Inside/Outside Zone Blocking rules

[defensewins]

The one thing I find that many folks have a problem with when it comes to Zone Blocking Concepts is the demand that the Back Hits the Hole.  The play has to go HERE.  Some folks have a real hard time eliminating "The Hole" and replacing it with "The Flow".  You will have a hell of time being successful with Zone if your backs are not involved in working with the O-Line.   

Excellent point.  When the RB can manipulate the LB's, zone is deadly.

[defensewins]

I don't understand the "chase LB's in a count system" stuff.  I get it if all the coach does is give them a rule and don't rep the situations/combos.  But when running zone, the OL have to go through a progression that includes 1v1, 2v2 and even 3v3 before an inside run/team period, let alone live bullets in a game.  Regardless of count scheme, or covered/uncovered, or X system, they all have answers for when the defender does This/That/the other thing. 

With that said, it has been a while since I've coached younger ones.   So...maybe I'm off on this one.  Please help me if I am missing something. 

[Dusty Ol Fart]

I don't understand the "chase LB's in a count system" stuff.  I get it if all the coach does is give them a rule and don't rep the situations/combos.  But when running zone, the OL have to go through a progression that includes 1v1, 2v2 and even 3v3 before an inside run/team period, let alone live bullets in a game.  Regardless of count scheme, or covered/uncovered, or X system, they all have answers for when the defender does This/That/the other thing. 

With that said, it has been a while since I've coached younger ones.   So...maybe I'm off on this one.  Please help me if I am missing something.

DW.  I can block 1 v 1 or 2 v 2.  I cannot block 2 v 3.  My earlier post suggests that the RB is responsible for those 2 v 3 situations.  Either by changing his path or, as you stated, influencing the LB or 3rd man at POA.  All the kids on the line need to know is to Gap Step play direction. They cannot hesitate or they risk allowing penetration.  If you go back to the 10-50-90 rule I posed earlier, that gapped defender becomes the inside O linemens main concern.  If the RB works with the OL he would know that and, have a presnap read of his own. 

[blockandtackle]

I don't understand the "chase LB's in a count system" stuff.  I get it if all the coach does is give them a rule and don't rep the situations/combos.  But when running zone, the OL have to go through a progression that includes 1v1, 2v2 and even 3v3 before an inside run/team period, let alone live bullets in a game.  Regardless of count scheme, or covered/uncovered, or X system, they all have answers for when the defender does This/That/the other thing. 

With that said, it has been a while since I've coached younger ones.   So...maybe I'm off on this one.  Please help me if I am missing something.

My experience is that inexperienced kids tend to think "that's my guy, so I have to block HIM!"  Or they lock onto one guy and just try to block him without maintaining gap discipline, or they get confused when the defense stems late, or they don't keep their eyes out for stunts, or they turn their head to combo and let LBs run past them right off their play side hip.  When you work the combos and teach of right, you can absolutely train all of that out of them... but then you've just made the count system redundant.

In a full zone system, the OL only has one gap to worry about: the one to his play side.  A DL may whip his @$$ and go straight ahead to blow him up, but he's still going to have to pick a side to get to the football and when he does that, we have a hat on a hat.  By taking a zone step to "reset" the LOS 6" to the right or left, we help to avoid the head on collisions that create uncertainty in kids, leading to them getting blown up, and then our track blocking rules take care of the rest.

Our thinking when we went to the track zone years ago was to just cut out layers of redundancy and strip things down to the most essential.  Our OL don't need to declare and count defenders, or worry about what happens if the defense moves, or try to determine if a DL is "covering" him or not.  Step play side, block your gap through your cylinder, help with a DL who's on you but keep eyes and arm in your play side gap.  It's as bare bones as we can make it and it works on the HS level.  I know of some colleges who do something similar.  It can work in youth ball, too.

The way we teach things really is "6 of one vs. a half dozen of the other"--it's just our method and the others work just fine to accomplish the same things, too--but I feel it's more streamlined and just cuts out some redundancies that confuse kids and make them play slow, tentatively, or blow assignments.

[CmartCoach]

For us, when we tried to "step playside and block your gap/cylinder" we lost all our aggression.  Kids seemed to step and search and never getting any movement on defenders, "catching" them, if you will.  Perhaps we weren't teaching it right and that's OK, we just

Which is why we give them a "who to block" on every play. Get mean and nasty and GO GET HIM, aggressively.  But we teach them that they are only responsible for "half of the defender" thus, if he slants away from your playside gap, you wont have to worry because you know your teammate is also in GO GET HIM mode, aggressively.

This is where we have to put in the DON'T CHASE rule, because if you are uncovered and the DL you GO GET slants away, we had issues with kids chasing him out of his cylinder, allowing LB run-through.

To be honest, many DL in our youth league align in gaps and/or aren't super active in slanting when aligned head up. So when they are gapped or heavy shaded, we get great double teams and we work those to get movement. IF we get good at the double, we then add in "if you have a LB within arms reach, come off and block him". but that is a big IF. 

If we just get really aggressive on the double teams, and teach the back to read the LBs it is his responsibility to make them wrong. take the other lane and GET US 4.

[Dusty Ol Fart]

If we just get really aggressive on the double teams, and teach the back to read the LBs it is his responsibility to make them wrong. take the other lane and GET US 4.

..LB
..
.....DL
G..T

Play direction right.  Not trying to be a smart ass but, how would you get aggressive with a Double Team in the above? 

[CmartCoach]

..LB
..
.....DL
G..T

Play direction right.  Not trying to be a smart ass but, how would you get aggressive with a Double Team in the above?

  Not smart ass at all....this is what this thread is for for me, conversation.

Is that DL outside shade?  I'd have to see the rest of the front to truly answer this question, but assuming it as is;

G would call "US TO LB" and this alerts the T that G is coming so now T knows that he only has to worry about the playside jersey # of the DL (or the "L" in this sake....so he can confidently step to his right as he doesn't need to worry about getting beat backside, step and aggressively attack the "L".

G very aggressively fires for the "D" (near number) of the DL.  This way if the DL anchors (or plays lazy which happens a bit in youth ball) on the T we get a double with the goal of driving him into the LBs lap (US TO LB).

If the DL slants outiside (to our right) the G would not reach him by his 3rd step, so he would carry up to LB (DON'T CHASE out of your cylinder)

If the DL slants inside we would still get a double as the T is planning on blocking the DL (precisely the "L" or playside jersey number).

However, if the DL does some sort of stunt or loop and the T hasn't made contact by his 3rd step, he continues up to LB (NEVER CHASE).

Hopefully, I am explaining it well. GET AFTER THE DL as hard and aggressively as you can, stay on the double as long as possible, but do not chase....

[Dusty Ol Fart]

Making it too complicated.

The rest of the front is away from the play direction and outside your concern as an OL-men.  You cannot have too many If/Then situations.  As the uncovered player its not my concern how many steps the OT takes to engage.  I agree that the G first step should be towards the Defender Head up over the T.  But even if the DL is head up, all the G is offering is a "Chip" to help stop momentum, then its all eyes on the LB.  If the LB goes away, further right, I dont chase, I  look to cut off backside flow by anyone to the area vacated by the LB.  You are correct in the fact that the RB can indeed influence the LB to go further right, but the G block has to be there to stop backside flow. 

As they progress you can teach the G to look back inside for a gapped defender if the DL is shaded outside of the OT.  But, I wouldnt add that to start, because they will over or under think it. If you want them to learn to climb to second level, you have to instill that is the uncovered guys job!  Thats why they have to learn how to Block B O B First.

Make Sense? 

[CmartCoach]

Maybe, but it seems we have a large difference of opinion on one thing, the Double Team.  We want to be a double team OL. Our G is rarely as good a player as the LBs (I wish he were, but alas....) so we find more success creating doubles and moving DL INTO the path of the LB.  By your use of the word 'chip' it sounds like the double is NOT a point of emphasis for you, which is why it sounds "too complex".

If we stay on the double all game and never come off to LBs, thats OK, we teach the RBs to read the LB and 'make him wrong' with his one cut, if the LB is making the read difficult for our back, it is because he is non committal, in which case we make no cut and GET 4.

I feel my line of thinking on this comes from Joe (MH Coach) a bit....stay on the double as long as you can....

But to be honest, our MANGO call is much like your philosophy.  MAN on the line GO get him.....MAN at LB, GO get him....

[gumby_in_co]

Maybe, but it seems we have a large difference of opinion on one thing, the Double Team.  We want to be a double team OL. Our G is rarely as good a player as the LBs (I wish he were, but alas....) so we find more success creating doubles and moving DL INTO the path of the LB.  By your use of the word 'chip' it sounds like the double is NOT a point of emphasis for you, which is why it sounds "too complex".

If we stay on the double all game and never come off to LBs, thats OK, we teach the RBs to read the LB and 'make him wrong' with his one cut, if the LB is making the read difficult for our back, it is because he is non committal, in which case we make no cut and GET 4.

I feel my line of thinking on this comes from Joe (MH Coach) a bit....stay on the double as long as you can....

But to be honest, our MANGO call is much like your philosophy.  MAN on the line GO get him.....MAN at LB, GO get him....

Thank you for explaining this. I'm the opposite. I HATE double teams in our scheme, but that's because we have ridiculous splits. At Glazier, I watched a guy do a presentation on running game in the spread. It was mostly about read option and RPO, so I was tuning out. At the end, he started talking about 5 1/2 yard splits, so I perked up. He said that with those splits, double teams can be tough, if not impossible, so he teaches "smart splits", which tells a tackle (for example) to move in a little so that the guard has a chance of getting hip to hip. My question to him was "why do you need a double team if you have 5 1/2 yard splits? He didn't really answer that other than to say "we put an emphasis on double teams".

You saying that your guards struggle to block LBs makes sense . . . sort of.  2 guys moving 1 guy into a LB seems harder than 1 guy blocking a LB. I guess you are putting a lot of bodies in the way of the LB, making his job tougher, but aren't you also putting a lot of bodies in the way of the ball carrier?

So let me ask you a hypothetical.  If your guard were to move out to 5 feet from the C AND the 20 tech LB followed him AND your guard's assignment was the 20 tech . . . do you think that spacing would help your guard?

My logic is that moving that 20 tech 2 yards from where he is used to playing makes the defense gap unsound.  Even if my guard whiffs the block, we just created a bunch of green that lets the ball carrier do his job.

The other thing weird that we do is spend half of our practice in Team, so our guards get a lot of reps blocking LBs in space.

[Seabass]

Gumby....your scheme is as similar to traditional zone as Mahonz and Cisar.....

I have a couple of drills that solve most of the problems that come with IZ/OZ for kids....1 for the OL and another for the backs.

[Coach Correa]

Gumby....your scheme is as similar to traditional zone as Mahonz and Cisar.....

I have a couple of drills that solve most of the problems that come with IZ/OZ for kids....1 for the OL and another for the backs.

Can we hear this if possible ?

[Seabass]

I use Micheal's 2-cone drill a lot...it solves tons of the O-line issues. It's explained in detail in his clinic you can purchase at coaches-clinic.com. It's titled, "If that's Zone, why is it so nasty."

On that same website you will find another clinic that Zach puts on called "training the zone running back." I think Zach is a really smart coach. Unfortunately, I find his posts leaving me more confused than I was before I read them. That said, when he speaks....he makes tons sense and his clinic was EXTREMELY helpful. Most people explain things better through speech than text. No disrespect to Zach.

The first year I implemented what I learned from these 2 clinics....we had a back rush for almost 3,000 yards in a single 12 game season. The year before, in the same offense that kid ran for less than 400 yards.

I came from the basketball world, almost no football background. To me zone blocking is a lot like pick and roll is in hoops. The concept is simple but it has to be rep'd a TON and it's as much "art" as it is "science." A defender in the pick and roll can react in several different ways so offensive player's need to know what their counter is to those reactions. Same deal with Zone blocking...all of those reactions by defenders need to be recognized and rep'd....a LOT!

[morris]

Making it too complicated.

The rest of the front is away from the play direction and outside your concern as an OL-men.  You cannot have too many If/Then situations.  As the uncovered player its not my concern how many steps the OT takes to engage.  I agree that the G first step should be towards the Defender Head up over the T.  But even if the DL is head up, all the G is offering is a "Chip" to help stop momentum, then its all eyes on the LB.  If the LB goes away, further right, I dont chase, I  look to cut off backside flow by anyone to the area vacated by the LB.  You are correct in the fact that the RB can indeed influence the LB to go further right, but the G block has to be there to stop backside flow. 

As they progress you can teach the G to look back inside for a gapped defender if the DL is shaded outside of the OT.  But, I wouldnt add that to start, because they will over or under think it. If you want them to learn to climb to second level, you have to instill that is the uncovered guys job!  Thats why they have to learn how to Block B O B First.

Make Sense?

For us the rest of the front does matter.  We double on zone ever chance we can and we don't come off to LBs.  The RB read him and we go from there.  In the example you gave before it was an outside shade on the T which I would have to assume there is a shade nose to the outside shade T.  In that case our G is doubling back with the C. 

Now if the DT is head up on the T when our G is going after him.  We press A gap on zone. 

We aren't chasing we double and shove the DL out of here either vertical or horizontal.  If the PS LB becomes a real PITA then we will run Dart at him or we'll zone to the same side as the RB and pop it out the backdoor. 

[CmartCoach]

For us the rest of the front does matter.  We double on zone ever chance we can and we don't come off to LBs.  The RB read him and we go from there.  In the example you gave before it was an outside shade on the T which I would have to assume there is a shade nose to the outside shade T.  In that case our G is doubling back with the C. 

Exactly why I asked that. If the DL is outside shade (3 tech), I would assume the N is shaded to the PS A gap (1 tech), in which case our PS G would double with the center. Two different trains of thought going on here. To double till the last possible minute or to chip and climb...