AFM RSS Feed Follow Us on Twitter       
AMERICAN FOOTBALL MONTHLY THE #1 RESOURCE FOR FOOTBALL COACHES
ABOUT |  CONTACT |  ADVERTISE |  HELP  



   User Name    Password 
      Password Help





Article Categories


AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Gaining the Pre- and Post-Snap Advantage

How to gain leverage on defenses before and after snapping the ball
by: Mike Kuchar
© More from this issue

Click for Printer Friendly Version          

It is commonly said that an offense has two distinct pre-snap advantages over any particular defense: one, they know the snap count and two, they know where the ball is going. Once the ball is snapped those advantages disappear, but there are other factors post-snap, such as movement and deception, to help leverage defenses.

AFM talked to three of the more prominent coaches in the country: Dale Weiner of Catholic High School in Baton Rouge; Byron Hamilton of Foothill High School in California and Glenn Caruso of Macalester College. We asked them about some of the things they do offensively to put defenses in a disadvantage before and after the ball is snapped.

PRE-SNAP READS
Changing the Cadence


Without question, one of the most under coached aspects of football is the cadence. How many times will you see an offense run the same one or two cadences for the entire game? It’s often predictable by nature – teams will go on a delayed count in long yardage and a quick count in short yardage. But, according to Caruso, having your QB control his cadence every play can be a very distinct advantage.

“If you look at cadence, it is the most under coached thing in the world,” says Caruso. “I didn’t really notice it until two years ago when the Pittsburgh Steelers were playing in the AFC Championship against the Indianapolis Colts. It just seemed like QB Ben Roethliesberger was controlling the cadence the entire game and catching the Colts’ defense off-guard and offsides. Since that point I’ve been researching it and now it’s a major topic among clinic circuits. One that I love to talk about.”

Caruso will have up to 8-10 cadences a game that he will let his QB orchestrate. He breaks it down into two genres. A rhythmic cadence is one that he calls a very singsong, monotone cadence. This would be your typical number, color, number, color set go cadence. An example would be “Down, set, blue 22, blue 22, ready…go.” According to Caruso, when you stay in one cadence like this for the entire game, the secondary has time to rotate or adjust their coverage while the defensive line could stem before the ball is snapped. Rather than using this, Caruso uses a more non-rhythmic cadence, where the QB will change syllables in words or add words to throw defenses off.

“Our trigger word is ‘set.’ Set will always be the second to last word used before the ball is snapped. So it really doesn’t matter what else is being said, except the line knows when ‘set’ is called they will get ready to move.”

Caruso will also use what he calls ‘on the quick tempo.’ What this means is that when the offense huddles up and the QB calls the play, he’ll tag it with “on the quick.” For example, if Caruso wanted to run a toss play he would call, ‘Strong wing right 28 toss on the quick.’ This tells the offense they will be going on first sound. But in order for it to be effective, the offense cannot break the huddle at the same time and give the defense a beat on the play. “We’ll release our center and our wide receivers out of the huddle first so they can get lined up. They usually have the longest distance to the ball and we don’t want to waste any time,” said Caruso. “Then we’ll wait until there are about 10 seconds left on the play clock and we’ll break the huddle and get right into the formation. The QB will make his first sound (ready) and we’re off and running. It really catches the defense off guard.”

According to Caruso, the only downside of calling an ‘on the quick’ tempo is that you cannot call any audible or run any motions – which is another pre-snap advantage for an offense. The plays need to be ones that don’t need any line calls as well. You would have to run your tosses and your base zones because the QB won’t have time to switch out of the play. But, using cadence to your advantage as an offense is invaluable; it is just something else the defense needs to prepare for. “Take pride in your cadence,” says Caruso. “It’s not something that will show up in a box score, but aside from holding onto the football and not turning it over, it is the most important aspect of offensive football.”

Pre-Snap Shifts

Aside from QB cadence, pre-snap shifts also put additional pressure on a defense. Many defenses today set their strength more on formation than hash mark. This enables an offense to dictate the strength of the defense just by shifting a couple of players before the ball is hiked. According to Dale Weiner of Catholic High School in Louisiana, trading the tight end is one of those shifts that are hardly ever used. “A lot of teams will set their front based on the tight end. That means they will have their strong side run defenders to the tight end and their weak side defenders away,” said Weiner. “We just flip-flop the tight end and now we force different looks to the defense. Often times you’ll have kids that are not used to playing on the tight end side having to play there. They wouldn’t be used to getting double teamed, kicked out or combo blocked. They now become strong side run defenders and often times they don’t have the strength or the durability to play there.”

Weiner will package about 30 different sets each game. For each of his shifts, he’ll have his staff focus directly on defenders to the side of the shift, looking for who the support player is or if there are alley players to defend the option. “We know what we are going to run out of each shift and formation,” says Weiner. “So we rep each formation with what we are going to use for that particular week.” One of Weiner’s favorite shifts is from his traditional spin, double slot formation, into a less conventional trips set or what he calls his “wolf formation.” It’s what Weiner calls “fake trips” – both receivers are on the line of scrimmage and ineligible while the slots can still run their spin motion out of their alignment. He is still able to run the staples of his spin package such as spin sweep or power to the trips side, as well as spin counter or wham away from the trips. It all depends on what Weiner and his staff see from the defense. “A lot of times we’ll pull linebackers out of the box to cover the trips and it leaves us a ton of room to run our inside run game like trap and counter,” says Weiner. “And if they stay in the box within bumping over, we got them outflanked. It all comes down to a numbers game and we’ll let them show their hand first.”

Motions

Without question, the most common pre-snap advantage for an offense is using motion. Several years ago, most motions were used primarily with wide receivers to identify if defenses were in man or zone coverage. Now, with the ever-increasing popularity of the spread offense, the use of motion allows offenses to create mismatches in the open field, getting good athletes the ball in space. Byron Hamilton of Foothill High School in California uses some form of motion in approximately 90-95 percent of his plays. According to Hamilton, the effective use of motion causes defenses to declare their assignments. It allows offensive personnel to see who will be in their assignment area prior to the snap. It also allows play callers to move defenders around to gain advantages in the area that they want to attack.

“When we are using motion we are looking to see how the defense is responding to it. We are also looking to see if prominent defenders or a certain number of defenders are being moved out of the box to defend our motion,” says Hamilton. “This response will direct us to the part of our offensive package that takes advantage of that response. If teams are using their best defenders to respond to our motions, then we know that we can keep their primary defenders away from the point of attack.”

Hamilton’s spread type scheme uses a variety of different motions. In fact, the wide receivers in his offense have six types of motions alone, the backs have four. One of his most common motions is the fly motion where the receiver will run across the formation at full speed, crossing the center by the time the ball is snapped. It causes immediate conflict for the defense because the QB has the option to give the hand off right away. One of his base plays off the motion is the inside zone. If Hamilton sees that the linebackers are stretching to the motion side, he will run the zone play inside. If the defense stays put and does not react, they’ll continue to run the fly sweep.

Weiner utilizes the same scheme in his spin series. In his double slot formation, one of the halfbacks is motioning on every play. Depending on how defenses are adjusting, he can run his spin sweep to the motion side or his spin counter away from the motion. The spin and fly motion is so effective because it hits at full speed by the time the ball is snapped. It hits downhill quickly while the defense is just getting started. Whatever motions or shifts you are going to package, it is important that you don’t do too much. According to Hamilton, he and his staff select the kinds of motions that he feels will give each opponent a level of difficulty based on their scheme and he drills these motions throughout the week. If they are successful against the scout team, they’re left in the final game script. If they do not work with a high degree of success throughout the week, they will not make the final game script.

POST-SNAP READS
Movement and Deception


Dale Weiner’s Spin package is all about movement and deception, which tends to put defenses in a bind both before and after the snap. In his double slot formation, on every play a slot is motioning in an attempt to create leverage on a defense. But it’s not the motion of the slot that creates a problem for defenses; rather, it’s the speed in which the player is traveling. Their alignment is 1.5 yards deep and one yard outside of the offensive tackles. They have their outside foot up, just so they can quickly turn and push off to go in what Weiner calls ‘fast motion’ before the snap. Eventually, they’re hitting top speed by the time they get to the hip of the QB who will pivot as soon as he takes the shotgun snap.

A crucial aspect of the spin offense post-snap is the pivot of the QB, which is where the origin of the offense was derived. Weiner has six plays off the spin package: three towards the motion side and three away. Therefore, defenses cannot over shift to the side of the motion. But regardless of the backfield action, the QB is pivoting or spinning on every play. He takes a short jab step forward with the foot to the pivot side. If he were going to his right, he would jab step forward with the right foot. With his weight on the toes of his right foot, he spins around so that his back is to the defense as he executes either a hand off or a fake.

It is this type of post-snap motion by the QB that makes it hard for the defense to read their keys and decipher what play is being run. The key to any good offense is to present conflict to the defense and the QB pivot does that. The play could go in any direction based on that pivot and usually by the time the defense diagnoses the play, it is too late.

Pass Action Run

A few months ago, American Football Monthly debuted Glenn Caruso’s innovative concept of the pass action run game. It was his philosophy that he can influence defenders by showing them some sort of pass action, then complement it by running the football. While the concept may be simple by theory, it takes a great deal of time and effort to mesh up certain runs with passes. The key is to make sure that they all look the same on the snap so that defenders can’t tell the difference between a bubble screen and an isolation play or a quick hitch and a sprint draw.

This burden lays on the QB to ‘sell’ these same pass actions during the course of a game or a season. Caruso changes his package week to week, depending on where defenses are susceptible. “Depending on how good or bad we are that year, the pass action run package results in about a third of our run game. The reason why I love it is because I don’t have to go all out and say this is the ‘only’ thing that we do. I can polish it up really quickly depending on who we’re playing. The first year we did this in 2005 we were over ten yards per pass action run. It is just as simple in practice as it is in theory.”

According to Caruso, you’re hoping that the pass set of the offensive line is either going to slow down or affect the rush of the defensive line. They take all those old keys that look like a pass – such as the QB drop and the line slow protecting – and then take it a step further. You match up four things: 1. QB actions; 2. route combinations that are vertically threatening; 3. and stressful formations. Then combine all that with 4. a delay-natured run play and that’s how you develop the pass action run.






NEW BOOK!

AFM Videos Streaming Memberships Now Available Digital Download - 304 Pages of Football Forms for the Winning Coach



















HOME
MAGAZINE
SUBSCRIBE ONLINE COLUMNISTS COACHING VIDEOS


Copyright 2024, AmericanFootballMonthly.com
All Rights Reserved