Football Drills - Spread Offense 101

Clubhouse Gas www.clubhousegas.com Casey: So I know that you’ve seen on television and in college, West Virginia, University of Florida, Missouri running to spread offenses and a lot of high schools are going to it. Maybe you’re thinking about putting it in for your 11 and 12 year old but your just not sure how. Today we’re going to go very rudimentary and give you a couple of the basics of the spread offense and if you like it the we’ll come back and do some more shows later on. Kind of what we’re doing here lately. We’re going to take a couple of these different offenses that you may not know a lot about and just give you the basics. So today, spread offense one-o-one on Clubhouse Gas. Coach thank you so much for joining us. Coach Matt Petersen: Yeah. Casey: We’ll tell me about the spread offense and how you use different formations to get what you’re looking for. First foremost take us through this spread offense with any offense the terminology is important so identify for us who these guys are and what their position is called. Coach Matt Petersen: We’ll start from the outside in. We got a Z receiver who’s going to be kind of our outside guy more of our more athletic type guys can’t run the deep ball but also catch a screen. Now the back field we have an F back, he’s going to be predominantly more like tail back type position. We have our Y receiver, which traditionally you would see as a tight end, tight receiver. Your quarterback, and on this side your H Back which should be more of a fullback type position and then the X which is another kind of like the athletic guy who can catch screens and catch a deep ball. Casey: Alright so you were telling me that a lot of this offense has to do with formations. Take me through a couple of the formations real quick. Coach Matt Petersen: Well if you can run, the good thing about it is an advantage. If you can run the same play out of several different looks which makes it tougher on a defensive coordinator. You know one of the plays that we like to run on the screenplays is we like to run this very success for us is 41 right, so set up a screen right here and what I’m going to do is I want to run the same play out of three different formations just to give you some look. So the run 41 this is out of our empty set which means we got nobody in the back field but the quarterback. Player: Go! Casey: This a blockout. Coach Matt Petersen: Yeah, basically we’re blocking the corner, we’re blocking the wherever the strong safety line back what they have here and it’s a tunnel screen in the inside. And we don’t have our lineman but we’ll also pull two lineman out there too to seal off any outside trouble we might have. Casey: Alright so that’s your 41 out off— Coach Matt Petersen: In the set, now get an A set, and we can run the same play. Casey: Now is he tied in on the tackle. No she’s off and she’s spread out now. Coach Matt Petersen: So it is kind of a spread look but we’re trying to extend their defense. Go ahead. Player: Go! Coach Matt Petersen: And then you can also run that out of— maybe you want to run it out of a tied in look so run it out of heavy but we might two tight ends in and a lot of times you are looking at two tight ends and you might be thinking run and we’ll throw a screen out and double block as well. Casey: Alright so that’s the same screen out of three different formations, what about your running game, how does the different formations affect your running game? Coach Matt Petersen: Well as far as running game does you know traditionally in the spread and anything that you see now on the pro’s and colleges a lot of zone and zone blocking. We feel that zone is an important part of the offense but we also like to run traditional down hill stuff you know blast, isolations, wedge plays and you can do that out of a single back or double back. Line up in blue. Line up in blue and if we just want to run a you know what we call a 24 eyes which are H back or Two back through the four hole just ride a 24 eyes. What we’re trying to isolate on a line backer with a lead block. So you could run some of the old school traditional type plays, power blast. We’re not going to link ourselves in to just run and you know a zone play and be linked to zone plays Casey: How much does having an athletic quarterback like your job easier? Coach Matt Petersen: A huge advantage, especially in that when in you’re a spread situation and things deteriorate down field you know their sitting back in the zone and if you got a guy that can take off and run that’s a huge advantage because you know your getting your defense spread out. Casey: You talk about changing formations to give you the match ups that you might want. Maybe get a mismatch at your best offensive threading house maybe one of their— Coach Matt Petersen: A lot of that comes into game planning. You know one of our favorite plays we got a big y receiver. You know maybe when we get him isolated on a fade route. We want Motion or Z over. Come on over and Zach. Now we got a one on one with our Y. We might you know we’re talking about a kid here who’s 6’3 6’4 220 we got him singled out. Casey: On the corner. So a lot of that comes in game film and game planning and so that was what I was going to ask you can you not only use formations but also motions and ships Coach Matt Petersen: .Oh yeah a lot of motions a lot of ships. I’ll tell you one of our more successful plays, line up an empty and run an H jet sweep. Any time you got some guys with some speed. You might bring this guy in motion right here. And run a little jet sweep outside, down block. It’s on the edge and once again extending the defense east and west and then coming back north and south with some iso’s or some blast plays. Casey: That’s a lot of great information coach. We know it’s a very huge offense and there’s a lot going on but maybe some of these coaches can get a better idea about what’s going on at the youth level. Coach Matt Petersen: Yeah you know one thing what’s an advantage always play to the personality that you have. You know, if you got a good guy in the back field you know don’t think just because you’re in a spread that you’re locked in to throwing a ball. You know throwing the ball is the key component to it. Screens are important but don’t be afraid to run the ball as well. Casey: Well Virginia has proved that over the years with Ridge Rodriguez spread them out and run the football. Coach Matt Petersen: Definitely. Casey: Alright coach thank you so much. I would like you to come back and join us again. Coach Matt Petersen: Definitely, I appreciate it. Casey: As you would do it for us today, we’ll see you right back here next time for another great edition of Clubhouse Gas.