people go to they and away from the y as before. We play our second coverage called because of the twins and trips formation.

Diagram 2A.

Diagram 2B.

Our responsibilities in our 4-3 are as follows: The rush end and bandit are shaded outside in their technique because we teach them not to get reached by the offensive man. Their outside foot is back and they are in a three point stance with their outside hand back. They are reading the outside pad of the offensive tackle or tight end and attacking the outside shoulder. If the TE or OT try to reach them they maintain their outside position and do not let them reach them. They also want to control the line of scrimmage and not let the offensive man get movement on them. This is the first block we start our teaching with on the bandit and rush end. They are not to get reached on a run block. Then we would go the down block where they again would attack the shoulder pad of the offensive lineman squeezing him down to keep him off the LB. On a down block the rush end and the bandit then expect either a guard pulling on them or a fullback trying to kick them out. In this scenario, we try to teach them to wrong arm that guard or fullback and try to make the bounce out. (See Diagram 3A.-3D.)

Diagram 3A. Diagram 3B.

Diagram 3C.

Diagram 3D.

By alignment we feel like the rush end and the bandit should never get reached. If they get a pass set by the offensive tackle, they are always outside in rushers and have contain responsibility. If they get flow away from them then they physical trail 1 yard past the line of scrimmage to check for reverses.

The nose guard and the junk tackle are also shaded in the gap responsibilities that they are responsible for. We teach them they cannot get reached, we also teach them by alignment according to their shades. The nose guard and junk tackle see different blocks than the two outside guys and we want them to be attack oriented. They line up with their inside feet back on the shoulder of the offensive lineman and attack aggressively the offensive lineman’s shoulder pad with their hat and hands making sure they are lower than he is. One block that both would see would be the double team. We want them to dig in aggressively and try to hip in to the offensive lineman with their outside hip maintaining their gap responsibilities! We also work very hard with our junk tackle on the down block and then wrong-arming the pulling guard on the trap scheme. We want the tackle to really squeeze down hard with the guard and then look either for the fullback to tackle or the pulling guard coming to trap him. He should attack that pulling guard and midline him with his opposite shoulder and arm making it tough to trap him.

Diagram 4.

Our linebacker’s responsibility depends on the run flow on the backs. We normally read the I-backfield or the nearest back if the formation happens to be some type of split backs. As a general responsibility in our 4-3 defense, we tell the Sam Linebacker that he is a C gap player first. We tell the Mike Linebacker that he is an A gap player first and the Dealer that he is a B gap player first. (See Diagram 4.)

Diagram 4.

We tell them that these are their primary gaps but at the same time they have to be able to determine flow and run to the football according to the flow of the backs. We start our teaching from the I-formation and progress from there. We want them to understand also if there is the possibility of a bendback or cutback on flow away from them. Out of the I-formation we start teaching them with hard flow, fast flow, and a dive-pitch read. Examples of these will be given in Diagram 5:

Diagram 5.

In this example you can see that the Sam backer has hard flow coming right at him. We want him to step up hard and fast to take on the fullback with his inside pad and forearm through the C gap maintaining outside leverage. The Mike backer should run upfield inside out on the fullback to make the play on the tailback. He needs to be aggressive playing up field and not lateral. The Dealer reads this as hard flow away from him with a threat of bendback so he wants to attack the B gap with his left pad and make sure that there is no bendback before he runs to the ball.

We also want to show them hard flow at the Dealer. An example of this is given in Diagram 6:

Diagram 6.

In this example we want the Dealer to step up hard with two-back hard flow right at him. He should take the fullback on low and tough with his inside shoulder and forearm and try to make the play cutback into the Mike and Sam backers. The Mike backer now attacks inside out to the B gap weak side even though his primary responsibility is his A gap. The Sam backer sees hard flow away from him now so he attacks the A gap his side keeping his shoulders square and ready for the cutback towards him. So even though the Sam backer is a C gap player, he does not need to waste himself when flow goes away from him obviously.

The next flow that we would progress to would be fast flow by the two backs: We will begin with fast flow to the Sam backer: 7

Diagram 7

We teach our rush end not to get reached remember. On this flow we want the Sam backer coming up field through the C gap to the football. He should take the play on with his inside shoulder as aggressively as possible. He is aware that help should be coming from the Mike backer and the strong safety and that the rush end should cut it back in to him if he is playing his responsibility correctly. The Mike backer should run inside out to the football, playing up field and through the face of any offensive linemen keeping his pads as square as possible. The Dealer’s mindset is a little bit different because the flow is definite fast flow away from him. If he is able to see linemen downfield, then we definitely want him pursuing the football to help make the play late if it were to break through. We also want the dealer to realize on fast flow away from him that there is a real threat of a bootleg back to him. We try to make him aware of this by seeing or feeling whether linemen are downfield or not. The opposite would occur if this were fast flow to the Dealer. We would teach the Dealer and Sam basically the same way.

The next read that we would progress to would be the dive-pitch read and this is because we see so much of this read against our offense and others in the Southern Conference. We also feel that this is a good way to continue teaching our 4-3 read concepts. An example of dive-pitch to the Sam backer will be given in Diagram 8.

Diagram 8.

The Sam backer should see the tailback first in his read from the I. He sees this as flow to him so he steps up to attack C gap immediately. If there is an offensive lineman trying to block him, more than likely it will be the offensive tackle. He is to attack him with his inside pad and forearm maintaining outside leverage, C gap, and is a QB player on the option. The Mike backer has an immediately threat to his A gap so he attacks A gap now trying to make the play on the fullback dive. The Dealer sees flow away from him but still has a threat of bendback, so he attacks his B gap area to make sure of no bendback. He then works his way to the football.

We then would cover a dive-pitch to the Dealer. This is shown in Diagram 9:

Diagram 9.

The Dealer is a B gap player primarily but we want him to be able to read this dive-pitch read his side. As he steps up towards B gap, he needs to be able to see whether the hole is open or shut. If he reads the bandit squeeze-down, then he replaces gaps with him taking C gap. This would more than likely put him on QB. However if he sees that hole open up with what we call a clear read, then he steps up and makes the play on the fullback. We work on this read and spend some time on this so that the dealer is able to determine this clear or cloudy read. The Mike backer steps with the fullback inside out to the B gap and the Sam backer steps towards A gap his side making sure that there is no threat of bendback. It is very important as always that their pads are square and down. These are just three of the basic reads that we begin our teaching of the 4-3 defense with for the linebackers.

We generally are going to run some type of Cover 2 shell in our 4-3 defense and usually begin our teaching with a loose cover 2 that we call float. This basically means that our corners are playing a loose cover 2 look and our safeties are support on the run and options. The first thing that all four of the defensive backs have to be able to read is whether the ball is on or off the line of scrimmage and this is a starting point for our teaching. Either corner’s rule is to stay locked on the no. 1 receiver is they get on ball down the line read by the QB. An example of this is given in Diagram 10.

Diagram 10A

Diagram 10B.

They have to stay locked on here because our safeties are support on the option. The free safety on the one receiver side would see ball down the line to him here and immediately come for the pitch. Our strong safety reads ball down the line away from him and works to the play but must first check the No. 2 receiver his side before he goes. He must make sure he is not releasing for pass. The alignment of the defensive backs was given earlier. If the ball was down the line towards the strong side it would be the same for the corners. They would be locked on the No. 1 receiver because it is a down the line read. The strong safety cannot come to support until he checks the No. 2 receiver his side to make sure he is not releasing vertical down the field. If he does, then of course he takes him and our rush end goes to pitch. This is also shown in Diagram 10.

When the ball is off the line, then our defensive backs play our float coverage. The corner on the two-receiver side and the strong safety are always reading the release of the No. 2 receiver and then playing in correspondence with each other. On the one receiver side the free safety and the corner are always playing in correspondence with each other. If the formation is a two back set then this basically turns into a double team situation on the one receiver side. That would be predicated on whether a back came out also. If there is no back out, then the corner on the one receiver side knows that he has help from the free-safety on inside cuts by the receiver.

Steve Wilson
Def. Coordinator/Linebackers

Wilson, who spent 13 seasons as an assistant coach at Furman from 1986-98 prior to moving into the coaching ranks at Gainesville (Ga.) High School, began a second tenure at his alma mater earlier this year as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. In his two seasons as head coach at Gainesville, he directed his squads to a pair of state playoff appearances

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