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Pressure Defenses (Part I) – Specific stunts and gap exchanges – when coordinated correctly – can improve team defense.

by: Lou Varley
Defensive Coordinator, Peru State College
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The Peru State defense played with relentless effort last season and finished sixth in the nation against the run and second in the Heart of America Athletic Conference (HAAC) in total defense. A big reason was our defensive philosophy and how we align with our various packages.

Bobcat Defensive Philosophy

•      Focus on effort and attitude
•      Play hard every play and play with great         enthusiasm
•      Be physical
•      Simple schemes to allow players to play fast
•      Get your best 11 players on the field
•      Communication – big factor in decreasing         mental errors
•      Fundamentally and technique sound
•      Single gap control whenever possible
•      Attack the offense – stop the run
•      Pursuit – 11 men to the ball

Like many teams, we had players with different athletic traits that were part of our defense. In order to get the best matchups physically and maximize the talents of our players, we played with a “Strong Side” and a “Weak Side.”

We set our front to the TE with the Rover OLB, Stud End, Mike ILB and Strong Safety to the “Strong” side. The Buck OLB, Weak End, Will ILB, and Free Safety align opposite the “Strong” call.
This is how we placed our personnel according to their abilities and skill set:

Nose – needs some size, strong, tough player. He needs to take on double teams and if he can two-gap, that is a bonus.

Stud End – Best defensive lineman – must be able to handle double teams.

Weak End – Quickest defensive lineman. Size is not as important. He is a contain rusher.

Rover Outside LB – Must be able to jam the TE and take on the kick-out block. Will rush the passer a majority of the time. He is the bigger/stronger of the two OLBs.

Buck Outside LB – Quicker player with the ability to play in space.  He will  be a dropper in coverage. Speed and agility is important. The Buck must be able to tackle in space.

Mike Inside LB – Quicker of the two ILBs. Will need to drop and relate to #2 receiver.

Will Inside LB – Needs to able to control B gap and the Iso. He is more of a traditional Inside LB.

Sdecondary – Cover 4 personnel.
 
Although we taught the OKIE alignment first in installing the defense, we did not play that front very much. We felt it was to our advantage to have our players on the move. We slanted our front and used a lot of OLB/DE stunt combinations to attack the offense. Every front had a 4-man rush built in with the added ability to attack the offense with 5-man and 6-man pressures (Diagrams 1 and 2).
Rules for declaring the “Strong” side are:



Diagram 1: Spread Left vs. Okie


Diagram 2: Spread Right vs. Okie


•  To the TE side.
•  No TE or 2 TEs then to the passing strength – 2 or more receiver side.
•  No 2 receiver side or balanced formation then to the wide side.
•  No wide side (ball between the goal posts) then to the left side
The “flow chart” is summarized best as:  Tight – 2 – WIDE – LEFT
 
Fronts and Stunts - These are calls with a strong or weak tag. The strong or weak call alerts the players to which side of the defense was going to be involved in the movement/alignment/stunt.

Strong Slant – This has the strong side – rover and stud attacking C and B gaps respectively with the nose working to the weak A gap – away from the “call” side. The aiming point for the slanting players is the hip of the adjacent offensive lineman. They key this lineman for his reaction. The weak end plays a 5 technique and is contain rush. The Buck OLB is a force player and versus the pass is a seam player or flat to curl player depending on the coverage. With a TE and WR strong, we play ½ strong and  ¼ - ¼  weak (Diagram 3).


Diagram 3: Left vs. Strong Slant

Weak Slant – This has the weak side – buck and end – attack the C and B gaps respectively with the nose working to the strong A gap – (away from the “call” side). The aiming point for the slanting players is the hip of the adjacent offensive lineman. They key this lineman as well, for his reaction. The stud end plays a 5 technique and is contain rush. The rover OLB is a D gap player and plays a 9 technique. Versus the pass, the rover is a #2 to #1 dropper.  The secondary will roll a safety down to the “weak” side and play 3 under/3 deep or play a ¼ - ¼ - ½ with ½  field coverage to the weak side (Diagram 4).
 

Diagram 4: Left vs.Weak Slant


Eagle is a reduction defense and with our personnel in 2013, we set the rover and stud to the open side with the weak end and buck aligning to the TE side. The rover plays a ghost 7 and the stud end is aligned in a 3. The nose is shaded to the TE side of the center. Weak end is in a 5 technique and the buck is aligned in a 9 technique. Versus a double TE, the rover aligns in a 6 and the Mike backer widens to a 40 alignment over the offensive tackle. This was a good change up to our strong and weak slant. We would play cover 3 or ¼- ¼ - ½  (Diagrams 5 and 6).


Diagram 5:  Left vs. Eagle
 


Diagram 6: Right Slot vs. Eagle

 

Stack - This is our 4-man front and allows us to play cover 4 against most formations. The TE determines our strength call and our alignment has the rover in a 9 alignment and in a 3-point stance. The stud end is aligned in a 4i. Nose is shaded weak and the weak end is in a 5 technique. The Mike LB stacks in the strong C gap and the Will plays a true MLB. The buck is a B/C overlap player on the weak side. Depending on the game plan, we could sub a second buck into the game for the Will LB and move Mike to the Middle LB to match up with personnel (Diagrams 7 and 8).


Diagram 7: Left vs. Stack


Diagram 8: Right vs. Stack

Two simple, yet effective stunts for us are Exchange and Jake:


Exchange – This is a gap exchange between the OLB and the DE. Strong exchange involves the rover and stud end, while weak exchange involves the Buck and the weak end. Versus a TE, the OLB goes first and crashes hard to the hip of the offensive tackle. The end engages the tackle for a count and rips to the outside to the secure D gap. Everyone else plays Okie. On exchange to the open side, the end works hard upfield first and the OLB folds off the hip of the defensive end into B gap second. This was great change of pace for us on the weak side (Diagrams 9 and 10). 


Diagram 9: Left vs. Strong Exchange


Diagram 10: Left vs. Weak Exchange


In part II next month, we will detail our various pursuit drills – Okie, Rabbit, and Three-Dummy Drills – as well as our kickoff
and kickoff return drills.
 
About the Author: Defensive Coordinator Lou Varley has been on the staff of Peru State College since 2008. Beginning in 1974, he coached at four different Nebraska High Schools until he joined the PSC staff. Varley has a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Master’s Degree from Nebraska-Kearney.

Coach Varley answers your questions on
Facebook - just go to to https://www.facebook.com/AmericanFootballMonthly/

More on this topic:

Defending the Zone Read – March, 2013
The “No-Name Defense: Mixing personnel, fronts, and coverages along
with stunts and blitzes can continually keep an offense off-balance – October/November, 2012
Combating Offensive Speed With the 4-4 Defense – August, 2008






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