Breakdown Sports

Counter OH and Counter OF are great run plays within a Power O based offense or an Inside Zone based offense. For a Power O offense, it utilizes a pulling OG and a lead blocking FB or H-back, while utilizing misdirection in the backfield with the RB running a counter step (often allowing this play to be a very effective Weakside run). For an Inside Zone based offense, the initial movement of the FB/HB is the same as a standard split zone block, while the backside (away from the initial RB step) looks very similar to zone steps. In this post, we’ll look more closely how Counter H/F (that’s Counter OH or Counter OF) fits within these schemes, when to run it, why it’s so effective, and how it fits into a spread architecture.

History has a tendency to repeat itself. In football, that means something gets invented, iterations are formed, it gets tucked away for a while, and then it reemerges in a new form but with the same constructs. In this way, we can also predict how defenses will attempt to adjust, and how offenses will likely adjust to their adjustment. And this piece we are going to look at the history and evolution of the veer and belly run plays.