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Aerial Attack with the Tight End

Texas Tech’s offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen utilizes their tight end to make them one of the most prolific offenses in the country
by: Terry Jacoby
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The most amazing aspect of what Texas Tech has accomplished in Mike Leach’s reign in Lubbock is the consistency of a prolific passing offense. Since 2001 the Red Raiders have finished no worse than fifth in the nation in passing offense among all Bowl Subdivision schools. For four straight years – 2002 through 2005 – they led the nation. The players change, but the results don’t.

After splitting duties as Co-offensive Coordinator over the past few years, Dana Holgorsen becomes Leach’s full-time OC this fall. One of the ways Holgorsen plans to continue the Red Raiders dynamic passing attack is by incorporating the tight end in his offense. He talked about this subject with AFM.

Your offense has been called a “spread offense.” How would you describe it?

It is a combination of many different offenses. Call it what you want, but there are similarities to the Run and Shoot, West Coast, old BYU system and borrowed plays and drills from all over the country. We also use multiple formations and schemes to keep people off balance. When we talk about ‘spread,’ we refer to spreading the ball to all five skill positions. We keep a close eye on who the ball is being distributed to throughout the game and from game to game. Equal distribution to all receivers and backs forces the opposition to cover the entire field.

How important is the tight end to your passing offense?

Our tight end position, or ‘Y’ position as we refer to it, is always one of the main targets in our passing scheme. This position usually gets more balls thrown to them than any other position so I would say it is an important position. Our ‘H’ tight end spot is more of a role position and rarely a main target in our passing schemes. It gives us some deception and we can line up the ‘H’ position as a WR, IR, TE, FB or halfback (See Diagram 1).

Diagram 1: Using the ‘H’ Position

What is the base strategy in incorporating the tight end in your passing game?

We typically like a bigger body to be able to block and maneuver around linebackers and strong safeties than we do faster guys that play outside receiver here. With that said we have played with guys around 180 pounds all the way up to 260 pounds. We don’t like them any bigger because it is more important to be able to run and catch in our scheme than it is block defensive ends or 250-plus linebackers. Both the ‘Y’ and ‘H’ inside receiver positions usually have a flex receiver who is smaller and quicker and obviously more of a receiver, but have to be able to block an offensive linebacker. The same ‘Y’ and ‘H’ positions will have a bigger body that looks more like tight ends and will line up primarily in a three-point stance. They don’t look the same but they are the same positions with the same responsibilities in the passing game. We like to have two different guys at these spots to be able to change up formations but still be able to run the same plays out of the different formations.

How does that change depending on personnel?

We don’t carry many true tight ends on scholarship so from year to year we may have a difficult time fielding many bigger tight end type people. Our bigger guys have to be able to run down field and catch the ball or we won’t put them into the game. It is more important to have faster guys who make plays than it is to line up bigger TE guys just to change the set. Ideally we would like to have two bigger TE guys who can line up in a three-point stance, do our run schemes, pass protect periodically and run downfield and catch the ball. We don’t have two guys like that.

How are the blocking schemes different when the TE is either the primary or secondary receiver?

Our backs are always involved in our pass protections, which allows us to use the TE in all of our passing situations as either the primary or secondary WR on most all of our passing plays.

How often and in what type of plays do you use the TE as a decoy?

Our quarterbacks usually go through a progression on our routes which might be three reads up to all five reads. We really don’t have decoys because we want all five spots to be able to get the ball depending on what the defense is doing. Any of the skill positions could get the ball on any of our passing plays. This is part of what makes us hard to defend and as long as the offensive line is picking things up, the QB should be able to go through his reads and hit the open guy.

How often, if ever, does the TE run a deep route?

A lot. We are a big four vertical passing offense which really forces the defense to play off. The TE has to be able to run vertical and catch the ball for us. This helps us open up a lot of underneath throws which gets the ball in our guys’ hands with a chance to make something happen. We pride ourselves on having a high completion percentage. Our mentor Hal Mumme used to say he wanted “to throw the ball as many times as possible to players that can score.” This is true in our philosophy as well, but you have to stretch the defense vertically in order to open things up underneath.

How would you use the tight end against a 4-4, Cover 2 defense?

It depends on which Cover 2 a defense is using. What a lot of the defenses are doing now is what the old Tampa-2 is doing where the safeties are playing a little wide and the middle linebacker plays deep. Everybody is doing this now. One of the areas you can attack on that, especially with the tight end, is the deep middle. But it’s hard to do with a true tight end because those guys aren’t as fast as you would need them to be. What we do is substitute a smaller, quicker tight end. Again, we use two different types of tight ends. One is the bigger, more traditional tight end that can work underneath and post people up and use his body to his advantage. And we also like using smaller guys that can out run people.

Against the Tampa-2 defense, our bigger tight ends would go underneath because that’s usually where this defense is weak. The middle guy will have a tendency to get on his heels and run back towards the deep middle because if he gets beat deep over the middle that’s going to be a big play. So they tend to play it deep and to counter that, we will use the tight end underneath. And the true tight ends are good at doing that because they can use their big bodies to where they can post people up and they don’t have to be exactly wide open to get the ball thrown to them. Then we try and sneak one of the smaller guys in and shoot him up the middle of the field and try to outrun that middle linebacker at times. This depends on what the defense is doing with that middle guy in the Tampa-2.

How would you attack a 3-4 Cover 2?

It’s pretty much like how we would attack the Tampa-2 if people are going to place us like a 3-4 with three down linemen and four linebackers. The reason people usually do this is to try and mix us up with our protections and bring one or two of the linebackers often. It ends up being a four-man or even five-man rush even though there are only three down linemen, they’re going to blitz us a lot out of those sets. So it turns out being cover-wise the same amount of people. Now if they’re a 3-4 and they’re not blitzing us very much and the four guys are backing out, that’s when we need to be able to take advantage of running the ball. Using a true tight end here would get them closer inside. If we are putting tight ends into the game and they are still using a 3-4 it gives us better leverage to run the ball. Typically, if we put tight ends in the game they take one of the linebackers out and put another defensive lineman in. If they’re not doing that, then we are going to run the football at them and force them to put their regular personnel back in the game. It becomes a cat-and-mouse game when they’re doing that. If they’re three down, we put big guys in and if they’re not switching them out we run the ball. If they’re switching them out then we’re continuously trying to switch guys in and out of the field to try and keep them off balance so they don’t know who we’re putting in there.

How do you use the tight end against a 3-5-3 defense?

Against a 3-5-3, I want to see just how far wide those outside guys are because the quarterback has to see how far wide they are. And the same thing goes against a defense with three down linemen. If we got numbers and leverage we are going to run the ball. If we have a tight end in the game or even two tight ends in the game and we see just three down linemen, we are going to run the ball.

Typically, this will get a defense out of this set and they go to four down and start moving people in. And if it starts moving people in, we want to take the tight ends out, start spreading people out and make them move back out. Again, we want to see how far wide those outside guys are to see if we have leverage to run the ball.

If there are five guys underneath and we have a true tight end in the game and it’s a 3-5, well that’s a lot of underneath coverage. Most of the time people do that when they can bring a variety of different guys. So the first thing we have to be concerned with is if they’re going to back off, we’re going to run it. If they’re going to blitz, we have to sort it out and run our offense. If they are going to bring a lot of people then we have to get rid of the ball quickly.

Is it important to utilize the tight end against a team that likes to blitz and bring pressure?

It doesn’t really matter because we don’t use our tight ends that much for protection. We do some, but not much. If they’re blitzing, it’s up to the quarterback and running backs to get a grasp on who’s coming and who’s picking up whom. This becomes very specific with the quarterback understanding who’s not going to be blocked and it’s up to him to get rid of the ball. The tight ends aren’t really involved in the protection against blitzes.

Where they do get involved is in some of the hot schemes. As opposed to the tight ends staying in and blocking, he has to run to where he can get open based on which specific people he sees blitzing. So the tight end is more concerned with how to get open against blitzes as opposed to how to protect against blitzes.

How does the TE find those open spots?

He will break things off both inside and outside. A lot of times in zone-blitz situations they are blitzing right in front of the tight end. So that open spot might be right in front of him and he’s got to read that and choke his route down a bit. He basically goes to where the grass is. It’s really as simple as that. If there is grass outside, go outside. If there is grass inside, go inside. The tight end has to understand what the situations are, when he can do that, when he can’t do that, when he needs to do that and when he doesn’t need to do that. That’s where it becomes tricky.

What makes Texas Tech so successful at the passing game?

One of the reasons is we allow these kids to understand the importance of playing together. All through the off-season and all through the summer they are going out there and putting themselves through a practice basically. The coaches can’t be around there and we can’t make them do it. But the guys understand the importance of getting together and going out there and just throwing and catching and playing football. That goes a long way.

And then our practices are structured to where we do very little individual work. There aren't a lot of times where I take the tight ends or the receivers and work just with them. Pretty much the entire practice, from the time they step out onto the field to when it’s over, we are doing stuff together with the quarterbacks and the receivers and the running backs. We do things together and it helps get everyone on the same page. I think this philosophy goes an awful long way. And it gets to the point where a wide receiver can just give the quarterback a nod and he knows what to do. That can be a huge advantage.

Is there a favorite, go-to pass to the TE that’s your bread-and-butter play?

I would say the Y-Cross and it has been for quite some time. We got this play from BYU almost 20 years ago and have been running it the same way every year since then. The TE is the second read and runs a deep crossing route over the middle. We have completed this route a thousand times over the years and can use the Y-Cross out of different formations (See Diagrams 2-7).

Diagram 2: 4-Wide Shotgun

Diagram 3: Two TE Play Action

Diagram 4: Two-Back Play Action

Diagram 5: Trips

Diagram 6: Two Tight Ends/Same Side

Diagram 7: Three Wide/TE






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