Zone blocking a power play.

[belebuch]

Is it a trap read??

[Jburk]

J

Interesting. Trap can get a little complex for the kids at times. If they are zoning AWAY...who is the trap man going to trap?

In a 50 front it was usually the guy over the tackle. I taught the tackles that if they were not pulling and kicking, and were running their track, to leave the man over them alone. If the DT lined up to the inside gap of the playside tackle, then he would probably be in his track.

If I get the chance to do this again next year, I'll re enforce this concept more. The pulling tackle needs to really scrape the playside tackles butt and kick out the first ugly jersey. I think I looked at it as an off tackle play kicking out the DE more than it really is. It works really well when kicking out whoever lines up over the tackle. To pull this off you need tackles who are more like full backs; in fact, that's how I sold the idea of playing tackle to one of my players this year. I told him that on this team, our full backs play at tackle. He bought into it and liked the position after that.

[Jburk]

Is it a trap read??

I can be if you want it too. We dabbled with it, but I didn't do a very good job of coaching the mesh, so we left that out. Coach Harris calls it trap read, and it's one of the plays in his trap series. When we dabbled with it, we ran it in a few scrimmages and we called the keep when the backside was flowing hard.

If you can teach the mesh, then it's definitely a play to have cuz the backside does start to flow hard after running trap successfully a few times. It's also worth pointing out that linebackers really start to react to the full back's flow as well, which makes trap keep a potential MLB killer.

What I'd be REALLY interested in trying, is running inverted veer using this blocking scheme. Like I said, If I could teach the mesh then that would be a great play IMHO. I'd probably teach the QB to shuffle step with the FB while they're meshing, and have the QB pull and run off the pulling tackles block if the hole on the line looks particularly good. Obviously this would require a QB/FB combo with wheels but I like the bind it would put the DE in.

[Jburk]

i can do the same thing,not pull the tackle, run trap and zone, and nobody would know any differently. Heck I can run a version of counter trey and zone and nobody know any differently....

Coach Harris runs a counter trey as well, but he pulls the backside guard/tackle, and has the FB fill the empty space vacated by the pulling backside linemen and the QB runs the ball behind those pulling lineman.

I've been reading alot on zone lately and camping out on fishduck.com quite a bit. Chip Kelley's presentation on inside zone has left quite an impression on me. I like the simplicity of my line either tracking left or tracking right for all of my run plays. Simplicity is good, right?

[Jburk]

A quick doodle o' what I'm speaking of be attached to dis hear thread. LOL

[coachmsl]

I was just watching my Glenn Harris youth spread DVD's yesterday and he talks about running what he refers to as a "youth zone" when he runs his trap series from the spread. He basically has all of the linemen aside from the pulling tackle zone AWAY from the play. The line, regardless of covered/uncovered, would take a slide step to the backside to cover their gap; if nobody is there to block then work up to the linebackers. When I taught it this year, I told the kids to step away (slide to the backside) and then run a track up to the linebackers. (I emphasized their track @ 45 degrees and used PVC pipe to guide them)

Yes, this is very similar to SAB/TKO, but with differences.

He talks about emphasizing to the kids that they only have to protect their little piece of ground and then work up if that piece of ground is empty. I taught the kids to "step away and run their track". Apparently he tried for three years to make a true zone scheme to work at youth level, including middle school, and couldn't make it work; that's why he does it like I described above.

What I liked about it, in my scenario, was that the kids only had to learn track right and track left for our running plays. We ran his whole trap series using this, which was FB trap/Trap Follow (ISO with FB) & Trap keep. We also ran our jet sweep series with this zone scheme too.

If we really wanted to run the trap as a "power" play, we'd call trap follow, which gives us a tackle pulling and kicking along with a FB leading through the hole for the QB.

I have watched SOME of Coach Harris' youth spread videos.  His zone is backwards from the traditionally accepted version.  He also says that BOB blocking can not be done, will not work at the youth level.

Someday I will finish watching the videos.  Really lost interest quick.

[Jburk]

I have watched SOME of Coach Harris' youth spread videos.  His zone is backwards from the traditionally accepted version.  He also says that BOB blocking can not be done, will not work at the youth level.

Someday I will finish watching the videos.  Really lost interest quick.

I think he was talking about BOB blocking not working as a base scheme for the trap. He uses it as his scheme for bubble screens and plays from quads formation. Basically on anything where the QB is getting rid of the ball quickly.

I used BOB for pass protection this year after watching his videos as all of our passes from spread were quick passes to the perimeter. Center takes 0, guard takes number 1 guy past the center, and tackle takes the number 2 guy past the center. (numbered guys are DLM who are actually on the LOS)

[MHcoach]

Ok, maybe I am missing the point here. First Zone is zone, Power is Power, & Trap is Trap; they are 3 seperate plays. I understand about teams not being being able to execute them, but that falls more on coaching then anything else. The last 5 years we have run these plays with great success from 10 y/o's & up. Some years Zone is less effective because of the back, not the line(some backs can run Zone some can't). Power of the 3 plays is the easiest to coach IMHO. Trap has the simplest rules, but can be difficult at the youth level because many teams give double 1's for look. In our scheme we teach the guard wrapping on power to never turn his shoulders & get down hill as soon as he can. The double team is a true double & not a combo.

Joe

[MHcoach]

Zoe

That's my point, Power isn't Zone. I know from experience both are vital to a strong running game, if you are some type of a spread team. This season, when I arrived we didn't have Zone or Trap. Our run game was Power, Counter, & Stretch. I added Zone & Trap both became huge plays in our run game. Our back finished the season with 2123yds rushing & 29 tds. He had a 97 yd td on Zone. Power was extremely effective early on, & almost everyone we played schemed to stop it. It was clear when coaches were yelling watch power. That was at the varsity level.

We ran the same plays at the JH level, & had no problem executing them. Our TB had 1148 yds mostly on Zone(we had a better runner at QB at this level), Power was more for the QB of a stretch fake. The QB had 687yds. Those stats were for 7 games.

I think what happens is many coaches are actually confused to what Power is. I went & watched my old team from Mint Hill yesterday, & I ran into the very same discussion. The OC was confused on the blocking scheme for Power.

Joe

[MHcoach]

Zoe

It's funny how sometimes I beleive guys understand what I am talking about. The OC for my old team was a student of mine for 3 years. I had gotten a lot of head nodding & "yeah I get it". Only to realize he didn't get it. I try to simplify things so the players understand exactly what they are supposed to do. I found communication to be paramount. What I think happens is the coaches on my staff communicate daily, where as the rest of the coaches in our orginazation don't work at it the same way. We constantly go over every assignment so to us it's very clear, IMHO it's paramount the players understand their assignments.

It's not enough to just learn a play off a sheet of paper, a coach has to understand what it is the team is trying to accomplish. Our concept on Power is the get a vertical push, where as on Zone we want to create a chain & get a horizontal push to create a seam. Even though our OLine makes the same calls, they understand what our goal is.

I don't run OZ, we do run Stretch, very similar in design we just try to push it outside a little more then OZ. We took a page from Oregon this year & ran QB Power of the Stretch fake. It was super easy to install & very effective. We didn't make it a true read like Oregon does( If I had been there in the Spring we probably would have).

The big thing for us was we had a small OLine, so we had to be sure we could get a push when we needed it. It really helped our team when they understood the concepts, & when you take into account we were a small private school it was fairly amazing. One of our lineman was an international student from Turkey. It was his second year playing football. He was able to grasp & understand our concepts & did a great job for us. So, IMHO it's about how you teach the plays, & how you rep them that makes the difference.

Joe