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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Mass Confusion

The Air-Raid vs. The 3-5-3
by: David Purdum
© More from this issue

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TALE OF THE TAPE

Texas Tech
New Mexico State

Mike Leach/TTU
Hal Mumme/NMS


Spread Offense


TTU has won 3 straight NCAA passing titles

Mumme’s SLU led Div. I-AA in
total offense and passing in 2004
SCHOOLS

COACHES


SCHEME


POWER STAT


POWER STAT 11

University of Memphis
Georgia Military College

Joe Lee Dunn/UM
Taylor Burks and Rob Manchester/GMC

3-5-3

Tigers’ D went from 57th to 9th in Dunn’s lst year

2003 GMC defense ranked 3rd in the nation
in total defense and 6th in passing defense


Receivers are hooking, slanting, stopping, going and flying all over the field. With gaping splits, the offensive line looks like it stretches from one sideline to the other. Sometimes they huddle; sometimes they don’t. It’s 100 yards of organized mass confusion, otherwise known as the spread offense.

The three defensive linemen are causing more havoc than they should. Any number of the five linebackers are crisscrossing and shooting the gaps on one play. On the next, they’re dropping back, teaming up with the cornerbacks and safety to form an umbrella zone. The corners are in man press or allowing the receiver a cushion, while the safety is providing support to either side of the field. Sometimes eight guys are blitzing; sometimes only two. It’s 100 yards of organized mass confusion, otherwise known as the 3-5-3 defense.

Put the spread up against a version of the 3-5-3, and football becomes a guessing game. Who and how many, if any, are coming on the blitz? How many receivers do they have, and why are the all lined up on one side? Are they ever going to run the ball? Here’s how spread aficionados Texas Tech’s Mike Leach and New Mexico State’s Hal Mumme and defensive gurus Memphis’ Joe Lee Dunn and Georgia Military College’s Taylor Burks and Rob Manchester win that guessing game.

“One time when I was at Kentucky,” remembered Mumme, now in his first year as head coach at New Mexico State, “we were up against one of Joe Lee Dunn’s defenses. His defenses always had the reputation of coming after the quarterback, and our quarterback was panicking. You had two or three receivers running wide open all over the field, but he was missing them. He thought he was under all kinds of pressure, but in reality, they were only rushing two or three guys. Joe Lee’s teams play with you mentally. They always do a good job of that. He’s really the master of that.”

Leach says recognition is the No. 1 priority for an offense when facing the more unique modern defenses, such as the 3-5-3. It’s easier said than done, though. Film work becomes even more imperative when facing a defense or an offense that can throw so many different things at you from play to play.

Discovering a defense’s tendencies on certain downs, distances and areas of the field can provide a quarterback and offensive line with the confidence they need to make decisions instantly. Yet, as soon as the offense gets into a groove and starts to figure the defense out, that’s when Georgia Military dons a disguise.

GMC’s goal is to give the same look – three down linemen and five linebackers (dogs) across with two corners and a safety - before each snap. Approximately “95 percent” of the time, they will be in man coverage and attempt to keep the offense off balance by utilizing a multitude of blitz packages. The Bulldogs blitz more often than not, and if they’re not getting pressure with four guys, they’ll bring more, even as many as eight against an I formation.

“Our disguise,” says Manchester, the Bulldogs’ secondary coach and a former graduate assistant under Mumme, “is trying to stay in the 3-5-3 base look as long as we can. That way, it presents a surprise kind of attack, in which the offense never knows what they’re going to get or where the guys are coming from. They don’t know who’s blitzing or where the line’s slanting. They don’t know if the safety’s coming down to take a man. We try to always make it look the same.”

While the Bulldogs’ pre-snap alignment is identical, the linebackers and dogs are encouraged to move around before each play.

“They’re given the freedom to walk up outside,” said Burks, who is in his fourth season as the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator, “but right before the snap, they may back out and shoot through the A-gap. That causes some confusion.”

The safety in GMC’s defense is critical in deceiving the offense. It’s important that he completely understands his responsibility and how best to disguise it. “An offense can determine and generally see, based off our of safety and where he’s going, where we’re bringing the pressure from and who he’s covering down for,” said Burks.

“Our free safety has to recognize formations,” added Manchester, “and know where he’s got to help. If he has a trip formation, making sure he’s helping to that side. Or if a team’s got a really good receiver, our safety needs to make sure and help the corner or dog that’s matched up with him.”

Dunn, now in his third season as defensive coordinator at Memphis, employs a “33” defense. In contrast to GMC, Dunn uses multiple looks, especially up front. “We really don’t really do much in the secondary,” he explained. “A lot of people do it just the opposite. They’ll do a lot of coverage changes and play it basically straight up front. You can either do it one way or the other, but I don’t think you can do multiple fronts and multiple coverages, because lots of times you’ll make mistakes.

“The spread really makes you defense the entire field,” Dunn continued. “They always have four receivers that are pretty dad gum good. That’s the hardest thing to handle, when they put all those speedy receivers out there, and you’ve got those two inside safeties that don’t have the cover skills of the corners and have them cover those receivers.” So why not just put four corners on the field? “I haven’t ever had four corners that could pull that off,” said Dunn with a chuckle.

While he doesn’t vary his secondary coverage much, Dunn, however, does like to shift his linebackers and safeties before the snap, positioning them in different areas of the alignment to confuse the offense. “A lot of people like to look at numbers,” he said, “so basically you take that number and put them somewhere else.”

Dunn, Burks and Manchester agree that the best way to slow down the spread is to pressure the quarterback. “The main thing we’re trying to do,” said Manchester, “is to limit the time they have to throw the ball. We want to be in the backfield causing havoc on the quarterback, so, because we do play man-to-man so much, he doesn’t have time to sit back there and pick us apart.

“That’s the downfall of the defense. If a guy has a lot of time and we have guys out there on islands, then, obviously, they have a chance to hurt us and create big plays. Our No.1 priority is creating pressure on the quarterback, getting sacks and forcing turnovers.”

Like any scheme, winning the battle up front is key to the success of the spread attack and the 3-5-3 defense. Leach hopes to hold off the defensive line man-on-man, allowing the other two offensive linemen to get down onto the linebackers. “Even though there’s just three down linemen,” says Leach, “they can bring that second level either forward or backward. If they’re bringing everybody forward, you want to throw the ball more. If they’re dropping everybody off, you want to run it. If you can stalemate the first level, then you have two guys to get down to that second level. The most important thing is recognizing what they’re trying to do.”

“You should be able to win the five-on-four battle up front,” said Mumme. “But one of the toughest things about the 3-5-3 is trying to figure out where that fourth guy is coming from.”

That’s exactly the kind of confusion Burks strives for. “It all starts right in the middle,” he said. “We have to be strong with the free safety, the middle linebacker and nose guard. The nose guard has to demand a double-team block. He’s got to make their guards and center, those three guys take account of him every play.”

To do that, the Bulldog defensive line moves to the near hip of the offensive lineman, forcing the offense to react, while the linebackers fill their gaps. Whether an offense zone blocks or goes man-on-man and switches up front, there are going to be times when the defense brings more players than the offensive line can block.

“You have to make sure the loose guy comes from the outside,” says Leach. “He can’t ever come inside the tackles, always outside the tackles, so you have time to throw something quick.”

Owning the Edge

Texas Tech’s offensive line is spread nearly all the way across the hash marks. Leach says this serves several purposes. “It helps because it makes the edge so much wider,” he explained. “Everybody says the gaps are so wide that it’s easy to run through them. Yeah, but those gaps are so wide you have to go further to get there as you’re crossing linemen. So we have more time to sort it out. You give a little and you gain a little with that. “The biggest way it helps is the edge on the outside is wider,” he continued. “If you’re going to let a guy loose on the outside, he’s two more steps away from the quarterback.”

Dunn says as soon as he sees a line split wide like the Red Raiders, he doesn’t worry about the run. “There’s no doubt in my mind,” he said. “If they have those splits like that, we’re going to work up some blitzes and everything.”

Since 2001, GMC has been playing its dogs more as corners, locking them up man-to-man, as opposed to being the more like the traditional outside linebackers and strong safeties. “That’s enabled teams that really spread it out to get the corner on us easier,” said Burks.





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