Inside the Playbook: Wisconsin's Flood Play

The last rollout play we are going to look at from Wisconsin (for now) is a basic sail concept. I’ve previously discussed how they’ve utilized swap boot (in two parts), in which TEs are primary attacking the flat and underneath off of delayed routes. With the sail route, they now have an opportunity to work vertical to threaten the deep outside of the field.

Inside the Playbook: Wisconsin Swap Boot Part II

Previously, we touched on Wisconsin’s use of the Swap Boot in their 2-TE personnel package. In this post, we are going to look at the same concept, but instead of utilizing a TE in the flat, the RB is going to be incorporated into the pass concept. What we’ll see is a way of utilizing receiver’s in different spots on the field while keeping the reads and timing consistent for the QB.

Inside the Playbook: Iowa's Outside Zone Gap Counter

Iowa has long been known for its use of the stretch zone run scheme, and they love to use a FB within this scheme for a variety of reasons. In fact, one of their favorite runs is the lead outside zone play. Because it is such a staple of the offense, opponents have stressed the importance of defending this play whenever they face Iowa, to the point that Iowa has established a number of "counters" to take advantage of those defensive strategies. The most common strategy that Iowa utilizes is a pin and pull scheme, but they also incorporate other variations. In this post, we will look briefly at how defenses defend Iowa's stretch scheme, and how Iowa deployed a "gap counter" to effectively counter those strategies.

Football Fundamentals: Belly, Tight, Inside, Middle, Outside, Wide Zone Runs

You see it everywhere. You see it on this blog. People talk zone running and they inherently talk "Inside Zone" and "Outside Zone". Then you hear some football minds talking, and you might hear "Tight Zone" and "Wide Zone". In many cases, those will be fully synonymous with the former. But they aren't always, and in fact, there can be a small distinction. And what if I told you ('30 for 30' voice) there was something called "Middle Zone", or "Mid Zone" (not to be confused with midline). These are all concepts that exist at certain levels of football. Many coaches will combine these schemes and utilize pre- and post- snap adjustments to bridge the gap. Some will teach only some of them to get really good at those few concepts without having to worry their players about subtle nuance. But some really dedicated coaches will teach all of these concepts. I'm going to give a primer on each of these concepts in this article.

(H/T this post was inspired by a tweet and back-and-forth with Chris Brown of Smart Football)

Inside the Playbook: Wisconsin Swap Boot Scheme

I’ve previously discussed how Wisconsin utilizes Dos, TightBunch, and Wings in formation to run a lot of Power O, Lead, and Counter plays. Similarly, they utilize the width of the formation to successfully run a lot of zone schemes, including both Inside Zone and Outside Zone. In this post, we will look at the swap boot concept, and then in the next post, we will look at similar concepts with small tweaks to the setup.

Written in Chalk: Releasing through the OL

I love receivers releasing inside of the offensive EMOL. This can be done from the RB position after receiving a play fake. It can come from the FB or blocking back (sniffer), where it looks like he is executing a lead block. Or even from a TE aligned inside another TE. In this post, I'm going to explain why this fairly basic design (and not all together new design, but one that is coming back to light), is so effective.

Example of the TE Throwback the Falcons ran in '16 season. 3 TEs in the game. Clear-out over the top. Sneak a guy back across the field. pic.twitter.com/xI6kM7WFHB

— Matt Bowen (@MattBowen41) November 21, 2017

Inside the Playbook: Indiana Cross-Wheel

Indiana Wheel Route

Everyone knows about the Post-Wheel route concept. According to 2016 Twitter and beyond, it has been and continues to be undefeated. The legitimacy of this claim can be argued, as much as anything can legitimately be argued on Twitter. Admittedly, it’s a great concept that can be run effectively with a variety of personnel and from various formations. What I want to show today is a slight variation of it, that has tons of eye-candy on top of it to really maximize the effectiveness. This comes from Indiana OC Mike DeBord (as much as Michigan fans don’t want to believe it). It is the Cross-Wheel combo.