Gene-Stallings- Football Philosophy

Gene Stallings was a great coach. He believed that the first step in developing a winning team began with developing a philosophy. He had very clear views of his philosophies on both offense and defense, and was insistent upon sticking to his philosophies at all cost.

OFFENSE

His stated "On offense I want to score, I want to score a touchdown, I want to kick the score, or move the ball far enough that my opponent has to go 80 yards to score." He was running the veer option one year, and lost a bowl game due to numerous offensive turnovers. In the off-season, he decided that his team needed to move away from the option. He believed that they could dedicate no more time to perfecting the mechanics of the offense, and that even the significant time they put into the previous season, was not enough to prevent these turnovers. He made this bold move because he believed that the option went against his philosophy. The schemes that a coach develops come after the development of a philosophy. Stallings calls this the "Method."


DEFENSE

Stallings impact and emphasis in football was defense. More of his time was dedicated to defense than anything. His philosophy on defense was simple: "I want to prevent my opponent from moving the ball effectively." This is pretty obvious, but he believed that not everyone ascribed to this philosophy. When it came to developing a method for his defense he believed he had to create a coordinated defense. "I want the front to coordinate with the force, and the force to coordinate with the coverage." For him, football was a game of forces, and that if he could force the ball well and defend the end run effectively, then it would make it hard for the offense to move the ball effectively.

On defending the end run, he believed that there were three key parts. These parts have become central to the development of any effective pass coverage scheme. These three parts are:

1. A player to turn the ball back inside (run force).
2. A player to play the cutback (alley)
3. A player to play the play-pass.

This is all you need to defend the end run. If each person does their job, the offense will not be able to run the ball outside. The first two parts are obvious, the third was not as much in the past. During these days the pro-I was the norm. Teams tried to establish the toss game. If the toss was getting played aggressively, then they would employ the tricky toss-pass. This play was not designed as much a "trick-play", as it was a play to keep the defense honest. The third part of defending the end run, was the player responsible for defending against these tricky plays.

He was insistent that his players understood the principals of run force as well. It was important that each of them knew their responsibility and played their part. He did not want two people forcing the ball or two people playing the play-pass. For example, if the alley player got outside with the force player, he would ask him: "Do you think that the corner can force the ball back inside?" The players would say "yes". He would then answer by asking "Then why are you trying to force the ball?"

He changed his pass coverage by changing his forces. If he was in pistol force, the corner was forcing the ball, the safety was playing the pass, and the linebacker was on the cutback. This was 1/2's coverage. He could control these forces independently on both sides. This was an early form of the split-safety coverage that is employed today. If the call was rifle force, the safety played the force, the corner was on the play pass, and the backer played the cutback. This is the same force package that modern quarters teams employ. Finally he would have box force. This was backer force. The safety played the cutback, and the corner was on the play pass. This force was used on the weak side of cover 3, and man coverage.

Stallings was also a proponent of press-man coverage. He believed that if you sat in zone, the offense would be able to move the ball effectively with short controlled passes. He would talk to coaches about getting the fear of getting beat deep out of their heads, and make a commitment to utilizing aggressive man. I am sure that most defensive coaches are still scared of press-man coverage. Stallings was probably a little uncomfortable too. However, he knew it was something he had to do in order to prevent the offense from moving the ball effectively.


BECOMING A GREAT COACH

Another part of his belief structure was on being a great coach. To be a great coach you have to be a great teacher. And to be a great teacher, you have to be able to "speak with authority". He preached the basic parts of effective teaching such as accountability and attitude. However, he stressed another, sometimes overlooked part of the job. Speaking with authority meant you were completely knowledgeable about what you were talking about. If you did not understand something fully then the players would be able to see through that.

If you are an offensive coordinator, you better know the passing concepts, blocking schemes, and the various mechanics of each position in and out. "If you don't, then you are cheating your players." The same went for defense. Also, if you were a position coach you better know that position inside and out. A great coach should know it to the extent that they are educated about it in schemes that are not part of the ones they coach.

The head coach was no different. Stallings believed that the head coach should be knowledgeable about all the aspects of football. The head coach should know offense, defense and the kicking game in depth. If not, you are cheating the team. This is crucial, if you are an offensive coach that becomes a head coach. How can you speak with authority to your defensive coordinator, about an issue you have with his scheme, if you don't know defensive football in and out? This what he believed was necessary for speaking with authority. When a coach gets up to the board to talk football, he needs to be able to speak with authority.

Finally, Stallings explained a simple process for getting to this point. He believed that a coach should dedicate one hour per day to studying football, any aspect of it. This is a time where you don't take phone calls or any other type of distraction. You can read about football, watch films, talk to others whom are knowledgeable about football, ect. If you do this consistently, after a few years "you will be an authority on any aspect of the game." This is what I love about reading football blogs, it is a time to dedicate yourself to getting better at the game.

CONCLUSION

This is just a snapshot of Gene Stallings' Philosophy. The important thing to take away from this is the commitment he made to sticking to it. He altered his offensive schemes and defensive coverage to stay consistent with what he believed. This commitment was a big part of his success. Perhaps, the biggest key to becoming a great coach was doing the things necessary to be a coach that can speak with authority about any aspect in the game of football.

This information was gathered from the 1992 and 1993 COY Manuals.

4-2-5 Away Side Run Support

4-2-5 Run Support

One of the biggest questions coaches unfamiliar with the 4-2-5 defense is playing the run. The idea of stopping the run with one less linebacker is scary to some. This is an easy misconception to dispel. The 4-2-5 can be as effective as any other scheme at stopping the run out of standard sets.(Double tight three back sets can call for different personnel if size/strength is an issue.)

First, it is important to note that the 4-2-5 vs 2 back 1 TE sets (21 personnel) acts as a 9 in the box defense versus the run. See Diagram below.

Versus the standard pro-I run strong, the run fits are similar to traditional split-6 cover-3 run fits. There is a major difference, in the 4-2-5 the safeties remain flat footed and do not move until they have a run pass read. It is not unusual to see the safeties making tackles right up on the LOS. The aggressive play from the safeties allows the linebackers to play the run fast because there is a safety covering the cutback.

The aggressive play of the safeties also affects the way you can use your front. In this scheme you can (and should) have your linemen wrong-arm blocks and spill the ball outside. This is advantageous because you have fast-flow linebackers and safeties that can quickly get to run plays that spill outside. Look at the diagram below and see how the outside support can get there quickly.

The linebackers and FS are pursuing the ball inside-out while the WS is forcing the ball back to them. If the ball carrier happens to cutback, the SS is folding to the cutback. However, it is important for the pursuit and alley players not to over-run the ball. It is not sound to put the SS on cutback without any help.

AWAY SIDE RUN SUPPORT VS SPREAD

One of the things that makes the 4-2-5 unique is the run support games and run techniques it utilizes to the away side. The first thing to understand is the positioning of the away side linebacker in respect to the away side coverage and formations it faces.

In this example the away side is in cover blue. The WS is aligned 8-10 yards deep and the C is 4-6 yards deep. It is difficult for players at this depth to play the run quickly while maintain good pass responsibility on the WR's. (If you put either the WS or corner on force/pitch in Cover Blue vs a twins set, you will be short handed.) The away-side linebacker, the Mike (M) in this example, stacks behind the DE to assist here. There are two advantages with his alignment. #1 he is in better pass alignment for pass coverage whether or not he needs to slice under #1, man the back, or drop and cover the middle hole. #2 On weak-side runs that attack outside, he can take the pitch on option and funnel runs back to the other linebacker and FS.

If the away side is in man, he needs to align here as well to cover the back and force the ball inside. Away side man looks like this

On weak-side runs, it is hard to count on the WS or corner to help out on the run, when there are locked up in man. The one thing you can do is teach your WS to read the WR for run/pass. The coaching point here is teaching the WS to read the WR's eyes. If the WR looks at you, it is probably a run, take a step inside to check. If the WR follows your step, get around him and play the run. On the other hand, if the WR is not looking at you, he is most likely running a pass route, because he is looking for his aiming point to catch or break off from his route. Teaching this takes times, and good teams will run your WS off on run plays so, on runs weak the linebacker is needed to force the ball.

AWAY SIDE ZONE

The linebackers alignment can change depending on the zone coverage you use on the away-side. For example, if the call puts the Safety on pass-first and the corner playing the flat/force (squat-halves coverage) the backer may need to play closer to the slot receiver. This allows the backer to wall the slot easier and prevent the slot from catching quick throws. (This is not a necessity but can be a great scheme that throws off the offense.)

This alignment at first glance looks like 5 in the box. For the standard spread team, this appears as an ideal run situation. However, on run plays, the box quickly turns into 7 people. The flat-footed FS and away-side linebacker can quickly fall in. The important thing for the linebacker is that he fall into the B-gap. In this front the nose is to the away-side, so the linebacker is assigned the B-Gap. But, what happens when the Tackle (3-tech) in the B-gap is aligned to the away-side? This can be a problem, but the scheme can answer this. Will Muschamp at the University of Texas (a 4-3 base team) handles this situation by stunting the tackle into the A-Gap, allowing the linebacker less ground to cover on run plays.

Muschamp calls this a "SPIKE" technique (TCU calls this a TAG). The idea here versus the spread is to push the ball to the B-gaps. In split safety coverage this allows the secondary to play the run easier. In MOF (Middle of the Field) coverage, you do not need to do this.

Strong run support and weak run support look as follows with the TAG (Spike) technique. (The Read side is Cover 2 (Robber).)

In weak-side runs it is important for the FS to check the B-gap before pursuing play side. This gives the SS time to pursue to the cutback.

3x1 AWAY SIDE FORCE

In 3x1 sets the WS usually has force. For example, if the trips call is SOLO, the WS aligns 1x6 off the offensive tackle and is responsible for force/pitch. on run read plays his job is to turn the ball back to pursuit. Also, the linebacker can move back into the box over the B-gap, because of the WS alignment.

In this scheme it is important to have good communication between the safeties and linebackers. Even more important on the away-side. The WS needs to let the backer know what the coverage is so he (linebacker) knows where to align and play on the run. Versus spread teams it helps to put the linebacker in similar positions.

I am planning to cover box run play in the 4-2-5, linebacker reads, and squat/halves and blue coverage more in depth in future posts.