How to Defend the Spread

By Coach Kip | August 2, 2008

What is the best way to defend the Spread Offense? Athlete to Athlete? I don’t think that is a very effective way to defend the Spread. It seems that there is a lot of talk about matching up athletes to defeat the spread. With a good O coordinator I think it makes it easier for the Offense to exploit mismatches.

We ran the spread for the last two years and it took me a little while to realize that when the defense was trying to play man on my receivers it was to our advantage. I loved it, my guys knew where they were going and most of the time they could beat their man on a digg route or a slant. It is quite easy.

I think that the best way to defend against a spread team is to play a tight zone. What I mean about that is to have maximum coverage by your linebackers at 5-10 yards off the line of scrimmage. At the snap of the ball have them drop into the passing lanes at 5-10 yards depth. Don’t sit but take a good read from there, knock down anything that comes into the zone , but DON’T CHASE. That first level, the linebackers and sometimes corners, have to play very solid discipline pass defense. That first level can make a big difference.

The second key is to send at least one linebacker on a blitz every play, even if you think that it is going to be a run. You will get burned sometimes, but that is the spread, it is designed to burn a defense. You will be able to wear them down. Offenses, especially the linemen, can’t pick up every blitz. Get to the QB a few times early and he will start to think about that pass rush. If your defense can get in the head of the QB you are close to tearing apart the whole offense.

The third key is never let the QB go unaccounted for. Take Tim Tebow at Florida, Vince Young when he was at Texas, or Pat White at West Virginia. If you let them go, they will be able to burn you. You don’t need to spy, but always know what the possibilities are for the QB on every play. They usually have the option to keep the ball and run.

That is it. Three coaching points, I don’t care what defense it is that you run, if you keep these three in mind you will have some success.

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