By Felton Huggins, Offensive Coordinator
LaGrange College
This past offseason I was promoted from WR Coach/Passing Game Coordinator to QB Coach/Offensive Coordinator. I’m definitely a tried and true “Air Raider” having played for the legendary Hal Mumme in college, but was blessed with the opportunity to play in the NFL for 5 seasons. The thing I learned the most from that experience was how important it was to run the ball so that you can get better looks and matchups in the passing game. With that being said, we decided as an offensive staff to look for ways to utilize quick passing game concepts into our base running play, the inside zone. By doing this it enhanced our running game and gave us high percentage passes that stay within the philosophy of Air Raid offenses.
Since arriving in LaGrange in 2013, we have been very successful throwing the ball, which you could probably expect from a true Air Raid team. In the 2013 -2015 seasons we threw for almost 10,000 yards and 83 TDs. But our running game was less than stellar, averaging just 57 yards per game in 2015 with less than 3 yards average per rush. Since putting in our RPO concepts this year, we noticed dramatic improvement offensively.
First, our running game increased by over 40 yards per game. Our yards per carry average for our running backs on inside zone plays increased from 2.4 yards per carry to 5.3 yards per carry. Our passing game also saw improvements, too. We increased passing yards per game from 315 yards per game to 368 yards per game and threw 15 more TDs in 2016 than we did the previous season. Specifically, on RPO’s we averaged 13 yards per completion and 8 yards per carry. These offensive additions allowed us to have the ability to throw quick game routes on run calls so that opposing teams’ linebackers were put in conflict on whether to drop under receivers or play the run in the box.
PRACTICE – “MAYHEM PERIOD”
To accommodate the additions to our offense we decided to add a segment of offensive practice that we call “Mayhem”. This period of practice generally last 15 minutes and the first 5 minutes we break into our individual groups. Our O-line works zone steps, our WRs work perimeter blocking, our RBs work ball security and our QBs work footwork drills and exchanges dealing with our RPO’s.
The next 10 minutes our entire offense comes together in an extremely up-tempo period where we rep our RPO’s that are on the team script for that day. During this time, we service each other by rotating all of our QBs and O-Linemen to simulate the defensive front 7. Our OL will hold bags and simulate the DL look we want to see and the QBs will simulate the LBs
and make their Run-Pass reads off of their actions. We work to get as many live reps in as possible during this period, because when we run this play successfully we can run it over and over if we are utilizing good tempo, playing fast and keeping the opposing defense off balance.
RPO’s – Concepts
We have two mainstay concepts we run off of our Inside zone scheme. We can run a stick or slant/flat concept. We run these concepts out of 10 personnel, 2 x 2 and 3 x 1 sets every week, and we will game plan certain RPO looks in 20 personnel against certain defensive looks.
We utilize the inside zone as our primary run concept, but being an air raid team we have a pocket passer QB. We have had the types of QBs at LaGrange that we don’t want carrying the ball very often. This is another reason we like the RPO concept; it enables us to run inside zone, but instead of leaving the backside end unblocked as a run-run read, we use the backside tackle in a technique we call “lock” to lock on and block out the backside defensive end. With this assignment tweak, we leave the backside inside backer, either “Mike” or “Will” unblocked and he is our read man.
With this blocking scheme, our inside zone play will turn into a man blocking scheme where we take care of the 5 most dangerous threats and put the 6th defender in conflict. The only way we will get out of this scheme is if we see two 2i’s at defensive tackle, to which our adjustment will be to fold block the backside guard. We typically like to run our 2 x 2 stick concept to the field with the throw into the boundary.
We teach our WRs on the backside of the run to over-split so as to create more space between them and the conflict backer. Our WRs on the front side of the run have the freedom to play with their split because they will be responsible for digging out defenders in a 2 x 2 set. In a 3 x 1 set we will run a hitch route as a “gift” throw. We teach our RB’s to treat the play as more of a front side run than a traditional inside zone where the backside inside backer would be blocked by the backside tackle or guard.
STICK CONCEPT RPO – 2 X 2
The Spot shadow is on the “Will” backer, who is our conflict backer. If he reads run, we will pull and throw, if he plays pass in his first step we will hand the ball to the back.
Here the “Will” plays pass, so the QB hands the ball off.
The back is able to clear the LOS into the second level where the Will has vacated his gap to play under the stick route by the #2 WR.
Part 2 Will be posted Tomorrow
