by Neil Blankenship
Swain County High School, North Carolina
excerpt from 2012 Nike Coach of the Year Clinics Notes by Earl Browning available at www.coacheschoice.com
Thank you. I want to get right into the defensive lecture as I have a lot of information I want to share. Often, we are asked what makes our defense different from other 3-5 schemes. First, I will give you a brief history and the purpose why we moved to this defensive scheme.
In 2001 at the state championship game, we began a variation of this defense due to the fact our opponents deployed an offense that spread us out across the field. We were playing a 4-2 look, so we took our strongside end and walked him off the line, and backed him off. That was the start of changing our defense.
During the off-season, Coach Rod White began studying the 3-5 defensive systems. He found there were several things about the 3-5 that other teams were doing that we didn't like, such as blitzing, playing head-up, and slanting their linemen. A lot of our kids play both ways, and we didn't think it was possible for them to play that style of defense the whole game.
We chose to take the old shade 52 and combine it with the 3-5 look. Over the past several years, we have integrated other defensive principles to create a custom fit for our style of play and our athletes. Our base is the 3-5 alignment (Diagram #1). We like this defense because it gives us so much versatility against the various offenses we face today. The tackle on the tight end plays a 7 technique. The nose is shaded to the tight end. The backside tackle aligns in a 4 technique. This is our base defense, which we call "Wolf heavy."
This defense allows us to call our strength to the wideside. We have the tight end to our weakside. The nose uses his heavy technique to the tight end side, and the two tackles trade responsibilities (Diagram #3). The ace and weak backer trade spots. We do this so the offense can't dictate who they want to run at or throw at.
DEFENSIVE LINE PLAY
What makes us different from other 3-5 schemes? One of the big things we do differently is that we do not use the number system with our defensive line. The main reason is that most of our kids play both sides of the ball, so we only use numbers on the offensive side. We talk more about head-up, outside eye, and inside eye. We do talk to them about A, B, C, and D gaps.
This alignment is Wolf heavy (Diagram #4). This is the down lineman's alignment and who they jam and read.
•Strong tackle: Lines up on the inside eye of the tight end; jams the tight end, and reads the tackle.
•Nose: Lines up on the strongside eye of the center, jams the center and the guard.
•Weak tackle: Lines up head-up on the tackle and reads the tackle.
This is what we look for at each of those three down line positions. There are certain characteristics that we are looking for in each position.
•Strong tackle: Is our biggest down lineman; we want him to be big and athletic.
•Nose: We have two different types: one who is quick and one who is bigger.
•Weak tackle: He is our quickest down lineman.
Next, I want to talk about jam and read techniques. First is the jam. The most-important priority that our linemen are taught is to be able to jam and control the line of scrimmage. The jam is a fairly simple process of squeezing the line of scrimmage, reacting to movement quickly and explosively. We want them to get both hands into the offensive linemen on the breastplate on their shoulder pads.
We do not want our defensive linemen to use their face mask to create separation. Our defensive linemen are smaller than most offensive linemen, and if they put their face in the shoulder pads they get blocked and they can't see. During the season, they will jam every Monday and Tuesday at practice.
Next is the read. The read is much more difficult for players to grasp, and it takes a tremendous amount of time and repetition. To help us to read, we do a drill called the "three-way read drill." During pre-season, we do the drill every day. During the season, we do it on Monday and Tuesday.
We also teach our down lineman to jam one player and read the block of another player. For example, our strong tackle will jam the tight end and read the tackle.
We want to teach our linemen to take proper pursuit angles and how to move up and down the line of scrimmage. We do not want our defensive linemen to get upfield. They are coached to work up and down the line of scrimmage. If they are getting upfield, then they are not getting a good jam. We have several drills we use to help our kids to jam and work up and down the line of scrimmage.
I want to cover our linebacker play and discuss how we are different than other 3-5 schemes. Our linebacker positions are as follows: strong safety, ace, strong backer, weak backer, and spy.
BLITZ
Most teams who play a 3-5 use a lot of blitzes. One of our main reasons we do not blitz a lot is because most of our kids will be playing both ways. Those kids begin to wear down and cannot blitz at that speed or level the whole game.
Following are our alignments for the five linebackers. We play all of these positions four to five yards deep. I want to give you a short comment about each position:
- Strong safety: Strong safety alignment is four yards outside of the tight end and four yards deep (unless they have wideside or twins). This player has to be good at run support and must be able to defeat blocks.
- Spy: Spy is built more like a safety. He lines up four yards outside of their tackle, and four yards deep. This may vary with down-and-distance. They could be lined up tighter and deeper. This will also be different if they come out in a twins set.
- Ace: Ace needs to be able to play up on the line of scrimmage or at the backer position. He is one of our best defensive players. He is also our biggest linebacker. The ace lines up on the inside leg of the strong tackle.
- Strong backer: The strong backer is bigger than our weak backer. The backer lines up head-up with the center.
- Weak backer: The weak backer lines up on the inside leg of the weak tackle, and he needs to be the athletic type.
We play five positions in the secondary. The positions are: field corner, short corner, free safety, strong safety, and the spy. We talked about the strong safety and the spy as linebackers. They are also defensive backs. We use multiple coverages. We like this defense because of the ability to play different coverages in the secondary. The defense allows us to make adjustments with our linebackers and secondary. We can make a lot of different adjustments without a lot of teaching involved.
This is how we line up in the secondary. Linebackers are not included in this alignment.
- Free safety: Free safety lines up 9 to 11 yards deep.
- Field corner: We play a field corner. He is deeper than the other corner, depending on the offensive set.
- Short corner: The short corner plays four to six yards deep.
We play a lot of cover 3. We do not play cover 2 very much. We can play one type of coverage to one side, and a different coverage to the other side of the ball.
I want to show you how we line up against a twins set with a tight end away from the slot (Diagram #5). We make the adjustment with our field corner and strong backer.
I want to cover five different adjustments we make with our Wolf heavy 3-5 defense. These are simple adjustments that can be made during the course of the game, depending upon the type of offensive sets we face.
First is the Wolf heavy switch (Diagram #6). The first question we must ask is: why? Why do we want to switch? It is important that the tackle not get reached, and it is important that the ace does not get down blocked.
•Changes who has quarterback and who has dive.
•Changes the cutoff player if the play is going away.
•Changes blocking schemes.
•Can give you a delayed blitz on a pass rush.
•Will use on the strongside most of time; will use it on the weakside some
(depends on what type of offense we are playing against).
•Gives players ownership to call it "on" or "off."
Next is our Wolf heavy space adjustment (Diagram #7). I plan to cover when we use it and what it offers us. This is great against the spread because it allows us to effectively play the slant from all slant receivers. We can unload the box after the speed teams have counted the box players. This works well against option teams and teams that use rules for blocking defenses.
•We use this when teams are spreading us out.
•We like to use this when ball is in the middle of field.
What It Offers
•Gives the quarterback a different look.
•Puts us in the curl and flat.
•Can help you contain a team with more speed.
•Changes angle of a blitz, if that's what you like to do.
•Linebackers can slide and adjust easy with different sets.
•If there's motion, it's easy to bump and slide linebackers.
Our next adjustment is our Wolf heavy spy adjust (Diagram #8). I want to make one important point: this is not a called defense. The spy learns throughout the week when to adjust. This is determined by offensive formation, field position, and the down-and-distance.
Closer to the boundary = closer to formation, plus added depth. He never aligns outside of the #2 receiver, unless the #2 receiver is a tight end.
When
•Use when there is a wideside.
•Can rotate free safety to field.
Why
•Allows us to play different coverages.
•Allows different coverages on each side.
•Allows us to play cover 2, cover 3, and man, with the availability of extra safety help.
•The free safety is able to cheat into the wide/ strongside as the spy player gets depth.
Next, we go to our Wolf heavy banjo adjustment (Diagram #9). When do we use this adjustment? We use it to cover wide receivers by sliding the defense. We dare the offense to run into the boundary on this adjustment. Following are our options on the adjustment.
•Allows ace to adjust to formations.
•Can bring ace off edge.
•Can drop ace into coverage and bring strong backer for contain.
•Can slide spy back.
•Can play multiple coverages.
Our last adjustment is our Wolf heavy bite (Diagram #10). It is our zone blitz. This is how it looks.
•Nose: Crosses the face of the center.
•Weak tackle: Has to have contain out the backside.
•Strong backer: Comes through the B gap.
•Ace: Comes on outside for contain.
I will be around if you have any questions. It has been a big year for us. We have won the state championships eight times. We were fortunate to win it again last year.
If you are interested in anything we do, just contact me. Thank you.
