How to Defend Triple Option with The 4-2-5 Defense

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[00:00:00] I’m Joe Daniel from JoeDanielFootball.com and D the Football Coaching Podcast. Today we’re going to be taking a look at defending the triple option with the 4-2-5 defense.

[00:00:11] What we’ve got here, real basic 4-2-5 and in the 4-2-5 we’ve got a two back set this is what we’re going to look like as a base way of playing it. We’ve got our force guys here, our alley player here are our spill guys underneath. I’ve got him in a 7. I like to play in a 6. 7, inside shade of the tight end just because a little bit easier look. Against the triple option. The thing about it to me is I’ve got a split back here and a split back inside veer type of play but it doesn’t really matter to me a defensive coach type of option it is. The rules remain the same. A gap B gap players are pretty much on the dive. We’re talking a triple. We’ve got the C gap player on the quarterback and we’ve got the force player on the pitch. So that’s where we’re going to be with our STARTING POINT. Now when you start to do different things like mid-line that change the rules. Speed option that changes the rules. In a base way of playing the option, A gap B gap players – and I don’t talk a lot about dive about about gap fits. E I with our linebackers. But they know where they fit in this and our inside linebackers are in the base way that we play.

[00:01:19] Going to be dive players so one of the things I like about the 4-2-5 Defense is that we very rarely change this unless we get a big option week we’re going to work some different change ups to it because we do want to change the reads for the quarterback. Give him some different tempos of reads give him some different looks so that it’s not him just sitting back there reading it all day long and being easy for him.

[00:01:38] So our B gap player and if we’re going to get An option like this with the double, probably arc here. I’m assuming he’s going to be the the read guy so he might be arcing to the alley. Got a corner out here that I left off. Stalk him.

[00:02:06] There’s a lot of ways to do option and I’m not interested in playing last man the chalk.

[00:02:11] But we’ve got to beat the block. We have our cut off guys here.

[00:02:16] So number one, our A gap players are going to be on the dive. OK. B gap players.

[00:02:24] So this is going to be dive. We have dive here. These guys are all on the dive.

[00:02:40] Our defensive end is going to punch out Y. He’s going to see a down block and he’s going to squeeze now.

[00:02:47] When he squeezes he’s going to be looking for the quarterback. He is the quarterback player. Our strong safety is the pitch man because he is the force player.

[00:03:00] If he comes down to play the quarterback and this team is a good option – Now if you play a bad option team where there is likely to fumble the pitch as anything else then you know heck yeah make the corner here your pitch player. But my corner has got to be a pass first player because I don’t want to get out here and have some play action and that guys run down the field uncovered. That a corner has got to be in pass coverage the strong safety is going to be your force pitch player.

[00:03:24] So he will be your pitch player. I don’t want anybody coming flying up the field. He will be coming to the line of scrimmage and making sure the ball is pitched, he’s on it. We have to the play side two guys on the dive. We know somebody’s got to beat a block. THat’s always the case in football. Next, we have one guy on the quarterback. I don’t like those odds. That’s where our alley player comes into it.

[00:03:27] So he will go and play the pitch. Now I don’t want anybody coming flying off the field so he’s going to be coming to about the line of scrimmage and he’s going to play in that pitch guy and making sure that the ball is pitched he’s on it. So we have to the play side too on the dive. OK. Two guys defending one dieback we know somebody’s got to beat the block. That’s always the case in football. Somebody’s got to be the boss. We’ve got two guys defending the dieback. Next we have one guy on the quarterback. I don’t like those odds so that’s where our alley player comes into it.

[00:04:00] He is going to run quarterback to pitch.

[00:04:06] What we tell him to do since our defensive end is a spill player and we teach with that umbrella principle that that defensive end is going to be attacking the inside half of the quarterback. This is a lot of theory, chalk talk, clinic talk type stuff but he’s attacking the quarterback.

[00:04:19] As we run the alley we’ll end up with the free safety playing from the outside half of the Quarterback and if he sees the pitch then he can run to the pitch. So he’s playing quarterback to pitch so he will actually end up being the outside half of the quarterback and the end will be the inside half of the quarterback.

[00:04:38] And this is again kind of on paper the way it works. It’s not I don’t tell him like don’t you dare tackle the inside of the quarterback if he’s got the ball. The strong safety would be, since he’s the Force guy attacking the outside half of the pitch player and on the pitch the free safety would run and handle the inside half so that we get one and a half on the quarterback and one and a half players on the pitch.

[00:05:03] So that’s how we look over this. And again we’re staying in coverage here. OK stay in coverage our corners are always stay in coverage hey wait till the ball has crossed the line of scrimmage. Guys are young and they’re antsy tell them wait til the ball five yards across the line of scrimmage. You do not want to lose a game this way. Been there. You don’t want to do it.

[00:05:22] Our weak safety is going to be checking counter reverse bootleg. So he’s going to be kind of checking checking and then he will be in pursuit or defensive end on the back side unblocked will be in chase mode.

[00:05:33] If we string this thing out he’s going to run it down from behind. Same with our nose chase mode there. OK. It’s a dive. Two guys on the dive on the play side. One and a half on the quarterback. One and a half on the pitch. coverage. Don’t get beat. Look stupid on some team that runs dive option 90 percent of their snaps. When they finally throw the ball one time you’ve got an uncovered receiver down the field just don’t let that happen. So this is all out of a 4-2-5 defense system if you’re interested in that. You can check it out by going to 425defense.com to see all the 425 defense system has to offer you and also check out JoeDanielFootball.com and the football coaching podcast. For a lot more coaching tips and follow me on Twitter @footballinfo. Thanks for watching this video, hope it gives you football team’s ideas