South Dakota State’s 4-1 Box Fits

By Mike Kuchar with Brian Bergstrom
Defensive Coordinator
South Dakota State University
@Coach_Bergy

When you defend offenses in the MVC, you’d better prepare your unit for a downhill run game. When the season lags into November, and the temperature drops to sub 30 degrees, you best believe that whoever wins the fight in the run box and subsequently wins the contest on the scoreboard. And in order to equate numbers in the run game and add a hat back against quarterback run, it became necessary to play nine-man box football. But while most quarters fit defenses rely on having their safeties play inside out as force defenders, Coach Bergstrom and his staff made a conscious choice to have his outside linebackers be the edge defenders, fitting the ball back into his safeties in the run game.

According to Coach Bergstrom, the thought process behind it was to get edges set more quickly on the perimeter by defenders who were closer to the ball. It also alleviated the stress from safeties in quarters who were asked to play a receiver vertical and play the edge of the run box.

In these structures, the outside linebackers are now free to set the edge, while the safeties can play in the box. It became the core defensive structure against single-width receivers and 12 personnel, the double-detached formation that has grown in popularity in college football today. And the ultimate answer against the QB runs that were built off it.

The 4-1 Box structure held up in the pass game as well, where corners were asked to handle all of number one (unless he goes under), while safeties played number two vertical. Outside linebackers carried the flat/wheel. The Mike linebacker, related to number three, just as he would in traditional quarters looks.

How runs fits are taught and manufactured in these 4-1 box structures is the focal point of our research. Coach Bergstrom details how the safeties, outside linebackers, and Mike work off each other to defend various run schemes to make solidify an unblocked defender at the point of attack.

If you're playing nine-man box football against heavy 12 personnel teams — and trying to add a hat back against QB run without burning your safeties as force defenders — Bergstrom's 4-1 Box fits are the answer. Inside the full report, you'll:

• See the exact "hands read" Bergstrom teaches his outside linebackers to play QB-to-pitch on every option scheme — and the simple trigger that tells them when to fold back inside.
• Get Bergstrom's Mike linebacker spill rule against pullers — and why "wherever he goes, he always has two guys behind him" turns Counter into a losing proposition for the offense.
• Steal the C-10 safety alignment that handles the #2 vertical AND the interior run fit — including the back-location trigger that keeps your safeties out of the fit when they need to beat your RPO, and gets them downhill faster when they don't.
• Walk through gap-by-gap fit diagrams against the five run schemes that stress every 4-1 box defense: Insert Zone, Split Flow, Counter, Zone Read, and Wide Zone.
• Pick up the field/boundary thirds rotation Bergstrom mixes in to muddy up QB Glance reads against RPO offenses — plus raw and narrated game film of the entire 4-1 Box system on tape.