Even Run Fits vs Inside Zone

Presented by Coach Nate Moore from Massillon Washington HS (OH), courtesy of Glazier Clinics.

Now, now to get a little bit more specifically into some offensive plays. First, we'll talk about zone with our even run fits. So, we get your general inside zone. Look here out of our offensive line, our fullback is working a split zone type of look where he's going to try to kick out our Jack linebacker. We've got traditional inside zone out of a pistol here in the backfield.

Our defensive end gets the base block by the tackle; he wants to be hands-on and hold that point and hold his C-gap. We all want to be a gap sound. Our nose, he's gonna be hands-on on the center. Holding point, holding his gap, holding that a gap, being gap sound. All right. Our tackle on the back side, same thing. He's going to be hands on the guard, all right, have you on the guard trying to hold that point.

Our inside linebackers, you can see they've got the open window read that we talked about earlier. When they get that open window read, they want to fill, and they want to hit that as hard as they can. The key there being against inside zone, the longer these offensive linemen can maintain that double team on their defensive lineman, the more successful that they’re going to be, the more movement there’s going to be…and the more successful the offense is going to be at run the play, because they can maintain those double teams. So, our inside linebackers reading that run read and that open window and hitting that open gap, as hard as they can forces those double teams to split.

So, now the offensive lineman had to make a decision: Am I going to, am I going to maintain presence on the defensive tackle, or am I going to come off on the linebacker? He's in a conflict right there.

If our defensive lineman can maintain the point of attack at the line of scrimmage and limit movement, and our inside linebackers fill hard and force those offensive linemen to come off or stay on, then we should have one of two things: We should have an inside linebacker unblocked through an open window, making a play, or we should have the double team splitting early and a defensive lineman coming through and making the play in the backfield.

Here with the split zone look, the offense is going to try to kick out our Jack linebacker and possibly wind that thing back in the backside B-gap, all right. But we're a spilled front, so our Jack linebacker is going to take that kickout block on with his outside arm and spill the ball outside. We have our weak safety, who's going to fill outside-in, he's a box player there, and if everybody does their job, either we have a tackle in the backfield, or we have a running back that winds outside of that kickout block and we have an unblocked week safety there to make the tackle.

So, here's some inside zone looks off of film. You can see here, open-window read, linebackers down downhill. Our defensive linemen are holding the point of attack and the running back has nowhere to go here. Take a look at the end zone shot: inside linebackers, keying guards near back, right.

Come down a Hill through those open windows, forced the offensive lineman to come off the double team. Right. And there were gaps out. We're building a wall, there's nowhere for the running back to go. Inside zone again, right. Our defensive linemen, doing a good job attacking controlling their offensive lineman, holding the point. Our inside linebackers get there open window reads. They're fitting downhill fast. Right? And we actually have a defensive tackle coming off because the double team split and making the play here.

They're inside zone here. Okay. This time they're reading the defensive end. Okay. Our defensive ends in the option game, in the zone option game, the inverted power option game, our defensive ends have the quarterback. They always have the quarterback. All right. So he's got hands on the offensive tackle. All right. Try to keep his shoulders square, not come up too far. Right. But close down that gap, that wind back gap while taking the quarterback.

All right. So you have a scenario here where the quarterback sees the defensive end squeezing down. Right. And taking away that wind back and he thinks he can pull it because he thinks that our Jack linebackers taking the running back. All right. But he's taking the quarterback here. All right. This is good maintaining that. But if you check out our box here too, all right. Our defensive line does a good job holding point, right? Our inside linebackers do a good job of filling those open windows. Really good job there on the zone read. Another zone, play here. All right. We're gonna get double teams and we're gonna need our defensive linemen to be very aggressive and hold that point of attack. And we're going to need our linebackers, our inside linebackers to see those open windows, window reads and come downhill hard.

Right. Let's see how we looked. All right. Get our open window reads, come downhill. All right. Defensive line, maintain the point of attack, forcing double teams. All right. And we've got an unblock will linebacker in the hole to make the play because of our nose eating up that double team.

There's another zone read. All right. Good job again, by our defensive line, attacking and holding the point, our inside linebackers get their open window read and they come downhill and we're building a wall once again. And there's nowhere for the running back to go.