Breakdown Sports

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.

This is a series post with lots of play diagrams. Where it lacks depth, it hopefully makes up for with breadth. The goal of this post is to demonstrate the many run game nuances that are at your disposal, outside the very basics that you can find almost anywhere. I will point out some key attributes for the plays, but for the most part the diagrams will stand alone outside a brief description. This post is limited (out of necessity) to strongside plays that are given directly to the RB. It does not include FB runs, or QB runs, or H-Back, Wing, TE, or WR runs. It also doesn't include option plays. Those are things for future posts. Why did I select an I-formation, which is mostly going out of fashion, and how do I expect this information to be utilized? The I-Formation is a classic 2-back set that, by the time it was implemented, had the benefit of a lot of football history. It is also a highly adaptable run formation, along for offsets, for H-backs, and other aspects that allow es...

Against Indiana in the Red Zone, Minnesota went to a switch release concept  which paired a basic twins passing concept  to take advantage of bracket coverage. I've long advocated utilizing switch releases from bunch/stacked formations because it often helps the QB better define the coverage and take advantage of defensive coverage tendencies. In this case, Minnesota knew they were going to get a banjo coverage  (effectively, the outside defender will take the first defender to release outside or the second receiver to go inside, and the inside defender will take the first receiver inside or the second outside). Let's take a closer look.

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.

As a defender, you are tasked with reading your keys in order to properly diagnose the play and fulfill your assignment. Gap responsibility and run fits and execution all start with properly seeing what is happening in front of you, and based on what the offensive line does, will change your path to success. But offenses know this. To a degree, and offense does what it does because that's the easiest and most efficient way of finding success. Other times, they find success with mind games, by showing something and doing another. This post is going to look at "False Blocks", the art of pass setting on runs and false pulls.

If you've been following along, we've offered up a lot of pass concepts that can be paired with a run play to make an "RPO". We looked at passes behind the LOS , quick passes , and even downfield reads . We've also looked at pass first RPOs, known here as PRO . And if you've been really paying attention, you'll have noticed that those RPOs were attached to pretty much every kind of run scheme. Here we are going to summarize those run schemes and discuss briefly the types of routes to look for given the type of run.

The Draw play is one of the most effective run plays in any playbook. It's versatile. It works just as well on 1st and 10 as it does on 3rd and long. It presents a false read to the defense which sows seeds of doubt for the remainder of the game by looking initially like a pass play and then firing out and knocking some guys around. But it also allows an offensive line to get by without tons of movement. Sure, it's great when a DL gets into a pass rush and then you shotput him out of existence, but just as often you only need to utilize good footwork to position yourself between the ball carrier and the defender. In this post, I'm going to discuss the techniques employed on draw plays in a little more detail.

NASA No way! We landed on the moon! 50 years ago (July 21, 1969) was the first time man set foot on a celestial body outside our own. When they landed, they didn’t know if the lunar module would sink precariously into the dust, off axis or worse, and be unable to return the explorers that risked their lives to push the boundaries as we knew them. They didn’t know if pressure from the decent engine would build up and cause the engine itself to explode. There were many things they didn’t know, many more than we actually did. But one thing they did know was that this moment was as significant as any man had ever witnessed. From JFK: “But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever ...

Now that I’ve touched on how the Tite formation works , I want to take a look from the other side of the ball and how it can be attacked. While the focus of this post is primarily on the run game (because the backend coverage can be largely modified), it is important to keep in mind the common pass responsibilities, as we will draw from that conflict. Before getting into specific plays, I first want to look holistically at the formation and how to put an offense in position to exploit it. Then we can get a bit deeper into some actual play calling.

I previously addressed many of the good qualities that Justin Fields will bring to the Scarlet and Grey, but new Head Coach Ryan Day is getting far from a finished product. Instead, Day and new Passing Game Coordinator/QB Coach Mike Yurcich are going to have to get out their polish and work on a few areas where Fields can really improve as he likely steps into the starting lineup for the Buckeyes. Let's take a look. AP

Justin Fields has been ruled immediately eligible to play for Ohio State in the 2019 season.  Previously spending his one collegiate year at Georgia backing up talented signal caller, Jake Fromm, he enters a Buckeyes depth chart without much in the way of competition. In his freshman year, he never was really able to muscle away consistent featured series, but he did feature quite a bit in a specialized role and in a number of blow out games. At the end of the year, his stats read 42 runs from 266 yards and 4 TDs on the ground and 27/39 passing for 8.4 YPA at a 4-0 TD/INT ratio. But stats alone don't often tell the whole tale, and as such, it is fundamental that we look a little bit deeper. Let's take a look. Photo by Todd Kirkland/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images