Combating Offensive Speed With the 4

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Combating Offensive Speed with the 4-4Defenseby: Mike Kuchar February 2008Copyright American Football Monthly

Whatever is being done at a higher level is usually filtered and quickly replicatedthrough to the high school ranks. Packages like the zone read offense, the ‘spread’rugby style punt formation and odd-stack defenses have become the norm now at lower

levels. Although trends come in cycles, perhaps no scheme in football, except for the Iformation offense, has had as much consistency as the 4-4 defense.

Yet despite the popularity of the defense, teams have recently started to shift to utilizingmore odd style fronts like the 5-2, 5-3 or the ever present 3-3-5 that West VirginiaUniversity has made so popular. A big reason why is to get more speed on the field.Playing with only three defensive linemen and five defensive backs presents positive or neutral match ups against teams that run the spread and the zone read. However, somecoaches have found a way to keep the traditional 4-4 structure of a defense intact andare still able to combat the speed of offenses today.

Tim Place, the head coach at NAIA Urbana College is one of those coaches. Urbana hashad tremendous success at the NAIA level. Since 2002, the Blue Knight defense hasbeen at the top of all defensive statistical categories in their conference. In fact, just thispast season, they finished first in sacks and second in rushing defense – without

allowing a hundred yard rusher all season. Nationally, the Blue Knights finished third insacks and 13th in the NAIA in run defense. Urbana has been a traditional 4-4 team andthe reason, according to Place, is due to more of a situation of circumstance thanchoice.

“We don’t have a ten or eleven guy staff here that you would see at some of these larger schools. We only have about three coaches on each side of the ball,” said Place. “At theNAIA you pretty much get what you see. We don’t have a ton of scholarships so wecan’t go out and recruit lightening fast speed. We pretty much have to play the handthat we’re dealt which is fine with us because we try and get the most out of our players.As far as game planning goes, we don’t have the time to play a ‘defense of the week.’We don’t personnel teams and match up to what they are doing. We don’t worry somuch about that. So we’ll stay in our 4-4 or G package, as we call it, and let teams adjustto us.”

What Place will do when he plays quicker opponents is work from his ‘G-Package’which is more of a 4-2-5 scheme (See Diagram 1). The structure of the defense containsfour defensive linemen: a strong and weak defensive end, a nose guard and a 3-technique tackle that aligns to the strength of the formation. There are traditionally twostacked inside linebackers and two outside linebackers: the Strike and Whip. The backhalf of the defense features two corners and a safety – a typical 4-4 look. He will try tobe in an eight-man front as much as possible depending on the down and distance. If it’s first and ten, second and medium or third and short Urbana will be in their traditional 4-4 scheme. Yet, in long yardage situations, Place is able to keep the originalfront four intact, and at the same time play with five defensive backs just to get thatelement of speed. “It’s great because it allows you to adjust easily,” said Place. “Youcan stop the run effectively by moving your front four and are still able to defend thepass.”



Diagram 1: Urbana’s 4-4 Defense

Place will substitute for a nickel defensive back and implement two hybrid safety/linebacker types at the Strike and Whip positions. The backers are quick enough to runwith the number two or slot receivers of an offense, in case Place wants to deviate fromhis cover three scheme and play some man coverage. This allows Urbana to get thespeed they need on the field without substituting too much up front. “It’s easy to adjustagainst what you see and we see a ton of spread formations in our conference. Butnowadays, teams have tremendous success running the football out of spreadformations. I just don’t think that you can be effective sitting in an odd stack 3-3-5 andbe able to stop the run,” says Place. “So it’s more of a comfort zone than anything else.The fourth D-lineman gives you the possibilities of additional movement.”

In order to get that movement, Place will shift and stem the defensive line as much aspossible pre-snap in order to throw off offensive lines that utilize zone blockingschemes. One of his favorite four man movements is the ‘slip’ (See Diagram 2) which isexcellent for the run game, particularly gap schemes like the power or counter plays. Onthe slip, the strong side defensive end attacks the near hip of the offensive tackle,squeezing down inside. The 3-technique tackle crosses the guard’s face by dipping,ripping and getting skinny into the front side A gap. The nose on the snap works for adepth of approximately one yard and works to replace the stunting 3-technique. Hemust keep his shoulders square to play the ball. Then the weak side defensive endcrosses the offensive tackle’s face by dipping, ripping and getting skinny and runningthrough the B gap.



Diagram 2: Urbana’s ‘Slip’

In order to get movement on passing downs with the front four, Place will dial up his‘reverse’ scheme (See Diagram 3). The stunt is great against both man and zoneprotection teams. Basically, it is an exchange between the nose and 3-technique tackle.The nose is the first player to move, as he crosses the center’s face into the A gap bydipping, ripping and getting skinny. The tackle is the looper; he works tight off the hipof the nose and gets up field. The weakside end crosses the face of the offensive tackleand gets into the B gap, relinquishing his contain responsibilities while the strong sideend gets up field right away to contain the pass.

Diagram 3: Urbana’s ‘Reverse’

Another advantage to the 4-4 is that it is adjustable to basically any formation becauseof its structure. By nature the 4-4 is a balanced front. But where you declare your strength depends on preference. At Urbana, Place will declare his strength to the strongside of the formation, usually where the tight end lines up or to the side with themultiple receivers. But head coach Terry Smith, at Williamstown High School in WestVirginia, likes to declare the strength of his 4-4 either to the field or boundary. “The



reason we do that is because we are a small school. We have only 50 players on our team, so we must have players who can play both sides of the ball,” says Smith. “Weput our best position players on the field side of the defense. We want to use theboundary to help the defense to that side. The sideline never misses a tackle. Everytime the ball carrier steps on the sideline, the whistle blows.”

Smith agrees that one of the benefits of the split 4 scheme is bringing pressure while

playing sound coverage behind it. Williamstown runs a traditional three-deep scheme.But when playing spread teams that can stretch the ball vertically, Smith will employmore of a man free (cover one) look or blitz up to six players and play cover zero behindit. In Smith’s cover zero blitz package, the corners will have the outside receivers whilethe two outside LBs (Jacket and Will) will play the slots. The free safety has the number three receiver wherever he may show up. One of Smith’s favorite 4-4 pressures is theThunder Ego (See Diagram 4). ‘Thunder’ tells the outside LBs that they are coming off the edge containing the QB with both defensive ends taking a hard inside route. TheSam LB and the free safety play the number two receivers and the Mike LB plays thelone back. The corners are not involved in the blitz.

Diagram 4: Williamstown’s ‘Thunder Ego’

“Whatever blitz scheme you choose to run, the players have to know when you blitz thatit is not just to sack the quarterback. You have to play great run defense first,” saysSmith. “When they blitz, they think about sacking the QB all the time and the tailbackruns right by them on a straight handoff. They have to know what to do if the team runsthe ball.”

According to Mark Zielinski, head football coach at North Brunswick High School inNew Jersey, along with the pressure package, the 4-4 defense also provides someflexibility to adjust to various offensive formations without compromising the people at

the line of scrimmage. “At our level of play the most important thing an offense will tryto do is run the football. Therefore, the first thing you must do defensively is stop therun. There is no better way to do that than have four defensive linemen at the point of attack,” says Zielinski. “We’ll do a lot of different things to correlate their movementwith the LBs behind them but we need to be able to crowd the line of scrimmage. Thebenefit you get with the 4-4 is you get those four down linemen plus you have thecapacity of getting eight guys in the box. I used to love seeing those odd stack and 4-3teams as an offensive coordinator because I knew I would be able to have successrunning the football against them.”

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Combating Offensive Speed With the 4