WISHBONE- BLOCKING ASSIGNMENTS COACH JIMMY SHARPE I'm here to talk to you about the wishbone. I'm sold on the wishbone and totally convinced that, in my opinion, it is the finest way to get a group of young men to rally together and zo about doing the job at hand. Obviously, the wishbone is not the only way to do things. Coach Curci and many fine coaches have been up here and told you how they do things. But I think the important thing is that whatever you do, be it I- formation, split backs or wish- bone, it has to be something that you believe in. Something that you totally believe in and something that you can to- tally relate to and sell to the kids. Because they are the ones who have to go out and perform, When I was introduced to the wishbone it was at a time when our football team was at a low. That's right, football at Alabama was at a lowpoint. We had been throwing the ball for about three years. We had be~ come very passive. I had found that I, as an offensive line coach and offensive coordinator, had spent all of my time working on drop back pass protection. I found that Steve Sloan and my- self, working on the game plan, would come to Thursday before we would have our game plan worked out. This was due to the sophistication of the de~ fenses we were seeing at that time. We also found ourselves jumping on the kids when we couldn't pick up the third and one situation on the goal line. 35 It wasn't their fault, it was our fault because we had not prepared them by working 80% of our time on the "guts" of football. So we made the change to the wishbone at that time. When I arrived at Virginia Tech this year I found a very similar situation. I found a group of young men who had become very passive. They were not aggressive and they didn't believe in them- selves as individuals or as a team. So we attempted to sell them on what I think is the finest offense in America, The reason I feel this way, very frankly, is in no other offense can you sell eleven people that they are instrumental on the success or failure of every play. It is the most unselfish offense in America. You talk about taking pride ~ our five interior linemen and our fullback know that they make the offense go. They know that regardless of where the ball is going, they are the key to suc- cess or failure. The second thing I like about the offense and the reason I feel so strongly in my beliefs of this offense, is that the wishbone allows you to totally involve your Kids in the big picture. Our line- men will know exactly what's hap- pening on the outside. They know that our back is going to block four or what our receivers are going to do. Our linemen under- stand loop blocks and X-blocks and inside blocks, Our backs are involved with what our linemen are doing, It's because of this reason that I believe you can to- tally sell the players on this offense.Now I'm here to talk to you today on the variations of the wishbone. The other things you can do to put pressure on the defense. I'm going to explain variations such as going to a wing or slot, going to two wide- outs and in doing so, I'll show you how it changes the structure of the defense. But yet, you haven't changed your offense. You can line up and run the same thing. I want to talk to you about different blocking schemes both inside and on the corner. I also want to talk to you about what I consider the real essen- tial thing of the wishbone and that is the passing game. To me, the passing game is what makes the offense go. If you have the ability to throw the ball ten or fifteen yards to a split receiver and if you exe- cute and your people sell the run, they can't stop you. You may stop yourself or time may run out, but they can't stop you. First, with the wishbone everybody knows you have the triple option to the tight end. Now defensive coaches spend all their time preparing how to de- fend the wishbone. They spend their practice time in prepara- tion of a defensive scheme and appropriate techniques that will enable them to defend a wishbone team, So you turn around and by making one move in your formation, you change the whole structure of that defense. Now the things that I'm talking about are like this. We employ a lot of shifting. We're sitting here with a tight end, a defensive end and a corner and a safety. Now we have a real strong tight end attack facing a defense that has the potential of showing us three people who can stunt and change assign- ments and that's exactly what they try and do to us defensively. They try to give you a look and 36 then after the snap of the ball, change the defensive responsibi- lities. The end who normally has quarterback will go to pitch; the corner who normally has pitch will come to quarterback and vice versa. Anything to mess up your backs! recognition of assignments and exe- cution. So over the past four years we have found the defenses have worked real hard all week long to disrupt our execution. To combat this we have found that by simply shifting your tight end out, the defense has got to make an ad- justment, i.e., the corner widens with the tight end and they call for a regular coverage. Now, what have you done? First, you have taken the potential of a three man stunt on the corner off and reduced it to a two man. This takes pressure off the offensive back who normally would be re- quired to make a decision. This tight end shift puts added pressure on the defense and increases your offense's execution without changing a thing. We found, over the years, that even if we didn't throw to the tight end, we were still creating problems for the defense because with this adjustment, the defense was inclined to think pass. Now over here to the split end side you have a defensive end, a corner and a strong safety. Again, we have the potential of two people stunting. We found that by shifting the back to a slot position, we are able to still execute and run our triple option and carry out our same assignments, but we've reduced the defense down to the point that they have got to un- cover and show any stunts they might possibly have. This is a tremendous advantage for the offense. « And at the same time, you add a simple pass pattern that makes the defense honor the slot. We still have not changed anything we want to do.<7 oO One of the things that we got from the University of Texas that has been a tremendous help to wishbone people, particularly when we're operating back into the short side of the field, is being able to shift up into a... close wing. s Again, we still want to run our same offense-our triple op- tion, counter option, etc. Now look’what we've done by adjusting to a close wing. We have really helped our sweep into that short side. They can't sit there, but instead they have to balance up. Once they balance up, we take the ball to the big field where we wanted to go in the first place. Another thing we got from Texas into the wide side of the field versus people who like to stunt or jam us at the mesh point is being able to shift up into the close wing. o *‘00@000 Oo Oo ° ° 37 er = 0 C0O@®00 Oo Oo Oo Oo Now defensive coaches will tell you that when they get that adjust- ment they are going to call those stunts off. And we're still run- ning the same thing we worked on during the first day of practice. We haven't changed one thing. We may have added one little pass play to make our adjustment res- pected, but we really haven't changed a thing. Off this same set to the wide side of the field, we love to shift our back out about ten yards into the slot. Now you have made them stretch and defend the whole field but you have not changed your offense. So all these variations and the flexibility of the wishbone is far greater than what most people have exploited up to today. And there is alot more to come with the use of the wing, shifting to the slot, shiftin to the close slot, shifting to two wide outs, ali these place added pressures on defenses. O° An example of applying these variations is our game with Tenne- ssee three years ago. We were ba- sically a split end attack team with a good split end in Wayne Wheeler. What Tennessee started doing was really jamming and coming and trying to meet our lead blocker in the backfield. They wanted to challenge our lead blocker in the path of the pitch. They wanted to take on our lead blocker right in front of the pitch, hoping this would cause a fumble. Their safety who was a very good safety in the sense of a center fielder, had tre- mendous ability to roam all over the field. In the first half, we're beating our heads againstthe wall versus this defensive scheme, losing two fumbles in the process. All of a sudden we realized that why not shift our tight end out? We did this and of course their corner went out with him. Their safety had to come up and force the pitch from eight yards deep. I guarantee you, in this safety's four years at Tennessee, he had never had to come up and take on the junction blocker before. In the second half, we run up and down the field. The safety comes up and we knock him dow. If their safety tries to run wide and turn the play in, our blocker would kick him out. We gained 150 yards going into that tight end attack with our triple option, our sweep, and counter option, all because shifting our tight end out changed their whole force theory which they had not prepared for, s ¢ 2 c © \60@000 So that's an example of ex- ploiting a simple variation to the wishbone. ‘These are things that are the real beauty of the wishbone and can in fact be put in the first day of practice. From that point on, it's up to you and your assistants to de- cide what the defense is trying to do and figure out how to ex- 38 ploit their weaknesses with your adjustments. Now the crack back block is something that is going to get you two or three big plays a ball game, You can't go out and crack the whole - ball game but I guarantee you can do this to the split end side. The strong safety is sitting here and he's reading and coming up field to get in front of the lead blocker. Now all week long his coach has taught him to take on that blocker at least six yards across the line of scrimmage. In doing this, the safety never sees the split end because he is too preoccupied with the lead blocker. This makes it easy for the split end to bucket step and come down and knock the strong safety's brains out. The lead blocker just con- tinues on for the corner. No one has changed assignments except tha split end and the lead blocker, You can do that two or three times a ball game and force the safety to be a cautious football player because he's thinking crack. % sf 9 ® O° These are the areas which most people have not exploited such as changing the blocking schemes on the corner, in using the formations, going to a wing, anything to put the burden on the defense. Now what I want to talk to you about are the different things we're doing that vary from most other Wishbone teams. Firstly, we're not lining up our backs like Texas does. We're widening them like this:Our fullback lines up five yards deep. We run our fullback on a path that is tighter than Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia Tech, any of those people. We line our linemen up and try to get a full yard split between our center and guards. Our fullback path is ‘éver the outside hip of the guard, not the guard tackle gap that many people are using. Our half- backs are lined up as wide as they can possibly be and still be able to run the belly play. Our reasons for aligning our backs at these positions are for those people who, on action, will pene- trate and try and collision our backs in the backfield. Our own kids taught us that by widening out, there is more separation between the backs. This puts our backs in a better position to make the junction block. We tell our back that when you start out, you read the stunt and as soon as you get position on him, you will start down hill. * Coaching point: if you recog- nize that the tough force is coming on a collision course, you will not drive for his out- side leg, but instead drive on his hip and, ripping him up, use his momentum to drive him to the outside. This enables the trailing back to break in- side and back out off the lead blocker. C el oO (@) 39 This was very successful for us because of the added separation between our backs. We play our backs in an up po- sition because we want our kids to understand the big picture. By assuming an up position, our backs can scan the field and count their assignment. We feel that this reduces missed assignments. Granted, we may give up a little quickness into the line with our counter and possibly our belly play, but I've got a difference of opinion about that, too, But the number one reason that we're up in this position is to recognize, nobody can play in the wishbone if they can't. If you can count to five you can play. The only person that has to count to six s the quarterback. Secondly, we feel it is important to get that good lateral start to get out there fast. Those are some of the things we do a little differently. Now let's go back to why we run our fullback at a little different path. Against people that play wide tackle six or cover our guard and try to force the guard into what was originally the full- back crease area. We found that what happened with a slightly wider path is that they forced him wide and flattened him out into all that other stuff the end or whoever may be out there. But there is a natural crease that if the defen- sive guard is fighting outside, and if the fullback is on a little tighter path, and he has worked on it, he is able to see that crease and make the inside cut. This does not affect the mechanics of the quarterback. 00@g00° O oO oOThis is not called a give. We will read 75-80% of the time. Now how are we going to be able to do this? One drill we have everyday involves our front five, our quarterback and our fullback. We take our extra quarterbacks that are not involved in another drill and extra fullbacks and they stand around behind. Then we operate against every front, every possible read situation. The reserve quarterbacks and fullbacks have the opportunity to observe our read drill. We do this drill ten minutes a day over and over again. All our front five and especially the fullbacks become thoroughly ac- quainted with the big picture That's about where we were get- ting at the end of the year. Our kids were understanding to see the total picture. I strong- ly believe these reads can be executed in high school. I've seen too many high schools take and execute these reads in a one year period. I certainly believe that you have to read the triple option and throw the football to make it a success. When the triple option started, the original theory was to try and get outside without blocking somebody. You're trying to take an easy block or give somebody an easy block. It all started out with the veer block. At that time most people were standing up there and plugging their linebackers and you were able to read the triple option. Then defensive people started slanting the tackle and scraping the linebacker outside. The offense then would run the full- back on a little wider path and tell him to bounce outside and block the linebacker. And it went on for another year. Then defensive folks got smart; they said if that's what they're doing, why don't I close to take away the fullback in the read and then at the last minute, jump out and tackle that full- 40 back, thereby freeing the line- backer to be the extra man that they can't handle? That went a- long for awhile. Offensive coaches realized that they could not run an inside block versus this de- fensive scheme. Then they started, and we were the first to really exploit the thing, using a loop block, We tell our tackle on the loop block that he explodes by stepping off with his outside foot and attacks the outside half of the tackle with his inside or shoulder pad to shoulder pad. If the defensive tackle moves to the outside, then our tackle is in position to cut him off from the outside. If the defensive tackle does not move or moves to the in- side, then our tackle continues on to seal the linebacker. This pro- tects the quarterback and the pitch outside. The guard comes off to block the linebacker. If the line- backer is running, then the guard seals back. We had super success because everyone of you had taught those defensive tackles: don't be hooked. t's a normal reaction. This makes it an easy read for the quarterback, We told our quar- terbacks that if the defensive tackles shoulders parallel to the line, then give the ball to the fullback. Because if we're on the correct path and we hit it just perfect, the defensive tackle can't turn back in and make the tackle. We had super success with the loop block. We also had the ability to change our blocking scheme from an inside block to @ loop block during the game. And we found that by doing this, we were taking the effectiveness of the defensive tackle away. This went on for awhile until once again the defensive folks got smart. They knew that if they closed to the inside to take the fullback, we had their linebacker Dlocked. So they started driving their tackle inside and then sud- denly upfield to tackle the quar- terback. Florida was the first one to do this and they had real fine success. We added a littlestep to that called a help block. This call simply means that the guard who is going to block the linebacker will take his first step at the hip of the defensive tackle. If the guard sees any inside move out of the defensive tackle, he tries to cut off any penetration by the tackle. We do this because our quarterback is operating on a separate plane, almost a yard to a yard and a foot behind the line of scrimmage. The quarterback must have separa- tion from his key (the D.T.) as he accelerates past the full- back. With the help, loop and inside blocks, we were able to establish for three years, a Phenomenal amount of success in... reading the triple option. Eventually we added the X-block. This is the only block that Okla- homa is using now. What they do is drive the tackle down on the linebacker, just like the inside block, and if the linebacker sits there, he knocks him into the stands. If the linebacker runs out, the tackle immediately goes to wall off the backside line- backer. The guard drop steps and pulls around the horn to block the frontside linebacker, We are still reading the defen— sive tackle. Now this block was super effective in that it con- fused the defensive tackle and made our reads easier. The com- bination of the X-block and loop block are some of the innova- tions that have really been ex- ploited the last two years in the triple option. OO BIO Oo oO AL T_T lock Now I would like to talk about the companion plays of the wish- bone. These are the plays that really make the offense go. These also, unlike the option plays of the wishbone, are plays that the defense cannot force you to do the things you don't want to do. The number one play in ny opinion is the belly play. This Play is very effective when you read ex actly like you did from the triple option. On this play, our guard and center will doublé team the noseman. Hopefully, the guard can come off the double team, and wall off the backside linebacker.The tackle takes an inside re- lease trying to block down on the linebacker (inside block). The fullback drives on the same path he normally does. If the fullback does not get the ball, he drives back inside to clean- up on somebody. Our halfback will drive off the tackle's out- side hip, looking to block the linebacker if he scrapes into that area. The halfback will not get involved with the de- fensive tackle. If the defen- sive tackle steps outside to take on the oncoming halfback, then the quarterback, who is reading the defensive tackle, will give the ball to the full- back, The other halfback will start out on the same path as the triple option until he re reaches the vacated position where the lead halfback lined up. He then starts downhill, driving to a point on the out- side hip of the lead halfback. If the quarterback sees the de- fensive tackle slant inside to play the fullback, he pulls the ball and gives it’to the half back. The belly play was our most effective play this year. sos is @ The outside veer in the wish- bone, along with belly play, sweep, and triple option, ini- tially all look alike. The out- side veer is run as a change-up to your triple option play. The purpose of the play is to show the defensive end who is normally taking the quarterback a different picture. The way we run the outside veer is to drive our tackle on the line- backer as in our inside block. 42 This will influence the defensive tackle to close slightly to the inside. We then take our tight end and drive him down on the de- . fensive tackle with the idea of driving his head in front of the defensive tackle and attacking his . knees, The fullback hits ona wider path, He now hits outside hip of the tackle. The quarter- back's mechanics are that his first step is about the same and he now reads the defensive end. The guard will drop step just like on the X-block and he comes around to attack the linebacker. If the defensive end closes, the guard will come around outside looking to help on the linebacker. Our halfback will start at the outside leg of the defensive end to block him unless the defensive end closes to the inside. If the defensive end makes the inside move, this means that someone has to be coming outside to play the quarterback. We tell our halfback that upon seeing the defensive end close to the inside, he will immediately look for the linebacker on a scrape move. If our halfback does not see the linebacker scraping outside, then he will continue on for the safety. 8 / w TA E vs. Corner stuntThis play was very effective for us into the short side of the playing field. In this situation we usually end up with the good quarterback keep because the de- fensive end will usually take the fullback, the corner comes to pitch and the linebacker gets walled off by our halfback, causing a running lane for our quarterback. The best thing we like about the triple option, the belly and outside veer is that we take away the effective- ness of two football players (defensive tackle and defensive end) because we force them to play a guessing game with us as to which play we are going to run. I can show you big play after big play that was caused because one of these two people has made an assignment mistake. By using the wishbone and utili- zing different blocking schemes, I sincerely believe you can re- duce the effectiveness of good football players. For this reason, the companion plays in the wishbone are a must. When people tighten their de- fensive end up to shut off the belly play, we like to run the sweep at them. We block our sweep in the following manner: Our tight end drives off and tries to hook the defensive end who is now in a tighter align- ment. Our tackle drives off working for outside position on the defensive tackle. Our guard pulls and seals around the de- fensive end, eyeballing the linebacker all the way. * Coaching point; If the guard is covered, he will not pull, or if the guard anticipates a run through by the linebacker, he will not pull. Backside guard will pull, looking for trash and there have been plays when this guard gets all the way around the horn and throws the key block on a big play. Backside tackle pulls and picks up any trash that shows. Our fullback drives to a spot one yard out- 43 side the end, looking to help the tight end if he needs help or to pick up on the linebacker. Our back will lead, looking to pick up the corner. Quarterback will turn and hand the ball off to the back. Our ball carrier will run either inside or outside the seam, depending on what the lead blocker does, The common mistake that is made is that our ball carrier wants to hurry in making his cut, rather than getting on the out- side hip of the blocker and set- ting up the corner for our lead back to take on. 86 5§ ‘The sweep has been a super play, particularly when you shift to a wing. Now you can double team the defensive end with the wing and tight end and kick out the corner with the fullback. Now you're really humming around the end. * Coaching point: Our reason for the quarterback to turn and hand off to the ball carrier is that we want the throwback threat to the quarterback, We have won three games in the last three years with this play. This is our reason for the quarterback not turning and tossing. To give us a solid play on the goal line or ina short yardage situation, we add a wrinkle to our sweep, First, we double team with our tight end and tackle. ‘The fullback will drive at the outside hip of the defen- sive end. Our halfback will drive at the corner. The ball carrier is starting downhill immediately, trying to hit the seam between the defensive end and corner, We don't want to take the ball outside as before.This play has been very effec- tive for us on the goal line be- cause it looks like our sweep to start with and instead we're coming off our end with power. Misdirection is very impor- tant in running the wishbone. You've got to be able to run these plays in order to keep the other guys from ganging up on you when you run your triple option, As a coach, you have got to give your kids a chance and that's where your misdirec- tion, belly, and sweep plays help. Never go into a ball game where you haven't given your kids all the tools neces- sary for them to win. We feel that two misdirection plays have really helped us the last three years. The counter trap and the counter reverse. We tie these plays together be- cause they look so much alike from the start. However, we lock them differently. ‘On both plays we are full flow starting and then working back away from our initial action. On the counter trap our back is going to work behind a trap on the defensive tackle by our guard. This play will not make a living for you, but it will give you the big’ play two or three times a game. Ay As I said, we tie the counter trap play together with our counter reverse play. Both plays will start the same except our back will break this play back outside behind our guards. We like this play back into the short side of the field. Let's talk about throwing the ball a little bit. Passing from the wishbone is one of the most unexploited areas of this offense. We have six routes to our split receiver, We basically have only four routes to our tight end. f J Take oftPost What routes we do run is dictated by the type of force the defense is using to stop our triple op- tion. By that I mean if we see that the defense is running the strong safety to pitch versus oyr triple option, then we know that there is no underneath coverage. But in order to be effective in our passing game, we have to do a good job of selling the run. Let's take the tight end first. Defensively, we know that they have got to come up with a strong force cat of the corner in order to stop our triple option. Naturally, when the corner comes up to force, the free safety will overlap to third. This opens a seam for our tight end about eight to ten yards down field in between the forcing cor- ner and overlapping free safety. Our quarterback comes down the line of scrimmage and he will throw the ball on the line of scrimmage. If for some reason the corner smells pass and hangs, the quarterback has his outlet in the form of our halfback. The majority of wishbone people have failed to use their outlet people in this instance. The backs are open almost every time. You have got to discipline your quarterback to realize that if the tight end is not open, to look for the outlet pass to the back. 45 a To the split end we run six basic routes. Basically, in the wishbone, all of your play action routes will be from 16-18 yards de p. The split end's routes are: the take-off, the out cut, a stop route that we run at twenty yards; we also run a Z-out route which is super because we get our split end to sell the post and then break away from the corner. The reason the Z-out route is so good is because so many people are overlynconscious of the post route. We tell our split end to drive off the line straight up the corner, drive hard for three steps into a post route and when the corner commits and runs with out end, he will break back out underneath the corner to the flag. Post z-out se on Two things dictate which one of these routes we throw. First, we want to know what type of forcing action the defense is giving us. We want to knoy what or the man responsible for the pitch is doing. Secondly, we want to know how the corner is playing our split end. Do we have the Z-out? Is the corner laying off and back peddling? If the corner is over-playing and thesafety can't get there, do we have the post? We have got to answer these questions to ourselves in order to determine which routes to throw. Ic % co@adoy Now we get in situations where we find the strong safety coming up to force and as he sees our quarterback set up to throw, he (strong safety) turns and runs downfield trying to help on the deep coverage. This is where your press box people come into play. When they see this type of action, we immediately call Pass 34 Y-Post Back Alert. The quarterback and back know that we want to throw the out- let pass because the strong safety is neglecting to cover our back. We, on numerous occa- sions, were able to get long gainers by this outlet pass sim ply because we always have an outlet threat on every one of our passing plays and our coaches did a fine job of determining which routes to run. B e F 0 398% a 9 Now I want to talk briefly on our pass blocking scheme. We, unless the linebacker is walked up, want to block our backs on linebackers and our linemen will 46 lock the down people. We are going to make sure that the people we know are coming are going to get blocked. The first scheme I want to talk about is off our triple op- tion to the split end side. Our tackle will block the defensive tackle. Frontside guard will help the center double on the noseman. * Coaching point: If the linebacker is walked up, the guard will block him, Our backside guard will slam the noseman, come back and pick the weak end. Our fullback will run his normal path with the idea that he now will block the line- backer, * Coaching point to full- back: Keep your head up and eyes open so that you can see the line- backer. Our backside back will start his normal action, then start downhill looking for the strong end. Our quarterback will go through his initial action, then drop to an area normally be- hind the tackle and throw from this spot. Now if we have done a good job of selling the run on this play, that is attacking the defense and not being passive, the only person that can give pass away is our backside guard. We use our load scheme to in- sure maximum protection for our quarterback, when we want to throw the deeper cut, particularly the Z-out. We load block the end with our near back and our other halfback becomes the outlet man. This scheme gives our quarterback plenty of time to make his fake, settle back down and then throw the football.ea OMP@O00O0 ond quret As a change up to our loaded scheme we started incorporating our X-block in our pass protec- tion. Our guard will pull to the outside hip of our tackle, looking for the end. This gives us solid protection against the end. This scheme also allows us to use both our baeks in deeper mote complimentary routes. B N PTE @Yo The passing game in the wish- bone is not very complicated. But what happens is that we, as coaches, tend to get so run-oriented that we don't work enough on it. Gentlemen, it's been my pleasure speaking to you today. I hope that you'll come down to Virginia Tech to visit us and see a lot of our theories put into practical application. I hope that what I have ex- pressed today will be of some value to you. Thank you. 4?