Putting Nine in the Box

TRINITY UNIVERSITY\'S TIGHT DEFENSE
by: Chip Thomas
Defensive Coordinator, Trinity College
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We have been fortunate to achieve an extremely high level of success at Trinity over the past five to seven years. Obviously, there is no one single factor which has allowed us to develop into a consistent winner. Playing with strong special teams, and having an offense which scores 30+ points a game has definitely helped us gain an advantage over our opponents. From the defensive side of the ball, going to our under ("Tight") defense has made all the difference in the world from being a strong defensive unit, to one which can completely shut our opponents' running game down.

We have developed into an under defense for a number of reasons. First, and foremost was a crushing defeat in the 1997 NCAA Division III National Playoffs. When we started playing among the national elite of Division III football, we quickly found out that we were much smaller than most everyone else at that level, and could not physically line up with four defensive linemen and attempt to control the line of scrimmage. Secondly, we decided that we must have the ability to put our three-technique tackle on both sides (strong, and weak) of the line of scrimmage, to enable us to give our opponents two completely different looks up front. And thirdly, by playing "Tight" defense, this gave us the ability to really utilize our defensive line's strength, which is their quickness, by utilizing a slanting scheme.

By playing "Tight" defense, we are committing at least seven defensive players in the box to stop the run, no matter what offensive formation is used. An offense can align with a four wide receiver set and we will still keep our seven in the box. Yes, this does put a lot of pressure on our defensive secondary, but in order to outnumber our opponents at the line of scrimmage, we feel that we must remain aggressive, and keep the box loaded with at least seven players. However, if an offense aligns with a tight end, and two running backs, this will allow two of our DB's to over-aggressively play the run, and actually get nine defensive men playing the run. We tell our players when most teams talk about putting "eight in the box" we want "nine in the box." We believe this puts us in position of having at least one unblocked player in every situation, which is critical in stopping the run. It allows our linebackers to get a really quick read on the ball carrier, and flow aggressively without worrying about cutback responsibility. Playing "Tight" defense is our signature, the coaches know it, the players know it, and our opponents know it. It is who we are. We will stop the run at all costs.

The basic responsibility of each position is as follows. We use our secondary as primary force on outside run and option, and as cutback players for run away, this will give us our eighth and ninth player, if needed. Again, we will always keep our linebackers in the box, and they will scrape and force with an emphasis of playing between the tackles. By eliminating cutback with the secondary, the linebackers can flow much more quickly to the ball carrier, with almost a reckless abandon attitude. Our defensive line controls the line of scrimmage similar to how an offensive line does. The primary responsibility for the defensive line is to play their respective gap, and make a clear path for the LB's and DB's to swarm the football. Even though our defensive line does not make as many tackles as they could in a pure attacking 4/3 scheme, their importance to our overall success is second to none. Without the D-Line doing their job, we would be dead average.

Diagram 1. Diagram 2. Diagram 3. Diagram 4. Diagram 5a & 5b. Diagram 6. Diagram 7. Diagram 8. Diagram 9. Diagram 10. Diagram 11.

Base Alignment

On the line of scrimmage, our down four linemen align themselves as tight as possible (both vertically, and horizontally) to their respective offensive lineman. Our alignment key is "your inside eye on his outside eye," this along with having their inside foot, and inside hand back and attacking the offensive lineman keeps them tight on the line of scrimmage. Our tight alignment is one of the most important keys for our run defense success, because it keeps the opposing offensive line tied up and unable to reach the second and third levels or our defense and make their respective blocks. Typically, we will have a three-technique tackle and a five-technique end on the weak side of the offense. On the strong side, we will have a one-shade noseguard, a five-technique end, and a nine-technique OLB walked up. The inside linebackers will vary their horizontal alignment according to the call, and the offensive set, but they will always be inside the tackle box, and aligned at five yards deep. Our secondary will show a cover four shell, striving for a level alignment unless the call dictates otherwise, and aligned from seven to nine yards depth. The secondary players will attempt to show the same alignment regardless of being the force player or the deep player. (See Diagram 1)

Defensive Line play

To break our defense down to the simplest form for our players, we try to give them three to four skills that they must be able to accomplish to become successful. For example, we tell our two inside tackles (one and three shade), that they cannot get hooked which will force the double-team block, the three must trap the trapper, and they both must be able to not get scoop blocked on run away. Our two five-technique ends must not get hooked, they must wrong arm any kick out block to make the ball bounce, and they must squeeze the offensive tackles down block. The strong side five-technique must also be able to command a double team block from the TE/OT. And lastly, we walk a nine-technique LB down on the TE, with the same horizontal alignment keys. If there is no TE, then he becomes a "ghost nine", by widening himself out and tilting in, with his inside foot back. They must play the TE with the same rules as the five-technique end on the OT. Another crucial factor to our overall success is everyone's ability to put his own personal ego aside and play with the team first. Our defensive linemen like to say that they are akin to an offensive lineman blocking for the tailback, as to how they protect our linebackers.

To keep the offensive line from using our defensive line as target practice, we utilize a slanting scheme. This scheme allows us to slant anywhere from one single player, two using two-man slants, all the way to slanting all five. This permits our linemen to align with the tight alignment and play the outside shoulder assertively and not get hooked, but also be able to slant to the inside gap, and make penetration. We have the ability to set up our calls in a number of different ways to get what we need accomplished from week to week. We will slant either strong or weak according to a formation, a backfield set, to the wide field or boundary. In order to make "educated" calls with our slanting game, we come up with a number of automatic calls each week according to formations, backfield sets, motions, or whatever we determine as significant to each opponents running game.

The slants that we utilize are five man strong and weak slants (See Diagrams 2 & 3), weak side 3 and 5 tech. slant into the weak A and B gap (See Diagram 4), individually slanting the one shade noseguard through the strong A or weak A gap (See Diagrams 5A, and 5B), taking the strong side 5 tech. and slanting into the B gap (See Diagram 6), slanting the 9 tech LB and 5 tech. into the B and C gap (See Diagram 7). To accomplish the slant moves our linemen will adjust their feet in order to push off of in either direction. They will still have the inside foot back, but if they are going to slant to the outside, then they will balance up their feet more than the normal stagger. When they do slant, the footwork is to take a slide step with their directional foot, then a power rip move with the backside arm by dipping the backside shoulder, and shooting the arm and foot through to gain separation and penetration. Then they must be able to square up and react to the offensive play.

Linebacker play

In order for our defense to run effectively, our linebackers must always know where their defensive linemen are. They must completely understand our slanting scheme, and understand where we are strong, and where we are susceptible to attack. Our Mike LB must understand that if the weak side three and five technique slant inside, and the ball shows outside on a zone bounce play that he must scrape with leverage (See Diagram 8), versus filling the weak side B gap on an weak-side isolation, if the three technique slants into the A gap (See Diagram 9). With this in mind, our linebackers do not have set alignments to formations or backfield sets. They will constantly change their alignment according to our defensive call and how the offense lines up. This allows our linebackers to put themselves in the best possible pre-snap position to make a play.

For example, our two inside LB's (Backer, Mike) will shift strong when the offensive backfield aligns in a strong-I set, which will put the MLB almost head-up on the Center, and the Backer will shift out behind his 5 technique end (See Diagram 10). Versus a weak-I set our LB's might shift their alignment depending on the defensive lines slant call where the MLB could be aligned behind the weak side 5 technique, and the backer could shift behind the one-technique noseguard. Again, it all depends on the scouting report, and the defensive call. This is where your linebackers must understand your scheme in order to place themselves in the optimum alignment.

Secondary play

Our base coverage in the secondary is a quarter's coverage, which allows us to really use our two safeties in an aggressive manner playing the run. The safeties read the number two-receiver to their side; this could be the slot receiver, a TE, or even a RB. They will take a flat foot read, with a little bounce in their step, which will hold their alignment while determining if it is a run, or pass play. When they get a run read, the play-side safety will become the immediate force player, he will take pitch on option, or force any outside run back to his help. The backside safety is absolutely crucial to our scheme; he is our primary cutback player. When he reads run away, he will slide down to linebacker level and scrape just as a backside LB would and make sure that the ball does not cutback behind him (See Diagram 11). Even more importantly overall, this allows the two LB's not have to worry about any cutback responsibility. This allows them to aggressively get across any blockers and to flow quickly to the football without having to worry about it cutting back on them. We can change up which player is the force player, by simply rolling up the corner on the snap and the safety will take the deep half, which is useful when teams start sending their WR's immediately to block the safeties, without respecting the corners. Also if teams put the passing strength into the boundary, we also like to put a hard cloud (corner support) force to the field.

Inside Run

The drill which we feel gives us our best look at stopping the run, and allows everyone to react to their respective reads as close to a game like situation is the basic inside running period. The only thing that we may do differently from a number of teams is that we always bring our safeties down to the drill. Even though the safeties do not get blocked by wide receivers in this drill, they still must incorporate their initial run read, then react to become either a force or cutback player. They also must learn how to play off of a fullback, or an offensive lineman's block. But since we are counting on the safeties so heavily to support the run, we feel it is instrumental that they are included in the drill. Also the LB's understand and gain confidence as to how the secondary is used as cutback responsibility. Initially, the backside LB will hesitate versus a zone away from him, because he is usually so educated in becoming the cutback player, instead of getting a quick flow read, and allowing the safety to become the cutback player. Inside run also gives our LB's practice understanding our scheme of slanting up front, what to expect, how to play and react to it. From the defensive line, they learn the blocking schemes that they will face that weekend, and what is expected from them. Inside run also allows us a ten minute period where our players can really turn up the hitting and overall physical play during practice. It turns up the intensity, and spirit of practice, and really gives us good momentum going into our team period. We do not take the ball carrier to the ground, but we will physically wrap them up, and use good sound tackling form.

Again, this defense is designed to stop the run. We will put however many players needed in the box to accomplish this. But, another great advantage of this defense is that you do not sacrifice passing game alignment by putting secondary players at linebacker depth, unless warranted by the offensive formation. When we align, we typically still have a true four-pronged secondary alignment, which keeps us technically sound versus any play, but again also very strong versus the run.

This defense has been very good to us at Trinity University and we hope that you have success stopping the run by putting "nine in the box".

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