When I first got into coaching, the internet was out, but it was AOL dial up. Yes, it had to be done and connect with your land line phone. So, there was some things out there on the internet, but it was not the first place to go to in order to find information on anything football. You had to go to clinics, or contact a football coach and go visit them to ask questions and figure out different scheme.
Now days, you can find a lot of different plays, scheme, and film out there to research for yourself. Yes, you can still go to clinics and learn, or go to visit other coaches, but everything is just a few clicks away. For me personally, I want to give back to younger coaches or coaches that are about to start later in life. There is great content out there, but I want to start from the bottom up. Some information may be too much, or over whelming. And I want to give my stupid simple way to help give back to the new generation of coaches after my 13 years of coaching football.
To start, I want to go over techniques, and gaps. Yes, I am going to start that simple at the beginning. I will then continue to add piece by piece, and go into how you can run a simple "spread", offense. And get how I have seen things done, and how I have ran things in the past. I have been at 5 different high schools for football. Have spent a few years as a varsity OC, offensive line coach, defensive line coach, quarterbacks, RB's, and run game coordinator. During my time, I have firmly believed in being simple, learning, and adjusting with the times.
To start, lets go over what gaps are. For us older guys who played football, we may have come from different terminology, and labels. You can use whatever terminology that you want, label things however you want, as long as you know them and can teach them to other coaches and the players. But, from my experience, there are some things that have been universally used by high school coaches, because it helps the players learn them for when or if they play in college.
Offensively and defensively use gap terminology. When you have 5 offensive lineman, you will have the A gaps, when are between the center and the guards. You will have the B gaps between the guards and tackles. There are 2 A gaps, and 2 B gaps. Outside of the tackles, that is the C gap. Yes, there are 2 C gaps. Defense will use this as well to define to the line and linebackers where their responsibilities are.
When you add a tight end, or a wing, to the line of scrimmage, it becomes clearer to see the C gap. Which before was just outside of the tackles, but now it is between the tackle and tight end, which I label as Y. Now, when you add a tight end on the line of scrimmage, you create more running lanes. Now we can clearly see the C gap, and now outside of the tight end, there is the D gap. This makes the defense now assign more rules and gives them more gaps to cover, and can open things up in the run game for offense.
If you add a wing next to the Y, that will create even another run gap. In my world, this would be the E gap. You can see how this can continue on and on, which you can have this type of formation in the spread/shot gun offense.
Why do you need to know gaps? Because in most blocking rules, or aiming points for your QB and running back, you say gaps. And we have gap scheme run plays. Where we want to control the gaps and usually involves down blocks with someone wrapping around to kick out or lead up. Some might even call it man blocking, since we give rules to lead to a player. We will get to how zone is a little different later.
Now, lets get to the next labels on the line of scrimmage. We have our gaps figured out, but how do you label where the defensive players are to our lineman and backfield? I believe Coach Bryant sat down years and years ago, and created what we call tech's. Defensive line coaches use this as well to assign to their lineman where to line up. We on offense, use this as well when blocking, or identifying where the defense is lined up.
The original way Coach Bryant labeled tech's makes sense, until we get to the TE. When you have a player head up the center, it is a 0 tech. You get this in odd man defense, with 3-4, 3-3, 3-5. When that defensive player is on the shoulder of the center, doesn't matter which one, he is now a 1 tech. When the player is on the inside shoulder of the guard, again doesn't matter which guard, he is a 2i. When you have the number and the I, that means he is inside. When head up the guard, he is a 2 teach. When on the outside shoulder of the guard, he is a 3 tech. Inside shoulder of the tackle, he is a 4i (which all of us OL and OC's just love). Head up the tackles we have a 4 teach, then when outside the tackles, we have a 5 tech.
You can see there is a nice pattern, and it works with the right side of the line and the left side. Now....this is where we are not sure where Coach Bryant was going with this. Now, I have to say, I have used the labeling this way, and I know many coaches who do. There is nothing wrong with this, I have moved on to change it for myself, but you can do what you are more comfortable with.
When you have a TE on the line of scrimmage, the tech's still continue. Inside of the TE is a 7 tech, head up is the 6 tech, outside is the 9 tech. Yes, we did just go out of order, and skip some numbers and numbers that should have an I next to them. Why it was labeled this way, I have no idea. But, he is one of the greatest coaches of all time, so I will not judge or question.
For me, I have used those labels before, it sometimes confused myself and assistant coaches. It can confuse the players, so for me, I have changed it up to make it easier on everyone. Again, this is my simple way of thinking and going.
When we have a TE on the line, or a wing, I continue the trend of the techniques. I go 6i for inside the TE, 6 when head up the TE, and 7 when outside of him. This continues the numbers, and continues the trend from the rest of the tech's. I have found this to be easier on myself, coaches that I work with, and the players. It isn't a huge issue, but when you are dealing with high school kids, you need to make it as easy as possible. But still keeping similar language that they will hear if they go on to pay in college.
One way to label at the line from my days as a player, and for other coaches as well, was using numbers. We just talked gaps at the beginning, some schemes and coaches used numbers. This was to let the offense know who was getting the ball, and what hole they were going to.
They would label the right side of the center 0, the left side of him 1. Even numbers when to the right, odds to the left. The A gap, or to the RT would be 2, the left guard would be 3. The B gap or the RT tackle would be 4, the LT would be 5. The C gap, or TE would be 6 on the right side, on the left side would be 7.
With "old school offenses", the numbers would tell us where the ball was going. An example play would be 44 power. This meant the 4 back was getting the ball, the player was power, and it was aiming for the 4 hole. Which was B gap or the RT tackle, and was going to the right.
For me, this worked when coaching option offense. But, as I have learned, and seen offensive adapt, I have phased out of this. I use gaps and tech's when labeling and explaining the offense to the players. I will still use numbers in the run game. For example, 21 could be your inside zone. the 2 means it is going to your RB, and the 1 means the play is going to the left. This doesn't mean the play is necessarily going to that hole, because we have not labeled that. We give the RB a land mark for different run plays, and let them be athletes and find the open gap to run in.
The number is just letting the players know if the play is going right or left. If you call 22, that could be your inside zone right, because it is an even number and it is going to the right.
I hope you got something out of this first step in being simple in the spread offense. I hope any new coach or younger coach can use this information to help better themselves. There will be more information and it will come piece by piece. To learn terminology together, and learn how to run a simple spread offense!
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