The Idaho Vandals offense has taken a massive jump in efficiency the past two seasons, averaging well over 6 yards per play!
One of the reasons they’ve been able to do so is because of their OC & QBs Coach Luke Schleusner who has implemented the philosophy of teaching concepts and not plays to his offense. What this has done is keep install and learning cheap for his players, while still being very complex for the defense because Idaho can get to the same play from almost any formation.
That’s why today we’re going to talk about one of the Vandals’ most versatile pass concepts, the Y Cross!
Learn all of coach Schleusner’s best concepts that he calls on game day in our latest release: The Idaho Offense – The Complete Series
Idaho’s Y Cross Concept
Shown above are two variations of how Idaho can run their Y Cross concept in different situations. The example on the left is with a play action fake and the right example is a drop back concept with no play fake. The situation is what will dictate which option the Vandals decide to call for.
Today we’re going to focus on the drop back variation.
Idaho’s general philosophy in their drop back game is that they’re going to protect the QB by having a quick throw built into to almost every play as their initial read. If the quick throw is open, the QB can get the ball out fast and if not, they can go through their progression.
Coach Schleusner’s approach to Y Cross comes from Coach Leach. What he’s come to love so much about this play is that they can run tons of variations of it by changing the route to the boundary.
In the examples above, the boundary tag is a simple fade route. To the field side, the #2 receiver has what he calls a shoot route (middle seam) and the outside receiver runs a poke curl.
Because during install Idaho establishes that every time Y Cross is called, the field side always runs the shoot and poke curl, this makes it really easy for them add tags to change the routes into the boundary.
From here, Idaho can mix and match personnel groupings, formations, and tags to present the defense with an endless amount of variations!
This also ensures that the players are able to easily digest different calls on the field because Idaho chooses to run a select group of core concepts (instead of plays), but they dress them up in unique ways.
Learn all of the ways that Coach Luke Schleusner uses concepts to create a dominant offense with The Idaho Offense – The Complete Series.
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