Smoke, Mirrors, & Speed

Defending the Mighty Wing-T with Hustle and Guile

By Matthew Brophy

Formations
The Wing T and Double Wing offenses are premised with the guise of an aggressive, quick hitting run game with the element of misdirection. Stopping the speed sweep, power, Iso, 3 step passing game, and sprint out series of the offense is a different animal altogether, so for the sake of brevity in this discussion, we will zero our efforts on stopping the unique threats of this offense First things first, what are you initially defending? The formation. Wing teams commonly use the double-tight double wing, single-wing, or single wing with flexed split end. All these formations can be handled separately in their own right and aligning your players to attack the formation is the primary key. Next, what does the wing team youre facing do out of these formations and how do you intend to defend this from a coverage and run support perspective. Many teams will only run specific plays out of particular formations. Because the footwork is affected when back alignment is altered, teams may become predictable from a formation standpoint. We will explore WHAT these teams do and how the defense can increase its odds of stopping the offense.

Belly Series
The belly is the bread-and-butter power football for this offense. Most Wing T offenses are built with this series in mind and coordinate their personnel with this premise. They can operate with suspect athletes at all positions, but youll find that most teams that run the Wing T / Double Wing, they take pride in putting large, powerful athletes on the line. The Belly series features three front side rushing attack points and is complimented by an explosive play action boot game. When facing a potent Wing T team, understand you will probably never truly shut this brute-force attack with scheme, but keep the basics in perspective. As long as you can keep them out of their comfort zone, you begin to put tremendous strain on an offense not known for scoring quickly. First thing, teams that run the belly, do so because they spend in inordinate amount of time repping this series to perfection. The timings of the backs, footwork of the QB, and the minutiae of the mesh point on exchanges is a science in and of itself. So much time devoted to this series leaves little time to perfect other facets or attacks of their offense. This is not a shortcoming, but a truth. Frustrate their belly series; get them out of their rhythm, and irritate their linemen by making them work / efforting to find their blocks. Wing T teams pride themselves on brute linemen play. As long as you sit still, you are playing into their hands. Being an undersized team and playing the Nickel defense, we acknowledge that if we were to go toe-to-toe, man-for-man, we will be physically

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outmatched. We dont enter into this arena with a stacked deck we intend to use our speed as an equalizer to size. Our players are wound and ready to be fired from the snap, therefore as coaches, its our job to 1) put them in positions to make plays and 2) protect them (limit the toe-to-toe matchups we probably wont win). We have found a few successful concepts in stacking the odds in our favor defensively against Wing T teams (Smoke & Mirrors).

I.

Play balanced keep the MLB free to attack the FB and nothing else. Three benefits can result from this.
a. Since the FB is capable to attack either side of the ball, now you have a dedicated defender to this major rushing threat. The Wing T backs are trained to NEVER cut back until hes beyond the linebackers pursuit can help get a steady bead on this player because of that. b. Playing even lends itself to a favorable defensive match up; Our (best athlete) MLB versus your (not-so-great athlete) Center. The center will largely be responsible for handling the MLB because of the even alignment of the defense. Not only will he have to snap the ball, but also he will have to have considerably more mobility than your MLB to get him blocked. Odds are for the defense in that contest. c. Because you are even (coverage) the main areas to be threatened in the passing game lay in the perimeter in the flats, in the curl seams, and the deep out. The man you can sacrifice in zone coverage here more often than not is the MLB. Blitzing the MLB and / or using stunts with the MLB and any of the other two interior tackles allows for effective penetration either to disrupt long-developing backfield actions such as the dreaded double-handoff or cross buck and aid in pressuring a throwing quarterback.

II.

Alternating base personnel

a. Stopping the inside belly requires quickness not strength. If you are playing speed defense its probably a result of not having the most physically imposing athletes to begin with. Dont bring a knife to a gunfight when you can bring a grenade - explosive athletes in the A gaps can cause more problems for the belly than a 300lbs kid that cant get out of his stance before the linebackers are reached. Instead, try inverting your personnel. Put the explosively quick athletes in the interior positions (especially the nose) and put your bigger hosses on the perimeter (especially the strong side end). The outside hitters of the Wing T take a little more time to develop and require help from either the HB or TE. Moving your bigger athletes could be a chore for them rather than pushing over your smaller base package ends. In the Wing T offenses, you will rarely find highly motivated tight ends. They will either be smaller linemen who are not physical enough to be tackles or guards, or tall kids who arent very fast. By inverting your linemen, you are picking your battles wisely and winning the wars you CAN win.

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III.

Twist your Strong side personnel

a. Leaving your SOLB on the nub can make for a boring day for him. Get him involved in the game plan and keep your opponent guessing. Blitzing the SOLB into the C gap and looping your SDE outside can help open unexpected shots of opportunity that the offense cannot account for. This type of stunt is best supported by rolling coverage to the tight end side or gambling on non-passing downs. Just like mixing up QB option responsibilities irritates the option game, so do perimeter twists on powers and sweeps. b. Playing a tight SOLB and twisting your 3 technique and your 6 technique. The change up allows a cluster of mayhem and aggressive penetration by your defensive end crashing into the play side guard and crossing the face of the tackle (disrupting any counter action weak).

IV.

Wedging 4 for 6 Advantage

a. When facing foot-to-foot splits of many double wing teams, we realize that stunting and blitzing will be largely ineffective. Also, to maintain the sportsmanship of the game, we want to avoid the temptation to sub linemen and grab ankles. This is not a very competitive method of playing football and is rather cowardly, in my opinion. We at least want to maintain our aggressive attitude while giving each player a sporting chance. To bust the wedge, we want to level the scales of the game in our favor by forcing the offense to negotiate the field on our terms negating your size and playing to our speed. We want to bounce you outside and open gaps we can run through. We will play two 3 techniques and two 6 techniques and knife our linemen a full gap inside. We will tilt all the linemen inside and charge hard at the snap, staying low, keeping our INSIDE shoulder free. We want to accomplish two things; 1) create an inside wash of players to take away dive and 2) penetrate and disrupt and pulling by tackles or guards. We want to spill the ball carrier and force you to give to your wingback for a slower developing sweep to contend with scraping linebackers, corner force, and a filling safety.

V.

Call strength away from the wing back

a. Many times you will face a Wing T team that will favor a particular back or will go to an Ace (double wing) formation in an attempt to better outflank the defense. Putting your strong side personnel puts them at a greater advantage as they are more aggressive and more likely to pull the trigger on run support, cutting off perimeter lanes to a great runner. The more hesitation you can cause the wing prior to approaching the LOS, the better your chances are. Allowing a wing back (that will likely be executing some sort of motion and gaining momentum before receiving the ball) to not be forced with a decision until breaking the plane of scrimmage, never is good for a defense.

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VI.

Keys, Reads, and Seeds

Nothing is more important in defending the Wing T / Double Wing than teaching your players basic football. The what, whys, and hows (rationale) of your opponents offense. A great example is instructing players to take on lead blockers on the perimeter many will try to go solo and try to make a play all by themselves, while opening running lanes - but if you can show them (sell them) on how, if the defense can cause disruption and/or take out more than one blocker and constrict the running lane, they enable the rest of the team defense to make a negative yardage play by allowing pursuit to clean up the ball carrier. How to play your defense is one thing, teaching your defensive players what the offense DOES NOT want to see is another. Enable and empower your players with ownership of the defenses success. a. Keys These are the presnap clues to our players. If Im a perimeter force player, Im keying the EMOL / wing to see if he will tip off where he is headed at the snap. Does the wing turn his shoulders more to better execute a flare / arc release? Is the wings shoulder more parallel? Will he be blocking / sealing inside? Use video to teach your backers / corners what to look for and notice the tendency of the wings presnap alignment for a given play / series. The biggest key will be found at the guard spots and will clue your linebackers to potential powers, traps, or pass. Very few Wing T guards are disciplined enough to maintain neutral stances and because of the speed needed to open and pull, many lift considerable weight off their forward set hand and will even go as far as leaning backwards in their stance (further taking weight off their forward lean). Start training the backers by showing them the linemens stance when running dive and other inside drive blocking plays. Then progress to pass and counter / super power plays so they subtleties can be noticed. b. Reads Reads to us are what we see developing in front of our eyes. The Wing T defense relies largely on efficient movement with little thought, because of the precision execution of the successful belly teams; a defense that does not react (and quickly) will find itself with few answers. i. On perimeter force players, if the wing vacates (motion away) we want our players gaining (slight) width and gaining depth. Anytime youre unsure, get width get depthdont fall into a trap. ii. If the Wing fires out, as a force player we want to keep the outside shoulder free and aggressively work to the depth of 2 yards in the offensive backfield to redirect flow back to help. With our OLBs who are not force players, they also have the rule of keeping the outside shoulder free, but we want them scraping hard and ripping through blockers (sweep) while penetrating

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into the offensive backfield. On sweeps, the OLB will be the true cutoff player here. iii. If the Wing blocks down, more than likely were looking at a power play, and we are looking to take on / eliminate the load block by a pulling guard. Special care has to be taken to coach aggressive play, but not over penetration. One step is too little; three are too many, two is just right. iv. For the inside linebacker, reading guards and fullback and having a response for each is vital. The backer looks to fullback for his first read step, then cross-keys with the guards. As the figure illustrates, if backside opens and pulls across the formation the backer holds to the opposite A gap, looking to spill trap. If the guard opens to the outside of the formation, he immediately is keyed that this is sweep or power and must look to scrape outside to C gap and help support the SOLB. Upon seeing this reaction, he can anticipate the impending down block by the EMOL and get in better position to attack his outside shoulder with an escape. v. For the Outside backer, these reads work in much the same manner. If guard pulls TO, the backer immediately fills his play side gap responsibility. If the guard pulls AWAY, the backer looks to aggressively charge the open A gap and run thru the vacated gap. If wing motions away, the backer looks to hesitate to get a true read and gain width and depth to clear from blockers.

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vi. Seeds As corny as this sounds, it cannot be discounted. Going beyond telling your players football, it is imperative when facing the wing T to plant as much intuition (seed) into your players as possible. Wing T teams are seldom unpredictable in their play calling many follow a basic style or comfort zone and have tendencies. Long yardage situation? Look for double-handoff or some other misdirectionetc. Because this offense operates so quickly, there will be very little time to THINK on the field. This is why I stress planting the seeds of anticipating plays / areas of probable attack. Anticipating cadence (and how belly motion is tied to it), positioning of wingbacks, and linemen stance tendencies during the course of a game are all elements you players must be given. When you plant a garden, when you plant 14 seeds you cannot expect to see 14 sprouting buds. Not every seed germinates therefore you must inundate your players with redundant information from various forms of mediachalk board, video, printed handouts, send home video, field time, etc repeating the message(s) over and over. So that by Friday night, you have natural responses instead of spontaneous reactions.

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Cross Buck
The cross buck is the home-run hitter of the wing-T. When its run, it usually results in big yards because your defense will be lulled into complacency for the backside counter. The fullback dive action is simulated then the counter action of the halfback retracts the steps against flow being led by the backside guard kicking out pursuit and gashing your defense. Naturally, to stop counter action, your backside support must remain sound. The diagram depicts initial flow to the right. The players illustrated in red show your backside support players that must play disciplined to cut off the cross buck. With the penetration you should be getting upfront, you should at least cause some hesitation by the countering halfback. In the event that has no effect, training the backside linebacker and safety to work in conjunction is the key. Training your players to remain gap conscience and recognizing that gaps are the spaces between players and can move they in turn must also adjust / move. The backside linebacker we want closing B gap and then moving to stack behind the eventual double-team of the nose. The safety, whose support is probably the most critical, is trained to fit outside the backer and inside the corner. It is imperative that in screwing down to the ball, he does NOT flow past the near side A gap. If this happens, he will have over pursued and opened up the cutback lane. I hope youve gained some ideas or a different perspective on how we handle and attempt to corral this great offense and wish the greatest success (as long as it isnt against me) in the future. Feel free to contact me for any questions or comments at; mjbrophy@netexpres.net - Yours in football.

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