By Henry Stanford, Head Football Coach and
Adam Moses, Co-Offensive Coordinator
Over the years, teams have implemented various styles of passing. Some programs believe quick-short passing games that challenge defenses horizontally. Other programs believe in challenging opponent’s vertically. The problem that would arise with some systems is when you call a route and the defense has called the coverage to stop it. Many teams have struggled with these questions.
At Hiram College, we have a phase of our passing game that adjusts to the defense. We have concepts that will look one way versus Man and totally different versus Cover 2, Cover 3, or Cover 4. We have simplified our passing game into a system that is easy to teach. This makes passing the football more efficient.
Once we establish our principles of our passing game, we are able to teach the concepts from multiple formations. With this variation, we can challenge the defense over the entire field. This style of attack has led us to possessing one of the most unique passing games in program history. We will discuss this phase of our passing concepts and why it can be very difficult to defend.
A passing game of an offensive attack is sometimes deemed as extremely complex to the naked eye. However, if you sit back and think about your top passing concepts, you can compile a unique set of adjustments of those concepts that can define your passing game into something difficult to stop.
More specifically, it’s the simple idea of getting your players into the same landmarks from different locations. This idea can be developed from different formational adjustments, motions, shifts, etc. prior to the ball being snapped. As a coordinator with dynamic skill players, you must be able to provide them opportunities to use their pure athleticism to their benefit. Essentially, we want to take the thinking out of the player’s hands.
Here we will discuss two passing concepts that combine formational adjustments and post snap coverage reads that make our passing attack difficult to slow down.
First, we have our “Trail” concept (Example 1). This is a basic concept in our offense typically installed out of a 3 x 1 set. This concept gives the QB a 2-way pre-snap read based on coverage recognition. First, the QB identifies the boundary corner and works off the leverage route by boundary #1 WR. If that WR does not win, the QB flips to the drag route. If the drag gets covered by the WLB, the QB gathers to his check down. This makes a simple triangle read from leverage to WLB flat read.
If the QB pre-snap read takes him to attack the 3 WR side, his initial read begins low to high, with the blitz beater built into the concept. The QB starts at the drag, works to the decision route, then gathers back to the trail route. This allows the QB a simple SLB triangle read with a built-in blitz beater.
Read Part 2 Here
