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AFM Magazine


Stopping the Spread Offense

by: Jerry Jacoby
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Defending the spread offense. Where does one start? Maybe on the other side of the ball. What exactly is a spread offense? And understanding what it is you are trying to defend will go along way in answering how you are going to defend it.

The spread offense means many things to many people. Sure there are some consistencies, but it seems every coach has added his own twist and own purpose to running the spread offense. And while trying to stop the spread offense, you better know what type of spread offense your opponent is running. You better learn those twists and objectives your opponent has added to the blueprint of this attack.

So the first place to start when trying to defend the offense is on your opponent’s side of the football. Break out the game film and grab a pen and notepad. The definition of the spread offense begins with “spreading” people out. This creates space t operate and stretches the defense horizontally. What it really does is force a defense to defend more space.

It’s also usually run out of a shotgun formation, giving the quarterback an opportunity to see the defense and make better reads. It also attempts to create mismatches, like a linebacker trying to cover one of your speedier receivers. Or a small safety trying to stay with a much taller receiver.

Another one of the goals of this offense is to get the ball into the hands of a team’s playmaker. If your best player is a wide receiver, you want the ball in his hands as much as possible. And what better place to get him the ball than in some open space where he can make things happen. What if the running back is the team’s playmaker? Same thing. More touches in more open spaces. But the general term of a spread offense is all-encompassing. It’s usually not one definable thing, but a combination of things.

Sometimes there is a running back with three wideouts. Sometimes there are four wideouts with an empty backfield. Sometimes there is a tight end. Sometimes no tight end. There are often times players in motion and even a player in the slot. A spread offense attempts to expose some weakness and force a defense to play a lot of one-on-one. You may have to tackle a great running back or wideout in the open field where there is more room to operate.

The challenge for a defensive coach is to understand the differences in the opponent’s style of the spread offense and figure out how to best defend it. Coach Kerry Coombs gave a speech a few years ago to the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association on defending the spread offense. Coombs began his lecture with a funny story on the first time he faced a spread offense.

“I was befuddled and didn’t have a good concept of how to defend that offense,” said Coombs, the very successful coach at Ohio powerhouse Colerain High School near Cincinnati. “I called a time out and went out to talk to the team. I yelled at them and told them to play harder and hit them. I didn’t have a clue on what they should do, and I could not say anything that would give them the confidence that our coaching staff knew how to defend that set.”

That would soon change. Coombs made a decision at that moment never to be that lost and confused again during a game. The spread offense was about to spread all over the country and Coombs knew that he was going to have to learn how to defend it or that “powerhouse” label would become a thing of the past. “I had to talk to an awful lot of people to get some understanding about how to play the spread offense,” Coombs said. “I visited a lot of college coaches and talked to them about how to establish a plan to stop this offense.”

Jerry Glanville, best known for creating the “Gritz Blitz” defense as defensive coordinator with both the Atlanta Falcons and Houston Oilers, knows a little bit about how to prepare a defense. Whether it’s against a two-back formation, a wishbone or spread offense, Glanville has proven through his years in college and the NFL that he has earned his “defensive guru” reputation.

After spending 11 years in the broadcasting booth, Glanville joined friend June Jones at the University of Hawaii. The man in black is now wearing Hawaiian shirts and teaching college players the art of defense. Stopping the spread offense has become a lesson the professor has stressed to his young students.

“One of the first things to do against the spread with an empty backfield is to defend the wide receiver screen,” said the 64-year-old Glanville. “People will spread out and if you don’t match up properly they have you outnumbered and at a great disadvantage. You better match up against a spread offense or it will be a long day.”

According to Glanville, the strong safety, cornerback and linebacker must be over the top of them to take away the slant, screen and quick out – those are the three plays most commonly run out of the spread.

By emptying the backfield, several things become very apparent to a defensive coordinator. “It’s going to be a pass and usually a three-step pass,” Glanville said. “It’s all three-step drops. The slant and wide receiver screen are popular options off this formation. You have to be ready for them.” Glanville also stresses that communication on the field – and on the sidelines – is an important tool to defending the spread offense.

“We stay in a zone against a spread, we don’t go man-to-man,” Glanville said. “I always count the number of wide receivers on the field and the linebacker or safety needs to recognize an empty backfield and communicate that to the rest of the defense. One of the keys to calling this out is that the defensive line can now go 100 percent, all out at the quarterback. They need to know there is no running threat.”

Coombs said that after looking at several ways to communicate from the sidelines, they went with what he felt was the easiest and most effective way. “You have to come up with a system to let your players know the personnel on the field,” Coombs said. “You have to communicate to your team the personnel groupings. What we do is have everyone on the defense learn the signals. Everyone looks to the sidelines and when the coach signals the defense into the game, everyone reads the signal.”

Glanville also believes it’s easier to defend a team that exclusively uses the spread compared to one that will change to it out of another formation. Studying film can help prepare a defense for when an opponent might switch out of its base offense and into a spread formation. He also believes it’s difficult to stop a spread offense from a 4-3 defense.

“You should switch to a 3-4 defense against the spread,” Glanville said. “If you were playing in the NFL against the St. Louis Rams, you would have three linebackers and then drop a tackle on the weak side. The tackle needs to drop to the short side.” The situation of the game, according to Glanville, doesn’t make any difference when defending a spread. A first-and-10 or third-and-one has no impact on how a defense should line up. “Once that backfield goes empty, it’s three steps and a pass so it really doesn’t matter the situation,” he said.

Coombs agrees that stopping a spread offense from a 4-3 defense doesn’t make much sense. “It’s a lot more difficult to bring pressure from a 4-3 defense. An odd-front defense is a better way to do it. You have to have a spread philosophy. It forced us to have a specific plan of attack for these formations.”

Coombs said the skills a coach looks for in defensive players have changed because of the spread offense. “The back seven all have to be able to cover now,” he said. “You can’t have the traditional middle linebacker whose purpose is to stop the run. He must be able to cover now and have the speed to cover people. Our kids can all run and I think this makes us attractive to college recruiters because many colleges now run some kind of a spread offense.”

One of those colleges that now run the spread offense is Utah. Quarterback Alex Smith completed 29 of 37 passes, four of them for touchdowns, for 328 yards in Utah’s 35-7 victory over Pittsburgh in last season’s Fiesta Bowl. The win gave Utah a perfect 12-0 season. But a closer look at the box score showed that the Utes also ran the ball 31 times. Passing 37 times and running 31 times tends to indicate pretty good balance.

In Utah’s previous game against rival Brigham Young, the Utes ran the ball 48 times for 354 yards. Coach Urban Meyer created quite the buzz with his spread offense, but the Utes did more than just pass out of this offense. Utah’s version of the spread offense was more often a power run attack seasoned with short high-percentage passes.

Texas Christian University ended Utah’s winning streak in September by shutting down the Utes’ running game, not the passing game. TCU smothered the line and pressured the quarterback all game long. Utah ran the ball 50 times for just 109 yards in a 23-20 loss.

West Virginia is another team known for running the spread offense – and we do mean running the spread offense. The Mountaineers’ version of the spread offense has led the Big East in rushing each of the past four years. Heading into its Sugar Bowl game against Georgia, West Virginia averaged 262.5 yards per game on the ground, fifth best in the country. In its 46-44 shootout victory over Louisville this past season, the Mountaineers ran the ball 53 times for 281 yards.

Statistics don’t lie. Running out of the spread offense can be a distinct advantage for an offense.

“The spread offense creates running lanes,” Coombs said. “I was amazed at how many coaches told me they got into the spread offense to run the ball. They create running lanes and seams by widening the field from boundary to boundary and they get as few defenders in the interior of the field as possible.”

Another benefit of the spread offense is that it takes the pressure off the offensive line. By forcing teams to go wide and adjust to a spread attack, the number of players “in the box” is reduced. “They want to get their offensive line in a one-on-one situation with your defensive front. They want to eliminate all the stunts that a defense can run,” said Coombs, who has his own way of eliminating this advantage. I like to put my strongest defensive lineman one-on-one with their weakest offensive lineman. This way we can create our own mismatch. We want to get three defenders on two blockers. If you bring four defenders from the weak side, you are going to give the spread offense trouble.”

It all comes back to what your opponent is trying to do with the spread offense – their purpose for running this formation.

Each opponent’s spread offense is a little different than the next guys. “A true spread guy is going to throw it on second and one or third and long, it doesn’t matter to them,” Coombs said. “The guy who dabbles in it are usually easier to defend and they will change based on the situation so you often know when its coming.

“But a true spread-offense coach doesn’t care about situation. These are the guys that are more difficult to stop.”



5 Quick Steps to Defending the Spread Offense
1. Matchups. One of the purposes of a spread offense is to create mismatches. Identify an opponent’s playmaker(s) and make sure they are appropriately covered.

2. The quarterback. If your opponent’s quarterback can run, you better have a safety or someone “assigned” to defend against the run. Just because the backfield is empty doesn’t mean it’s not a designed running play if the QB has the skills to run the ball.

3. Communication. Have a plan devised where everyone on the defense is on the same page. If they are running a no-huddle, communication must be done quickly and efficiently.

4. A backup plan. Let’s face it, sometimes Plan A doesn’t work. You better have a Plan B ready to implement and you better have practiced Plan B. Game time is not the time to introduce new strategy.

5. Where is their weak point on the offensive line? Put your best defensive lineman opposite their weakest offensive lineman and attack. You can disrupt a great deal of what they’re trying to do by finding their weak link and exploiting it.






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