Power-O
By JR4AU on August 3 2009 12:38 PM
The “Power” is a staple running play in most playbooks that employ gap blocking schemes. It’s a tried and true downhill running play that’s been around in football for a very long time. It can be run from a variety of backfield sets, including the spread formation. It’s most traditional look is out of the I formation (the diagram provided), but by tweaking timing and footwork, and using motion to get backs in the right place to make the blocks, it’s effective from many sets. This is the “innovative” side of the “spread offense”. You can line up in 4 wide look, and create a defensive personnel grouping and alignment favorable for running by showing an offensive personnel set and formation that takes defenders out of the box and gives you numbers favorable to run. Or you can use a 2 back shotgun spread set employing one as a traditional fullback, or an H-Back/Tight End type. The variety of personnel groupings and pre-snap looks is what takes this play to the next level for spread teams versus the traditional I formation.
The power blocking is simple, and effective. It’s designed to give the offensive linemen an advantage at the point of attack, which is off tackle, by creating a double team and angle blocking instead of one on one straight ahead base blocking.. The playside blocking rules are simple. They can vary slightly, but generally follow one of these similar schemes: Gap, On, Over, Down; Gap, On, Down (also known as GOOD/GOD blocking), or Gap, Down, Backer. Gap means “Inside gap”. The playside Guard and Tackle’s first rule is “no penetration through your inside gap. Next “On” means what it sounds like, a player lined up anywhere on your pads. Over and/or Backer mean if nobody is in your inside gap or on you, then track to the second level and find a linebacker. Down means the man head up the offensive lineman to your inside. If you look at it and apply these rules, you’ll see how it creates the double team. The play is designed to create a double team on any defensive lineman lined up head up the play side guard to head up on the play side tackle. (In the diagram they are double teaming a 3 technique). Also, you’ll notice in the diagram that playside guard has a primary and secondary assignment. First set up the double team with the tackle, make sure the block is secure, then track to the linebacker level to cut off the linebacker flow. If you have a dominant 3 technique, like say Glen Dorsey former LSU great, they may maintain the doubleteam. If you look at the diagram and draw an imaginary line vertically through the play side tackle up field, the blocking scheme creates a wall to the inside of the offensive tackle on both the line of scrimmage and the linebacker level. The playside tight end tracks to the first linebacker inside. The center blocks “man on, man away”. This takes care of a Nose Tackle, backside one technique, or 2i technique (the 2i, inside shoulder of the guard, is shown in the diagram). The backside guard pulls down the line of scrimmage and cuts up field just past the first defensive lineman past the center. In this case that is the 3 technique. The guard is the lead blocker on the linebacker. The Fullback or H-Back is responsible for kicking out the end man on the line of scrimmage. So another “wall” is created to the outside by the kickout block and the lead block, thus creating a running lane off tackle. In the diagram, on the backside, it shows the tackle tracking the second level, and the backside tight end picking up the defensive end. Run from a non-two tight end set, the left tackle would normally pick up the defensive end. However, some spread teams are also incorporating this into the option read game, and letting that backside defensive end come free and reading him the same way they do on the zone option read. Also, you can probably see how this play becomes particularly effective when running it as “QB Power” a la Tebow. If you have a true run threat QB you can leave your spread set with 4 wide, and use your running back to kick out the end man on the line of scrimmage, and ensure that you only have 6 in the box. This means a one man advantage for the offense, and is the base of how “the spread” run game was conceived with a run threat quarterback in mind.
The “Power” is a staple play in Gus Malzahn’s run game, and really in any power running team’s playbook. In Malzahn’s spread he can give you a variety of pre-snap looks to run this play, and formation the defense out of an eight man box to make it favorable to run the ball effectively. This is the “innovative” part of spread teams that run the ball like Florida, WVU, and now Auburn. This downhill type running is suited perfectly to the types of power running backs that are traditional at Auburn, and should suit Ben Tate quite well. Finally, this is the type play Malzan wants to establish to make his play-action passing game work. If Malzahn can effectively run the ball using his Power, Counter, Trap, and Sweeps, the passing game should also flourish with play-action off of those schemes.
Wanna talk about it? Check out our forums!
Tags: SEC, Auburn, SEC,SEC,GusMalzahn,OffensiveSchemes
Comments
Login above to add a comment. Not a member? Register it's free!