QUICK PASS OFFENSE – 1

QUICK PASS OFFENSE – 1

Back in the 70s I was at a restaurant talking with a coach about his basic pass offense. We scratched out some things on several napkins that I took along with me that became the basis of what we are trying to accomplish with our quick pass O. So think of us sitting down at a table and we are scratching things out on a piece of paper that you can take, modify, and incorporating what you like into what you are doing with your program and scheme.

With the advent of the FREEZE, melding it with the quick pass O came easy. The #1 reason for this part of the offense is to have a basic passing attack no matter what talent we have at QB or Receiver. Unless you are coaching at a large high school with enrollments at 1500 or more, and you have a program that the kids want to be part of, you just are not going to be blessed with passing talent at QB every year.

I have coached at a number of schools with enrollments of 750 or less. Now think about the odds: 325 of those students at that school are girls. Of the 325 boys in school, how many are going to be in the senior class? Less than 80, right? You will be lucky if there are 15 or so that have decided to turn out for football practice. So . . . you now need to take those 15 kids, along with maybe 17 or 18 Juniors and come up with a backfield, receiving corps, LB’ers, and secondary as well as offensive and defensive lines. TALL ORDER. How could anyone outside the staff have any clue about what goes on behind the scenes in putting a competitive team out there for Friday Night Lights.

I remember talking with assistant coach Jeff Campbell on year saying, “You know, the Knights will win again this year. We have the potential to be extremely competitive again (at one time we were 40 & 4 at that school). But no one will ever understand what or how hard the coaching staff is going to have to work to get the team to that level.” I’m you’ve been there – done that as well.

So we need a passing game that is going to advance the ball enough to make another first down and keep the drive alive. Our philosophy is that we can go into the weight room and help kids develop their athletic abilities and thereby competitiveness. Kids who can power clean 225+ can compete better than kids who struggle to power clean 175. That’s a fact. But while he may be able to power clean 230, an athlete might not be a gifted passer.

We felt that a true passer is a bonus and would come along once every 4-5 years or so. The rest of the time we had to have some type of attack that would be effective, not necessarily spectacular.

So what are we after? We wanted a passing attack that would concentrate on completing passes or an 8-10 yard length. We can get receivers open in that area of the defense for a short period of time. The way we accomplish is via a little play action fake and the fact that secondaries are predictable.

First we use the same formations as with other aspects of the offense. We run the midline out of the doubles, doubles wide, power, and pro offensive sets. From all the sets, the base play of the offense is to give the ball to the FB on the first option of the option offense as previously explained in previous posts. So a fake to the fullback is going to FREEZE the LB’s for a step or two and lots of the time get them to step towards the LOS. Add to this the fact that those secondary coaches have preached to their players to “not get beat deep” which leads to those 3 drop step read steps. So, on that napkin we have a defense that right after snap, the LB’ers are biting on the fake, and the secondary (who aligned 8-12 yards deep depending . . . ) is taking at leas 3 read steps.

Now those three read steps are never just three. If you talk to any experienced secondary coach, you know that the read steps are really at least five steps to change direction and break on the ball: alignment, snap, three steps back – then you have to have a plant step that one brakes with, followed by at least one change of direction step. Three steps back, one step to change momentum and another step to change direction and BEGIN to break on the ball.

These “read” steps have always been a source of frustration for me. I do not like to have defenders moving away from the LOS for no particular reason. Each of our defenders in our secondary have a different name. Two of them are always responsible for run support and two are always deep defenders, which are the only two guys that are coached to take ‘read steps.’ When the average high school team is going to run the ball 35 or 40 times a game and pass at most 20 times, I want those guys responsible for contain to do just than: CONTAIN. They cannot do that moving away from the LOS with at least 5 steps. Our defensive philosophy is to limit the offense to less than three yards each play: because 2nd and 8 turns into 3rd and 8 which becomes 4th and 3 or 4 and a punting situation. If those contain defenders line up 3-4 yards deep and take those 5+ read steps, how far are we away from the line as the ball is crossing the LOS?

Any way, we know that 1.5 – 2 seconds after the ball is snapped, there are going to be these windows or big holes in the coverage that we can drop the ball into, and these passes are designed, for the most part, to be completed at a depth of 8-9 yards. You can shot put the ball that far. In fact, we even had a very talented running QB on year that did just that: shot put the ball out there. Some of our QBs have been dubbed spear chucker, javelin thrower, and other ‘affectionate,’ descriptive monikers.

But I want you to know that we have had a number of QBs with little or no passing talent abilities that have led their leagues in TD passes primarily because of this Quick Pass Offense.

So 2 seconds after the ball is snapped, we have LB’ers stepping to three yards or less (and remember, they too will have at least two transitional steps where they will be “marking time” trying to recover and get to their pass responsibility. Next we have a receiver at a depth of 7 yards moving to 10. Then there are secondary defenders that are 12-13 yards deep spread out across the field trying to ‘not get beat deep, but also cover four receivers across the field.

The idea is to get the ball to the receiver beyond the LB’ers and before the secondary can recover. A good pass defense is taught to “get there when the ball gets there.” The only way that they could successful defend against this passing attack is to play some kind of man coverage with some kind of bump or jam at or near the LOS.

The questions is, are they going to do that against an option offense and give up the corner to the QB and Pitch back? I think not. That would be far too big a risk defensively, don’t you think?

At the snap of the ball, we will give everyone a ‘false read’ for pass. We want the front seven to think run for their initial read and the secondary will takes those read steps anyway because they have been preached to about not getting beat deep! So we will have a receiver open at 8 yards, we just need to get him the ball there at the proper time.

Next we will discuss pass protection.