Frank DiCocco was a frequent contributor to both American Football Monthly and Gridiron Strategies. He primarily wrote about defense, and, more specifically, the 4-2-5 defense. Both a high school and…
Double Screen for the Red Zone
One of our best red zone plays over the past four years has been our double screen. This past season, whenever we got inside the ten-yard line, our players not…
Zone Read with Lead Blockers
For the last decade, the zone read has established itself at every level, even into the NFL. In fact, ESPN the Magazine reported the overall read option runs were called…
Great Boundary Pressure Beater To Your TE
What started as a boundary beater play became a great high percentage, quick pass play to my TE with simple reads for the QB on a three-step drop out of…
Use “The Ball Carnival” to Emphasize Creating & Recovering Turnovers
As the myriad of bowl games across the television screen begin to wind down, it amazes me just how many errant passes are dropped by defenders and how many lost…
The Godfather of the Royals Offense
Roger Gruneisen seemed different from any football coach that I had grown up with. He had long hair and was an expert on rock and roll — the first coach…
Running Veer Option From the Gun, With Special Blocking for Read
I began running the Veer later in my coaching career. I had a QB who was a good fit for the Veer and we were able to get some big…
Single Wide Receiver, Boundary “Read” Concept (With RB)
An often overlooked version of the vertical pass game is the 3 x 1 or 2 x 1 boundary “Read” involving the running back working into the boundary with a single…
Get More Out of Your Zone Scheme with the Fullback Zone Dive
One of my favorite plays from the two-back offense that we ran at the high school level was a fullback zone dive. This was a play that we used to…
Dive Triple Option
This is a triple option play with a passing option. It is very important that the QB makes his decision on who is getting the football very quickly so that…