Defending Zone Read and Power Read Concepts
By Mike Kuchar
Senior Research Manager
X&O Labs
Twitter: @MikekKuchar
Introduction:
If an offense is centered on 10 or 11 personnel groupings, chances are the spread option game is a vital component of its play menu. That play menu will most likely consist of the power read and zone read game. Regardless of what formation offenses will dress these schemes up in, defenses need to have a plan to defend them. The research below serves as “change-ups” in defending spread option concepts. Implementing them into your base plan can yield negative plays and perhaps even turnovers.
Issue: Defending the Zone Read Game
The zone read game has been a staple among spread offenses for years and it’s not going away any time soon. As offenses are finding various components – pre-snap movement, formation changes and blocking variations – to dress up these concepts, these items shouldn’t be of priority in defending them. The following techniques and stunts can provide for indecision at the quarterback spot, which can lead to negative plays and more importantly, turnovers.
Solution 1: “Chase” Stunt, TJ Gillen-Hall, Kilgore High School (TX)
With “first threat” as our base technique, we can add our adjustments from there. The first of these is called “chase” (Diagram 3). This is a basic scrape exchange between the end and play side linebacker. Through our weekly tendency break down, we decide which side we will do this to, the back or quarterback. This is based on if they are primarily a zone or power read team. Normally, this would be more of a zone read change up, so we usually have the end on the side of the back executing it. If he gets a down block, he will chase the down. In doing so, we have now given him the back. Our play side linebacker will then exchange with the end and he has the quarterback. If the 7 technique ends up with this stunt, he will no longer be reading the tight end. If he gets a down out of the tackle, he will chase the down and have the back. Against power read teams, this exchange would be executed by the end away from the back and it should give the QB a quick give read.
Solution 2: “Hit” Stunt, TJ Gillen-Hall, Kilgore High School (TX)
The final defensive line call we can make against read teams is called “hit”. This tells our end he is going to hit the quarterback no matter what. As mentioned before, we determine the end that will be running this based on tendency of the opponent. We could run it to the back, away from the back, to the strong or weak side end, or we’ve even had both sides run it if called. This is a read stunt so it only happens if the end gets a down block. They should know it doesn’t matter if it’s zone read, power read or any other variation, if he gets a down block he will head to the quarterback. Like chase, if the 7-technique is the end running it (the stunt) he would be in a tackle read instead of a tight end read pre-snap. We give the end an aiming point to stay at least half a man outside the quarterback, so it can be run outside in. In a perfect world, it will look like the end is up field like our rocket stunt; the quarterback will make the wrong read, and we will hit him for a big loss. Even if it doesn’t work out perfectly, we want the end to tackle the quarterback. We tell our kids the more we hit the quarterback in the read game, the more likely he’ll make a mistake and start guessing on his reads (Diagram 6).
Issue 2: Defending the Power Read Game
Since many defensive coaches group the zone read and power read concept together, we decided to present our research on these two concepts together. The “inverted veer” as some coaches refer to it, forces defenses to both out-leverage the ball carrier on the speed sweep, yet be sound enough in the box to handle the quarterback run. The following movements and techniques allow defenses to accomplish both these feats.
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Introduction:
The main goal of our offense is to be a great Inside Zone team. In order to be an effective running team, we must have a well-developed package of compliments to our run game. These include our Bubble Screens, Four Vertical package and our Play Action package, which is the focus of this article. Our Play Action package is simple to execute for all eleven players on offense, while adding a layer of complexity for the defense to defend. We have found our Play Action schemes to be effective against the run stopping defenses we see, such as Quarters, Cover 3 and Cover 1.
The game has changed, and as a result, defensive coordinators at every level have been forced to reexamine the way they structure their defenses. Spread offenses have changed the landscape of college football. While many of the RPO schemes that offenses are starting to use seem cutting edge, the reality is that offensive coaches are going back to time-tested schemes and simply adapting how they apply them. Good offenses know there are four surefire ways to put stress on a defense:
While many of the techniques in the special report can be applied when blocking stagnant or stationary targets, the greater issue in pass protection is coaching players on how to defend movement, particularly at the first level.
One of the more common defensive adjustments to zone read teams is known as a gap exchange, the most common being a first level and second level defender. According to Cameron Norcross, the former offensive line coach at the University of Nevada, these were the most common counters defenses would have against zone read concepts. Many defenses would tighten the alignment of their defensive ends to allow them to squeeze down blocks while second level linebackers can scrape over the top to play the QB (Diagram 16). Norcross recounts a time that Nevada encountered this exact problem when playing Boston College in a bowl game a couple years back. “We could never get our tackle down to block the play side inside linebacker,” said Norcross. “So we told the tackle to block him so our slip guy could block the play side inside linebacker (Diagram 17). The alley player would be free. So we ran our arc scheme to the tight end side so we didn’t need to run the ball at the tackle. We basically man schemed the back side (read side) of the play. Our tackle was responsible for him so we can take our tight end/wing back on the alley player.
Like many up-tempo offenses, a large percentage of our run game at Morrisville State is based around running the Inside Zone play successfully. In spread formations, we either utilize a bubble screen on the back side to create a triple option look to the defense or give the QB a “now” throw if the bubble has the defense outflanked based on pre-snap alignment or pressure. This is a staple of our offense because it allows us to attack the entire field from sideline to sideline with one play call. We want to give our QB options, and try to have answers for multiple looks that a defense could give us on any given snap. 
T.U.G. stands for “Throw to the Uncovered Guy,” and is a way for us to attack a perimeter weakness displayed in the defense as a result of poor alignments or over adjustment to stop our run game.
