AFM Subscribers Ask...with Glenn Caruso

by: Glen Caruso
Head Coach, Macalaster College
© More from this issue

          
Macalester College’s football program began a new era on December 16, 2005 when the college named Glenn Caruso its new football coach. In his previous position as offensive coordinator at South Dakota, Caruso directed an offense that set 117 school records including points scored and total yardage. In 2005, the Coyotes went 9-2 while averaging 49.7 points and 583 yards per game. Last fall, in his first season as Macalester’s head coach, the Scots produced their two highest single-game, total yardage games in school history. The staple of both the USD and now Macalester offense is the Pass Action Run: a concept to soften up defenses at the snap by giving them a pass key first in order to run the ball directly at them. The Scots averaged 8.3 yards per carry every time this play was called last year. Coach Caruso recently completed a series of videos on the Pass Action Run, stress values, and practice and game planning and are available at AFMvideos.com. He answers your questions on the Pass Action Run...

Q. How do you package the Pass Action Run with specific running plays? David Buchanan, Head Coach, Mason County High School, Maysville, KY. AFM subscriber since 2004.

The answer is twofold. There may be games we go into where the defensive scheme of our opponent may be more prone to cover their pass area of responsibility; that is, when we roll out or when we show a three-step drop or when we’re in the shotgun. We’ll use those same pass actions we find across our whole offense. So, if it’s a team that’s going to go to the flat on a three-step quarterback drop, we’ll use the hitch action for four or five different running plays. That is, hitch with counter, hitch with draw, hitch with power and hitch with counter draw. Or, we may say we can run a trap vs. this defense and that it’s been successful. What are the ways I can increase reps that are hurtful against this particular defense? We don’t want to give the same exact feel to the play each time it’s run so that the linebacker can’t fill it all the time? We might say I don’t want to run this play but I might run it three times as a base of the pass action or run it three more times as a base of another pass action. I can then get the 8-9-10 reps I need in order to be successful without lining up each time the same exact way. Most of it is done through proper preparation in watching the game film we get. We figure out what those trigger points are that force a defense to react to something other than their gap responsibility.

Q. How did you figure this offense out? What was the major reason that led you to the Pass Action Run? Dave Nelson, Head Coach, Minnetonka High School (MN). AFM subscriber since 1995.

Initially, it was done because I was getting frustrated with an unblocked defender making plays. We tried it a few times in practice because when we lined up we had teams trying to run weak side to the multiple receiver side. They would start creeping that alley player in after our check; that is, whether we were going to run weakside or throw the ball. So, I told the quarterback to just call the running play and I told the receivers just to run the pass play and you – the quarterback – make a decision what to do with the snap. So, it doesn’t matter when the alley player starts creeping in. Two or three practices later that kind of morphed into the Pass Action Run. I told the quarterback to pretend that you’re throwing even though you’re going to hand it off. And that’s where it started. Then we asked, what is this? What are we really looking at? And then we began to expand the philosophy of the Pass Action Run.

If you look at the Pass Action Run through history, it’s been fleeting at best. There has always been a Statue of Liberty type play that you run once in awhile. There has always been some kind of fake throw and reverse but it’s fleeting and considered some part of a gimmick to your offense. But it’s not. It can be a very legitimate part of your offense if it’s used simply, efficiently and effectively within your scheme. We spent countless hours trying to figure out a play action pass game that looks and feels exactly like the run game to soften defenses and threaten leverage. Then we thought why don’t we do the exact opposite and develop a legitimate pass action run game that looks and feels like the pass game. It does the same thing – soften defenses and threaten leverage. And that’s how we came up with it.

Q. When you face a team and then compete against them later in the year or the following season, what problems does that present? Carson Walch, Co-offensive Coordinator/Wide Receivers Coach, Winona State University (MN). AFM subscriber since 2007.

This is an extremely legitimate question. Something that’s new to football is usually met with some cynicism that says it will work part of the time but won’t have staying power. If it had staying power, it would have been a part of history over the last 140 years. That’s not necessarily so. I’m not talking about the Pass Action Run being used against poorly coached players. We want to use it against well coached players. So, I’m hoping their coach is telling them to buzz the flat when you see an action or get out and cover the bubble or whatever it might be. But what we’ve realized is that we’ve taken some of the coaching out of the player because there are some actions that are ingrained when you are eight years old and playing on the sandlot. So, when you see the QB holding the ball and pumping it a certain way your attention goes that way – even if you don’t actually run over that way. That is just something that is instinctive because it’s the football itself that scores in offensive football and not the person. It’s the football crossing the goal line. Our attention has always been acutely attached to the football itself so that reaction becomes instinctive.

When we face the same team twice in one year or year after year, the Pass Action Run has still worked very well. That’s because it’s trained not so much on our opponent’s coaching staff but on the players’ instinctive ability to defend the football. We’ve had just as much success or even more so in year two against the same team as we’ve had the first time. One caveat, though, to that is to always be looking for new ways to use your Pass Action Run game whether it’s switching up the run plays you’re using with the pass actions or developing new ones. We have six or seven base pass actions that we use throughout a game. I’m sure within your coach’s office you’ll be able to come up with more and I’d be very interested to hear some of your innovative creations.

NEW BOOK!

Digital Download - 304 Pages of Football Forms for the Winning Coach