Defending the Spread

This Thursday's game between Auburn and West Virginia will feature two teams that run the spread offense. West Virginia has employed the spread since 2002, and it shows. They have perhaps the best run-threat spread QB in the country, Pat White. West Virginia's spread offense is diverse, well-organized, and lethal. The Mountaineers have had several years to recruit players uniquely suited to the spread offense. Auburn, using the spread for the first time this year, is still learning the nuances and continuing the transition from a traditional power offense. Auburn's defense should be well prepared for this game because they get to see the spread offense every day at practice. This leads to an interesting question: How do you stop the spread? There are three areas you need to be good at on the defensive side of the ball:

Defensive Team Speed
Excellent Open Field Tacklers
Gap Responsibility and Pursuit Discipline

There are certainly more complex aspects of defensive gameplanning that teams employ to stop the spread offense, but it's really too much to get into whether an odd front is better than an even front, sliding to strength or away from strength, slanting, angling, cover-2, cover-3, combo coverage, etc., is the best approach. I'll leave that up to Paul Rhoads and his defensive assistants. Let's start with these three fundamentals that every team needs in order to stop a spread offense.

1) Defensive Team Speed
It's obvious when you look at the landscape of both the college or high school game that players like Patrick White (West Virginia), Noel Devine (West Virginia), Armanti Edwards (Appalachian State), Terrelle Pryor (Ohio State), and Percy Harvin (Florida) have required defenses to have fast, athletic players to match the speed of these great athletes. When I say "speed," I don't mean 100 meter dash speed per say, but football speed, which is usually an athlete that not only can run fast in a straight line, but can also run fast, stop, then re-start again at a rapid rate. Change of direction speed, the ability to accelerate, decelerate, then re-accelerate at a rapid pace. Is a player born with this? Some are for sure. Can a player work on this type of speed? Absolutely. It's called change of direction training, and such training facilities as The Parisi Speed School and Velocity Training teach it around the country. Parisi calls it "Deceleration Training."

Tommy Tuberville, I think, has been ahead of the curve in this respect for several years. Tuberville has long preferred smaller, faster, linebackers that can quickly cover ground from one sideline to the other. Auburn's linebackers are more the size of a what a traditional safety would be. This focus on speed and athleticism, rather than size and brute strength, has enabled Auburn's defense to match up well with an opposing offense's playmakers. The advantage was certainly obvious in upset wins over Florida in 2006 and 2007.

2) Excellent Open Field Tacklers

The one big thing a spread offense trys to exploit is the need for defenses to be in open space, often with even numbers of offensive and defensive players in a particular section of the field; this takes away the classic "gang tackling" concept that so many defenses preach. It's much harder to gang tackle when you're spread all across the field; isolating areas of the field is what spread offenses are looking for. Working on open field, individual tackling is of the utmost importance for defenses. The ability to break down in the open field, make good contact, and wrap-up as you bring down the offensive player is very important for a team's "2nd level" players (linebackers and lefensive backs).

One very simple part of being a good open field tackler is teaching the defender to have their head up, and eyes open right up to impact (Chris Spielman always refers to this as "see what you hit, and hit what you see"). This may sound simple, but you would be surprised how many players close their eyes right before contact. It's a natural human reaction to close your eyes before any contact, and football is no different, but you need to change that if you want players that are good open field tacklers.

Angles of pursuit are also critical. This is not just the game saving angles of pursuit; the intermediate angles of pursuit, and what to do when you get there (tackle and then strip), are also very important in stopping the spread offense. Players must always take a proper angle and be ready to deliver an open field blow.

3) Gap Responsibility and Pursuit Discipline
The great Denver Broncos teams of the late 90's gave defenses fits with their zone blocking scheme and the ability of Terrell Davis to cut back on over pursuing defenses. In 2008 you're seeing college and high school spread offense zone teams do the same thing to over-aggressive defenses who insist on flying over the top to get the zone hand-off, only to get burned by either the tailback cutting back against the pursuit, or the QB (who's now the best athlete on the team and one of the fastest) tucking it on the zone read and bootlegging the other way. The ability of a defense to be disciplined in gap responsibility and pursuit starts in practice. It needs to be worked on in individual, group, and team settings.

It all starts with confidence in the team that all 11 players believe in each other (i.e., if I do my job then the team will benefit). Don't confuse this with not being an aggressive defense; it just needs to be emphasized to defensive players that the pursuit angle (on any play run away from that player's position) should never pass the ball carriers "inside pocket" or armpit at that player's level. Once the play passes a player's level, they need to fly to the ball, because a cutback at that point is no longer a concern at that player's responsibility level. Now if the ball is coming "play side" (right at the defender), they still need to keep their outside arm free and never give away the corner, believing in teammates that pursue from the backside using the correct angles will be there soon to help out.

One of the best defenses that does all of the above has been South Florida, especially in their games against West Virginia the past two years. USF's defensive staff would be a great group to go visit and clinic with if you need to stop a West Virginia-style, run-dominant, spread offense. Hopefully Coach Tuberville has good contacts with Jim Leavitt in the wake of their 2007 game. Also, defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads, in his previous stint at Pitt, has a lot of experience with West Virginia's spread offense. Most notably, Rhoads' Panthers shut down the West Virginia offense in the regular season finale in 2007.

When watching the Auburn-West Virginia game on Thursday night, look to see if Auburn's defense is making open-field tackles and limiting the cutback plays from West Virginia's offense. These are two major keys if Auburn hopes to come away with a win.