The Pass Action Run

How Macalester Sells the Pass in Order to Run
by: Mike Kuchar
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The Origins
Like many innovative designs in football, Glenn Caruso stumbled upon the next great offensive concept by chance. As a coordinator at the University of South Dakota in 2004, the Coyotes were cruising through their high rep, high tempo daily play polish period until something, or someone, kept putting a massive dent in their plans. “We kept trying to run the weak side isolation play out of pro slot, but that Will linebacker kept smacking us in the face. We couldn’t get him blocked,” said Caruso. “So we decided the best thing we could do is influence him.” The next play, Caruso told his quarterback on the snap to fake the bubble screen to the slot receiver and then get the ball deep to the tailback. “The Will eventually made the play, but the slot bubble caused him to widen, giving us a nice crease in the B gap. We decided to threaten that player with leverage using a different key or trigger point and it worked.”

Caruso thought why not use the defenders’ momentum and coverage responsibility against him by giving him a false key? It was at that moment when the pass action run game concept was conceived. Philosophically, the concept of the pass action run game is to soften up defenses at the snap by giving them a pass key first, if just for a split second, in order to run the ball directly at them. The purpose is to deceive linebackers and safeties into getting into their pass responsibilities then force them into their run fits, usually leaving them off balance. “Multiple defenses ask certain guys like safeties, inside and outside linebackers to do more than one thing. They are players who get their keys based on the movement or stimulus of QB’s and running backs. We just wanted to throw in some false stimuli to slow them down so they don’t get leverage on a play. It allows us to block defenders that we cannot leverage pre-snap and it gets linebackers into their drop so we can get wider blockers to tighten defenders and weaken secondary run support,” said Caruso. “I’m sure a million guys have thought about it and used it, but I decided that this needed to be a legitimate facet of our offense.”

Legitimate is quite the understatement. Since Caruso, now the head coach at Macalester College in St. Paul (MN), started using the pass action run as a staple of his offensive packages, his teams have set over 200 records in three years. Caruso took an offense at South Dakota that averaged 13 points per game before his arrival to one that averaged 44 points and 515 yards per game over his two years with USD. The Coyotes had an 18-4 record during that time. At Macalester last fall, the Fighting Scots had their best record since 2002. Caruso’s team averaged 8.3 yards per carry every time a pass action run was called. This was mainly due to the originality of the scheme; defenses haven’t seen it, much less prepared for it. “It has become the norm to use the run to set up the pass. What often goes underused is the idea of using the pass to set up the run by opening up lanes, threatening defenses and creating mismatches.”

The Concept

In actuality the concept of setting up the pass with the run is not foreign to American football; the ageless sprint draw play has been doing this exact same thing for years. But according to Caruso, the differences between the two schemes are abundant. “With the draw, you’re not meshing quarterback actions with wide receiver routes. What you’re doing is hoping that the pass set of the offensive line is going to slow the rush of the defensive lineman,” said Caruso. “You’re not affecting the combo players like linebackers and safeties. The scheme is so overused that those guys become immune to it. It loses its effectiveness. As with anything else when people become desensitized to one action, you need to use additional stimuli to regain that reaction.”

Stimuli exist in the form of quarterback demeanor, set points and more importantly, ball fakes. “On all pass plays you teach your QB to scan the field, keeping his eyes downfield and feeling the pressure in the pocket,” said Caruso. “It’s the same thing on the pass action run game. The QB’s eyes should always be consistent with the pass game. We also find that if you can make eye contact with the defender that you are trying to influence, it will make him react quicker. If the QB wanted to widen an alley player in order to run the ball inside, he would burn his eyes on the defender to sell the pass fake.”

Set points, also known as trigger points, revolve around defenders that Caruso calls combo players. They are given both a pass and run responsibility depending on what they see post snap. These are usually delegated to everyone except the defensive line. Without sounding too scientific, a trigger point is the point based on a stimulus by the QB. It’s how defenses know if the play is a designed run or pass. Trigger points depend on how different teams are coached. “For instance, some teams will teach a cornerback to read through the three-step. If they see a high ball on the QB’s shoulder, they should jump the three step route,” said Caruso. “The underneath players also have trigger points and if they see a passing stimulus by the QB, then they will trigger into their drop, thus softening up running lanes. Essentially, what we do is number one, match up QB actions, with number two, route combinations that are threatening out of number three, stressful formations and tie that in with number four, a delayed run play. That’s how you develop the pass action run.”

Basic Play Combinations

This is where you have to do your homework as a coach. According to Caruso, the scheme is more of a science than most coaches would expect. So before you start to graffiti the white board, matching up a myriad of run and pass plays, there are certain, unavoidable tasks you must perform: self-scouting and scouting your opponent. It’s important to know what five or six run plays you run best, then match that up with pass patterns to sell the initial fake. The key is the timing of the play; you wouldn’t want to pair up a five step slant route with a quick hitting trap play – it wouldn’t mesh correctly.

“You always want to have five or six different pass actions out of a multitude of formations. As a coach you need to work very diligently finding out what plays you have you want to run that will fit with what pass actions you have that you want to run. But don’t go changing your offense; use routes that you are already familiar with. Everything must look the same to the defense. If teams see you throw 42 bubble routes in seven games, then it’s time to match up a run off of that,” said Caruso. “Secondly, when scouting your opponent, you really need to find out what their trigger points are within the defense. At what point during this play do teams try and react to the pass?

“We basically use three different corresponding pass actions. The shortest is a one-step drop with a fake bubble route. The second is a three-step which we use with corresponding hitch routes. The third is a quick five-step drop with a slant route. You can mix and match them however they fit your offense best. We typically use bubbles when we face fast-flow linebackers, we use the hitch when combo players are reading through the three-step before getting to the flat and we use the slant when defenses don’t bite on the hitch.”

One of the more common forms of pass-action run is marrying up the bubble route with a weak side iso scheme (See Diagram 1). The quarterback will stand up and open while faking the bubble throw. The wide receivers will run their bubble scheme and exchange blocking responsibilities with the slot taking the cornerback and the widest receiver taking the alley defender. “We will try to widen the outside linebacker with the play fake. Chances are we’ll get the outside linebacker blocked with the slot receiver because of the action,” said Caruso. “It works even better versus a 4-4 front where there is no doubt that the player outside the tackle is going to be a contain rusher. It’s been a very consistent play for us.”

Diagram 1

In addition to using the bubble fake to widen alley defenders, Caruso also likes to use it when teams are taught to wrong arm and spill any run plays to alley defenders such as safeties. This type of defense is prevalent in cover 4 or ‘okie’ defenses with safety support in the alley. In this example, the bubble action is meshed with the traditional power O scheme (See Diagram 2). “Not only does it widen the strong safety, but if the strong side linebacker is well coached to separate and get his hands up when he sees bubble or three-step, then the fullback will be able to kick him out, not allowing defenses to wrong arm and bounce the play outside. It will hit north to south instead of east to west,” said Caruso.

Diagram 2 In order to marry up the hitch scheme, the backs must have patience because it is a longer three-step route. That is why you would need to pair the scheme up with a slow hitting run play, like a sprint draw (See Diagram 3). The receivers will run a quick hitch back towards the QB which, in turn, puts them in good leverage to block after the fake. The quarterback takes a quick three-step drop, gets the ball on his shoulder and gives a quick pump fake, releasing the off hand. That usually is a great trigger for teams that are taught to break on the QB’s off hand. “We only have one hand on the ball just as if we were throwing it. We stress getting the off hand off the ball and getting it up on the shoulder with urgency and purpose,” said Caruso. “Most of what we teach is not exact steps by the QB, but the running back must be exact. The QB is exacting in demeanor and eye placement. You tell your QB ‘think this and hand off that’ and give him three minutes to figure it out and he will. It’s not that difficult.”

Diagram 3

The longest developing pass action run scheme is the slant scheme, which is what Caruso marries up with the counter (See Diagram 4). As with the hitch, the slant puts the wide receiver in great leverage to block the alley defenders that are expanding due to the pass action. The QB will take a five-step drop and fake the slant, then continues the mesh coming over the top of the running back. “The delayed mesh also allows us to pull a slot receiver to use as a fullback leading on the strong side linebacker,” said Caruso. “This is also a play that we like to run with the QB with the added stimulus of a pass decoy.”

Diagram 4

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