BYU Passing Game
W e want to express our gratitude to
the AFCA and the program commit-
tee for the chance that we have to spend a
few minutes with you. We have a very good
football staff and you will meet our offen-
sive guys, but we also have a very good
defensive staff with Ken Schmidt, Tom
Ramage, Barry Lamb and Brian Mitchell.
We have been together a very long
Norm Chow time. We have competed against a lot of
you and we are friends with a lot of you, so
Offensive a chance to spend a few minutes with you
Coordinator is very gratifying to us.
Lance Reynolds, who is the running-
Brigham Young backs coach, Chris Pella, who is the tight
University ends and special teams coach, Roger
French, who is our offensive line coach and
Provo, Utah myself will each spend a few minutes with
you.
I know we don’t want to spend a lot of
time on philosophy, but I think if we express
our basic tenets as the hour goes on, it will
make a little more sense.
Number one, we are going to protect the
quarterback. If you decide to rush seven,
we will block seven. If you decide to rush
Lance Reynolds
10, we will try to block 10. We are going to
try to protect the quarterback. Lance and
Runningbacks
Roger spend a lot of time picking up blitzes
Coach
and that is the basic tenet that we have.
You may be better than we are, but
schematically we will try to protect the
quarterback.
If we do decide to run a hot route, it
becomes very simple because what we try
to do is incorporate the unblocked defend-
Chris Pella er in the play call. Whoever the unblocked
defender is, we will simply call that player’s
Tight Ends and name in the play call. That way the quar-
Special Teams terback, receivers and offensive linemen all
Coach understand that is the guy we cannot block.
We actually point to him and we say we
can’t block him. If we don’t call him out,
then the receiver progression is one, two,
three. But, if we call out the unblocked
defender, then the quarterback under-
stands that his responsibility now in receiv-
er progression becomes blitz one, two,
three. We try to keep it as simple as that.
Roger French
Number two, we like to think we can
control the football with a forward pass. I
Offensive Line
know that is something of an anomaly, but
Coach
we want to do that. We played a game a
couple of years ago, and we threw consec-
utive 18 completions. The only reason we
did that, in my mind, is because they were
simple throws. Throws that were eight and
10 yards that we thought we could make.
We like to think that we can control the foot-
• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •
ball. No one is more aware of possession
time than we are. We understand that we
need to watch the clock and control the
clock a little bit.
Number three, we always try to incorpo-
rate the run and the pass. That is obvious,
right? You aren’t going to win football
games just running the ball and you aren’t
going to win football games just throwing
the ball. We like to think we can do both.
We try to make it as similar as possible.
Lance will talk to you a little bit about the
path of a halfback on a run that is the same
path taken on a throw that we have. We try
to incorporate both running and passing
and make it look as similar as we can to
cause a little bit of confusion.
Number four, we are going to take what
the defense gives us. I know that is simple,
but it is very true. We are going to try to
take advantage of what the other team is
doing on defense. During the course of a
game, with the sophistication of defenses,
coverages are disguised and the use of
zone blitzes and fire blitzes become very
hard to beat. We’d be lying if we said we
sat up in the box and knew what coverages
were being run. What we try to do is take a
portion of the football field, the weak flat for
example, and we will attack that until we
can figure out what the defense’s intentions
are. Then we try to attack the coverage that
we see. It is very difficult to cover the whole
field. We are not going to try to fool any-
body. We are going to take little portions of
the field and try to attack them until the
defense declares what it intends to do.
Number five, we feel very strongly that
you need to KISS it. You need to KISS your
offense. You all know what that acronym
means, you need to Keep It Simple, Stupid.
I think the biggest mistake we make as
coaches is that we try to do too much.
Lance does a great job of always reminding
us, “Hey we are doing too much, we’re
doing too much.” If you walk out of here
with nothing else but the idea that we try to
keep our offense as simple as we can, I
think we have gotten the point across.
A few years ago, I was talking to a for-
mer NFL coach who has since retired. He
said, “What is the comfort level of your
quarterback in a critical situation? Third
and four situation, what is the comfort
level?” I was trying to impress him and act
like I knew what I was talking about so I
asked him what comfort zone meant and
he said, “Simply, how many throws does
your quarterback feel confident making
when it is third and four and you have to
make the first down?” I said, “Maybe seven
or eight.” Then I turned and asked him,
“What about you and your quarterback?”
He said, “Two.” This is an NFL coach
coaching an NFL quarterback. That has
always stayed with me. We really feel
strongly that we need to KISS our offense.
We will show you some diagrams and
translate how we try to develop a football
play. We like to think that you need a five-
step game, a three-step game, you obvi-
ously need to run, a play pass, a screen
game and be able to move the quarter-
back. If you can’t handle the pass rush, the
quarterback needs to be able to move. That
is what we have incorporated in our game,
a three-step, a five-step, runs, play pass off
the run, screens and movement of the
quarterback. That is simply how we try to
put our offense together.
The way we like to attack a defense is
with the passing game remaining curl, flat,
four verticals and creating triangles and
mismatches against man-to-man cover-
age. That is a basic strong-side pattern for
us. We try to create triangles. Everybody
understands horizontal stretches, routes,
and vertical stretch routes. At BYU, we like
to develop oblique stretches. They are all
done to create stretches involved in a pass
offense.
Diagram 1
Our quarterback’s progression now
becomes a cover three read. One is if the
corner rotates over, throw the deep ball. If
we can’t throw deep, we will look for the
tight end and that is called a sail route. We
try to put him in that imaginary spot where
the three deep zones meet. Our back
checks the protection and then goes to the
flat.
Now the quarterback reads one as the
receiver, two as the tight end and three as
the back. All we have done is try to create
a triangle depending on how the defense
covers. The quarterback’s read is to look
for the go route and we tell him that two
becomes both X and the tight end. As my
receiver progression takes me to number
• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •
two and the defense is in a strong zone
with the strong safety trying to take away
the tight end, we call this color flash. We
see someone coming over to take the tight
end away from his backside, who is proba-
bly a guy from the deep third, then we try
to get the ball in that open area. We have
tried to create a triangle. If, for some rea-
son, they play route recognition and bring
the stud linebacker to seal, we tell our
quarterback to throw to the runningback.
Now we want to present something dif-
ferent with the same idea. If your opponent
is rolling the zone over to the right side of
the field and they bring in a linebacker to
cut off some angles. What we try to do is
call play and use girl’s names for the hot
linebackers. We call the play and we end it
by saying Wanda. We cannot block Wanda
if he decides to come. Wanda hits it, now
we become hot. The look now becomes
blitz one, two, three.
Diagram 2
Diagram 3
The reason we have done this is
because we see that this linebacker is get-
ting back into the tight end hole and we
cannot get the ball to him like we want to.
See, we have the tight end in a deep route,
we have one back in the flat and we have
the halfback right in the spot where the stud
linebacker left. That is how we try to attack
a route depending upon the coverage we
see from the defense. If we see man-to-
man coverage and think we can get by with
a back against a run support guy, then what
we try to do is get that guy on a get-away
route. We call a get-away an option route.
If the stud linebacker hits it, we turn it out.
If the stud linebacker plays him man-to-
man, then we give him room. If the stud
linebacker is outside, we break in and just
play with the option game. We have taken
one route or one pattern, if you will, and we
tried to devise things to take advantage of
what an opponent does defensively.
Lance Reynolds, Runningbacks
It is an honor to be with you. I am going
to try to emphasize most of my time on try-
ing to utilize the runningbacks in the pass-
ing game.
The runningbacks have several key roles
in the passing game. One is protection. It is
a big responsibility and anybody who coach-
es runningbacks should take a lot of time
and effort to try to make sure that they fill
their role in that protection scheme, whether
it be blocking guys or hot releases or dealing
with the blitz in some kind of screen. Some
way, we have to either block the blitz or
attack the blitz. Some of it is in two-back
sets, some of it is in single-back sets.
The backs are critical to obtain the
“stretch” that the quarterback guys are
always talking about. You needn’t do an
attack zone cover whether it be in some
kind of horizontal fashion, some kind of ver-
tical fashion, or where we get a triangle to
stretch a defense in an angle. Again, we
are involved in all of those. We are going to
talk about using tailbacks in man-to-man
coverage because most tailbacks are great
athletes.
We are going to learn how to use screens
and hot routes to attack a blitz. Most of our
five- and seven-step routes read from deep
to short. Since I have never met a quarter-
back who didn’t like to throw deep, or didn’t
think the deep guy was open, we added
some terms to some of our throws to help
get the ball to the backs and tight ends. A
term like H-option will reverse the quarter-
back reads, instead of going from deep to
short, he will go from short to deep.
For example on the strong throw, if we
just added the term F-option, what happens
is the back becomes one, the tight end
becomes two and the post becomes three.
What that does is make the quarterback
focus his eyes on that option of the blitz. If
the blitz comes, he will throw it hot and the
idea is now we can get our quarterback’s
eyes and attention on throwing a shorter,
higher completion percentage throw. We
change terms to get attention back on the
shorter route, both with the quarterback
and the runningback. Some terms will
change the quarterback’s reads from deep
to intermediate to short and some will not.
 Another option we can talk about is the
angle. We will take the back and roll him
out, plant his foot and return it into the hole.
Sometimes that stud linebacker will get
back to take away that intermediate ball.
We will start like we are going to the flat
and roll back quickly. I think these reads
change into a real high percentage throw
and you can utilize your backs to beat man
two coverage and also get into seams of
zones. We will call a play then add a term
to it. The back is on a delay route, a term
we call rip. When the quarterback drops, he
is going to go through his reads, high to
intermediate to low, but it emphasizes in
the quarterback’s mind that if this line-
backer drops to take away a sale, then he
is going to throw the delay.
Diagram 4
The first one we will start with is our half-
back option game. It is probably one of the
best ways to get the ball to a good receiver
or a good runner. The first thing you need
to do is evaluate your personnel and pick a
guy who can run the H-option vs. man-to-
man so that he can separate from people.
Some players have a feel for that and some
players don’t and it is very difficult to get a
guy that doesn’t have much feel to run it
correctly. I think it can be a real equalizer
sometimes. The option now being with the
halfback, we can run this off the strong
route or the weak stretch. In a normal
route, a receiver would be one, tight end
cross two and the back would be three.
When we add the term option in the half-
back option, he becomes one. The tight
end becomes two and the receiver
becomes three. So we will go from short to
deep. First, he needs to align. You can’t run
this very well from the backfield unless you
get the back over behind the tackle. You
can’t run this play from a split backfield or
the offset I, but he needs to be where he
can get a quick release. This release needs
to be an arc that gets a little bit of width. We
can be no tighter than the inside leg of the
tackle and there needs to be a little bend to
the release. It needs to be the same as if
you were running a draw-trap. We want to
• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •
make it look the same to the defender on
that side of the field so he cannot recognize
the difference between the option or a
comeback.
Norm spent a minute on hot routes, that
is the term we use to discuss when we are
not going to block somebody, and on this
play, we do not block the weakside line-
backer. Depending on protection, we are
going to adjust in one or two ways. With the
back stretch release, the quarterback
checks that if the linebacker comes, we will
either turn or we will swing. We plant our
foot and push hard for two reasons. One,
the way people play now, you have to get
away from the zone blitz. If they zone blitz
an end to try and bring that weakside line-
backer, make an adjustment and turn that
end and push hard to the sidelines and stay
away from the bad guys. Second, we need
to be able to get ourselves in a position
where we can get rid of the ball quickly,
because we don’t want the free safety to be
able to disguise and stay high.
The precision between the quarterback
getting that ball to the backs in a hurry and
the width of the backs is critical. If the back
gets the ball before the free safety gets
there, we think he can make a play on the
free safety or on the end. The timing and
recognition of it is critical on the hot ball. If
we are attacking a zone, then it is almost
like playground football. We will tell him to
release and he sees people drop, we tell
him to go get the hole with your feet. So, if
that linebacker drops wide and a corner
goes deep, then the hole is going to be
right between the weakside and middle
linebacker. The second we plant our foot,
we need to throw the ball so we can exe-
cute the play before the defense has an
ability or has time to close on us and
squeeze that route down.
If you fish hook, it makes it real difficult
for the quarterback. So we want him to run
right into the hole, plant his foot and get the
ball right now. If they do squeeze us, then
we have the tight end coming over the top
in the off curl and we will throw behind the
guys that are squeezing. Now if they play
us on another kind of zone, let’s say the
width drops straight, the corner presses
and they have some kind of two deep and
there is a big hole. As we release and that
width drops, we say go get the hole. We
teach our players to crouch and become
very small after they catch the ball so they
are harder to tackle. You can do some
other things like turn your protection so
there is no hot guy. The only disadvantage
is when you turn protection, you have to
peek on the other side to watch out for new
hot guys. So there are some things you can
do with it by changing your protection
around. If you have the right kind of back
and you do it enough, the players get a lot
of confidence and they love to be one-on-
one with some grass out there. Usually the
defenders work like crazy to get nine guys
around the ball all the time. Especially
when you are running the ball.
When you release and you see man-to-
man coverage, you are going up and
putting a move on and working it inside or
outside. When they release, they need to
get up to that move point, shake, push, put
on a definite move and then plant a foot
and now accelerate and use speed. I tell
young players to take their time and really
make a hard push. Now, at the move point,
freeze the defender and go inside or out-
side. Make the defender run. Now to get
this to where you are comfortable, you
have to be able to release, having in your
mind what you are going to do before you
get there. You need to get the quarterbacks
in a drill everyday with the runningbacks so
they can learn to recognize quickly and
make precision moves with good timing
between quarterback and runningback.
Chris Pella, Tight Ends
Coach Reynolds mentioned that I have
been at BYU for a little while. I’m the new
guy on the staff. This is my 14th season. I
feel that it has really been a privilege to
work with the offensive coaches at BYU
and to work with the tight ends. During our
best years, the tight end was a valuable
part of this offense. We are always trying to
find ways to enhance our offense, as a lot
of teams have done. Sometimes you see
an empty backfield, five wide receivers in
the game and people dislocate out of the
backfield. Traditionally, for our tight ends to
catch many passes, it creates a bit of a
unique scenario in trying to recruit tight
ends that can fill a different role other than
line up, block a few times and run down the
field and catch a lot of passes.
In recruiting, people ask me, what is your
profile of a tight end at BYU? I would like to
recruit 6-6, 265 pound guys who run 4.5. I
think everybody in the country would like to
recruit guys like that, unfortunately, we’re not
able to do that. So, I’d probably settle for 6-
5, 260 pound guys who run 4.6 and maybe
only have a 38-inch vertical jump instead of
a 48-inch vertical jump. Unfortunately, I
haven’t been able to reach that goal either.
Our tight ends range from 6-3 to 6-6, 240-
260 pounds. They all have good mobility
and can run. When you have somebody
who is 6-5 or 6-6 out there and you have a
corner or a safety over there who is under
six feet tall trying to cover him, we certainly
think that enhances our ability to throw the
ball down the field. We are also trying to find
a tight end that can fit into a four vertical con-
cept. He can be one of the four guys running
down the field trying to put that fourth verti-
cal stretch into that secondary.
Traditionally, the fullbacks and tight
ends run very similar routes and have very
strong crossover ability. If we put our tight
ends in a Y split-out position, they will gen-
erally make most of the catches on the
team. I also think what is very important to
understand is tight ends cannot be elimi-
nated from blocking, protecting and helping
the running game. I think that the biggest
thing that I have to work on as a tight end
coach is trying to find time to make sure
these guys know how to block. They know
how to pass protect. We are going to come
up with a scheme that allows us a chance
to protect our quarterback. That means
keeping the tight end in protection once in
a while.
We run zone plays inside and outside to
turn our tight ends into good blockers. All
you have to do is block him in or block him
out and the back will make a cut. That
makes you a good blocker. That has taken
a lot of pressure off of our tight ends on
blocking certain run points. The hardest
block for a tight end is to hook an outside
linebacker. I think with the zone play, we
have changed our aiming point and put a
zone position where we just want our tight
ends to knock him backwards and then
block him wherever he goes.
Traditionally the way we teach blocking
has changed a little bit, but I also think it is
a critical element. I am a real leverage type
person. I think a lot, talk a lot and coach a
lot about using leverage in blocking. I fig-
ured out that leverage is a creative devel-
opment that can help you win the battle of
trying to block big people backwards. If you
can get your hands inside the defender’s
hands and get your body in a position to
control his chest, you can control his body.
I think the most important thing if you teach
blocking is understanding that the guy with
his hands inside wins the battle. I think the
other thing that is important for tight ends is
• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •
to get off the line of scrimmage. Get your-
self in position to get to your route.
Obviously, people are going to try to
reroute you. The number one thing I
believe is protecting your chest. So, our
whole format is to release in a manner with
a technique that allows us a chance to get
our shoulders past that defender and get
ourselves into our routes.
Fundamentally, we always emphasize
release steps which means to open our
hips and get ourselves in position to drive
our arms up the field, protect our chest and
keep those linebackers and defensive line-
men from getting to our arms or chest and
rerouting us. The thing that we do that I
think is creative is line up our tight ends in
the backfield and put them in short motion
and direction in the way we want them to
go when the ball is snapped. I think this
gives us a chance to have our tight end
moving or put him in a formation where
they can’t anticipate where he is going to
be and have somebody waiting for him.
Another thing we will do is split him out.
Bringing tight ends across formations will
give you different ways for them to get off
the line of scrimmage into those outs.
If the tight end doesn’t block, then they
are going to think pass right away. So we
think it is very important that our tight ends
help sell the run also. We work hard on try-
ing to release through people on play-
action passes. We want to sell the run first,
we run a bootleg where we have two tight
ends running the first and second level on
misdirection. If they take off down the field
and the secondaries get a primary key of
pass and they are running with them, then
that whole play-action fake concept has
been wasted.
I have always felt very strongly about
the ability to get guys motivated to play
hard. I think we have a very narrow window
of opportunity in coaching. Obviously when
we have practices, that is an opportunity to
coach and make ourselves better. I think
the kids have to realize it. This window of
opportunity closes very quickly. I spent a lot
of my early career in coaching at Utah
State and also played there with Merlin
Olson. Merlin was part of the ‘Fearsome
Foursome’ with the Los Angeles Rams. I
was down in Ram Park one day just sitting
there with Merlin and I asked him, “Hey
Merlin, what do you contribute your suc-
cess to as a football player?” He said, “I
always had this one philosophy that I was
going to play every play as though it was
going to be the last play in my career. It did-
n’t matter if it was in practice, the Pro Bowl,
the Super Bowl, no matter what the situa-
tion was, I was going to take advantage of
that opportunity.” That has always stuck
with me and it has always been a part of my
coaching philosophy. What happened earli-
er today, you will never have that opportu-
nity again. What happens tomorrow is
another challenge, but you can’t get to that
until you get to tomorrow. I have always
tried to instill that into my players. Don’t
miss this opportunity because you aren’t
going to get it again.
I coach the kickers, also. I tell kickers all
the time, once that ball leaves your foot, it
has to leave your mind. You have to get
ready for the next kick. I tell the tight end, if
you make a bad block or if you drop a pass,
that is history. Just think about the good
one or think about the next one and get
ready and make yourself visualize that you
are going to catch the next one. You are
going to overcome that little mistake that
you can do it and try to create a positive
environment for them to play and practice.
I think it is very important that you take the
opportunities in practice and make the kids
the best that you possibly can.
Tight end is a low level, mid-level route
type of position for us. Certainly that fits the
profile of the standard traditional tight end.
We want our tight ends to have a chance to
be successful. The word sale was men-
tioned in two formations earlier. Sale is a
hole we try to create 15-20 yards deep,
where the three-deep and the underneath
zones meet. We emphasize to our tight
ends, get 15 yards down the field before
you even start to slow down. We try to sell
into that spot and become a fixture and
give the quarterback a chance to throw to
you in an area that is going to be open. It
changes a little bit from where the ball is on
the field and those types of things.
Two things that we are concerned about
are getting enough stretch and that the
wide receiver, flanker and split end have
enough speed to force the corner to go
deep and a safety to respect that deep
post. That is when things open up for a tight
end. We still like to create a scenario where
that tight end has a chance to catch the
ball. Obviously if it is just man-for-man, he
becomes a primary receiver in this route. If
it isn’t a hot ball, then our tight end knows
that he has to get open. A man route is just
a hard cut out. The big thing about teaching
man routes is working on staying flat and
getting separation. As soon as you drift up
the field, if that ball is thrown in any kind of
position where the defender can come
underneath, they have a good chance for
an interception. As long as you keep your
body between the ball and the defender
and the quarterback has a chance to throw
that ball in front of you, it is almost impossi-
ble to intercept it.
In the zone concept, the quarterback
can throw the ball wherever he needs to
throw it to get you to an open spot. In this
alignment, the quarterback can throw the
ball inside. If the safety is inside, he can
throw the ball outside. The halfback option
is exactly the same concept, only it is to the
weak side and we bring the tight end
across and create the same scenario, 15-
20 yards deep in his sell zone to get open.
I think the other thing that is important
about tight ends is they can be a factor in
blitz control. We just want a little arrow
route involved with a strong safety blitz. We
have a free safety in a position to try and
cover a tight end and we compress our
body, drop our shoulders, turn up the field,
break a tackle and have a chance for a big
play. That play probably generates more
yards after a catch than any play tight ends
get involved with and I think it is a very
good route.
I think the number one reason receivers
drop footballs is because they turn their
eyes away from their hands before they
catch the football. You cannot spend
enough time teaching kids to watch the ball
into their hands and watch that ball come to
their body. I am a real believer in that and
you can look at just about anybody who
drops a pass and you will see their head
turns away from their hands. If you can
train an individual to be disciplined enough
to always watch their hands, they will never
drop a pass.
Roger French, Offensive Line
The one thing I have found out about
football is that it is a demanding sport and
when you coach the offensive line, it is
even more demanding because things are
changing. I remember when we would just
line up and we could block five guys.
Defenses are really gearing up to come
after you. People are jumping on top of the
quarterback and we aren’t sure where they
are coming from.
Everyone talks about cup protection.
For me, cup protection is fine and relative
to what a lot of people are trying to do. You
• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •
block the defensive people on the line of
scrimmage in a cup formation to give the
quarterback enough room to throw. Myself,
I talk in different terms to my kids. I talk in
terms of mug protection. But when I talk
about a mug protection, it has a better
value for what we are trying to get done
because in this scenario, they are going to
close to the quarterback. In mug protection,
our thoughts are to go perpendicular.
Everything we do, we want to be perpen-
dicular. We want to come straight back. Our
front three people are going to be the lock-
up men in the front to give the quarterback
any opportunity to step forward if he has to.
We will make it a four yard variance coming
into the quarterback. So you have four
yards on either side and in this situation
they are going to close it a lot quicker. We
try to maintain splits. We’ve got a three-foot
split on each side of a player and we hope
our tight end will go anywhere from three to
four feet widening the area that they have
to come through. A lot of people say you
can’t over-split because they will jump peo-
ple down inside on you. That is very true
but you readjust or pick up the player with
a back. We try to keep guys four yards from
the quarterback.
The hard part about anything is keeping
your offensive linemen in a squared-up
position. I think the number one thing you
have to teach your offensive linemen is
they have to keep square to the line of
scrimmage. We have to keep those shoul-
ders squared, they have to keep those hips
squared, they have to keep those feet com-
ing back in the proper setting. That’s not
easy. That is the thing that you have to try
to teach and the thing that we try to do. If
the defense jumps down inside, we relock
our backs and the guard makes a signal to
the tackle to block outside. The back helps
with the inside pressure. The one thing that
you always find is you have a real tenden-
cy to get beat inside because of the move-
ment. You want to come back square so
that if this guy does arc in there, your abili-
ty to move inside or outside is made a lot of
easier for you.
One thing I have found that really helps
our lineman is jumping rope. If you have a
great athlete and he can’t move his feet, he
cannot block. Jumping rope teaches good
footwork and enables players to move their
feet better. Blocking is a sliding and gliding
technique. It’s keeping those feet flat on the
ground. If you move, you have to move
slow. When you move, you want to move
with smoothness and glide. You don’t want
to bounce. Bouncing around will not get it
done. People always ask if he has good
footwork. If he has big feet, sure he has
good footwork. The answer is how does he
move on those feet? Which way does he
move? If you look at a young man and he
jumping and galloping everywhere, he
does not have good footwork. The smooth-
ness is something you have to have.
We put our athletes in aerobics to add
agility and smoothness. The number one
thing I teach is getting in the proper stance.
The important part of three-point stance is
where the buttocks are. If you want to get
out of a stance quickly and move your feet
quickly, you cannot let your buttocks drop
down. Your feet won’t move as fast when
you are sitting on them. Another situation
that you have is what you do to protect
yourself in offensive line play. Number one,
you have to be in what we call a stagger
stance. A stagger stance will put you in a
position to get the job done. The other thing
that you want to prevent young men from
doing is going forward on pass protection.
That is an essential. When the lineman is in
a stance, the number one thing I want is
that knee over the toe. I want my foot down
and I want my feet flat on the ground. I want
to be on the instep of my back foot or my
stagger foot, that way I can push off from
any direction I want to go. The other thing I
want to do is to have my back straight,
shoulders back, hands up in position to
block with bent knees.
We have four nevers that we always talk
about. If you can do all four of these things
you will win most of your pass protection
and one-on-one techniques. Number one,
never go forward. If you go forward you are
going to lose the battle. Ninety-nine percent
of the time, you are going to end up in a
footrace to the quarterback and the defen-
sive man is going to win. This is a real
must, never cross your feet. Now, we do go
forward on certain individual things. If we
are running a 50 protection or a three-step
drop, our offensive linemen will fire forward.
If we run play-action, our linemen will fire
forward. But, the main thing you want to do
is to prevent them from going forward on
dropback protection. The next one is don’t
drop your head. Once you put your head
down, people are going to get behind you
and get in between you and the quarter-
back. Always keep your body in-between
the defender and the quarterback. At least
that way they don’t get a free run and knock
the quarterback’s head off, which occasion-
ally does happen.
The one that bothers me more than
anything in our relationship is talking about
never getting beat inside. The reason you
never want to get beat inside is that by not
getting beat inside, you are going to force
defensive men to go the long way to the
quarterback. The main thing is, don’t let
your guys get beat inside. Anytime we are
even beat inside, the first thing we try to do
is force the man that is beating us inside to
come back outside which buys us time to
get the quarterback to throw the football.
That is essential. There are a lot of others
that you can add and one is, don’t let your
kids lean. Sometimes, if a guy takes a lat-
eral step or a polished step to the right,
and the defender goes there, instead of
continuing to move your feet, they start to
lean with their hands. So, if you can pre-
vent those things in an offensive lineman,
you are going to be successful in your
pass protection.
The other thing that we want to try to do
is get out of your stance. If you are in a
stance, you want to get out of it. We will put
guys in a two-point stance and we want
them to move quickly to the snap. It’s got to
be relatively automatic that that left or right
foot going back, is going back. We talk in
terms of a power step which is a head on
position step maybe six inches to the inside
and six inches to the outside. We have
what we call a kick step where we are
going to get our feet quickly back and get
It is important to know the AFCA Division and District in which your school belongs. Following
are the four AFCA Divisions:
Division I-A — Institutions that are in NCAA
Division I-A
Division I-AA — Institutions that are in NCAA
Division I-AA
• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •
into a position to take down an outside
rusher. The importance of all these steps is
that you get an anchor. You have to anchor
the inside foot. That comes right back to
that knee position. You want to be moving
with your weight always distributed on the
inside of the knee. When you move, you
are keeping your center of gravity always in
the same place and that is straight down
the middle of you.
At all costs, don’t get into the position
where you are leaning out away from that
foot. That foot has to move and you have to
sit that weight right back down between
those legs. So what if they change direc-
tions. I use a jazz step. You kick back and
don’t just step the toe back in there but
drive it into the ground. You are forcing the
defensive man now to go into the line of
scrimmage. When our kids get into a situa -
tion that they can’t take on a speed rusher,
we want them to get a pre-kick and get into
a position with that instep and that flat foot.
The snap of the ball is the only time that we
take the inside foot out. What we are doing
is we have a pre-kick and I want him to get
as wide and as deep as he can. Because
the deeper this foot is, the further this one
can come back. So if he does get a jump on
me, or if I can get a jump on him, I am a
yard deeper than I originally would be if I
took a kick step.
Here is a great drill for centers. If you
can do this drill, you will be a good center.
Number one, the center kicks back and he
sets his position. The defender moves to
AFCA Divisions
Division II — Institutions that are in NCAA
Division II and the NAIA
Division III — Institutions that are in NCAA
Division III
the outside, he slides over and punches
him. The next defender crosses behind
and the center slides over and punches
him. You can keep this drill going over and
over. It is a great reactionary situation. You
can incorporate as many people in the drill
as you need to. Another drill we use is
called a recoil. Punch and recoil. On the
snap of the ball, the defender is going to
walk out and boom, I’m going to set him,
he is going to come again, boom, I’m going
to set him. The object of the drill is to hit
him in the numbers in the proper position.
If you do that, number two, you will want to
stop his charge. You go for about 10 yards.
The first time you do it, try to keep that
knee over your toe so you won’t go for-
ward. One more is called the balance drill.
A defensive man puts his hand around a
lineman’s neck and the other hand on his
chest. All you are going to do is rock for-
ward and back. I’m going to pull on that
neck and then I’m going to push to the
chest. It is an excellent drill for balance. It
is a good drill and all you have to do is
watch their feet, watch where their hands
are, see that the head is up, see that the
feet are moving properly, that they have
the lead left knee over the left toe or the
right toe depending on how they position
and go from there.
I hope you enjoyed it. I hope we gave
you something you can use and remember.
This is how we do it, if you do it another
way, that is fine, it’s not etched in stone.
Thank you.