W e want to express our gratitude tothe AFCA and the program commit-

tee for the chance that we have to spend afew minutes with you. We have a very goodfootball staff and you will meet our offen-sive guys, but we also have a very gooddefensive staff with Ken Schmidt, To mRamage, Barry Lamb and Brian Mitchell.

We have been together a very longtime. We have competed against a lot ofyou and we are friends with a lot of you, soa chance to spend a few minutes with youis very gratifying to us.

Lance Reynolds, who is the running-backs coach, Chris Pella, who is the tightends and special teams coach, RogerFrench, who is our offensive line coach andmyself will each spend a few minutes withyou.

I know we don’t want to spend a lot oftime on philosophy, but I think if we expressour basic tenets as the hour goes on, it willmake a little more sense.

Number one, we are going to protect thequarterback. If you decide to rush seven,we will block seven. If you decide to rush10, we will try to block 10. We are going totry to protect the quarterback. Lance andRoger spend a lot of time picking up blitzesand that is the basic tenet that we have.You may be better than we are, butschematically we will try to protect thequarterback.

If we do decide to run a hot route, itbecomes very simple because what we tryto do is incorporate the unblocked defend-er in the play call. Whoever the unblockeddefender is, we will simply call that player’sname in the play call. That way the quar-terback, receivers and offensive linemen allunderstand that is the guy we cannot block.We actually point to him and we say wecan’t block him. If we don’t call him out,then the receiver progression is one, two,three. But, if we call out the unblockedd e f e n d e r, then the quarterback under-stands that his responsibility now in receiv-er progression becomes blitz one, two,three. We try to keep it as simple as that.

Number two, we like to think we cancontrol the football with a forward pass. Iknow that is something of an anomaly, butwe want to do that. We played a game acouple of years ago, and we threw consec-utive 18 completions. The only reason wedid that, in my mind, is because they weresimple throws. Throws that were eight and10 yards that we thought we could make.We like to think that we can control the foot-

ball. No one is more aware of possessiontime than we are. We understand that weneed to watch the clock and control theclock a little bit.

Number three, we always try to incorpo-rate the run and the pass. That is obvious,right? You aren’t going to win footballgames just running the ball and you aren’tgoing to win football games just throwingthe ball. We like to think we can do both.We try to make it as similar as possible.Lance will talk to you a little bit about thepath of a halfback on a run that is the samepath taken on a throw that we have. We tryto incorporate both running and passingand make it look as similar as we can tocause a little bit of confusion.

Number four, we are going to take whatthe defense gives us. I know that is simple,but it is very true. We are going to try totake advantage of what the other team isdoing on defense. During the course of agame, with the sophistication of defenses,coverages are disguised and the use ofzone blitzes and fire blitzes become veryhard to beat. We’d be lying if we said wesat up in the box and knew what coverageswere being run. What we try to do is take aportion of the football field, the weak flat forexample, and we will attack that until wecan figure out what the defense’s intentionsare. Then we try to attack the coverage thatwe see. It is very difficult to cover the wholefield. We are not going to try to fool any-body. We are going to take little portions ofthe field and try to attack them until thedefense declares what it intends to do.

Number five, we feel very strongly thatyou need to KISS it. You need to KISS youroffense. You all know what that acronymmeans, you need to Keep It Simple, Stupid.I think the biggest mistake we make ascoaches is that we try to do too much.Lance does a great job of always remindingus, “Hey we are doing too much, we’redoing too much.” If you walk out of herewith nothing else but the idea that we try tokeep our offense as simple as we can, Ithink we have gotten the point across.

A few years ago, I was talking to a for-mer NFL coach who has since retired. Hesaid, “What is the comfort level of yourquarterback in a critical situation? Thirdand four situation, what is the comfortlevel?” I was trying to impress him and actlike I knew what I was talking about so Iasked him what comfort zone meant andhe said, “Simply, how many throws doesyour quarterback feel confident making

• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •

BYU Passing Game

Norm Chow

OffensiveCoordinator

Brigham YoungUniversity

Provo, Utah

Lance Reynolds

RunningbacksCoach

Chris Pella

Tight Ends andSpecial Teams

Coach

Roger French

Offensive LineCoach

when it is third and four and you have tomake the first down?” I said, “Maybe sevenor eight.” Then I turned and asked him,“What about you and your quarterback?”He said, “Two.” This is an NFL coachcoaching an NFL quarterback. That hasalways stayed with me. We really feelstrongly that we need to KISS our offense.

We will show you some diagrams andtranslate how we try to develop a footballplay. We like to think that you need a five-step game, a three-step game, you obvi-ously need to run, a play pass, a screengame and be able to move the quarter-back. If you can’t handle the pass rush, thequarterback needs to be able to move. Thatis what we have incorporated in our game,a three-step, a five-step, runs, play pass offthe run, screens and movement of thequarterback. That is simply how we try toput our offense together.

The way we like to attack a defense iswith the passing game remaining curl, flat,four verticals and creating triangles andmismatches against man-to-man cover-age. That is a basic strong-side pattern forus. We try to create triangles. Everybodyunderstands horizontal stretches, routes,and vertical stretch routes. At BYU, we liketo develop oblique stretches. They are alldone to create stretches involved in a passo ffense.

Our quarterback’s progression nowbecomes a cover three read. One is if thecorner rotates over, throw the deep ball. Ifwe can’t throw deep, we will look for thetight end and that is called a sail route. Wetry to put him in that imaginary spot wherethe three deep zones meet. Our backchecks the protection and then goes to theflat.

Now the quarterback reads one as ther e c e i v e r, two as the tight end and three asthe back. All we have done is try to createa triangle depending on how the defensecovers. The quarterback’s read is to lookfor the go route and we tell him that twobecomes both X and the tight end. As myreceiver progression takes me to number

two and the defense is in a strong zonewith the strong safety trying to take awaythe tight end, we call this color flash. Wesee someone coming over to take the tightend away from his backside, who is proba-bly a guy from the deep third, then we tryto get the ball in that open area. We havetried to create a triangle. If, for some rea-son, they play route recognition and bringthe stud linebacker to seal, we tell ourquarterback to throw to the runningback.

Now we want to present something dif-ferent with the same idea. If your opponentis rolling the zone over to the right side ofthe field and they bring in a linebacker tocut off some angles. What we try to do iscall play and use girl’s names for the hotlinebackers. We call the play and we end itby saying Wanda. We cannot block Wandaif he decides to come. Wanda hits it, nowwe become hot. The look now becomesblitz one, two, three.

The reason we have done this isbecause we see that this linebacker is get-ting back into the tight end hole and wecannot get the ball to him like we want to.See, we have the tight end in a deep route,we have one back in the flat and we havethe halfback right in the spot where the studlinebacker left. That is how we try to attacka route depending upon the coverage wesee from the defense. If we see man-to-man coverage and think we can get by witha back against a run support guy, then whatwe try to do is get that guy on a get-awayroute. We call a get-away an option route.If the stud linebacker hits it, we turn it out.If the stud linebacker plays him man-to-man, then we give him room. If the stud

linebacker is outside, we break in and justplay with the option game. We have takenone route or one pattern, if you will, and wetried to devise things to take advantage ofwhat an opponent does defensively.

It is an honor to be with you. I am goingto try to emphasize most of my time on try-ing to utilize the runningbacks in the pass-ing game.

The runningbacks have several key rolesin the passing game. One is protection. It isa big responsibility and anybody who coach-es runningbacks should take a lot of timeand effort to try to make sure that they filltheir role in that protection scheme, whetherit be blocking guys or hot releases or dealingwith the blitz in some kind of screen. Somew a y, we have to either block the blitz orattack the blitz. Some of it is in two-backsets, some of it is in single-back sets.

The backs are critical to obtain the“stretch” that the quarterback guys arealways talking about. You needn’t do anattack zone cover whether it be in somekind of horizontal fashion, some kind of ver-tical fashion, or where we get a triangle tostretch a defense in an angle. Again, weare involved in all of those. We are going totalk about using tailbacks in man-to-mancoverage because most tailbacks are greatathletes.

We are going to learn how to use screensand hot routes to attack a blitz. Most of ourfive- and seven-step routes read from deepto short. Since I have never met a quarter-back who didn’t like to throw deep, or didn’tthink the deep guy was open, we addedsome terms to some of our throws to helpget the ball to the backs and tight ends. Aterm like H-option will reverse the quarter-back reads, instead of going from deep toshort, he will go from short to deep.

For example on the strong throw, if wejust added the term F-option, what happensis the back becomes one, the tight endbecomes two and the post becomes three.What that does is make the quarterbackfocus his eyes on that option of the blitz. Ifthe blitz comes, he will throw it hot and theidea is now we can get our quarterback’seyes and attention on throwing a shorter,higher completion percentage throw. Wechange terms to get attention back on theshorter route, both with the quarterbackand the runningback. Some terms willchange the quarterback’s reads from deepto intermediate to short and some will not.

• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •

Lance Reynolds, Runningbacks

Diagram 1

Diagram 2

Diagram 3

Another option we can talk about is theangle. We will take the back and roll himout, plant his foot and return it into the hole.Sometimes that stud linebacker will getback to take away that intermediate ball.We will start like we are going to the flatand roll back quickly. I think these readschange into a real high percentage throwand you can utilize your backs to beat mantwo coverage and also get into seams ofzones. We will call a play then add a termto it. The back is on a delay route, a termwe call rip. When the quarterback drops, heis going to go through his reads, high tointermediate to low, but it emphasizes inthe quarterback’s mind that if this line-backer drops to take away a sale, then heis going to throw the delay.

The first one we will start with is our half-back option game. It is probably one of thebest ways to get the ball to a good receiveror a good runner. The first thing you needto do is evaluate your personnel and pick aguy who can run the H-option vs. man-to-man so that he can separate from people.Some players have a feel for that and someplayers don’t and it is very difficult to get aguy that doesn’t have much feel to run itcorrectly. I think it can be a real equalizersometimes. The option now being with thehalfback, we can run this off the strongroute or the weak stretch. In a normalroute, a receiver would be one, tight endcross two and the back would be three.

When we add the term option in the half-back option, he becomes one. The tightend becomes two and the receiverbecomes three. So we will go from short todeep. First, he needs to align. You can’t runthis very well from the backfield unless youget the back over behind the tackle. Youcan’t run this play from a split backfield orthe offset I, but he needs to be where hecan get a quick release. This release needsto be an arc that gets a little bit of width. Wecan be no tighter than the inside leg of thetackle and there needs to be a little bend tothe release. It needs to be the same as ifyou were running a draw-trap. We want to

make it look the same to the defender onthat side of the field so he cannot recognizethe difference between the option or acomeback.

Norm spent a minute on hot routes, thatis the term we use to discuss when we arenot going to block somebody, and on thisplay, we do not block the weakside line-backer. Depending on protection, we aregoing to adjust in one or two ways. With theback stretch release, the quarterbackchecks that if the linebacker comes, we willeither turn or we will swing. We plant ourfoot and push hard for two reasons. One,the way people play now, you have to getaway from the zone blitz. If they zone blitzan end to try and bring that weakside line-backer, make an adjustment and turn thatend and push hard to the sidelines and stayaway from the bad guys. Second, we needto be able to get ourselves in a positionwhere we can get rid of the ball quickly,because we don’t want the free safety to beable to disguise and stay high.

The precision between the quarterbackgetting that ball to the backs in a hurry andthe width of the backs is critical. If the backgets the ball before the free safety getsthere, we think he can make a play on thefree safety or on the end. The timing andrecognition of it is critical on the hot ball. Ifwe are attacking a zone, then it is almostlike playground football. We will tell him torelease and he sees people drop, we tellhim to go get the hole with your feet. So, ifthat linebacker drops wide and a cornergoes deep, then the hole is going to beright between the weakside and middlelinebacker. The second we plant our foot,we need to throw the ball so we can exe-cute the play before the defense has anability or has time to close on us andsqueeze that route down.

If you fish hook, it makes it real difficultfor the quarterback. So we want him to runright into the hole, plant his foot and get theball right now. If they do squeeze us, thenwe have the tight end coming over the topin the off curl and we will throw behind theguys that are squeezing. Now if they playus on another kind of zone, let’s say thewidth drops straight, the corner pressesand they have some kind of two deep andthere is a big hole. As we release and thatwidth drops, we say go get the hole. Weteach our players to crouch and becomevery small after they catch the ball so theyare harder to tackle. You can do someother things like turn your protection so

there is no hot guy. The only disadvantageis when you turn protection, you have topeek on the other side to watch out for newhot guys. So there are some things you cando with it by changing your protectionaround. If you have the right kind of backand you do it enough, the players get a lotof confidence and they love to be one-on-one with some grass out there. Usually thedefenders work like crazy to get nine guysaround the ball all the time. Especiallywhen you are running the ball.

When you release and you see man-to-man coverage, you are going up andputting a move on and working it inside oroutside. When they release, they need toget up to that move point, shake, push, puton a definite move and then plant a footand now accelerate and use speed. I tellyoung players to take their time and reallymake a hard push. Now, at the move point,freeze the defender and go inside or out-side. Make the defender run. Now to getthis to where you are comfortable, youhave to be able to release, having in yourmind what you are going to do before youget there. You need to get the quarterbacksin a drill everyday with the runningbacks sothey can learn to recognize quickly andmake precision moves with good timingbetween quarterback and runningback.

Coach Reynolds mentioned that I havebeen at BYU for a little while. I’m the newguy on the staff. This is my 14th season. Ifeel that it has really been a privilege towork with the offensive coaches at BYUand to work with the tight ends. During ourbest years, the tight end was a valuablepart of this offense. We are always trying tofind ways to enhance our offense, as a lotof teams have done. Sometimes you seean empty backfield, five wide receivers inthe game and people dislocate out of thebackfield. Traditionally, for our tight ends tocatch many passes, it creates a bit of aunique scenario in trying to recruit tightends that can fill a different role other thanline up, block a few times and run down thefield and catch a lot of passes.

In recruiting, people ask me, what is yourprofile of a tight end at BYU? I would like torecruit 6-6, 265 pound guys who run 4.5. Ithink everybody in the country would like torecruit guys like that, unfortunately, we’re notable to do that. So, I’d probably settle for 6-5, 260 pound guys who run 4.6 and maybeonly have a 38-inch vertical jump instead of

• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •

Diagram 4

Chris Pella, Tight Ends

a 48-inch vertical jump. Unfortunately, Ihaven’t been able to reach that goal either.Our tight ends range from 6-3 to 6-6, 240-260 pounds. They all have good mobilityand can run. When you have somebodywho is 6-5 or 6-6 out there and you have acorner or a safety over there who is undersix feet tall trying to cover him, we certainlythink that enhances our ability to throw theball down the field. We are also trying to finda tight end that can fit into a four vertical con-cept. He can be one of the four guys runningdown the field trying to put that fourth verti-cal stretch into that secondary.

Tr a d i t i o n a l l y, the fullbacks and tightends run very similar routes and have verystrong crossover ability. If we put our tightends in a Y split-out position, they will gen-erally make most of the catches on theteam. I also think what is very important tounderstand is tight ends cannot be elimi-nated from blocking, protecting and helpingthe running game. I think that the biggestthing that I have to work on as a tight endcoach is trying to find time to make surethese guys know how to block. They knowhow to pass protect. We are going to comeup with a scheme that allows us a chanceto protect our quarterback. That meanskeeping the tight end in protection once ina while.

We run zone plays inside and outside toturn our tight ends into good blockers. Allyou have to do is block him in or block himout and the back will make a cut. Thatmakes you a good blocker. That has takena lot of pressure off of our tight ends onblocking certain run points. The hardestblock for a tight end is to hook an outsidelinebacker. I think with the zone play, wehave changed our aiming point and put azone position where we just want our tightends to knock him backwards and thenblock him wherever he goes.

Traditionally the way we teach blockinghas changed a little bit, but I also think it isa critical element. I am a real leverage typeperson. I think a lot, talk a lot and coach alot about using leverage in blocking. I fig-ured out that leverage is a creative devel-opment that can help you win the battle oftrying to block big people backwards. If youcan get your hands inside the defender’shands and get your body in a position tocontrol his chest, you can control his body.I think the most important thing if you teachblocking is understanding that the guy withhis hands inside wins the battle. I think theother thing that is important for tight ends is

to get off the line of scrimmage. Get your-self in position to get to your route.O b v i o u s l y, people are going to try toreroute you. The number one thing Ibelieve is protecting your chest. So, ourwhole format is to release in a manner witha technique that allows us a chance to getour shoulders past that defender and getourselves into our routes.

Fundamentally, we always emphasizerelease steps which means to open ourhips and get ourselves in position to driveour arms up the field, protect our chest andkeep those linebackers and defensive line-men from getting to our arms or chest andrerouting us. The thing that we do that Ithink is creative is line up our tight ends inthe backfield and put them in short motionand direction in the way we want them togo when the ball is snapped. I think thisgives us a chance to have our tight endmoving or put him in a formation wherethey can’t anticipate where he is going tobe and have somebody waiting for him.Another thing we will do is split him out.Bringing tight ends across formations willgive you different ways for them to get offthe line of scrimmage into those outs.

If the tight end doesn’t block, then theyare going to think pass right away. So wethink it is very important that our tight endshelp sell the run also. We work hard on try-ing to release through people on play-action passes. We want to sell the run first,we run a bootleg where we have two tightends running the first and second level onmisdirection. If they take off down the fieldand the secondaries get a primary key ofpass and they are running with them, thenthat whole play-action fake concept hasbeen wasted.

I have always felt very strongly aboutthe ability to get guys motivated to playhard. I think we have a very narrow windowof opportunity in coaching. Obviously whenwe have practices, that is an opportunity tocoach and make ourselves better. I thinkthe kids have to realize it. This window ofopportunity closes very quickly. I spent a lotof my early career in coaching at UtahState and also played there with MerlinOlson. Merlin was part of the ‘FearsomeFoursome’ with the Los Angeles Rams. Iwas down in Ram Park one day just sittingthere with Merlin and I asked him, “HeyMerlin, what do you contribute your suc-cess to as a football player?” He said, “Ialways had this one philosophy that I wasgoing to play every play as though it was

going to be the last play in my career. It did-n’t matter if it was in practice, the Pro Bowl,the Super Bowl, no matter what the situa-tion was, I was going to take advantage ofthat opportunity.” That has always stuckwith me and it has always been a part of mycoaching philosophy. What happened earli-er today, you will never have that opportu-nity again. What happens tomorrow isanother challenge, but you can’t get to thatuntil you get to tomorrow. I have alwaystried to instill that into my players. Don’tmiss this opportunity because you aren’tgoing to get it again.

I coach the kickers, also. I tell kickers allthe time, once that ball leaves your foot, ithas to leave your mind. You have to getready for the next kick. I tell the tight end, ifyou make a bad block or if you drop a pass,that is history. Just think about the goodone or think about the next one and getready and make yourself visualize that youare going to catch the next one. You aregoing to overcome that little mistake thatyou can do it and try to create a positiveenvironment for them to play and practice.I think it is very important that you take theopportunities in practice and make the kidsthe best that you possibly can.

Tight end is a low level, mid-level routetype of position for us. Certainly that fits theprofile of the standard traditional tight end.We want our tight ends to have a chance tobe successful. The word sale was men-tioned in two formations earlier. Sale is ahole we try to create 15-20 yards deep,where the three-deep and the underneathzones meet. We emphasize to our tightends, get 15 yards down the field beforeyou even start to slow down. We try to sellinto that spot and become a fixture andgive the quarterback a chance to throw toyou in an area that is going to be open. Itchanges a little bit from where the ball is onthe field and those types of things.

Two things that we are concerned aboutare getting enough stretch and that thewide receiver, flanker and split end haveenough speed to force the corner to godeep and a safety to respect that deeppost. That is when things open up for a tightend. We still like to create a scenario wherethat tight end has a chance to catch theball. Obviously if it is just man-for-man, hebecomes a primary receiver in this route. Ifit isn’t a hot ball, then our tight end knowsthat he has to get open. A man route is justa hard cut out. The big thing about teachingman routes is working on staying flat and

• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •

getting separation. As soon as you drift upthe field, if that ball is thrown in any kind ofposition where the defender can comeunderneath, they have a good chance foran interception. As long as you keep yourbody between the ball and the defenderand the quarterback has a chance to throwthat ball in front of you, it is almost impossi-ble to intercept it.

In the zone concept, the quarterbackcan throw the ball wherever he needs tothrow it to get you to an open spot. In thisalignment, the quarterback can throw theball inside. If the safety is inside, he canthrow the ball outside. The halfback optionis exactly the same concept, only it is to theweak side and we bring the tight endacross and create the same scenario, 15-20 yards deep in his sell zone to get open.

I think the other thing that is importantabout tight ends is they can be a factor inblitz control. We just want a little arrowroute involved with a strong safety blitz. Wehave a free safety in a position to try andcover a tight end and we compress ourbody, drop our shoulders, turn up the field,break a tackle and have a chance for a bigplay. That play probably generates moreyards after a catch than any play tight endsget involved with and I think it is a verygood route.

I think the number one reason receiversdrop footballs is because they turn theireyes away from their hands before theycatch the football. You cannot spendenough time teaching kids to watch the ballinto their hands and watch that ball come totheir body. I am a real believer in that andyou can look at just about anybody whodrops a pass and you will see their headturns away from their hands. If you cantrain an individual to be disciplined enoughto always watch their hands, they will neverdrop a pass.

The one thing I have found out aboutfootball is that it is a demanding sport andwhen you coach the offensive line, it iseven more demanding because things arechanging. I remember when we would justline up and we could block five guys.Defenses are really gearing up to comeafter you. People are jumping on top of thequarterback and we aren’t sure where theyare coming from.

Everyone talks about cup protection.For me, cup protection is fine and relativeto what a lot of people are trying to do. You

block the defensive people on the line ofscrimmage in a cup formation to give thequarterback enough room to throw. Myself,I talk in different terms to my kids. I talk interms of mug protection. But when I talkabout a mug protection, it has a bettervalue for what we are trying to get donebecause in this scenario, they are going toclose to the quarterback. In mug protection,our thoughts are to go perpendicular.Everything we do, we want to be perpen-dicular. We want to come straight back. Ourfront three people are going to be the lock-up men in the front to give the quarterbackany opportunity to step forward if he has to.We will make it a four yard variance cominginto the quarterback. So you have fouryards on either side and in this situationthey are going to close it a lot quicker. Wetry to maintain splits. We’ve got a three-footsplit on each side of a player and we hopeour tight end will go anywhere from three tofour feet widening the area that they haveto come through. A lot of people say youcan’t over-split because they will jump peo-ple down inside on you. That is very truebut you readjust or pick up the player witha back. We try to keep guys four yards fromthe quarterback.

The hard part about anything is keepingyour offensive linemen in a squared-upposition. I think the number one thing youhave to teach your offensive linemen isthey have to keep square to the line ofscrimmage. We have to keep those shoul-ders squared, they have to keep those hipssquared, they have to keep those feet com-ing back in the proper setting. That’s noteasy. That is the thing that you have to tryto teach and the thing that we try to do. Ifthe defense jumps down inside, we relockour backs and the guard makes a signal tothe tackle to block outside. The back helpswith the inside pressure. The one thing thatyou always find is you have a real tenden-cy to get beat inside because of the move-ment. You want to come back square sothat if this guy does arc in there, your abili-ty to move inside or outside is made a lot ofeasier for you.

One thing I have found that really helpsour lineman is jumping rope. If you have agreat athlete and he can’t move his feet, hecannot block. Jumping rope teaches goodfootwork and enables players to move theirfeet better. Blocking is a sliding and glidingtechnique. It’s keeping those feet flat on theground. If you move, you have to moveslow. When you move, you want to move

with smoothness and glide. You don’t wantto bounce. Bouncing around will not get itdone. People always ask if he has goodfootwork. If he has big feet, sure he hasgood footwork. The answer is how does hemove on those feet? Which way does hemove? If you look at a young man and hejumping and galloping everywhere, hedoes not have good footwork. The smooth-ness is something you have to have.

We put our athletes in aerobics to addagility and smoothness. The number onething I teach is getting in the proper stance.The important part of three-point stance iswhere the buttocks are. If you want to getout of a stance quickly and move your feetquickly, you cannot let your buttocks dropdown. Your feet won’t move as fast whenyou are sitting on them. Another situationthat you have is what you do to protectyourself in offensive line play. Number one,you have to be in what we call a staggerstance. A stagger stance will put you in aposition to get the job done. The other thingthat you want to prevent young men fromdoing is going forward on pass protection.That is an essential. When the lineman is ina stance, the number one thing I want isthat knee over the toe. I want my foot downand I want my feet flat on the ground. I wantto be on the instep of my back foot or mystagger foot, that way I can push off fromany direction I want to go. The other thing Iwant to do is to have my back straight,shoulders back, hands up in position toblock with bent knees.

We have four nevers that we always talkabout. If you can do all four of these thingsyou will win most of your pass protectionand one-on-one techniques. Number one,never go forward. If you go forward you aregoing to lose the battle. Ninety-nine percentof the time, you are going to end up in afootrace to the quarterback and the defen-sive man is going to win. This is a realmust, never cross your feet. Now, we do goforward on certain individual things. If weare running a 50 protection or a three-stepdrop, our offensive linemen will fire forward.If we run play-action, our linemen will fireforward. But, the main thing you want to dois to prevent them from going forward ondropback protection. The next one is don’tdrop your head. Once you put your headdown, people are going to get behind youand get in between you and the quarter-back. Always keep your body in-betweenthe defender and the quarterback. At leastthat way they don’t get a free run and knock

• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •

Roger French, Offensive Line

the quarterback’s head off, which occasion-ally does happen.

The one that bothers me more thananything in our relationship is talking aboutnever getting beat inside. The reason younever want to get beat inside is that by notgetting beat inside, you are going to forcedefensive men to go the long way to thequarterback. The main thing is, don’t letyour guys get beat inside. Anytime we areeven beat inside, the first thing we try to dois force the man that is beating us inside tocome back outside which buys us time toget the quarterback to throw the football.That is essential. There are a lot of othersthat you can add and one is, don’t let yourkids lean. Sometimes, if a guy takes a lat-eral step or a polished step to the right,and the defender goes there, instead ofcontinuing to move your feet, they start tolean with their hands. So, if you can pre-vent those things in an offensive lineman,you are going to be successful in yourpass protection.

The other thing that we want to try to dois get out of your stance. If you are in astance, you want to get out of it. We will putguys in a two-point stance and we wantthem to move quickly to the snap. It’s got tobe relatively automatic that that left or rightfoot going back, is going back. We talk interms of a power step which is a head onposition step maybe six inches to the insideand six inches to the outside. We havewhat we call a kick step where we aregoing to get our feet quickly back and get

into a position to take down an outsiderusher. The importance of all these steps isthat you get an anchor. You have to anchorthe inside foot. That comes right back tothat knee position. You want to be movingwith your weight always distributed on theinside of the knee. When you move, youare keeping your center of gravity always inthe same place and that is straight downthe middle of you.

At all costs, don’t get into the positionwhere you are leaning out away from thatfoot. That foot has to move and you have tosit that weight right back down betweenthose legs. So what if they change direc-tions. I use a jazz step. You kick back anddon’t just step the toe back in there butdrive it into the ground. You are forcing thedefensive man now to go into the line ofscrimmage. When our kids get into a situa-tion that they can’t take on a speed rusher,we want them to get a pre-kick and get intoa position with that instep and that flat foot.The snap of the ball is the only time that wetake the inside foot out. What we are doingis we have a pre-kick and I want him to getas wide and as deep as he can. Becausethe deeper this foot is, the further this onecan come back. So if he does get a jump onme, or if I can get a jump on him, I am ayard deeper than I originally would be if Itook a kick step.

Here is a great drill for centers. If youcan do this drill, you will be a good center.Number one, the center kicks back and hesets his position. The defender moves to

the outside, he slides over and puncheshim. The next defender crosses behindand the center slides over and puncheshim. You can keep this drill going over ando v e r. It is a great reactionary situation. Yo ucan incorporate as many people in the drillas you need to. Another drill we use iscalled a recoil. Punch and recoil. On thesnap of the ball, the defender is going towalk out and boom, I’m going to set him,he is going to come again, boom, I’m goingto set him. The object of the drill is to hithim in the numbers in the proper position.If you do that, number two, you will want tostop his charge. You go for about 10 yards.The first time you do it, try to keep thatknee over your toe so you won’t go for-ward. One more is called the balance drill.A defensive man puts his hand around al i n e m a n ’s neck and the other hand on hischest. All you are going to do is rock for-ward and back. I’m going to pull on thatneck and then I’m going to push to thechest. It is an excellent drill for balance. Itis a good drill and all you have to do iswatch their feet, watch where their handsare, see that the head is up, see that thefeet are moving properly, that they havethe lead left knee over the left toe or theright toe depending on how they positionand go from there.

I hope you enjoyed it. I hope we gaveyou something you can use and remember.This is how we do it, if you do it anotherway, that is fine, it’s not etched in stone.Thank you.

• Proceedings • 77th AFCA Convention • 2000 •

AFCA Divisions

Division I-A — Institutions that are in NCAADivision I-A

Division I-AA — Institutions that are in NCAADivision I-AA

Division II — Institutions that are in NCAADivision II and the NAIA

Division III — Institutions that are in NCAADivision III

It is important to know the AFCA Division and District in which your school belongs. Followingare the four AFCA Divisions: