Reading Coverages

This year, it is my goal to have all of you understand basic coverages and fronts and how to attack them. This goes for everyone on the team as many of you may not play the same position all 4 years. I know it's crazy to imagine, but from someone who's played QB, RB, FB, WR, TE, CB, S, LS, Returner and more, I can tell you its best to learn as much about the game as you can so you can adapt to meet your team's needs and be successful. This first post is going to address the coverage scheme we'll see from Kettle Moraine and a majority of the schools we'll play this season, Cover 3.

Before I get into Cover 3 Details I should give you the basics and reading coverages. As you come up to the ball you should:

1. Look at the Safeties first. They are usually a good tell as to what coverage the D is

playing.

• If we see 2 safeties up top we know it can be one of 2 coverage variations (a version of cover 2 or cover 4)
• If we see 1 Safety up top we know it will be either a Cover 3 or a Cover 1
• If we see no true safety up top and the Safeties are tight (7 yds or in) you better believe it's man coverage and expect a blitz

2. So we recognize the safeties but there are basically two options if we see 1 or 2 high

what's our next tell? The CB's will be our next read.

2 Safeties on Top

• If the CBs are hovering around 5 with their eyes inside we know it's a base cover 2
• If the CBs are at 5 or tighter with their eyes on the WR its a Cover 2 with man coverage underneath
• If the CBs are back (7+ yds) we know its a Cover 4 or quarters where each member of the secondary has 1/4 of the field

1 Safety

• If the CBs are playing (6-7+) we can be confident we are seeing a version of Cover 3 where each defender has 1/3 of the field
• If the CBs are playing tighter than 5 yds with their eyes on the WR it will be a Cover One where we have man cover with a S helping over the top

UNDERSTAND: The defense will often try to disguise the coverage (as we do) by stemming into it. For example, from a Cover 2 look and rolling to a Cover 3 as Alabama does in this cut up.

Cover 3 is generally an easy coverage to recognize. It should also be a fairly easy one to attack. Our flood and smash concepts (Spread Quick Flood, Power Pass and 88/87 Smash and Whip) all put the CB in a bind to cover the high route behind and the underneath in the flat. As you can see in the diagram above the SS and Weakside LB are responsible for the flats. All of our combos should by alignment and personnel should give us the ability to hit the flat route faster than the LB or SS can play it.

There are other route combos that can attack a cover 3 very well including: 4 verts, Curl/ Flat combos, Deep ins and Deep outs and 3 step passing (hitches and outs especially).

Hopefully this gives you guys a basic understanding of what we'll see Thursday and often this year. This should helps us make reads and route adjustments more effectively and we will definitely throw in more wrinkles to attack this coverage as the year goes on.

Here's some video of Cover 3 in action

Running the Whip or "Pivot" Route

We've worked a little the last week and a half on the 88/87 Whip combo and I wanted to give you guys an idea of how to run the whip vs. multiple coverages. I definitely noticed us struggle running it in 1 on 1's on Monday. This route should be effective vs. both zone and man. In zone the whip should come inside and slide with the quarterback, almost as if you were posting up and sliding in the paint in basketball. In man to man coverage the route becomes more abrupt, almost like a hard slant and you whip or pivot out (thus the name) Here is a video of one of the greatest slot receivers in the game running a pivot route and destroying the defense. The video is halfway down the page. Watch how Welker sets up his pivot route. (Especially around 12 seconds in the vid)

Welker Video


Now there are multiple sets and combinations to run this with but we are using a basic smash variant to give the QB a high low read. As the year progresses, so too will our passing game but we must perfect the little things first!