Manipulating 1 and 2 High Defensive RPO Reactions

College football in 2019 saw a huge tilt in the epic eternal battle of Offense vs. Defense, and Defenses are now scrambling to catch up.  My last post, Defending Pistol Spread RPO from 2 High, detailed the steps that Defenses can take to help vs. Offenses running RPOs (Run-Pass Options).  I showed the problem of Defenses slinging their fits pre-snap based on the side of the Back and showed how Defenses can sling their fits post-snap by reading the eyes of the QB to take away the player the Offense wants to throw to and add a player into the box to the other side vs. the Run.  In the diagram below, the Will is playing the Pass to the side the QB is looking and the Strong Safety ($) is adding to the box away from the side the QB is looking.

Speed Kills: Breaking Down the Chip Kelly Offense by Alex Kirby

Speed Kills: Breaking Down the Chip Kelly Offense by Alex Kirby (lifeafterfootballblog.com) looks at the different parts of the 2013 Eagles Offense that blended Kelly's successful Oregon Offense with its option schemes along with a pro-style passing attack.  Alex Kirby does a nice job of breaking down and explaining this offense to the casual fan as well as giving enough X's and O's for fellow coaches looking to study and or incorporate elements of Kelly's offense.

1995-1996 Florida Offense - Steve Spurrier

The Florida offense under Head Coach Steve Spurrier was undoubtedly one of the most exciting offenses in recent history, putting up lots of points and throwing the ball around as few teams had done up to that point in time.  Coach Spurrier's Fun and Gun attack helped to end the run-first era and to usher in the Spread offense era of multiple WRs and the ability to throw the football to win.  The remarkable thing about Spurrier and his offenses was how easy they made it look to score points and how wide open his receivers always seemed to be.

Bullets

The Bullets concept is the final primary passing concepts of the Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen Florida Spread Offense (the others being H Option, Follow, Follow Pivot, Houston).  Chris Brown of Smart Football / Grantland wrote a post on this same concept here that I would recommend reading as this article is quite brief.  Bullets is a Play-action Pass concept that was Florida's "home run" play during the Tim Tebow era.

Follow

The Follow concept is one of the primary passing concepts of the Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen Florida Spread Offense (the others being H Option, Follow Pivot, Houston, and Bullets).  It is primarily ran out of Empty and it is an easy play for the QB in the Spread Offense to execute.

Below are diagrams of the "Dig" concepts used by Meyer and Mullen at Florida:

H Option

The Florida Spread Offense that won two national championships under current Ohio State HC Urban Meyer and former OC, now Mississippi St. HC, Dan Mullen utilized five primary pass concepts: H Option, Follow, Follow Pivot, Houston, and Bullets.  My guest writer has already talked about Follow Pivot and Houston, and I will talk about the play that Meyer and Mullen made famous: H Option.

H Option is a play designed to get the ball into the hands of the offense's most dynamic playmaker.  First it was Paris Warren at Utah, and then at Florida it was Percy Harvin, after whom the position was commonly referred to as the "Percy Position."  It is the football equivalent to the basketball play where everybody spreads the court and gets out of the way to let your best player take his guy 1 on 1.

Houston

My friend has contributed another article:

It is a pleasure to be back on the world famous Coach Hoover blog. Today, I’m going to share another concept I learned from the Urban Meyer/Dan Mullen offense. I am not 100% sure of where it came from, but I was once told a story about this awesome play that they called “Houston.” Rumor has it that it was taken from the Minnesota Vikings with the primary purpose of beating Quarters. Ok, well that’s pretty much it for my story. I have made a few adjustments to the original concept, and overall it has been good for me. I view it as a multi-purpose zone coverage beater. It is OK against man, but not my favorite call. In this article, I will explain the Houston concept as a drop-back pass, show you how it can be effective against different coverages, and then show a few different play-action variations.

Below is the basic play out of a 3 x 1 formation.

Follow Pivot

A good friend of mine wanted to anonymously contribute this article:

As a big fan of football coaching blogs, I am honored to be able to contribute some of my thoughts that will hopefully help some people out there. I have learned a ton by reading articles like this, and I wanted to return the favor.

Today I’m going to talk about one of my favorite plays that is popular in College Football today. It may be popular in the NFL too, but who has time to watch that on Sundays? I first learned this play while studying the Meyer/Mullen Florida Gator Offense. I remember sitting at their first Spring Clinic, listening to Dan Mullen talk. Mullen explained that their offense mainly used five passing concepts: All-Go, Smash, Houston (maybe another article in the future), H-Option, and Follow-Pivot. After studying the Follow-Pivot concept, I realized that it was very similar to the NCAA pass (Post-Dig-Drag). However, because of the distribution of routes, this concept is better suited to beat Quarters coverage.    

Creating DE Conflict

Dubber just had a great post here on this subject that you need to read if you haven't already. He says, "In football terms, keeping a defense 'off rhythm' is the name of the game."  He is correct.  This post will focus solely on the Defensive End position and how to put the DE in conflict in order to keep him off-rhythm. 

Urban Meyer talked about how much of what they did with their Spread offense at Florida was designed to control the DEs, because they are such tremendous athletes that they can take over a game by themselves.  These freaks of nature can really wreak havoc on an offense if allowed to get into a rhythm.  DEs that are strong and can run as fast as most RBs are a nightmare for an OT to try to block.  An Offensive Coordinator must  have plays designed to confuse and slow down the DE in order for the offense to have a chance and for his QB to survive.