RANGER FREEZE: The Option Read

RANGER FREEZE: The Option Read

There is a large school of coaches, especially younger ones who do not have the option in their scheme for any number of reasons. The biggest of which are it seems: 1. The option is too difficult to teach high schoolers; and 2. It takes up too much practice time to get it to the level of execution necessary to be successful.

Obviously, I do not subscribe to any of that; not because I am an old school throw back or the like, but because the advantages of running the option, or more importantly, the THREAT of the option far outweigh any of the drawbacks.

As we have said earlier in this series, when you run the option, or they THINK that you might run the option, it limits what they are going to do defensively, especially when you have the midline freeze in your scheme. Because we run it out of the Power (goal line, short yardage set) as well as a side open, one back set (with motion), the threat is always there. That means on every play the defense has to account for the Dive Back, the QB, and the Pitch Back on both sides of the ball. That takes care of three defenders on each side of the ball. Now when you have split receivers to both sides of the formation who threaten to go deep with play action pass on any given play, someone has to cover them. Invariably, the defense is in some kind of cover two look with two defenders deep. That FREEZES UP two more defenders making a grand total of EIGHT defenders that are locked into place on the defense at or near the snap of the ball leaving only three other defenders to place along the LOS to cover all remaining gaps and balance out their alignment.

That is why I call it The EQualizer. The scheme limits what they are going to be able to do defensively and puts your players on the field in a position where they can be successful. ESPECIALLY when you are truly able to add in the running of the true triple option because when you run the triple, you do not block up to three defenders of the defense. You get to play 11 on eight. Is that an advantage? Let’s say we are going into a fight. You have 11 players on your side, they have eight. Remember the piece we posted a while back on why BFS schools win? Our 11 guys have spent a year in the BFS Total Strength and Conditioning Program where everything we do is designed to help the players run faster, jump higher, and be more explosive. They have broken 11 or more records a week for an entire year.

Take the experience we had at Estacada initially. Because of a late levy vote in June, they did not have the money for the position so I did not get the call to come see RangerLand till the week before the 4th of July. Jacquie and I had really made up our minds that we were to be stuck another year in Everett because for whatever reason things did not work out right with another round of interviews that spring. I was in the middle of laying down wood flooring at the house when the call came from principal Steve Woods, “Are you still looking for a coaching job?” He had heard that I had interview for the past couple years at districts nearby. “Well, we have decided to stay at Everett another year. It’s late in the game now that it’s July,” I answered. “Why don’t you just come down and let us show you what we got,” he countered.

Well, there was just something about his tone of voice in the rest of the conversation. For close to five years I had been filling out applications and interviewing to find the “right fit” for the next position. You do not get married just because someone asks you, it has to feel right, especially in your gut, right? There was just something in his voice. I told Jacquie I was going to just go down to have a look see.

Well . . . I was hired around the 25th of July. We had less than a month to put together a staff, sell a house, move from out of state and get things started. We were 50+ years old and packing things up again . . . . did I mention my wife is a Saint?

Long story short, I got into town semi-permanently one week before practice started. My first full night in the weightroom saw ONE play try to bench press 225 pounds, AND NOT BE ABLE TO PUT THAT UP! You talk about weak! I could go on here and tell you stories about how weak that team was, but I would bore you to death. Did I mention that the kid that tried 225 was a wide receiver the year before who would wind up as our tailback. No lineman at the beginning of the year could bench press 200 pounds opening day of practice. And we opened with the 6th ranked team in the state.

It had been more than 25 years since I had coached such a weak team. In fact, it had to have been the weakest team ever cause before lifting I had coached in farming communities and those kids were strong because of chores on the farm.

Fast forward: 1. We beat the 6th ranked team in the state first game that year in the last 26 seconds because of the scheme and the fact that the worst program in Oregon was coming to their house and we were able to sneak up on them. 2. We went to work with BFS 5 days a week for a full year and went undefeated the next year – first time in school history.

This is getting far tooo long for a BLOG.

Here’s the deal: BFS develops Warriors for battle. The EQualizer scheme puts them into position where they can perform at their best and max out what talent they have. For example, what is the easiest block to execute in football for an offensive lineman? Most coaches would answer: The Down Block. And what block is the most difficult: The reach block for an offensive right tackle. Think about it; your offensive right tackle probably is not your best. Most coaches want to put their best tackle on the left side following both college and pro examples. But the defense is going to put their best DE and LB’er on their left side because most teams are right handed. So you have an inferior lineman trying to block a superior defender with the toughest block in football for an offensive lineman to execute. How does that make sense? If you watch the games on TV, especially on SAT, they cannot get it done consistently. And they have linemen for 5 years coaching them year round and going only one way. A high school coach gets them at the varsity level for at best, three years. And how many high school programs want to start Sophs on the line. Do you do it because you want to or out of necessity? So at best, you have perhaps two good years for a kid to try and master the hardest block in football against superior defenders. Why do coaches put themselves in this position? Just because it looks good on TV? Just because State U does it?

Think of what they do with offensive linemen at the college level. They go out and recruit genetic freaks: 18 year old kids weighing in at over 300 pounds that can move better than half the high school running backs in the nation. When I was at Everett, Jim Lambright coached at Washington. Jim was an EHS grad. We spent some time there. We were there at winter workouts just before their last National Championship season. I had never seen such BIG guys move so fast in their winter ‘mat drills’ which they did in an old gymnastics area. When have you ever recruited genetic freaks to play for your team? They take this monster of a man, redshirt him for a year and take on the average another two years to teach him how to reach block and pass block at the college level and them play him for two years, maybe. That means that you have an adult, who has been playing football for up to 12 years, who still has trouble executing that reach block. And there are thousands of high school coaches who try to get it done in less than three years. Hard to believe.

So with the EQ, I can take the three best line prospects we had . . . none of whom at the start of practice could bench 200 pounds . . . play them together in a tandem and teach them the easiest block in football to execute – the down block. Remember, we had three weeks before playing the 6th ranked team in the state. What had I gotten myself into?

But we are OK, because the scheme limits the aggressiveness of 8 defenders and we will take our best running back and have him run the ball behind our three best lineman who get to execute the easiest block in football against less aggressive defenders and we are going to use the simpliest play in football, the Dive play, to execute that also hits the fastest. And if the timing is just right, we can give ourselves a chance.

And the Option starts with the Dive play, right? So what’s so hard about the option? What’s so hard about teaching the QB how to read it? First we start with two rules: 1. you are never wrong if you give the ball to the fullback, especially when running the EQ. Think about it: You are giving the ball to your best back; who has a five yard running start at the POA; and you are running behind your best blockers; who are executing the easiest block in football to execute. We ought to be able to gain some yards. Now with the midline Freeze, you do not get that 5 yard running start, but at the POA, you do have 4 offensive guys blocking 2 defenders – that ought to be worth something to your advantage. Rule 2: 75% of the times you read the first option, you give the ball to the FB, especially when you runt he EQ. Think about it, the DE will only do 4 things: he can only go North, South, East, or West. Right? If he goes North, South, or East (if you are running to the right side of the formation), you give the ball to the FB. The only time you pull the ball out is if he goes West and comes at you and the FB. How simple is that? You are never wrong if you give the ball to the FB, and 75% of any read you are going to make is to give the ball to the FB. Doesn’t that simplify things?

And to make things really sure, the longer you have the ball in the belly of the FB, the easier it is to make the read, because that read man is going to have to make a decision: come down to the mesh point (come West) and attack or execution some other defensive move: go to pitch, slow play, stay put, widen, whatever. Isolate a defender, force him to make a decision, do the opposite of what he decides, gain yards. And the best part is: You do not have to block him! He will take himself out of the play. How easy is that? Everyone else is blocked or screened out of the play!

Add to the fact that you can drill the read in practice, you can increase you chances of success. In addition, when you start the teaching progression with your QBs at the lower levels of your program be it 7, 8, 9, 10th grade, whenever you get them under your immediate direction, by the time one of those QBs works his way through the system, he has the ability to make the read when it is his turn to run the show.

Now I know that one of you is going to ask about the drill. What we used over the years was to get two banana hand dummies. You can either use players to do this or I prefer coaches, like myself for one and the JV backfield coach for the other. Lay out a LOS on the field: C,G,T,End slots. One coach is at the “read spot” and the other coach is at the “option” point (see online playbook at www.jvm.com/coachfree for explanation). At the snap, the dummy holders go North, South, East, or West. The QB makes the read. Make the wrong read, get hit by the dummy. Simple. Effective.

Now we start with the EQ when running the true triple option. There are a variety of reasons. The DE or end man on the LOS is easier to isolate. He is farther out, away from the center giving the QB a longer time to make the read. Plus it makes it easier for the blockers to block down.

In either instance (EQ or midline-freeze), the mesh takes place inside the alignment of the read man. So when executed properly, not rushed, the read man sees the ball in the belly of the fullback. So, if he is playing an old “Oklahoma read” defense, he is going to step down to make a play on the fullback. In that case, the QB pulls the ball, bubbles around the collision that will take place between the FB and the read man, and progresses out to the “option-man” of the play.

At the beginning of the game or second half, I would tell the QB that we would want to give the ball to the FB to establish the FB as a runner. This gets the defense to collapse on the FB later in the half, so that when the QB does pull the ball and moves to the perimeter, there will be fewer players there and greater chance of success.

The two hardest reads for the QB: First is the slow play read man. This is used by the DE who just sits on the LOS and doesn’t go NSEW. What do you do? Give the ball to the FB. His path puts him on a line inside the DE; he has a running start; is gathering momentum; and taught to ‘explode the hole.’ At best, a slow play DE might be able to get an arm on the FB, but that is not going to bring our FB down. He is taught to break arm tackles. With the Freeze, you are not going to get a ‘slow play DT’ – if you do, count your lucky stars and add up the yardage because you FB get to run behind a double-double team. The second hard read for the QB is the quick pitch that has to be made when the defense attacks the mesh point as fast as possible. This is just like in life; the faster you have to make a decision, the more likely you are to make a wrong one. When you get a defender that blitzes at the snap and is out to blow up the mesh point, the QB has to pitch the ball much sooner that normal in the backfield and not out on the perimeter. This is out of the ordinary and an inexperienced QB might put the ball on the ground – that’s what drill work is for. You get that dummy and blitz the QB in practice enough. How long is enough? Until, until you get what you want.

A couple of other notes: You have to have Goldilocks patience when running the option. The timing has to be “just right” for best results. Remember, we want the defense to make a decision and then play off that. If we rush into it, the defense does not have the time to make their decision and our rush to gain some yards could mess things up. The other Equalizing thing about the option is that because 8 defenders are tied up with option and pass responsibilities at the snap, 75% or more of the defense’s normal blitz package is out the window further equalizing things for your side of the LOS. The defense is on its heels, easier targets, moving sideways or back, placing you kids into the best chance for success.

So that’s the “Executive Insider” information on how we deal with the option. Over time, we do not really spend any more time with the option in drills than we do with say the sweep or the counter play. Same number of reps. It’s just another play in the offense. It’s just part of what we do.

“At Estacada, The Home of the Rangers, Winning isn’t Everything . . . It’s just part of what we do.” So is the Option. Running the Option, Equalizes things.

Be11!

RF