In this third part article previewing Mike Denbrock’s offense, I will describe the two main “flood” zone-killing plays: Sail and Cross. These are basically either a weak side or strong side stress of the defense. These plays seek to overload the defense with too many receivers near the same zones in order to create a conflict and leave a player open. Also in this article is the description of the deep shot play “Yankee” that is particularly effective off of play action.

In part 1, I described an overview of Denbrock’s offense. In part 2, I discussed the Yards-After-Catch (YAC) generating plays of Shallow, Drive and Dagger.

Sail

Sail, which is a strong side flood (receivers moving toward the strong side of the offensive formation), consists of a receiver in the flats, a receiver at an intermediate level and a receiver deep vertically. Sail can be ran off of play action or as a standard drop-back pass.

Against zone coverages the flat/deep are contested by three receivers versus two defenders. The defenders are put into conflict and the quarterback should have a relatively clean decision to make.

In this play LSU motions the tight end across the formation right before the snap. The H runs the flat route while the slot receiver runs the out and the Z has the vertical release. From the snap the Tigers have the Crimson Tide defense out-leveraged and Jayden completes an easy pass to the tight end with plenty of room for Yards After Carry (YAC).

In this play, Mike also designs another pre-snap motion of the tight end creating a new strong side passing strength of the formation. The flat defender has to respect the vertical movement of the slot and is too flat footed to contest the pass by Daniels to the tight end.

Resources: (1), (2).

 

Cross

Cross or Y/H Cross (depending on which slot runs the over route) is a weak-side flooding concept. Cross is an Air Raid offense favorite that has also been adopted by most teams across the NCAA and NFL. It has roots in the BYU offenses of old, adopted and popularized by Mumme and Leach, and the other Coach Kelly. This play is often used by current Notre Dame rival University of Spoiled Children (USC) coach Lincoln Riley. It is a very popular play action play. In part 1, I diagrammed with video a Cross Smash play.

Cross as typically designed has a “Over” crossing route ran toward the weak side passing strength side of the formation, usually by a slot/tight end (but could be ran by a outside receiver). On the weak side of the formation there is some sort of quick game concept, either a smash (#1 hitch and #2 deep vertical) or hitch and slot fade, or #1 outside release and #2 quick out.

Denbrock runs a version of Cross with a double post route and a quick sitting route by the outside receiver on the strong side. This play variant immediately stresses the defense as a deep shot play.

Coach Denbrock with this play dials up a more classical version of the Cross. The weak-side #1 receiver runs a vertical route, the running back runs to the flat and the H runs the over route. Alabama runs a coverage protecting the deep which causes the weak-side outside receiver to modify his route on the fly to a curl. Jayden Daniels had many options on this play, a better thrown ball to the strong-side curl would have resulted in a first down. Perhaps, by looking at the depth the other outside receiver dropped to, it might have been a mistake by the #1 strong side receiver getting too much depth that Jayden didn’t expect. Alternatively, the running back would have had a good opportunity to convert the sticks with a catch and run.

Cross Resources (1), (2).

Yankee

This concept, called Yankee, similar to Cross is a deep shot play often paired with play action. It is a two-man concept with a deep “Over” (crossing) route ran by one slot receiver and a post play by the other slot. It is particularly effective against middle of the field closed defenses such as Cover 1 man or Cover 3 zone because the deep safety is stressed by both a route underneath him and a route attacking him.

Mike ran this concept several times off of play action against Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide defense. This particular play had tremendous success as the safety gets caught up in the Over route’s action and allows the post receiver to run wildly open for a nice touch down.

Yankee Resources (1), (2).