Combating Offensive Speed with the 4-4 Defense

by: Mike Kuchar
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Whatever is being done at a higher level is usually filtered and quickly replicated through to the high school ranks. Packages like the zone read offense, the ‘spread’ rugby style punt formation and odd-stack defenses have become the norm now at lower levels. Although trends come in cycles, perhaps no scheme in football, except for the I formation offense, has had as much consistency as the 4-4 defense.

Yet despite the popularity of the defense, teams have recently started to shift to utilizing more odd style fronts like the 5-2, 5-3 or the ever present 3-3-5 that West Virginia University has made so popular. A big reason why is to get more speed on the field. Playing with only three defensive linemen and five defensive backs presents positive or neutral match ups against teams that run the spread and the zone read. However, some coaches have found a way to keep the traditional 4-4 structure of a defense intact and are still able to combat the speed of offenses today.

Tim Place, the head coach at NAIA Urbana College is one of those coaches. Urbana has had tremendous success at the NAIA level. Since 2002, the Blue Knight defense has been at the top of all defensive statistical categories in their conference. In fact, just this past season, they finished first in sacks and second in rushing defense – without allowing a hundred yard rusher all season. Nationally, the Blue Knights finished third in sacks and 13th in the NAIA in run defense. Urbana has been a traditional 4-4 team and the reason, according to Place, is due to more of a situation of circumstance than choice.

“We don’t have a ten or eleven guy staff here that you would see at some of these larger schools. We only have about three coaches on each side of the ball,” said Place. “At the NAIA you pretty much get what you see. We don’t have a ton of scholarships so we can’t go out and recruit lightening fast speed. We pretty much have to play the hand that we’re dealt which is fine with us because we try and get the most out of our players. As far as game planning goes, we don’t have the time to play a ‘defense of the week.’ We don’t personnel teams and match up to what they are doing. We don’t worry so much about that. So we’ll stay in our 4-4 or G package, as we call it, and let teams adjust to us.”

What Place will do when he plays quicker opponents is work from his ‘G-Package’ which is more of a 4-2-5 scheme (See Diagram 1). The structure of the defense contains four defensive linemen: a strong and weak defensive end, a nose guard and a 3-technique tackle that aligns to the strength of the formation. There are traditionally two stacked inside linebackers and two outside linebackers: the Strike and Whip. The back half of the defense features two corners and a safety – a typical 4-4 look. He will try to be in an eight-man front as much as possible depending on the down and distance. If it’s first and ten, second and medium or third and short Urbana will be in their traditional 4-4 scheme. Yet, in long yardage situations, Place is able to keep the original front four intact, and at the same time play with five defensive backs just to get that element of speed. “It’s great because it allows you to adjust easily,” said Place. “You can stop the run effectively by moving your front four and are still able to defend the pass.”

Diagram 1: Urbana’s 4-4 Defense

Place will substitute for a nickel defensive back and implement two hybrid safety/ linebacker types at the Strike and Whip positions. The backers are quick enough to run with the number two or slot receivers of an offense, in case Place wants to deviate from his cover three scheme and play some man coverage. This allows Urbana to get the speed they need on the field without substituting too much up front. “It’s easy to adjust against what you see and we see a ton of spread formations in our conference. But nowadays, teams have tremendous success running the football out of spread formations. I just don’t think that you can be effective sitting in an odd stack 3-3-5 and be able to stop the run,” says Place. “So it’s more of a comfort zone than anything else. The fourth D-lineman gives you the possibilities of additional movement.”

In order to get that movement, Place will shift and stem the defensive line as much as possible pre-snap in order to throw off offensive lines that utilize zone blocking schemes. One of his favorite four man movements is the ‘slip’ (See Diagram 2) which is excellent for the run game, particularly gap schemes like the power or counter plays. On the slip, the strong side defensive end attacks the near hip of the offensive tackle, squeezing down inside. The 3-technique tackle crosses the guard’s face by dipping, ripping and getting skinny into the front side A gap. The nose on the snap works for a depth of approximately one yard and works to replace the stunting 3-technique. He must keep his shoulders square to play the ball. Then the weak side defensive end crosses the offensive tackle’s face by dipping, ripping and getting skinny and running through the B gap.

Diagram 2: Urbana’s ‘Slip’

In order to get movement on passing downs with the front four, Place will dial up his ‘reverse’ scheme (See Diagram 3). The stunt is great against both man and zone protection teams. Basically, it is an exchange between the nose and 3-technique tackle. The nose is the first player to move, as he crosses the center’s face into the A gap by dipping, ripping and getting skinny. The tackle is the looper; he works tight off the hip of the nose and gets up field. The weakside end crosses the face of the offensive tackle and gets into the B gap, relinquishing his contain responsibilities while the strong side end gets up field right away to contain the pass.

Diagram 3: Urbana’s ‘Reverse’

Another advantage to the 4-4 is that it is adjustable to basically any formation because of its structure. By nature the 4-4 is a balanced front. But where you declare your strength depends on preference. At Urbana, Place will declare his strength to the strong side of the formation, usually where the tight end lines up or to the side with the multiple receivers. But head coach Terry Smith, at Williamstown High School in West Virginia, likes to declare the strength of his 4-4 either to the field or boundary. “The reason we do that is because we are a small school. We have only 50 players on our team, so we must have players who can play both sides of the ball,” says Smith. “We put our best position players on the field side of the defense. We want to use the boundary to help the defense to that side. The sideline never misses a tackle. Every time the ball carrier steps on the sideline, the whistle blows.”

Smith agrees that one of the benefits of the split 4 scheme is bringing pressure while playing sound coverage behind it. Williamstown runs a traditional three-deep scheme. But when playing spread teams that can stretch the ball vertically, Smith will employ more of a man free (cover one) look or blitz up to six players and play cover zero behind it. In Smith’s cover zero blitz package, the corners will have the outside receivers while the two outside LBs (Jacket and Will) will play the slots. The free safety has the number three receiver wherever he may show up. One of Smith’s favorite 4-4 pressures is the Thunder Ego (See Diagram 4). ‘Thunder’ tells the outside LBs that they are coming off the edge containing the QB with both defensive ends taking a hard inside route. The Sam LB and the free safety play the number two receivers and the Mike LB plays the lone back. The corners are not involved in the blitz.

Diagram 4: Williamstown’s ‘Thunder Ego’

“Whatever blitz scheme you choose to run, the players have to know when you blitz that it is not just to sack the quarterback. You have to play great run defense first,” says Smith. “When they blitz, they think about sacking the QB all the time and the tailback runs right by them on a straight handoff. They have to know what to do if the team runs the ball.”

According to Mark Zielinski, head football coach at North Brunswick High School in New Jersey, along with the pressure package, the 4-4 defense also provides some flexibility to adjust to various offensive formations without compromising the people at the line of scrimmage. “At our level of play the most important thing an offense will try to do is run the football. Therefore, the first thing you must do defensively is stop the run. There is no better way to do that than have four defensive linemen at the point of attack,” says Zielinski. “We’ll do a lot of different things to correlate their movement with the LBs behind them but we need to be able to crowd the line of scrimmage. The benefit you get with the 4-4 is you get those four down linemen plus you have the capacity of getting eight guys in the box. I used to love seeing those odd stack and 4-3 teams as an offensive coordinator because I knew I would be able to have success running the football against them.”

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