A great run game starts up front, but a big part of that includes great play action pass concepts that give you the ability to fake the run and pass protect so the quarterback has time to take a shot downfield.
Ferris State has one of the most unique and exciting offenses in college football today, and it’s one of the biggest reasons they won the National Championship in Division 2 this season.
This is taken directly from: Speed In Space – The Ferris State Offense: The Complete Series
Play Action Pass Concepts – Unbalanced Quads
In this game, the field was totally covered in snow, so it was tough to tell who was on and who was off if you’re on defense, but this play shows how Ferris State uses the jet package to set up their vertical pass game. The motion sets off a big alarm for the secondary, and the strong safety comes down hard to take away the threat of the jet sweep. Meanwhile the backside corner doesn’t chase the motion all the way across.
The thing that’s particularly challenging for the defense here is that Ferris State lines up in a clear empty set, which causes the defense to go through their predetermined empty check, but then at the last moment, they realize that it’s also an unbalanced check, so they have to make the appropriate call and change just before the snap. Combine that with the threat of the motion and you’re asking the defense to do a lot of thinking and communication in very tough conditions.
Add the threat of the vertical pass off of that action, and it’s almost unfair to ask the defense to cover this play.
This play was drawn up after Ferris State had played this same team earlier in the year and run a simple jet sweep out of that same formation. So what do they do this time? Throw a vertical shot off of it. It’s not a pure progression that the quarterback goes through here, it’s a one-man read, throwing to one of their best players at the #4 receiver to the quads side on the vertical, and he pops wide open here.
In Coach Parker’s words, they believed the defense would be just as worried about some kind of quarterback run scheme back away from the jet as the jet itself, and the tough winter conditions made it easier to disguise their intentions to throw the ball down the field.
Get everything you need to install and run a championship-caliber offense with Speed In Space – The Ferris State Offense: The Complete Series
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