GETTING AN EXTRA BLOCKER AT THE POINT OF ATTACK IN THE SPREAD Part I

I want to thank you for allowing me to share some of the ideas that have made Washington High School football successful over the last few years. We have been fortunate enough to play in the last two state championship games. Unfortunately, we have come up short, but we feel we are on the right track.

We are a shotgun, no-huddle, and 4-wide football team. When most people see that, they automatically think we want to throw the ball and throw the ball a lot. For us, that is not the case. We want to spread out the defense and run it right down their throats. If you have ever been to South Dakota in late October or early November you know it can get cold and the wind can be downright vicious. Because of that, we believe you need a strong running game to be successful late in the season and throughout the playoffs. Because we strongly believe in a 4-wide type of offense it is important for us to run the ball in these types of conditions.

One of the ways we have been able to accomplish this is to use motion from our slot receivers to gain an extra blocker in the box. In our base alignment (See Diagram 1), that would be our A and our Z. One of our base plays where we utilize motion is the dart play.


In the dart, we pull the back-side tackle who leads up the hole. This has been a great play for us versus an even front defense but now we see an odd front defense either a 3-4 (See Diagram 2) or a 3-5 (See Diagram 3) almost all the time and it became hard to block the back-side. We would either leave a back-side end or back-side LB unblocked and he would disrupt the play. By using slot motion we were able to solve that problem.

The first way we do this is with our A-back using what we call Ant motion. The play call would be “Right Ant 33.” The A will motion into the near tackle and become responsible for the play-side LB versus a 3-4 defense. We will also be pulling our back-side tackle giving us two extra blockers at the point of attack (See Diagram 4).

We are now able to account for the back-side DE and LB by having our back-side guard fill for the tackle and the pulling tackle coming around for the back-side LB. The play-side tackle will be one-on-one with DE and the play-side guard and center can double-team the nose to the back-side.

This also works well against 3-3 or 3-5 defenses. If we want to use our Z as a blocker we can by using what we call zip motion. To do this, we move our B-back to the left by using the word “bolt” in the formation. The play would then be called “Right Bolt Zip 32.” The Z will motion into the near tackle and at the snap he will be responsible for the MLB. The pulling tackle will be responsible for the WILL LB and the back-side guard can fill for the pulling tackle. This allows our play-side guard and center to double-team the nose and the SAM LB (See Diagram 5).

We also utilize our slot motions when we run another of our base run plays which is a dive using wedge blocking. We mainly use the Z for this task. In our base alignment there are two different types of motion we can use to handle a pinching DE or a tackle vs. a 5-2 type defense. The first motion is what we call “Zig-Zag.” This tells the Z to motion to the near guard and turn back until he gets to about the middle of the tackle. At the snap of the ball, he will kick out the DE vs. a 4-3 or DT vs. a 5-2. The play call would be “Right Zig-Zag 30” (See Diagram 6).

The other way we can use motion with our Z is what we call ‘Zap” motion. This motion tells the Z to motion across the formation and kick out the DE in an even front defense or the DT in a 5-2 type of defense. The play call would be “Right Bolt Zap 31” (See Diagram 7).

We have been successful with this having players who have been all different sizes. We have had players from 165-220 lbs. execute these motions and blocks and they all have done a good job. We firmly believe in the spread and we want to run the ball out of it and using motion to gain an extra blocker is just one way to do that. p

Eric Struck completed his 7th season at Washington High School in Sioux Falls, SD. Coach Struck is the O-line and WRs coach at Washington High. He is a native of Sioux Falls and graduated from the U of Sioux Falls in 2001.

Questions? If you have any questions you can email the author at: EricStruck@AmericanFootballMonthly.com