Posted by: @terrypjohnson

I heard this at a football camp last night:

"Stopping the Double Wing is easy. Just blitz the 'C' Gap every play."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't blitzing 'C' what I want them to do? It seems like the TE or WB would pick seal him down and that my back would be off to the races. 

 

Have not seen a DW team in years. They used to be everywhere. My approach....keep your second level out of the scrum. 

Worked very well. 

Posted by: @terrypjohnson

I heard this at a football camp last night:

"Stopping the Double Wing is easy. Just blitz the 'C' Gap every play."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't blitzing 'C' what I want them to do? It seems like the TE or WB would pick seal him down and that my back would be off to the races. 

I think this is a case of "last coach with the chalk".  It depends on who is blitzing that point.  If the blitzer is coming from inside, that's who the WB is expecting to block anyway.  But if the blitzer is coming from outside, what you need to do is seal him in and run outside him, and the offense needs to be prepared to do that.  The defense can make it tough by then having the ILB scrape along and race with the runner and the lead G to the outside.

it's a matter of taking away from the offense what they're most comfortable with.  If your blockers are in a well-practiced routine of making a way in the C gap, and now the opponents are presenting a different geometry on the run than they expect, you might have numbers, but those numbers may not be as effective as they need to be.

Stopping any offense system is easy if your players are slightly more prepared than their players are.

Posted by: @terrypjohnson

I heard this at a football camp last night:

"Stopping the Double Wing is easy. Just blitz the 'C' Gap every play."

^ Stock response from coaches who had success against any poorly run offense.  A well-run Double Wing is impervious to blitzing for two reasons:  

A) The width of the splits.

B) Successful blitzing is often accomplished by bringing more pressure than there are blockers.  How does a defense successfully blitz against 8 blockers at the POA?  (I'm leaving out the BSTE, C and ball-carrier.)

Then there's this:

Power can be run to more than just the C gap.

The Double Wing is more than one play.  

Stopping Power and stopping the Double Wing are two entirely different things.  Anyone who thinks he has shut down an entire offense by taking away one play is a simpleton.  And any Double Wing coach who doesn't run more than Power is an idiot.  

--Dave

Posted by: @terrypjohnson

I heard this at a football camp last night: 

lolling at football camp discussions.  Usually a lot of waste of time arm wrestling, chest beating and war stories...

"I remember this 10-year-old RB they had.  He was 6-2, 250 lbs. and ran a 4.4. He was the #1 RB in the nation on LittleKidRBs.com and we absolutely stoned him.  They also had a 300 lb. Nose Tackle who wasn't even on their roster..." ? 

--Dave

@coachdp - Here's how this conversation started:

Since I'm new to the area, I said, "Hey, I see that the top two teams run the Double Wing pretty well. That's a fun offense to watch".

"They're not hard to stop, just blitz the C gap". I didn't know if he was referring to stopping the Power, Sweep, or Criss Cross Counter, because they ran all three very well. I assumed he meant Power (which is why I put that in topic) because that's what they ran for the first few plays of the contest to take control of the game. 

Regardless, I agree with what you've said. With the little kids, I run Power to the "D" Gap (between the TE and WB) because there was almost never a defender there and the ends / corners were worried about stopping the sweep.

Posted by: @terrypjohnson

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't blitzing 'C' what I want them to do? It seems like the TE or WB would pick seal him down and that my back would be off to the races. 

 

Probably. As DP pointed out, it's pretty dumb to blitz against zero splits. In a TKO, the blitzer gets washed down with everyone else. In GOD, he probably doesn't have any room. If the FB and pulling G are taught to get first to show/next to show instead of "Kick the DE", then Power just hits a little tighter. 

Funny thing about Football In A Phone Booth.......Just when you step inside the booth to answer the call, they go right around you.  

Just my Old Fart Brain thinking here.  The Wing-T, Double Wing, and Wishbone are reliant upon the ability to average 4 years per carry using the FB alone.  As such, I agree with Dave, the belief that blitzing C Gap will stop a good Misdirection Offense is like closing all the cabin doors on the Titanic thinking that will stop the sinking.  

?

Posted by: @terrypjohnson

@coachdp - Here's how this conversation started:

Since I'm new to the area, I said, "Hey, I see that the top two teams run the Double Wing pretty well. That's a fun offense to watch".

"They're not hard to stop, just blitz the C gap".

You should have thanked him for his knowledge. ? 

--Dave

Posted by: @terrypjohnson

Regardless, I agree with what you've said. With the little kids, I run Power to the "D" Gap (between the TE and WB) because there was almost never a defender there and the ends / corners were worried about stopping the sweep.

Actually, we run our default Power to the TE's butt.  From there, he has the most options available to him (bounce, cutback, or continue up field).  Anything run inside the TE will handcuff the bounce.  Anything run outside of the TE will handcuff the cutback.  We teach the cutback as The Default, but we also recognize that I want to give my ball-carrier the most options.  Running to the TEs butt allows us to do that, as well as giving us more room to operate in (as opposed to having less room when running to the PST's butt).  When I'm talking about "room to operate," I'm not talking about room for the RB to find a hole; I'm talking about having enough room to fit 8 blockers in at the POA.  

--Dave

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Probably. As DP pointed out, it's pretty dumb to blitz against zero splits.

--Agree, in a well-run Double Wing.  In a poorly-run Double Wing, the playside linemen are probably base-blocking a defensive lineman and won't account for a blitzer.  If the defense has stacked their blitzers close enough to the LOS and aren't accounted for, then it's less likely the pullers will pick them up in time.  We are going to down block on Power 99.9% of the time, so a blitzer (to us) is just another sucker getting washed down.  But there's a myriad of options to handle the scenario, from going unbalanced, to taking a Nasty Split, to having the PSWB and QB lead through, etc.  Options galore.  All of them good.

In a TKO, the blitzer gets washed down with everyone else. In GOD, he probably doesn't have any room. If the FB and pulling G are taught to get first to show/next to show instead of "Kick the DE", then Power just hits a little tighter. 

--Yes, that's a great way to explain it, Lar.

--Dave

 

Posted by: @terrypjohnson

I heard this at a football camp last night:

"Stopping the Double Wing is easy. Just blitz the 'C' Gap every play."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't blitzing 'C' what I want them to do? It seems like the TE or WB would pick seal him down and that my back would be off to the races. 

 

If just blitzing stopped the Double Wing (I consider my single wing a similar approach to football), I would have been running spread a decade or two ago.  Everyone blitzes us.  We get 11 men within 3 yards of the LOS almost every game. 

What do we do to adjust to all those guys attacking the backfield?  Most of the time, nothing.  We keep on running base power and wedge right in to their blitz.  While we are beating and banging for 1st downs, I am watching the defense to see where our big plays are open.  Rarely, we get penetration or a penalty or a RB bouncing the play outside and losing yardage, just before he gets benched, and find ourselves in 3rd or 4th and long.  When we get in trouble, I call my trick plays (sweeps and passes).  If all 11 are up in our face to stop power, a trick play throwing the ball over their heads is money.

The only defenses that have consistently "stopped" us, are the ones who are big, fast, aggressive and well coached.  Low pad level on the D line can make Wedge tough to run.  Couple that with big strong DEs who are disciplined at squeezing my down blockers can make Power tough to execute and if their LBs are fast enough and pursue well to stop the sweeps, we might be in for a long day.  Then if the same defense has disciplined secondary players who are still not looking in the backfield after we have consecutively ran inside for a dozen plays, I might be in trouble.  We usually run in to defenses like that about once every other year. 

Posted by: @terrypjohnson

Stopping the _________ is easy. Just...

Seems I've heard that said about just about every offense out there....  Stopping it's easy, just...

Usually the guy saying it either:

1.  Hasn't actually played against it

2.  Has play against it but had way better talent on his side of the ball

3. Has only played against it when run poorly, and/or by a talent poor team.

Over the yrs, when I've heard this kind of talk, I've learned to smile inside, keep my mouth shut and circle our game with that guy on the schedule.   Hubris on the other guy's part aids our cause.   What was the line in that old movie about the lawyer and the devil (Pacino?), "of all the sins, Pride is my favorite."

Posted by: @coyote

Seems I've heard that said about just about every offense out there....  Stopping it's easy, just...

Usually the guy saying it either:

1.  Hasn't actually played against it

2.  Has play against it but had way better talent on his side of the ball

3. Has only played against it when run poorly, and/or by a talent poor team.

We even heard it at the high school level.  One of the great things about recording a game from inside of a press box is that we often get their coaches voices recorded on our video and when we'd watch our video after the game, could hear their discussion:  "All they're doing is running off tackle."  "All they're doing is running up the middle."  And then you can hear their snickering and derogatory commentary.  Funny how their conversations take a different tone 17 plays later.  "ALL THEY"RE DOING IS RUNNING OFF TACKLE!!  THERE'S NO REASON WHY WE SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO STOP THAT #@$%&* THING!"  Often, their "adjustments" are just moves in desperation.  "KEY THE MOTION!  KEY THE MOTION!"

--Dave

Posted by: @coyote

Over the yrs, when I've heard this kind of talk, I've learned to smile inside, keep my mouth shut and circle our game with that guy on the schedule

That's exactly what I did (except for the schedule because we play in different organizations).

I only posted out here to make sure that I wasn't missing something.