Blending the Flexbone and SBV
BIO & BACKGROUND ON OUR GUEST BLOGGER, Sean Berry:
This fall will begin my 3rd year as the Head Football Coach at Rocksprings ISD. Our High School averages an enrollment of about 80 students. I began coaching in earnest at Pat Neff Middle School in San Antonio, TX. The high school coaches our players transitioned to introduced the flexbone offense in my 7th year coaching there. I was flabbergasted at the idea of NOT blocking two people at the point of attack. In the years since I have become a student of triple option concepts and cannot imagine another way that I might want to coach offensive football.
Flexbone and Split back Veer (SBV) are often characterized as two incompatible versions of a football philosophy similar to the shark and dolphin example of convergent evolution in biology. It seems that the predominant thought is that a team is either a Flexbone Triple Option team OR a SBV team. I, humbly, disagree.
In 2019 we were a “by the book” flexbone team. Meaning, all the blocking rules and techniques, formations and tags were all easily recognizable as what one would see on Saturday from College flexbone teams. We did move the ball well at times, but did not score very much. Part of this was team morale, turnovers (-6 PER GAME) and being new to the system. Ended the season without a playoff appearance and a 3-7 mark.
2020 was the 2nd year for this staff at the school. We added a great component to the staff, an experienced OL coach in John Pena and stole some ideas from the SBV world to create a huge offensive turnaround. Scoring average was up 27 points a game to 33 and a 7-3 overall record and a playoff appearance. This offensive change can be attributed to any number of things, but two of the biggest factors in our minds are: simplification of OL assignments and ball security.
The simplification comes straight from our SBV brethren at Carson-Newman. Brock Pursely hosted a mini-clinic and talked about removing the “if” from the OL’s mind. Brock does this by teaching the OL two things: 1) The dive point of attack (POA) and 2) DL alignment techniques. These are the rules for all triple option plays and their derivatives or tags. There is no longer a lot of thinking going on for the OL. They block a technique based on the dive back’s POA; at or inside the point of attack it is a BASE block. (For us this means On – Inside-Linebacker). Players OUTSIDE the point of attack ALWAYS veer down inside unless tagged. So for inside veer the “rules” read like this:
ISV
Center – Block Base (zero, 1 tech) (INSIDE POA)
PSG – Block BASE (combo a 1 tech) (POA)
PST – Veer INSIDE (Combo a 3) to LB (OUTSIDE POA)
BSG/BST – Scoop
OSV
Center – BASE (INSIDE POA)
PSG – BASE (INSIDE POA)
PST – BASE (POA)
OT/TE – Veer INSIDE (Combo w/PST to LB)
BST/BSG – Scoop
Midline (Default on Mid for us is Mid triple, Dbl option is a tag)
C – BASE (zero, 1 tech and BACKSIDE SHADE) (POA)
PSG – Veer in (combo a 1 tech) (outside POA)
PST – Veer in (no combo) (Outside POA)
BSG – Base (combo a shade)
BST – Base
This has allowed our OL to play so much faster which translates directly to more yards and points. All triple option plays are taught at ONE time. (OSV is new to us this spring.) OL only has to know the dive back’s point of attack and the rules take care of themselves. Midline is the last Triple we learn due to the change in back side blocking.
These rules are in place and used regardless of the formation. So, the “skill” players can line up in flexbone, I formation or Split backs and we run our base plays and most of our plus one plays regardless of the formation.
A couple of other things we have taken from the SBV world: Combo blocking and QB reads. Combo blocking was never on our radar, but has grown in importance for us. This has put a lot more pressure on opposing line backers and has vastly improved the quality of the surge by our offensive line. The kids take pride in creating that bubble and wall for the backs.
QB reads have moved to a point method inside the line of scrimmage. On ISV we tell the QB to “GIVE UNLESS” the dive read (#1) is squared up to the shoulders of the running back. The read key has to be committed to making the tackle to get a pull read. If that happens, QBs are drilled to “REPLACE” the read on the 3rd step. This gets the QB going north and south creates a huge gap between the QB and the pitch key (#2). The pitch key has to commit. Any feathering or slow play, now he is chasing the QB. (A well-coached OLB will squeeze with square shoulders, which we will leverage pitch to the A-back who is moving full speed).
The formations are simple to manipulate. NO formation call in the huddle is the spread formation. Right puts us in SBV strong right and left is the opposite. Assignments do not change for the plays in each formation. So Dive back is dive back, pitch is pitch. We WILL run ISV weak with the A back as dive back, either through personnel packages that have two dive back trained kids in the game or tags like Cowboy and Husky. This is simplified by all kids being trained to take dive back reps during indy periods and/or group. It looks like the diagrams below.
Of course we also utilize all the typical flexbone formations such as Over, Heavy, Trips, Red (our term for a Tight End Set) in addition to the ones above. We will game plan based on defenses to give us advantages based on Field, Angles and Numbers; thanks to Coach Stowers for driving that home in his book: Coaching the Spread Offense.
Hopefully you will find something that will help in this article. Feel free to contact me at at Rocksprings HS or call 830-486-1506 or email me at: sean_receiver@hotmail.com
Love to talk football and share ideas about triple option or even defense! Angora Pride.