RANGER FREEZE OPTION

OK: Here we are at the RANGER FREEZE Option part of the EQualizer Offense.

A little bit of history here: We really like the Blast 34 play on short yardage. It is THE BEST SHORT YARDAGE PLAY in football. For those people who have trouble with getting the first down, or scoring inside the 5 yard line, take note of this play previous discussed on this BLOG. For 20 years people knew that we were going to run the play. We had coaches even call time out, go out on the field and tell their defense what we were going to run, and where, and as one of my assistant coaches, Jeff Campbell, would say . . . “It just doesn’t matter.” This play produced more first downs, and then if you get more first downs . . . the goal line eventually gets in your way and you score, therefore, this play produced more TDs than any other play in the offense. And that covers a football coaching career that dates back to the Gibsonburg Golden Bears running what was then called 36 Drive in 1958. FUNdaMENTAL Football does not change.

So! We wanted something more to run out of the Power Formation (the formation that we run Blast 34 from) back to the weakside. And while attending a coaching clinic, one of those college coaches, for a ‘change up’ for him, put up our unbalanced power formation and talked about the midline out of it. And the rest, as they say, is history.

(You may view cut-ups at www.maxcast.coom/EQualizer and read details about the plays at www.jvm.com/coachfree.)

As you know, we are a fullback oriented offense. In Fact, as I have studied things over the years about what we were doing, I came to the realization that the base play, Dive 34, along with the other progressions already discussed, is really an “OFFSET MIDLINE” scheme which made introducing the RANGER FREEZE scheme easier.

Now referring to “Simple Complexity” previously posted. The power formation looks like this:


This is a Goal Line/Short Yardage ‘Power’ Formation . . . which you would think requires a Goal Line Defense. When you view the “Best Short Yardage Play” at www.maxcast.com/EQualizer, you’ll see that the defense has all 11 guys up on the LOS and, “It just doesn’t matter.” We scored 3 or 4 TDs in that game just on Dive 34 alone which was half our point total for the evening.

The base rules for blocking the Freeze for us are therefore:

Front Side Guard: block A Gap to LB'er

Center: Power scoop with the Back Side Guard blocking first down lineman to back side LB'er.

Back Side Guard: Power scoop with the Center.

IOT and OOT: Block first man to your outside on or off the ball.

Fullback: Mesh with the QB running straight ahead and bend to daylight, accelerate, score.

QB: Mesh with FB reading the man over the guard or in the B gap. Use veer rules for give or keep. If keep, move to the B-C gap, accelerate through the LOS into the outside running lane. If B-C gap is closed, pitch.

SE: Drive off he ball to level 3 and block defender there.

Flanker: Position yourself for pitch. Maintain good pitch relationship with the QB.

TE: Block B Gap to LB'er.

Now, a more wide open formation is Doubles Wide which looks like this:

This being a more wide open formation, requires a different defense giving their DC more of a challenge. BUT the beauty of the RANGER FREEZE, is that the blocking rules are still the same, IN BOTH FORMATIONS! The guards and tackles still block out, the WB still has LB’er or Pitch; the TB still has LB’er or Pitch; the QBs steps are the same, the FB runs the same path; ETC. Simple for us to execute; Hard for them to defend.

Isn’t that GREAT?

More on all this next time.

Be 11!

RF