At the BFS clinics I conduct, I have an exercise I demo with the offensive line that you can do with your line coach and men. Take the five O-Linemen and put them on the baseline in the gym. Have them get in their offensive stance with their toes on the line.
Then, without moving their feet, have them stand up and then do a standing long jump. Be sure to mark how far they went.
Next have them return to the base line, only this time have each of them assume a jump stance. If they do not know what that is, have them place their big toe in their arm pit – no wider.
Then have them jump again. Note what happens. Everyone invariably jumps farther, sometimes significantly farther.
The point is, if you want to be more explosive off the line, narrow you stance. We would tell our kids that we wanted them to be uncomfortable in their stance so they could step comfortably.
Narrowing your stances will improve your line play, especially when you are using the same jump stance everyday that you power clean in the weightroom.
One more thing, Another big improvement can be made if you teach your center to be more explosive. Over 90% of the centers in high school ball snap the ball first them they step to block. This always puts them at a disadvantage. The defense keeps their eyes on the ball, while the center snaps, the defense moves and will be striking the center and knocking him back.
Now I played center in high school and college and quickly learned that to gain an advantage, I needed to be stepping while snapping the ball. Any center can learn to do this and it give a HUGE advantage to your center which then transfers to the rest of your line.
Think about it. Who knows more on when the ball will be snapped than your center. So if you can get him to step forward while snapping, he would be first off the line. He becomes the apex of the of your line’s movement. What was once a liability is now and asset.
To improve your line explosiveness, narrow down their stance, And get more weight on their down hand. You get about the right amount of pressure on that down hand when the arm is perpendicular to the ground and the hips are slightly higher than the shoulder blades.
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4 comments:
Do you use the same stance or a slight variation for a pass play?
Right after I posted this, I thought this question would arise, especially with all the pass happy systems that abound. I'm old enough to hear Coach Woody Hayes instruct us on the things that can go wrong when one drops back to pass. We are a dive option/midline football team. We employ a fire-out play action passing attack, as described in our online playbook (www.addy.com/coachfree). Basically, we fire out, strike the defender, recoil, strike again, recoil, strike again. I have a hard time telling our players to take two steps back and wait for the defense (who has a running start) to try and run over you. I beleive that striking the opponent on the LOS, recoiling and striking again, gives us more of a distance between the QB and the defenders. Over 75% of our passing attack is play action, boot, sprint-out, quick pass etc which lends itself to play action pass blocking,i.e., open receivers and better pass protection.
After playing and the more and more I coach and study I agree with what your are saying. I am a younger coach and was at one point leaning more towards implementing a spread offense. I quickly realized that with the type of athletes at our school I needed to go a different approach. At that time I happen to stumble upon the EQualizer offense. Ever since I have become more and more convinced this is they way to go. Thank you for sharing. It has meant a lot to this young coach.
Here's the Deal: My whole coaching career, everyone form every level always says 'you must establish the running game first.' Get your self a solid running game offense that works for you. Be able to adjust the scheme to the talent you have. When the talent comes, consider it a bonus.
The thoughts we have posted on simple complexity explains the concept - our system easily adjusts to the talent we have any particular year. The EQualizer is a base from which to operate from.
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