Episode 24 – Coaching the Zone Offense with Stan Zweifel

Joe Daniel: Hi, this is Joe Daniel from Football-Defense.com and you’re listening to the Football Coaching Podcast. Our guest today has been extremely successful in his career both on the field and extremely successful in advancing other coaches off the field with over 30 videos and 10 books that have been published through coacheschoice.com and we’re excited to have Stan Zweifel with us to talk about the zone offense today. Thanks for joining us coach.

 

Stan Zweifel: Joe, thank you so much for having me and I’ve followed your website. Our coaches spent some time on that. I really appreciate having the chance to visit with you.

 

Joe Daniel: Thank you very much. That’s nice to hear. First thing I want to talk about is, you are currently at a university of Dubuque. Tell us how you got to that point today in kind of your career path.

 

Stan Zweifel: Joe thanks. Now you all know that this is going to be my 40th year of coaching so this might take up a little bit time. But I started my first as a graduate assistant job at 1974 at my Alma Mater University of Wisconsin River Falls. Coached receivers at a wish bone attack for our legendary coach in Wisconsin Joe, Mike Farley, who was in the Wisconsin Football Coaches Hall of Fame and did an outstanding job at the University of Wisconsin River Falls. As a young coach, he had taken a football program that had won a conference championship at over 20 years. My fresh year we were a one and 9 and we’ve finished off my first year as a GA won in the conference and then he won it 4 consecutive years after that. He really was a major factor in my career.

And then I went to high school coaching for three years and had a chance to join the University of Minnesota at Mankato as it was called then. It is now Minnesota State of Mankato at division 2 school. At a very young age about 27 took their offensive coordinator job state of Minnesota State for a couple of years then became a head football coach at Yankton College, Joe. My second year Yankton College closed.  They actual physically closed. When I took the University of Northern Colorado and had a great 3 years out there and then became a head football coach at the University of Minnesota at most had a 4 year career there.

And then spent most of my career, Joe, at University of Wisconsin Whitewater; went there in 1990 and was there for 16 years. We had great success there and really that’s where I kind of learned the zone offense, which we’ll get into as we move along, and was there for sixteen years and joined a couple of national championship games , I think we won nine conference championships in my sixteen years there and really had a nice run. And when our head coach retired, they decided to go another direction and hired another head coach and I left to go back to Minnesota State Mankato for a year and coordinated their offense assistant head coach and we took at 4 and 16, went to the national playoffs division to a great, just a really nice football team. And then the University of Dubuque opened three years ago and then I got a chance to be reunited with the guy who gave me my first college job, Dan Runkle who is the AD here and took over a program that needed some repair and we just had a really lot of fun here, Joe. Our first year we won 5 on 5, our second year we won 4 on 6, and our last year we won a conference at 9 on 1 and won the first conference championship in 31 years and had unparalleled success offensively.

And one of the things we’re most proud of, Joe, we had four first team academic all-Americans last year; first time at the history of NCAA division 3 football that one team had 4 first team academic all-Americans. We had the national player of the year, our wide receiver Michael Zweifel was the Gagliardi  Trophy winner and then our junior quarterback who threw for 46 touch-downs and 6 interceptions with the national Junior player of the year. So, kind of lot of good things had happened here Joe and you know I always tell guys here that if you stick around in coaching long enough, you’re going to have some great days, you’re going to have not so great days, but I think the key thing is you just keep plugging away and try to get better

 

Joe Daniel: Yeah, it’s an impressive turn-around to, you know that sounds like everywhere that you’ve been, you’ve been able to have success and just from putting in a lot of work, I’m sure. Now the one that I look back to is the time at University of Wisconsin Whitewater . I’ve played division 3 so I’ve always paid attention to the playoffs. We haven’t been in it that much, we made the playoffs one time when we ran with Mt. Union the first round and that was it, we were out. So tell us about what it was like being in that atmosphere of just year in and year out. The expectations must have been incredibly high at UW Whitewater.

 

Stan Zweifel: Joe, that’s a great question. I would tell you, we started at UW Whitewater, our expectation wasn’t whether we’ll end up being in, and I thought we played in and at that time it was called the Wisconsin State University Conference which is now the WIAC. And, Joe, we could argue that it’s the best conference in division 3. I don’t know if it is, or if it isn’t. From top to bottom, it’s an interesting lead, Joe, because as you all know the division 3, most of these are private colleges of limited involvement. In the WIAC in Wisconsin are public institutions that range from the smallest 6000 up to biggest 13000 and we’re talking about an institution of 13000 kids, we’re talking about little bit different resources than maybe a small private college with 2000. So I thought the facilities, the size, the resources and another thing, Joe, that I don’t think you can never underestimate, in my opinion, in division 3 football, in  the state of Wisconsin, we only had one scholarship playing school, that’s UW Madison. So our division 3 schools are very time that we featured, newspapers, TV, chat lines, all those things how people communicate. Then in the state of Wisconsin, because of the size of the schools and only one scholarship playing schools I’ve mentioned, those schools are prominently recognized all fall and in the offseason. So we attracted we thought a lot of division 2 type calibre athletes.  When I first got there, probably the school that was most known Joe was the University of Wisconsin Lacrosse. We had won two national Championships Roger Harring and, boy oh boy Joe, beating all these guys was a really difficult course. My first day is we only beat them twice and lost to them six times.  The two times we beat them and won the conference title and the six times we lost near second or third place. So there’s a lot of competition factor with those guys. One of the things we didn’t like, I didn’t got great facilities and then we really knew the difference in 2 things, Joe, I think that really helped us; No.1, we decided to upgrade our schedule when we play, St. John’s, Hardin-Simmons , Mary Hardin-Baylor, Mt. Union, Mountain Wallace. We want a little bit more in the national trying to find some teams about those teams that you talked about, Joe, that have been year in year out pretty competitive in the NCAA division 3 playoffs. And I don’t think we had great success against, we split with St. John’s, Mount Union beat us twice, Hardin-Simmons beat us twice, but we got the kind of seat where you have to be if you want to play at that level. And I thought what I did is No.1, I thought, Joe, gave our players confidence that they could play in national level, and then No.2, I think in the track of higher quality players.

I think the biggest thing that happened for us at UW Whitewater, Joe, which we’ll get into, you know the University of Wisconsin had been horrible for 15 years. I think they might have won like 11 conference big ten games in 15 years and Barry Alvarez took over in 1990 and he brought in a new staff and one of that new staff is an offensive line coach by the name Bill Callahan who later became the head coach at the Oakland Raiders on awesome University of Nebraska. But he was their all align coach and I struck up kind of a friendship with him and I’ve been an I sweep off tackle iso guy and I used to just drive me crazy because every time a defensive line would move a half of position, all hell would break loose in our scheme, you know. And it just seemed to me that we spent so much time having to block the fronts and schemes and took away really from our guys being able to work technique and play fast.

Well, 1991, they added the zone offense. Coach Callahan got that I think from McNally. Now you’re some other guys to have one in it but since that he, went full-pledge with it. I went up there and probably spent 11 days in spring with those guys and try to get the coach Callahan on a daily basis and on the weekends may be get 4 or 5 hours in.

One intrigued me about the zone, Joe, is it gave you the ability to run the same running play, regardless of the front, regardless of the movements and a lot of your guys to start blocking with great technique and probably even more important than that coach allow those guys to play with great confidence that they don’t have to worry about who cared that they played and even an odd who cared that they were doing full stunts or line movements. It just gave our guys so much confidence and being able to block it. And our first year now, that first year we went to the zone offense, we went 8 and 2, we had a two 2,000 yard right through and a great running back then who was a transfer from Oregon State by the name of Spencer Johnson and things just really got good and I can’t take any of the credit for that, Joe; I learned that from the badgers and we applied it. Probably a watered down version for us because of the division 3, just the lack of tight knit we have with those guys, but it just appeared to be that we’re of track so much more on technique, so much more on playing fast, it had to spend a lot less time on adjusting our scheme to somebody’s front.

 

Joe Daniel: That’s amazing the coaching tree that’s out there that Bill Callahan takes it from Jim McNally. And you learned it from coach Callahan and of course so many coaches have learned the zone offense from you and from your materials in your clinics and personally, it’s amazing. One of the things that you’ve mentioned was at the zone, and I guess just the big point with the zone is that you are able to run that same offense, that same play. You know we have talking inside zone against any front no matter what, doesn’t matter what you see and when your players start to record, how long does it take for your players when you’re first putting it in to really get it?

 

Stan Zweifel: What a great question Joe, I got to tell you this is a funny story, and I was actually *inaudible* offensive lineman that I was just talking here about two days ago. In 1992, we first implemented it full. We had opened up in the University of South Dakota up in the Dome in Vermillion. They were division 2 teams who will have to go to semi-finals that year.  We had 52 rushing attempts for 28 yards. I remember after the game, our head coach had me to see, are you sure that we want to run this zone? And I said, you god dammed right I do. And the next game we rushed for that 257. The thing I thought was so interesting, Joe, was as we learned that and put that in is that you could see the kids get more confident and for me as a coach I didn’t have to spend all my time if ever we’re going to adjust the scheme versus this front and do that versus this front.  It just seemed that we could really, really focus on the things. I say it all the time, when our guys want to do play and our guys wanted to, I would say to our guy, let’s get better at the plays we run and let’s get our players to play better technique, let’s get our players to play a bit faster.  To me, that’s what football really is. You can have, you know, a fast play and beat every damn coverage there is, etcetera, etcetera. But really, I think, the key is to watch your people play fast and be as good at a technique as you can.

I will say this, Joe, and I think reason as we talk about that, when I first started right in the zone, we had two zones, we had an inside zone play which we call 24 and 25, where the tailback would attack his landmark was the inside leg of the play side tackle. We had a post on the tight end side and the split end side. And when we ran to the split end side, Joe, we call it 24 and 25 bob back on line backer. And then we have the hard outside landmark zone which we really became well known for in the 90’s and the early 2000, the State of Wisconsin. That was the hard outside landmark zone that the badgers and the bangles are doing in 91 and 92 while your any point for your tailback was three yards outside the tight end and one yard deep, or you could go into the split end side three yards outside the ghost tight end one yard deep. And that play was that hard play when you get on the edge and really, really run a strong perimeter hand off sweep.

Well that’s what we have been called now, Joe. Probably in the last 8 to 10 years, we have an inside dome play that we call 22 and 23. Its primarily one of our one back offense and we’re doing a lot of work of power zone techniques. Joe, we’re trying to double team along the front and work it off to a second level backer and now in that play we attack the butt of the guard and it’s only an A gap to A gap cut. And then of course what Minnesota made famous, Joe, which I think Gordon Shaw did such a tremendous lot. But we and Gordy coached together at Northern Colorado for a couple of years and he will then become a hell of a lot more famous than I did, let me tell you. He’s a lot more better coach than I was.

But at Minnesota, when they had the great backs, the moronees and those guys, they came up with what they called pin and pull out of their zone. We called it the 28 and 29. Yes, Coach, I know you’re familiar with it and for us now that land mark chases the butt at the tied hand and we’ll pin and pull if could have a tackle, block them down at the guard point, we could have a tackle pull or a center pull, it depends what we get for fun in techniques, and we do scheme that a little bit more than we would in a normal zone play.

But what I really think that what has given us, I think coach, in the old zone play when we first started out, we were attacking the play side B gap and the back side B gap and we’re attacking both weak and strong the D gap but we never had a play that entered in C gap. And so what we really try to do is we moved along and I saw that pin and pull being a way to attack that C gap that we’d never have before and so we’ve been doing pin and pull. Joe, sometimes I look back and see what we’ve been doing and I see, boy, we make such significant changes in points of attack, how we are coming off to fall, and I think that kind of evolution of zone as it moved along, I don’t see a lot of guys, I tell my guys on time I’m like a dinosaur in many ways, Joe. There are very few people who run that hard outside landmark outside zone anymore and I think the reason that is, is there’s a high risk for some wash yard on that play, Coach, and so a lot of guys are trying to still sway from that. We’re not running this much as we used to but we sure still have it in our basket of plays.

 

Joe Daniel: The evolution of the play, it’s not just an inside zone outside zone that a lot of coaches think of. You’ve really evolved this from, I guess some coaches use terms like the inside zone, the tight zone, wide zone, and evolved it to be able to hit anywhere. But still, for the most part, the blocking principle stayed very similar, don’t they, as far as what your offensive lineman is thinking?

 

Stan Zweifel: Joe, absolutely. The concession we made, as you call it tight zone, Joe, that’s what most of the folks when we chat and visited at cornicks or we get a chance to go visit *inaudible*. That tight zone to me, I think, has evolved when seen the eagle look, the 4-2 box. And what you really want to do is allow your running back in your offensive lineman and maybe come off with a little bit of lower shoulder pad level and a little bit more on the gap principles that a lot of folks are running.

I see guys who are running tight zone, Joe, as I know you do. There are a lot of guys there marrying those gap principles, running the 22 and 23 gap where you will double team that front side of the play and then skip pull that back side guy which to me is the next step. But, that inside zone for us, why we did that, Joe, is in our one back, we really struggle at times trying to hold that backside 5-technique and that will backer out of one back, whether you’re on a 2 by 2 or a 3 by 1, that guy would sometimes  full back into the cutback lane.

In our 24 and 25 pull, what we mentioned in first while we’re chasing the inside lane of the inside tackle, we would secure our backside A to guarantee us a cut lane every time we could. And the backs that we recruited were guys that could jump, cut, and change direction. They weren’t necessarily big, physical guys. There were the guys that I thought in division 3 you can find in any high school football offense in America. He’s a damn good athlete, maybe he’s the point guard in the basketball team, center fielder on a baseball team. He’s one of those I call those guys gym latch, you know what I’m talking about, Joe, one of those guys who understand athletics and have some movement skills.

Whilst we started to progress to the one back, that cut became more and more difficult based on the eagle front slot we were facing. So we used to talk about how can we keep the zone principles and maybe tweak this thing a little bit and shorten that cut back lane. So we came up, I got it from some place, Coach I can’t tell you what so much tickled these guys, that was the concession they were making, what that back go more downhill and restrict his cut from A gap to A gap and then do the two double teams, they even fronted point of attack.

Now what happened to us, Joe, damn we started to look for a more hybrid back, maybe a little bit more physical. And I remember the late 90s, there were 3 consecutive years that I had 2 backs, one rush grover a thousand yards and one rush grover 900 and, man, were they different, Coach. One was the jacked up guy, 210, 215, 220, who was a downhill runner; and the other guy was that guy talked about earlier that just had that knack to take the long cut back jump cut and be able to accelerate up.

So we made some concessions to that as we moved along. One of the things, Joe, that we try to stay consistent, why I’ve stayed away from the gap play, is because I think it’s really hard if you start selling zone, to start teaching all the down block and the gap schemes that people are doing and some people are doing dang well, I always find there’s an extent at the practice time doing both.

 

Joe Daniel: I would absolutely agree with that and I do coach our offensive line here and certainly know that we’re not as good gap scheme blockers. We keep some gap scheme in our system. We’re not as good a down blocker as we were once upon a time when we weren’t a zone team. So it’s definitely a sacrifice there.

With the backs, and you talked about some of the different types of backs that you’re looking for, how important is a natural vision for a zone running back. I know a lot of coaches talk about you just have to have a kid who has that vision and other coaches really believe they can teach the read, how important is that vision?

 

Stan Zweifel: Joe, I think that’s just an outstanding question. We used to talk about it all the time. So if you go watch high school and you see that kid who looks like he knows when to make the cut and always looking down the second level, even the third level. In my early years, and I still, we still do this, we really try to teach some kind of anticipation based on the structure of the defense. For example, we’re running our 24 and 25, our chase on the inside lane of the playside tackle, the big cut, if we get a shade in 3, we’re telling our guy all the time, you’re really one you’re going to press and cut behind the 3 and field where the mike linebacker is. So we try to do some drills, you know Joe, that will facilitate that and give that guy that type of knack. But there are guys who just have a feel for about what football is. Hell, Joe, I wish I knew who those guys were before we recruit them all the time. But you do know, you can see that on tape. And I tell guys all the time, it’s kind of common in here, and the previous thing is, it is damn hard to make a guy a jump cut guy if he can’t do it. There are some guys restricted to hips or whatever that is, just genetics can’t do it. So we keep telling our guys all the time, we’d like to find a guy who could run 22 and 23, and a guy who can run 24 and 25. Now, sometimes, it ain’t the same guy.

But I guess along in an explanation, Joe, what you said is exactly right, there are certain guys who just know to have a knack. Boy, give those guys a chance to use that knack. And the other guys that damn only try to cut back or they fall down or they run and bump somebody that they shouldn’t be, have a scheme that allows them to use their strengths too. I guess that would be my comment, Joe, on that part of it.

 

Joe Daniel: So in those years, are you going to have, and everyone’s saw how you make it that special guy, but in a lot of years you’re going to have a different guys who’s going to be primarily running inside, maybe running a 22, 23, while another guy is more likely to be running either 24, 25 or you’re pinning pole type plays.

 

Stan Zweifel: Absolutely. Coach, you’re absolutely correct. Last year, we had Justin Spaulding led the conference in the first team academic all-American rush for 15, 17, and he is a jump cut guy. And then a back-up colleague who rushed for 767 yards and he’s our power guy. And of course, now you know we’re doing some other things because it would be pretty easy just to get a scouting on that part but to break it down to the simplest forms, colleague or never ran 24 and 25 or I’ll see with 22 and 23.

For us, we tried to formation that a little bit and, of course, you try to pocket some of your throw game with that so the people are getting tighter in the box, you can do some things with your throw game. But, yeah Coach, we really are.

In the zone offense, we think that we’re going to carry the ball somewhere between 38 to 50 times our running backs. I don’t know if there’s a running back alive that can do that by himself over a course of 10 or 11 games.

 

Joe Daniel: Mm hmm, that’s a lot of carries, that’s definitely, you’ll going to need a lot of guys to handle that load for sure. Now, let’s talk about up front; are all of these plays working off of the covered and uncovered principles? And I guess we need to kind of briefly talk about what we mean by when we say covered and uncovered and how those principles fit in to these plays.

 

Stan Zweifel: You bet. Joe, one of the things that I always felt that was a big plus about the zone offense. In my first 7 years in the zone offense, I was actually coaching the offensive line. I would tell every young coach that’s going to listen to us, Joe, that if you’re going to be a football coach on the offensive side of the ball sometime in your career, try to be an offensive line coach or learn everything you possibly can about offensive line play. I was a quarterback receiver guy my whole career, I played receiver, and I always say, hell you know, I’ll put this pass player and do this and those guys up front will figure it out, oh my god, when I started coaching those guys I took a little bit perspective of that and I found out how valuable offensive linemen are and how it’s the hardest job, I think, I’ve ever had the hardest job I really love but it was physically demanding, manly demanding, and all the work out, Joe, to put in the offensive line, I am so impressed with good offensive line coaches and I’m so just astounded at the work that they do. Joe, you know, on your side of the ball been going against a team with a good offensive line, boy, that creates a real lot of problems.

But, the point I was trying to make as I got into that, Joe, is when I first started coaching that offensive line, what I felt was really interesting. I could take the tight tackle and move in the left guard if I had to, based on *inaudible* and he could play it because the techniques came off with two base principles on their offensive line play. One is covered; did you cover the point of attack? We’re still teaching the slight drop step that really kind of categorized me as a dinosaur. A lot of guys are doing the leap step now at a 45 degree step. We are still the drop step and we’re covered by 4 to 6 inches trying to work the outside pack, working on that angle. A lot of guys ask me what that angle is and I tell guys all the time, the angle we’re blocking those folks depends on where that kid is aligned. If it is a wider alignment, the angle’s a little bit deeper and wider. If it’s tighter, it’s a little bit more vertical.

And then we’re still teaching, Joe, the bucket step alignment. I’m a firm boner in the bucket step. That, to me, is not taking your shoulders backwards, your shoulders search forward as you take a drop step or somewhere between 8-11 inches in what you’re trying to do is tie him up on your block a second level backer. When I first started doing this stuff, I used to be amazed when I’d watch that an offensive line would make a pretty dang good block on the second level but the back wasn’t there yet.  And by the time the back go there, that second level player, if he’s any worth the assault, as you all know he’s going to get off the block. And we kept thinking about how could we time that when we got in the zone? They were timing it up by the drop step and the bucket step and then rattle into the second level. So we still have the base uncovered principle, bucket step, waddle in the second level, we have the base of your covered take a drop step and try to block the outside tack on the angle.

Now, I will tell you this Joe, what is changed over the 20 years that I’ve coached the zone, is we’re doing a lot more combinations than we ever did before. And I think the reason for that is I think everybody believes I’m the defensive side of the ball. You can penetrate; you can cut yet the zone offense on real big props. We used to on that 24 and 25 play, that inside outside zone if you want to call that, we’re chasing the play side a little bit of the tackle, we used to think that’s the best thing for us to facilitate and cut. If you can secure backside, you can let guys over penetrated and cut behind it, but a lot of folks now are trying to get great penetration by the front four or jet their outside guys and force you back the inside zone.

We are doing more combination blocks than we ever did before in our zone and it’s still based on the covered and uncovered principle. But in the 24 and 25, Joe, we used to single block point of attack a lot and we wouldn’t care if the kid got beat outside and got penetration because we cut behind it. But, 22 and 23, and of course 28 and 29, the edge to the pin and pull, we don’t want penetration so we are doing a little bit more combination blocks.

 

Joe Daniel: And that’s definitely one of the things that we’ve seen help against zone teams and especially tack with the cut back, and with an even front, you can have a guy really just be a penetrator against a zone and you take away some cut back options. So you’d have to adjust to more combo blocking to prevent that penetration.

 

Stan Zweifel: Yes. And you know, Joe, I’ll say this to you, I watch some of the really good teams running the ball in college. And I watch so much D3 film and I watch so much D2 because I think a lot of times at the D1 level, I watch it but boy those guys are marvellous, marvellous. I don’t know if I have those folks but I see a lot of guys on 3 and 2 that if you secure the first level, you have a good enough back, he can sometimes make an unblock player at the second level miss. Now, we’re not trying to unblock that second level player but there are times that you can secure that low level. Sometimes, your back can do a lot of good things if you have an outstanding back. God, I wish I had an outstanding back every year and great offensive linemen, you know what I mean. That’s not really what happens.

But the great thing about zone, Joe, is what it carried over from year to year. We’re getting ready for fall camp just like you are. We’ll bring him in the 11^th. In our install, we’re going to install 8 plays in the first ten practices. I go back and look at my step 3 zone, oh my god in heaven, I was installing 6 plays by against, you know, 6 different fronts end up being 36 different blocking schemes. So we’re able to move, I think, faster. I think we’re able to allow those guys to be able to move faster because they’re not really about scheme.

 

Joe Daniel: Now, let’s talk also about the other bot that you have to get with the zone which is on the back side. Are you running some one back as well? How are you handling that back side end, how do you when you’re using the back to handle him, what type of teaching principles do you use with him and what other ways are you doing it?

 

Stan Zweifel: Joe, that’s a great question because this, I think , has become maybe one of the major questions about what do you do on the back side edge? In our two back, Joe, we have always shifted. And a shift, for us, was the split side tackle take the inside portion of the 5 technique off as you move to the second level and you get the back and the full back for lack of a better  turn, we kind of do like a J block and turn him out. Well, people are playing that on the edge a hell of a lot different than they always did. So we have two ways to block that; we’ve got a minute call where the split side tackle stays on that 5 technique and just like an isolation block, you know the play’s going away, the full back will work up into the second level. That’s how we handle in two back. But, you know Joe, when you’re getting the one back, oh baby, can’t do that anymore, there’s not a back that helped. The two ways I see people do it, and I’ll tell you how we do it, the two ways I see people do it is do the shift and have the quarterback’s boot fake hold that 5 technique or whoever that stack backer is, or you can do it while you keep the split side tackle on the 5 technique and you’ve got to move out that unblocked full player, he’s going to be unblocking, you can’t cut it back. Well, we do 2 things, Joe, that we do; we do it based on game plan and how you’re playing us. We will actually shift the 5 technique just like there’s a full back in the game and we’ll go ahead and shift that tackle off to that full back player and then hope that we hold the 5 technique late with the boot or naked action on the back side. And then, also, we’ll do a play call and we will man that 5 technique with our tackle that we’ll give a call that keeps our back from never cutting back. Joe, that’s one of the reasons that we got into that 22 and 23 because we said when we call 22 and 23, you could cut it back, but only from A gap to A gap. So it’s kind of a way to solve that back side fold issue. Don’t let your back take it back there. And then of course, you know, guys who do an orbit motion, bringing that plank or back and trying to hold them with that.

The zone read, in my opinion, really gave us the first answer where they try to unblock that 5 technique, work with full zone principles and hold the 5 technique with the quarterback, kind of like a nape at the guys off of an option zone read. So, I see guys that’s really fascinated me, Joe.  As I look at all the evolution of what they’re doing to the back side hole. So there’s orbit motion, there’s zone read, you can shift it, you can stay on, you can go full inside like a quarterback hold it on naked. And my opinion is, the more of those things you can do, the better by just simply either, but we have an orbit motion played out of one back, we have an orbit motion play action pass, we will do zone read but god damn will dinosaur that I am, I just always like to think that my tail back’s better than my quarterback running the ball. But, Joe, that might not be the right answer. In 2012, I see so many offenses highlighting that quarterback whether it’s zone read or the *inaudible* in my opinion started with the zone polar, the zone counter, the quarterback polar, the quarterback counter, I mean, there’s some really cool things going on with quarterback run game.

 

Joe Daniel: Yeah, the quarterback is certainly becoming much more of a threat in offenses all over the country. How much has it changed? When I first started learning inside zone, you just kick out the back side end. But 4-3 defenses and the principles, of course, carry over to a lot of places and even when you get into your slanting 3-4, I’d like to ask you about that too when you get a slanting 3-4 or 3-3. When you’ve got that back side end crashing so hard, most full back aren’t going to be able to just get in there and dig him out, are they?

 

Stan Zweifel: Absolutely right, that’s why we came up with that man and call. We had anything that we thought the 5 technique was just making all hell break loose. We just keep the tackle, we just tell that tackle, Joe, he had three way going, we still teach him the same way how to block that 5 technique, pass pro influence him once, tighten your landmark which would just become off a million miles an hour and take this inside number, and we’d high wall it, Joe, we’d actually turn our ass back into the center and just high wall it. Now, the high wall will prevent the tail back from cutting back so we would high wall in 22 and 23 and we got the kind of technique you’re talking  about where that outside player is just giving us hell. And so, I think what is important as we talk, Joe, that if you’re going to do a high wall or you’re going to tighten that landmark, you make sure that your run game corresponds with not having some kind of cut backs scheme in it that would back pass the weak side B gap.

 

Joe Daniel: As you’ve gone on and been running this offense and so many coaches have learned it and started running it and many of them learned it from you, have you been able to find offensive linemen who already understand the zone principles more often?

 

Stan Zweifel: Joe, that’s a tremendous question. I can tell you’re a football coach, my friend. I say this all the time, when I first started coaching offensive line in the early 90s, there wasn’t a freaking guy that didn’t come out flat back, *Doc Mistrem who I think is the greatest line coach that ever lived, with the flat back, here we come. Now, when I recruit offensive linemen, even in the late 90s near 2000, there are a lot of folks that are some formal fashioned doing some zone principles. I’m not sure it’s always on the front side of their offenses, still a lot of gap folks coming out, the low shoulder pad level and flat back. But on the back side, as I watch wing-Ts, as I watch I teams, and even in my watch, wishbone teams are the back side, there are a lot of zone principles being used. And I think that really has enhanced the offensive line play in the zone offense. Without a doubt, Joe, I think it might be one of the most significant differences. Then I’ll tell you this, I’m still an old quarterback guy that launch the quarterback underneath the center play quarterback, oh my god, it’s the prolific play of the quarterback carrying the ball change that position for me and recruit it. It is like trying to find a needle in the haystack now, trying to find the quarterback that gets under center and he’s a drop back guy; that guy’s almost extinct.

And then, Joe, can I mention this because I’m thinking as I’m talk to you, one of the reasons we went to more one back zone over the course of the years is that fullback in a lot of offenses kind of disappeared. It was almost like you’d have to take a linebacker that maybe wasn’t good enough to play linebacker or a short nose guard or an undersized tackle and you’d have to put in it fullback but you know, Joe, that’s a learning curve blocking its space.

And the other position that we see that’s going the way of the fullback and the drop back quarterback is tight end. At our level, from the Midwest here, we’re having a very different call time finding that tight end. I don’t know if they’re playing tackle, if they’re son of the guns have just disappeared and become lean wide outs. I don’t about the, you know, just so many four wide receiver sets and so many nine tight end formations. That position has become very difficult for us to recruit.

The one good news for us is, Joe, hard to recruit tailbacks, when tailbacks see what we’re doing in our offense, how many times the tailback’s carrying the ball, and how many tailbacks are carrying the ball. That’s really been a good position for us to recruit.

 

Joe Daniel: We’re an offense who runs very similar to the same types of things that you’re doing. We have a tight end in the offense, we do run our shot gun but we do got a two back or we actually have a pistol now. But the other day, we asked our quarterback  , and I guess we put in an I package, and forgot about the fact that we had taken a kid who never played center before and turned him into a center and taught him to shot gun snap, and he happened to be in there and we realized we had never taught that kid how to snap under center and he’s been snapping all summer. So we had to call him back out and teach him.

 

Stan Zweifel: Actually, I don’t think that’s unusual. How many times do you see guys underneath the center anymore? NFL is the only place I ever see it. That kid will *inaudible*. It’s just really interesting to me the evolution of football. And what’s so cool about football is how many guys in other sports are doing what now are doing right now, Joe; talking scheme, talking football? It is the greatest sharing of knowledge in our country.

 

Joe Daniel: Coach, I’m sure we could do it all day. I want to let you get back to work. I know you’ve certainly, you’ve got it put in a ton of work because you’ve has a ton of success and, again, 30 videos, 10 books, just really helping out not only your players and staff to learn football and to have success but also coaches all over the country to learn it and have success. I know I was not the easiest place to find zone offenses and drop back quarterbacks. I’ve been out there for a year, definitely seeing player wing-T.

 

Stan Zwefiel: Honest to god, I’m in a couple of Hall of Fames and I’ve had some success. But you know what, my most proud fact that I have, and I tell this all the time, I have over a 110 guys who’ve played for me that our out coaching. Every Sunday and Monday morning, I probably have 28 to 30 calls from high school coaches from all over the country where we talk about, hey what did you see this weekend and I learn from everybody, I think that’s one of the greatest things about football. But that’s what I’m most proud of, my involvement. I think the greatest team sport that was ever invented, I don’t know how anything could do better than football as a team sport, it’s the greatest sport ever invented.

 

Joe Daniel: Absolutely agree 100%. And again, 30 videos, 10 books at coacheschoice.com, you can learn, we’ve got everything from, and I was looking through because I’ve seen the inside zone and the zone offense stuff but, man, you’ve got a lot of coaching quarterbacks, game planning, pass protection, pretty much everything under the sun on the offensive side of the ball, don’t you?

 

Stan Zweifel: Thanks, Joe, it’s really been fun doing that. Joe, it’s been a lot of fun because it initiates on self-learning thing and then anytime you can share anything on football, I just really feel it’s part of, almost every football coach’s part on getting back to the players, getting back to the other football coaches, I think that’s an important part of coaching.

 

Joe Daniel: We certainly appreciate you doing that for us, Coach. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Football Coaching Podcast. We could this for another 6 hours, I’ve no doubt.

 

Stan Zweifel: Hey, Joe, you have great success yourself. I really appreciate you giving me an hour, involve me in this, and best of luck to all football coaches out there.

 

Joe Daniel: Goodluck to you this season as well, Coach. Thank you very much.

 

Stan Zweifel: Thanks, Joe.

 

Joe Daniel: Thanks for listening to the Football Coaching Podcast. Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes to get the latest episodes and leave a review for us as well. You can find out more at FootballCoachingPodcast.com.