Counter Attack

Northwestern College’s Counter Game
by: Bryan Johnson
Offensive Coordinator, Northwestern College (St. Paul, MN)
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The past two seasons we have experienced tremendous success as a team and as an offense at Northwestern College. In 2001, we were one of only seven undefeated football teams in the country. Statistically, our best running play for each of the past five seasons has been the counter play. In 2000 and 2001 we averaged 6.9 and 7.1 yards a carry respectively using the counter. When we included all of the plays that came off our counter action, we accounted for 600 yards (14%) of our total offensive production for the year.

There are many reasons why we run the counter. Our offensive linemen love to pull, and when it is well executed, it is fun for everyone to observe. From a strategic standpoint, there are three reasons why we run the counter:

• It gives us a quality “power” football play.
• It incorporates an element of misdirection.
• It allows us to play action pass without adding a new protection scheme.

Additionally, we have found the counter to be a play that we can run from all of our formations in any situation. We have run the play on the goal line and in long yardage situations. We constantly find ourselves creating new ways to run the play as well as plays that evolve out of the counter action.

The basic play concept requires the play-side offensive linemen to get movement at the point of attack and eliminate penetration. To accomplish this, we double team the first down lineman past the center to the play-side. Our double team allows one of the linemen involved in the block to come off on the backside linebacker. The covered offensive lineman’s aiming point is the inside number of the defensive lineman over him. The uncovered lineman’s aiming point is the ear-hole of the defensive player that we are double-teaming. Which lineman comes off depends on what technique the defensive lineman is playing (Diagram 1A & 1B). We tell our lineman to get movement first and to work off late to the linebacker.

Diagram 1A. 46 Counter vs. 3 Tech
Diagram 1B. 46 Counter vs. 3 Tech
"Return Stunt"

The player with the most difficult assignment is the tight. His blocking responsibilities depend on the defensive front we are up against. We categorize our fronts as 4-4, 3-4, or 4-3, and our offensive linemen will identify the front when they come to the line of scrimmage. Our system allows us to deal with multiple fronts as well, as we will make a call for the play-side and backside offensive linemen. Diagram 2A-2C shows the basic counter scheme against these three defensive fronts and illustrates the tight end’s specific blocking assignment for each situation.

Diagram 2A. 46 Counter vs. "4-4"

Diagram 2B. 46 Counter vs. "3-4"


Diagram 2C. 46 Counter vs. "4-3"

Our backside linemen execute pull techniques on the counter play. Our pulling guard is asked to kick out the end man on the line of scrimmage. Our pulling tackle gets depth on his pull so that he can achieve a lead block approach on the play-side linebacker or the first player he confronts. It is necessary for both of the linemen pulling to know what the play-side front is so that they know how far they will be pulling. We like to play our most physical players at guard and taller more athletic players at tackle. These types of players not only lend themselves to the counter play, but also to our pass protection schemes.

We get split action in our backfield with the fullback filling for the pulling linemen and the tailback countering to an aiming point at the inside hip of the play-side offensive tackle. We don’t over-coach the tailback’s steps because we have found that the timing of the play is the most important factor. We do ask that the tailback make some kind of counter move to initiate the play and that he then run to the first daylight that he sees. His rule of thumb is “if you see three yards, take it.” The quarterback completes the misdirection part of the play by opening away from the play call and carrying out a bootleg fake after handing the ball off.

As I mentioned earlier, we can run the counter play from all of our formations, including our one-back formations. When we run the play without a fullback in the game, we will either place an additional tight end on the backside of the play to fill for the pulling linemen, or we will motion a wide receiver to fill the same role (Diagram 3A & 3B). There are also times when we will use the quarterback to hold the backside defensive end by executing a good bootleg fake. We stress to the quarterback that he is responsible for the ball carrier’s getting a good handoff.

Diagram 3A. 46 Counter: RT Flank
Formation

Diagram 3B. 46 Counter: RT Trips
Formation: Motion

Over the past two seasons, we have been incorporating more of the shotgun into our offensive package. This has allowed us to add a few new wrinkles to our counter package. When defenses spread out to defend multiple receivers, they open up inside running lanes. This particular version of the counter play is especially successful versus teams that line their rush ends out wide. Though our linemen lose some power in a two-point stance, we make up for that with quicker pull techniques. This past season we had good success running the play to both our tailback (Diagram 4A) and our quarterback (Diagram 4B).

Diagram 4A. 47 Counter: RT Spread
Gun Formation

Diagram 4B. 16 Counter: RT Twins
Gun Formation

Since we have had success with this play for such a long period of time, defenses have begun to make the proper adjustments to stop it. One way defenses have made the play more difficult to run is by pinching their defensive ends underneath our pulling guards. This wrong arm technique causes the play to bounce or “spill” to the outside and gives the defensive players time to run down the ball carrier. When defenses make this adjustment, we will change the play to a sweep play with just a few adjustments. It is important to note that we will make this adjustment on the sideline and make sure that everyone is now committed to run this play as a perimeter play.

Diagram 5. 46 Counter Sweep


Diagram 6. 47 Counter King: RT T
"Slide" Formation

To run the counter sweep, we ask our pulling guard to log the defensive end to the inside. Since he is pinching, this is not a difficult block, and it takes place right away. Our tight end takes his best release to block the play-side linebacker, and our wide receiver cracks the safety to his side. We ask our pulling tackle to kick out the cornerback or whoever crosses his path. On this particular play, the tackle’s pull technique changes to a kick out block. The key is to get out to the perimeter as quickly as possible. The running back will make the play look like counter but will bounce the play and make his cut off the pulling tackle’s block. This has been a very effective adjustment for us versus this type of defensive adjustment (Diagram 5).

Because we use so many formations, we created another adaptation of this play that requires the fullback to exchange responsibilities with the pulling tackle. We attach a tag to the play (such as 46 counter “king”) when we want to make this adjustment. We especially like to run this play away from the tight end versus a reduction defense. To add more misdirection to the play, we will motion our fullback across the formation and snap the ball while he is still moving (Diagram 6).

Our counter game includes a number of play action passes and screens. We like to run these plays without adding too many new blocking assignments for our offensive linemen. When we run our base play action pass, nothing changes for our linemen except that they cannot go downfield. In fact, we tell them that the better they can sell the play off to look just like counter, the more successful we will be. We have packaged our counter play action pass game into three basic schemes:

• Counter Pass
• Counter Pass “Hot”
• Counter Pass “Screen”

When we run our base counter pass, we are looking to hit the tight end. He is told that this is his number one pass play from the beginning of training camp. We ask him to drag across the formation as quickly as possible and settle as soon as he feels he is open. We keep our fullback in to protect and ask him to seal the defensive end to the inside. If we find the defensive end chasing the pulling tackle hard on counter, this becomes an easy block for the fullback. The quarterback is instructed to make a good ball fake and to locate the tight end as soon as possible. If the tight end is not open, the quarterback’s next read is the split-end running a comeback route at about 12-14 yards. We alert the quarterback of the fact running the ball himself is also a good option because it adds another dilemma for the defense to worry about (Diagram 7).

Diagram 7. 46 Counter Pass: RT
I Formation

Diagram 8. 46 Counter Pass "Hot":
RT I Formation

If we are playing a team that likes to bring a lot of outside pressure, we like to run our counter pass “hot” scheme. Each week when we scout our opponent, we look for any tendencies that our opponent may show us on film regarding down and distance or field position. We have the ability to call this play or to check to it when we see a crash stunt coming. The key differences between the base counter pass and the “hot” scheme are we get the fullback out on a flat route and we instruct our quarterback to prepare to get rid of the ball immediately after his play fake. The fullback is taught to release through the line of scrimmage as quickly as possible and run an arrow route to an aiming point of six yards of depth as if he was planning to run out of bounds. He is taught to look for the ball right away if he sees the blitz coming. The quarterback must give a ball fake and prepare to get rid of the ball as soon as he turns around (Diagram 8).

Diagram 9. 46 Counter Pass "Screen":
FT I Formation

Another play that we really like off our counter action is the screen back to the tailback. We call this play by adding the word “screen” to our play call. On the counter pass “screen,” the tailback, after taking the play fake, gets lost in the line of scrimmage and releases to a point approximately three yards behind the line and three yards outside the tight end’s original alignment. The pulling guard and tackle will sell the counter play and then release as our primary screen blockers. We assign the force player to the guard and have the tackle look to the inside for linebackers that may be covering the tailback. The linemen should wait two counts, then release up the field. After selling the fake, the quarterback should sell the bootleg and get two to three yards of additional depth to insure that he can get the ball off (Diagram 9).

We set aside Tuesday as our counter day during our week of practice. Every Tuesday we have our linemen working on double-team schemes and pulling techniques. Our quarterbacks, running backs, tight ends, and wide receivers will work on ball fakes and running their respective routes. We will run these plays in our group work and during our full team periods. We believe in scripting plays during practice and making practice situations as game-like as possible.

We believe that the counter game gives us flexibility regarding how we utilize our players’ abilities. Each year we try to assess the strengths of our offensive personnel, and it is this evaluation that determines what aspects of the counter game we will focus on. For example, this year we had a very good tailback that can carry the ball over thirty times a game. Our mission was to find out how many different ways we could get the ball his hands. The flexibility of the counter game offered us many different methods of doing so.

There have also been times we have had a fullback that was a quality receiver or one tackle that was significantly better at pulling than his counterpart. We have also been blessed from time to time with quarterbacks capable of making outstanding plays on the run in bootleg situations. Whatever our strengths have been during a particular season, we have been able to plug them into our counter game with excellent results.

Northwestern College
Offense
Inside the Numbers
(Regular season)

9-0: Overall record for the 2001 season.

17-2: Combined record for the last two seasons.

10: Number of wins during their last 10 games.

1: Overall team rank in NCCAA for 2001.

13: Passing rank in NAIA for quarterback Dave Griffieth.

17: Number of touchdown passes from quarterback Dave Griffieth.

7: Rank in NCCAA for total team offense.

427.9: Number of yards averaged per game in 2001.

2: Rank in NAIA for tailback Joe Wise with 147.1 rushing yards per game.

40: Number of points averaged per game in 2001.

204: Number of rushing yards per game in 2001.

358: New school record for number of points scored in one season (previous record: 331

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