Breakdown Sports

 Jet sweep is one of the core concepts teams use to attack the edge with speed. It's relatively cheap to install, serves as a great constraint for your primary run game, and serves as a great tool to diagnose defensive coverage/rotation as well as trigger down safeties to support the vertical play action pass. But not all teams run it the same, and teams that lean on it more tend to treat the blocking of it a bit different. This post is going to examine some of the ways you see jet sweep blocked. Don't Block the 3-Technique The way I was always taught Jet Sweep was as simple as: Backside to the 3-tech, block the run fake Outside the 3-tech, arc to the 2nd level (seal) or alley, depending on defensive numbers This is a great way of selling the run fake to the backside of the sweep, while gaining back blocking numbers by not blocking the 3-Tech, who will struggle to quickly redirect (either vertically or horizontally) to be able to make a play on the ball carrier. Having it be th...

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...

Originally posted at Maize n Brew on 8/30/13  We've went over a brief primer to discuss some of the possible blocking calls that will be made during a Power O run. This time we are going to focus I specific examples of how an offensive line will adjust and make various block calls to face any defense. Power O Basics

I realized the other day that I now have a fairly healthy dose of Power Run breakdowns and how they can be utilized from different looks. At some point I'll get to the open side looks, but for now, he's a collection of the resources I've written about Power blocking. Primer Closed Power O Power from the Spread Unbalanced Double Lead Inverted Veer, Power Blocking Schemes, 2nd Lead Adjustement

Introduction In the picture pages post today , I feel I noted something of some significance. This isn’t supposed to be a post to puff out my own chest, rather, I merely want to give the other side of the argument my side of the argument for what it really is. As an aside, there have been numerous people that have constantly misconstrued my argument lately. I understand that by taking a particular unpopular stance so strongly, that I have opened myself up to criticism. But within this article I also want to make clear up some of my stance, so towards the end I will get into some of that. Much of these will be related to the comments I made earlier (if not copy and pasted), the major difference is that I now have the opportunity to add accompanying pictures and diagrams to go with it. This is of importance because football isn’t really a sport that is best described with words. You can try to be as descriptive as possible, but there will always be a certain amount of failure to accu...

This year Wisconsin has switched to a 3-4 defense, and one of the benefits is the benefits it gives verse defenses that try to spread them out horizontally. This can mean how it adapts to spread concepts, but also, how it adapts to many 2-TE personnel groupings that try to gain an advantage by creating more gaps for the defense to fill. The 3-4 puts 5 people on the LOS, it provides outside leverage, it provides strength at the point of attack, and makes it relatively easy for the ILBs to scrape to the ball. Basically, if defenses read their keys, the 3-4 is the perfect defense to handle a 12 personnel offense. The 3-4 Against Iowa’s 2-TE Set First, here is how Iowa will want to block this: Wisconsin’s two DEs (DE and DT) are lined heads up on the OTs in a 4-tech. The ILBs are lined up in a 20 technique, which is heads up on the guards, about 3-4 yards off the LOS. The NT is lined above the center, and both OLBs are lined up in a 9-technique with their inside shoulder j...

Regardless of how much Michigan decides to spread the field, at the end of the day this is going to be a power running team. By that, I mean they are predominately going to use a power O blocking scheme to pick up yards in the run game. In this article we are going to look briefly at the traditional power O run play, and then look at how Michigan runs it to both sides of the formation out of the gun, as well as how this makes life difficult for defenses. Power O Here is a look at your typical Power O blocking scheme from an I-formation. The two keys are the kick out block by the first back (a U-back or a FB, here, a FB) and the pulling opposite ("O") guard to the playside hole. Inverted Veer Believe it or not, the inverted veer is really a Power O blocking play. Many know that you can run the same blocking scheme with the inverted veer up front, down to the pulling guard, but it works because the "kick out" block is accomplished by kicking out the DE by op...