Inside the Playbook: Wisconsin Play Action Power O Wheel

By -
Against Iowa, Wisconsin was finally able to get things going offensively when they returned to an old friend in the offense: the wheel route off of Power O. I knew I had seen it previously, and mistakenly noted it was a few years ago in a bowl game, but actually it was against Indiana last year. The basics of the play are a hard Power O play action out of a heavy formation. Rather than kicking out, the FB plants and runs upfield on the wheel route. What ensues is beautiful, beautiful FBs rumbling in wide open spaces. Let's take a look.



Power O
Like many teams, Power O is one of Wisconsin's staple plays. They run it out of a wide variety of formations, from 11 personnel to 22 personnel. They even like to add blockers from the backside to run Lead Power O.



Out of a condensed formation, particularly a heavy set like 22 personnel, a defense is forced to involve safeties in run support. These deep defenders are often going to key the TEs release, and when the TE down blocks, they will fill down to help account for the puller.



Wheel Route
Most of the time, when teams run play action off Power O, they are either leaving both backs in protection to allow for a deep developing pass, or they are quickly attacking the flat with the FB to give conflict to the edge defender. Defenses know these tendencies and often try to hard set the edge, either through wrong arming the kick blocker or anchoring. But if the FB releases instead of blocks, the reaction is typically to sprint straight to the flat to try to cut off the passing angle to the FB. 



So now you're in a heavy set and the defense is loading up the box with 10 guys. You can still run because you've learned how to block 10 with 8 (and more so, which guys to leave unblocked to the backside of the play). As the TE down blocks he gives the key to the playside safety and LB to fill down.

Meanwhile, the edge defender is preparing to take on a kick block. With most defenses in this scenario, he won't be wrong arming because he doesn't have a defender looping around him to take contain, so for the most part they are anchoring. They do so by squeezing down the run lane as much as they can before initiating contact with the blocker (don't wait to be blocked). But if you go in expecting the blocker to also be going for you, you may end up a little embarrassed when he runs right by. And suddenly you're grasping at air as the FB is running by you.


Traditionally with the wheel, you see a post route paired with it to form a post-wheel combination. This post is designed to keep the defense inside. But from the condensed formation, the goal is to hard sell Power, and the best way to pull the safety out of the play is to give a run key. The WR to the far side of the field will attempt to pull and additional secondary coverage his way.

Examples






Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 26, 2018 at 4:16 PM

    Great stuff. It's interesting that the WR would also have been wide open at the top had he not stumbled, but that appears to be more the result of a good route than scheme.

    Alec Ingold's Twitter bio used to be "I run 3 yards at a time." He had to change that for obvious reason.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football Fundamentals: Twins Passing Concepts

By -
Image
In this post we will look at some of the standard route concepts run from a twins alignment. Obviously, these can be paired with other routes (some I'll show including a RB), but this is to get the fundamental understanding of the routes. I'll try to explain the concept briefly, as well as provide names for what you'll hear the concept called elsewhere at times (these things get lots of names, some people use the same names but have different meanings too, so it can get confusing). If a number is visible near the end of a route, that is the nominal yardage the route will be run to. For more information on specific routes, we took a look at the  route tree earlier . In this article I will not discuss routes that utilize rub concepts close to the LOS (such as a switch concept). I will have a later article dedicated to rub routes from a Twins set. Many of these are similar to the TE-Flanker Concepts discussed earlier.
Read more

Football Fundamentals: The Tite Front Defense

By -
Image
The defense du jour against modern spread attacks is what is commonly known as the “Tite” front. Over the past couple years, you’ve seen Big 12 teams run it increasingly often, and SEC and other teams start to incorporate variants of the look more often as well as they begin to deal with an increasing number of spread formations. But what exactly is the “Tite” front? Like any front, say, a 4-3 Under, it isn’t necessarily any one thing. You can have single-high, two-high, or even three-high safeties. You can attach your overhangs differently. And with Tite, it may even mean different box numbers. And of course, there are multiple techniques that can be employed along the way. This post is a primer to the Tite front. At the end, I’ll link some of the better articles that get into greater depth for those interested, but for now, we need to understand the basics, so that we can understand how to attack it.
Read more

Football Fundamentals: 2x2 and Mirrored Passing Concepts

By -
Image
We are going to continue our look at various passing concepts, this time with 2x2 and mirrored passing concepts. In this post we are going to trim out the concepts that are designed to attack the middle of the field and put those into a separate post. 2x2 concepts allow an offense to attack a defense based on post-snap looks and coverages via a simple read of the safety. Completely mirrored concepts, when the same concept is run on the both sides of the formation (such as all-hitches), is something of which I'm not a huge fan, but there are advantages to it. You look at something like all-hitches, which overloads underneath zones, and you see a viable option in the short passing game against zone heavy teams; similarly, completely mirrored concepts can allow you to pick on certain defenders or to a certain side of the field based on defensive look. We'll also look at "base" concepts, which see the outside receivers run the same route, and a third receiver work the mid...
Read more