The Perfect High School Offense Part II: Blog Entry Number One
Breaking Tendencies
The first two seasons I was Offensive Coordinator at Sikeston, we would set the running back to the right or the left of the QB. On many of our plays we would also use jet motion. The result was that the defense could get tendencies based on our back alignment and motion. Teams begin to use automatics to take away our base plays. On the jet motion for instance, they would blitz play side off the edge to stop our Fly Sweep and the backside B gap out number our zone scheme when we ran Zone away from fly. This past season we made a decision to set our back in a Pistol alignment to help us become a balanced offense by alignment. While we still used a great deal of motion, we tried to make sure the motion did not always take the defense to the play. With the Pistol alignment and using more option, we think we succeeded in breaking tendencies and forcing defenses to play us more honest.
How We Used the Pistol
In our Doubles set we are 2 by 2 with our slots inside the wide receivers. We set the QB at 4 yards and the 3 back at 6 yards behind him. This was our base offensive set. We probably used it this past season 40 - 50 percent of the time. The base play we ran out of the set was the Veer Option. Basically when we are in this set and run the Veer Option, we are running the "Skee Gun" which Muskegon High School in Michigan has been successful with for several seasons. In other words, we are running the flex bone out of the gun. One of our slots would go in motion over the top of both the QB and the 3 Back to be the pitch back in the pitch phase of our option game. The QB would take the snap, drop his play side foot to give room for the 3 backs path, and read the play side DE. If the DE came down on the 3 back then the QB would pull, if the DE sat or went up field then the QB would give the ball to the 3 back. Our offensive line would take bigger splits, especially with the play side tackle. We blocked Zone up front except for the play side tackle who released to the inside LB. Our 3 Back would take a path at the play side A gap. When in doubt we had the QB give the ball. If the QB pulled, he would attack the OLB who was the pitch key. This is how we drew it up and how we taught it at the beginning of the school year. As the year went on we made some adjustments and learned what did and did not work for us. For instance our 3 Back naturally cut the ball back to the back side A gap most of the time. We also arced our Tackle to the OLB to allow our QB to pull the ball and have room to operate since he was a great runner. We also eliminated leaving the OLB as a pitch key and began to stalk the perimeter and just pitched off of pressure. What we know is it it turned out to be our best offensive play and put great horizontal pressure on the defense to defend the entire width of the field.
Other plays we ran out of Doubles was Zone with no motion, Counter Veer especially into the boundary, Boot with no motion, and our quick or dropback passes. In retrospect, I wish I had run more quick game, screens, and zone reads. We are pleased with our move to the Pistol formation. We plan to continue using the Pistol as our base alignment in our offense. What we like about the Pistol is the down hill action from the back, the balance it gives the formations, and how easily you can run all our plays either direction.
God Bless for Now,
Coach J
The first two seasons I was Offensive Coordinator at Sikeston, we would set the running back to the right or the left of the QB. On many of our plays we would also use jet motion. The result was that the defense could get tendencies based on our back alignment and motion. Teams begin to use automatics to take away our base plays. On the jet motion for instance, they would blitz play side off the edge to stop our Fly Sweep and the backside B gap out number our zone scheme when we ran Zone away from fly. This past season we made a decision to set our back in a Pistol alignment to help us become a balanced offense by alignment. While we still used a great deal of motion, we tried to make sure the motion did not always take the defense to the play. With the Pistol alignment and using more option, we think we succeeded in breaking tendencies and forcing defenses to play us more honest.
How We Used the Pistol
In our Doubles set we are 2 by 2 with our slots inside the wide receivers. We set the QB at 4 yards and the 3 back at 6 yards behind him. This was our base offensive set. We probably used it this past season 40 - 50 percent of the time. The base play we ran out of the set was the Veer Option. Basically when we are in this set and run the Veer Option, we are running the "Skee Gun" which Muskegon High School in Michigan has been successful with for several seasons. In other words, we are running the flex bone out of the gun. One of our slots would go in motion over the top of both the QB and the 3 Back to be the pitch back in the pitch phase of our option game. The QB would take the snap, drop his play side foot to give room for the 3 backs path, and read the play side DE. If the DE came down on the 3 back then the QB would pull, if the DE sat or went up field then the QB would give the ball to the 3 back. Our offensive line would take bigger splits, especially with the play side tackle. We blocked Zone up front except for the play side tackle who released to the inside LB. Our 3 Back would take a path at the play side A gap. When in doubt we had the QB give the ball. If the QB pulled, he would attack the OLB who was the pitch key. This is how we drew it up and how we taught it at the beginning of the school year. As the year went on we made some adjustments and learned what did and did not work for us. For instance our 3 Back naturally cut the ball back to the back side A gap most of the time. We also arced our Tackle to the OLB to allow our QB to pull the ball and have room to operate since he was a great runner. We also eliminated leaving the OLB as a pitch key and began to stalk the perimeter and just pitched off of pressure. What we know is it it turned out to be our best offensive play and put great horizontal pressure on the defense to defend the entire width of the field.
Other plays we ran out of Doubles was Zone with no motion, Counter Veer especially into the boundary, Boot with no motion, and our quick or dropback passes. In retrospect, I wish I had run more quick game, screens, and zone reads. We are pleased with our move to the Pistol formation. We plan to continue using the Pistol as our base alignment in our offense. What we like about the Pistol is the down hill action from the back, the balance it gives the formations, and how easily you can run all our plays either direction.
God Bless for Now,
Coach J
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