Many coaches believe that the one downfall of running a triple option offense is the possible health hazards that come with the territory – namely, your QB taking the BIG HIT as he pitches the ball to his pitch back. A simple solution to this dilemma is to teach the QB how to “leverage pitch.”
Leverage pitching is a very simple concept to teach and may allow your QB to have many more successful pitches during his career without taking a huge hit. Here is how it works:
One Way Thought Process: Once your QB is out from the mesh with his B-Back (1st option in the triple play) and he has received a “pull” read from the dive key (see #1 in diagram), we teach our QB to immediately “replace the dive Key defender”. This allows one of your best athletes (QB) to get upfield NOW. What this also does is allows the QB to play aggressive and take the game to the pitch key defender (#2 in diagram). The thought process is simple: once the QB attacks the original location of the dive key, he will continue taking the ball toward the end zone until he knows that he has out-leveraged the pitch key to an extent that he will not be able to tackle the pitch back. Once the QB knows that the pitch key is incapable of tackling the pitch back, the QB should pitch the ball. This allows the ball to be in the hands of one of your best athletes (A-back) and allows you to get to the perimeter NOW.
Hope this helps!
