Six Pressures from the Mug Double A Gap Look

By P.J. Gibbs
Defensive Coordinator/DB Coach
Palmetto Ridge High School (FL)
Twitter: @coachpjgibbs

At Palmetto Ridge our defense has a lot of influences from many coaches from levels all of over the country. 1^st and foremost my high school head coach at Manasquan High School Vic Kubu has his imprints all over our defense. Coach Kubu has 11 state titles on his resume as an HC and multiple when he was the DC under Coach Warren Wolf at Brick HS prior to Manasquan. Coach Kubu taught us to be fundamentally sound and to keep things simple. That is why we have these multiple pressures from the same look to keep it simple for our players. My Defensive Coordinator Pete Cahill, Don Reid and Linebacker coach Jay Price at Manasquan echoed the same principles that Coach Kubu taught all of us in his system, influenced by Coach Welsch at UVA especially. As time went on I started to pick up more pressures and coverages from Coach Don Brown at Michigan and also having the opportunity to speak with Coach Chris Partridge, Coach Devin Bush Sr. and Coach Anthony Campanile to really help make the connections with what we wanted to develop into as a defense. We want to be aggressive, have multiple pressures, play fast and physical but remain fundamentally sound in what we do, everyone has a job to execute for our defense to be successful.

We will discuss 6 of the 15 double A gap pressures that we run at Palmetto Ridge. We really like the fact that we have so many out of the same look because it allows us to audible if need be but also our opponent has to prepare for all of these each week because we will run a majority of them but week 4 of the season as we get into district play. I will discuss each one against 10 personnel, but if you have any questions regarding any other type of personnel please contact me and I will help you out as much as I can. All the pressure are from our Hudl playbook, the 1^st blitz is our Clemson blitz.

“Clemson” Pressure

We have both inside LB’s mugged-up, two 3 techs and two 5 techs. This blitz is really three pressures in one, the biggest coaching point I can give you is to look at the blocking schemes and tendencies of the O-line. Our coverage behind it is usually man-free or Poach coverage depending on the route combo’s we breakdown on film. We always start in a two-high look and move on the snap to give the QB a pre-snap open middle read. Man-free is self- explanatory, if we are sending six but playing man free the defensive ends or wide rushers must be schooled on running with the swing of the back.  In our Poach coverage, we start in a Two High shell with the corners press/bail into 1/3’s, the Safety away from Viper comes down on the snap and works inside #2 to Flat- the Viper has same responsibility to the other side. Safety to the Viper becomes the Middle of the field player if we are playing Poach, we are essentially playing cover 3 but out of the press/bail look.

To study game film of this concept, click on the video below: