Defending the Double Wing The Double Wing Offense has been around since 1986, but it's

roots go back as far as Football itself. Don Markham premiered this offense in 1972 at LA Baptist HS in Mission Hills. Since then many schools have won numerous C.I.F, County, and State Titles. Eighty percent of California, Oregon, and Washington's rushing and scoring leaders have come from this offense. In 1994 Don Markham led Bloomington High School to a 14-0, C.I.F Title and set the national scoring record with an unheard of 65 point average. The objective of Double Wing teams is to make you cover 10 gaps. When you spread your self out to cover those gaps, they get more people to the ball then you have to defend. This gives them a HUGE advantage at the point of attack. Their base play the "PITCH" must be stopped to be successful. Double Wing creator Don Markham was quote as saying, "I have ran the PITCH play 30 times in a row one game. If they can't stop the PITCH, the game is over." The "PITCH" play is simple in its invention, but overwhelming in its application. If you don't stack the odds in your favor, you will be run over. Double Wing teams run up huge scores against opponents, who either have no idea at what they are facing or too PROUD to realize their own weaknesses against it. One coach was quoted as saying that this offense would not work in Division I. Don Markham took his Colton team to the Big 5 Conference Title game twice with his earlier version of this offense. I compare the Double Wing offense to a chess game. They get so many pawns in the way, my queen and rooks can not be effective. So like in chess, my strategy is to clear the field and let my queen and rooks play against theirs. The PITCH's objective is like coach Vince Lombardi's famous Green Bay Sweep. They want to create a wall by the FB sealing the outside, the TE/OTs double team sealing the inside and the Offside OT/OG/QB wedging through the hole, giving the Wing back an alley to run through. Most times this alley is so big, "you could drive a truck through it". The PITCH play works like this, both Wings line up on the LOS. The QB reads the defensive set and gets under center. At this point the Wings take their place. One Wing sets up as a Unbalanced second TE. At the same time the second Wing sets up as a Wing Back. He takes a quick motion back 5 yards behind the Guard. The QB snaps the ball and pitches a dead, none spinning ball chest to face high at the motioning wing. He then pulls through the point of attack and seal outside, blocking the CB. The Offensive line has foot to foot splits to prevent stunting. The play side TE and OT double team at the point of attack. They are taught to act like Siamese twins joined at the hip. Even though there are no gaps or running lanes they create them with their double team. The unbalanced TE/Wing back gaps down to seal off the LB. The offside OT/OG pull to the POA. The OG responsibility is to seal inside. The Offside OT is to seal up any penetration and help the OG seal inside. The backside TE's job is to seal off backside penetration. The FB's job is to kick out the man responsible for Force. He takes a banana route, keeping a inside relationship to the Force man. Because of this banana technique he cant effectively kick out and never have to read the Force and worry about logging him in. This technique allows him to concentrate fully on kicking out the force and creating the seam for the Wing to run in. The Wing back takes the pitch and reads his pulling OG/OT, many times pushing him through the hole. This adds deception to power of the play. Many times people are there to defend but can not see the ball carrier as he hides behind the pulling lineman. The Wing back has many options as he runs through the holes he can stay on path, kick it outside, or the most dangerous cut back across the grain. This is devastating because most of the pursuit is coming at the POA and do not properly defend the cut back. The five main objectives in stopping the PITCH are: 1. Cover all 10 gaps 2. Stop the overload at the POA

3. Stop the pulling Lineman 4. Stop the cut back 5. Find the ball carrier The only way to properly cover the 10 gaps and be sound in pass coverage is to run a 9 man front with a two deep secondary. To stop the overload at the POA we have our defensive lineman cut the Offensive line. Like trading pawns in chess we clear the board by cutting their line. My DT for your OT, my DE for your FB, etc. By slanting and the pile created from the cutting we hope to stop the backside pulling lineman. Backside pursuit must scrape down the LOS looking for cutback and keep our heads up looking for the ball carrier. Everyone must play responsibility type defense. One mistake will cause a hole and give them a big play. The way we defense the Double Wing is to line up in a 54 defense: 5 down lineman, 4 linebackers, 2 Safeties. The main cog in the defense is the Nose Guard. He might not make one play all night but he is vital to the defense. The NG plays head up on the Center and slants to the play side A gap. We determine play side by motion, best back, or tendencies. The NG can see the quick motion by the wing back with his perennial vision. He rips threw the Center trying to get into the backfield. Depending on their blocking scheme he may come untouched into the backfield. Most likely he will be double with the OG. Minimally he needs to impede the pulling OG/OT. Both DT's will cut at the outside shoulder of the OT. This should cut the double team by the OT and TE. Drive through and cause a pile up. The DT on the pulling side should try and cut the Pulling DT. If he does not get the cut pursue down the LOS looking for cut back. Keep an eye out for the TE blocking down or trying to cut you. The LB to the motioning side should blitz the B gap. If the OG has blocked down on the NG a lane should open up. The LB away from motion should slow scrap, downhill. Both LB's should read the FB. If the FB kicks out the DE, PLB should continue his blitz up field, with WLB scraping, looking for cut back. If the FB pauses or delays both LB's should go at the FB looking for Trap or Reverse. The CB to the motioning side should fill C gap forcing the play outside. The strength of the play is inside so any back running outside is by himself, defeating the purpose of the play. The PCB uses an OLE' technique, like a bull fighter, avoiding all contact. The CB away from motion slow reads and looks for reverse. If no reverse, scrape, looking for a cutback. If reverse comes use the same technique as PCB. The FS to the motioning side reads his TE. If the TE blocks he becomes an alley player filling C gap and contains D gap if the PCB forces the play wide. If he reads pass from the TE he covers the deep jumping a corner route by the TE. FS away from motion slides to center field and reads his TE for pass or run. If he reads reverse he now becomes the fill/contain man to his side. If every one does their responsibility two things should happen. First we have a RB that has no where to go, running into his line. He ends up trying to bounce outside or falls over his own man. Sometimes the RB bounces out to an open space. While this is usually a problem it is not. The RB 's in the double Wing are used to running behind people. They are not open field runners. A usual scenario has our line taking out their line and the CB's end up making the tackle. The Double Wing has many advantages that if left untended will cause the field to tilt in their favor. By using the 54 and evening the odds we are able to compete with this explosive offense. Scouting the Double Wing Team Double Wing Teams everywhere are running up scores, racking up huge rushing gains and embarrassing many opponents who have no idea on how to stop this new, potent offense. Here are some new ideas in scouting the Double Wing Team. Hopefully you will be able to take these new ideas and put them to work within your defensive package. Basic Questions

When scouting a Double Wing Team the first thing you have to take into account is, who is the best running back? Even though the offense is design to be evenly spread between the three backs, most teams tend to have one featured back. The main priority in stopping the double wing is to stop the featured back. Identifying this back is usually easy as he comes into the game with some unheard yardage gained and Touchdowns scored. You have to turn the game into stopping him and worrying about covering the aspects of the double wing later. Its no different from an featured I back or Option QB. He has to be stopped and make the other guys beat you. If the team is pretty evenly spread you still have to play the game as if one of them is the featured back. After going through this scouting check list one of the backs will stand out more then the others. The second most important thing in scouting a double wing team is what is their best play? Typically this is their Toss or Super Power play and is run with their best back. Your entire defense must be positioned to stop that play. That play has to be taken away from their arsenal. You have to be sound in your total defensive package and not put eleven guys on one side but overload your defense with your best players and your best scheme to side where the best play goes. Typically the double wing team is really strong running the Toss or Super Power to one side and they run the Buck sweep or Reverse to the other. This allows you to put your strongest, biggest kids to one side and youre faster, more pursuit type kids to the other. Next you must determine, what is their best pass play? This pass tends to be a play action pass off their best play and usually has the Tight end or Wings running deep routes. Double wing teams usually dont throw the pass unless they see you are committing most of your men to stopping the run. Whatever scheme you run you must keep at least two guys deep or their best pass play will be a huge gainer for them. Most Double Wing Quarterbacks have some of the highest pass completion ratio. This is from the fact it is easy to play catch with a wide receiver that is wide open Even though the pass is not usually an effective weapon for the double wing team, it is an aspect that must be accounted for when preparing to defend the double wing. Finally, what is the best counter play? Double Wing teams have a counter play to their best play. That is the play they will most likely go to when their best play is stopped. Typically it is the reverse play off the Toss or Super Power. The Reverse play is probably the most explosive play in the double wing arsenal. The defense has to have a sound package to hold off the Reverse until everyone can rally back to the ball. Defenders on the reverse side have to string out the reverse play and make it go wide. With all this information, a picture should be developing about how the play calling philosophy of the double wing team. Basically, this should tell you who is getting the ball and where. This is just the beginning in formatting a sound defensive attack versus the double wing. Tendencies The traditional down and distance tendencies usually dont work with a double wing team. The reason being, normal offenses work on a three down pattern to get a first. Most teams if you can get them in a fourth and two or more will opt to punt the ball. Most teams are not consistently going to go for it on 4 down. The double wing team differs because they play four downs to get a first. They will go for it on fourth down almost everytime. They have the philosophy of they can get five yards on every play. A normal defensive situation of fourth and five, the double wing teams pounds out a first down because the defensive team was not prepared for this situation. The coach and players are mentally out of it because they feel like they have done their job (bring on the punt team) allowing the double wing team the mental edge. A few of the tendencies that I have seen from double wing teams are Running Back, Linemen, Right/Left, Field/Boundary, Sideline, and sequence. The Running Back tendency I have picked up on is on 4th down or other crucial downs they run the toss or super power to the same back. If you can scout a opponent and get a percentage ration on how many times aback runs toss or super power to the right side on 4th or crucial downs this will help you in determining what front or blitz to call. One year a double wing team we played ran the toss right 22 out of 23 times for a 96%ratio.This was an easy call on defense.

The Linemen tendency is where they flop the line so one side is always blocking and the other is pulling. This tendency can be a huge advantage. The defense can stack their strongest, biggest guys on their blockers and put faster types on the pullers side. If you use automatic blitzes from the pullers side with your Corners you might even run the play down. Most double wing teams do not flop their lines but some do due to personnel problems. As a defensive coordinator you must look for this easy tendency. The Right /Left tendency is another Personnel type of tendency. Like the flopping linemen tendency the right/left tendency works the same way. One side will block and the other will pull a majority of the time. We played a double wing team that ran almost 98% of their toss or super powers right. This allowed us to stack that side and put the faster guys on the other side. After charting the plays, this tendency will become apparent. The Field/Boundary tendency is do they run the wide or short side of the field. Most double wing teams will fit into a field or boundary type team. This tendency is a little harder to see, but can be huge advantage for the defense. If the double wing team is a field team you can over shift your defense or slant to help with the wide side. There is no need to defend the boundary if they are more inclined to run to the field. There are many reasons a team runs to the field with a wider area for the defense to defend and more running room as the two biggest. The boundary double wing teams like to smash it and cut back to the wide side giving them more room on the cut back. This tendency helps with the overall tendencies that a double wing is giving away. The Sideline tendency is a tendency that will not show up on any normal tendency charts. Do they run the ball to their sideline? A double wing team we played like to run the ball to their sideline especially on crucial downs. The coach liked to see the play develop. He thought if he could see the play it would have a better chance of success instead of the play away from him. This is a huge tendency for the defensive coordinator. The Sequence tendency is the double wing team run plays in a sequence. A team we played always ran Toss or Super Power right on the first play and buck sweep on the second play every half. We looked like a genius at our booster club meeting when we told them to look for those two plays at the beginning of the game. The double wing team is trying to test the defense and those are two great plays to test how the defense is covering them but is a great weapon for the defensive coordinator in his game plan. We used those two plays to set atone by over playing them and creating a loss on both plays .Third down we except a pass or reverse and the beginning of both halfs we have set a tone by making them punt. The sequence tendency can be the greatest assets to a defensive coordinator. Defensive Opponent Another crucial part to scouting a double wing team is to scout the defense they are playing against. There are many crucial tendencies that can be derived from watching how another team defended the double wing. The first part of scouting a defense is to at the double wing-blocking scheme. Double wing teams have many different ways to block defensive fronts. On the scouting sheet I want to determine what defensive front theteam is running. We can determine by this piece of information if the double wing team is running a certain play more then another, based on defensive fronts. The biggest part of the defensive scouting section is where is the Point of Attack? The point of attack will usually determine what blocking scheme they are using no matter the play. The toss, spin, and reverse run at the off tackle position and have the same blocking scheme. If we can determine who is blocking whom we have a better shot at defending the double wing. Other than trap or wedge most double wing teams have these three basic ingredients to most of their plays. There will be a Double Team, a Kick Out block and somebody (usually three) Pulling through the hole. These three techniques gives them an inside and outside wall with lead blockers coming through the hole. The double team block is a two on one block with the inside blacker responsible for any blitz to the inside, this creates the inside wall. The kick out block is usually done by the full back or guard. This creates the outsidewall. Usually the off side guard and tackle with the Quarter back lead the tail back through the hole.

As a defensive coordinator you must learn the basic blocking schemes to your defensive front. This will allow you to figure a way to beat it and give you adequate repetitions in practice. Most practice squads do not give you a game type look when you practice the double wing, so your defense never gets good quality practice versus the double wing offense. The last aspect of the defensive scouting is Coverages. You need to see how the double wing team defeats that coverage's .This will allow you more freedom in secondary support. If the double wing team cannot pass there is no need to cover those areas. We usually do not cover the flats. We allow them the pass completion and rally to the ball to make the tackle. Most of the time the double wing team will not take advantage of this because it is not in the game plan. Defending the DW - Personnel In choosing personnel for defending the Double Wing, the coach must look at a lot of different variables the when choosing a normal defensive team. Many skills of the normal defensive team are over looked for Team skills of sacrifice, team play and each position doing their responsibility. Aggressive is needed, but flow to the ball gang tackling type players usually does not work as smart, do your job types. The personnel needed for Defending the Double Wing needs to be evaluated before you can start to stop this potent offense. Nose Guard The NG needs to be a quick reaction player and is the most vital position in defending the Double Wing. The Double Wing team tends to put their biggest, slowest, worst linemen at the center spot. This is huge advantage in defending the Double Wing team as this mismatch can be exploited. The NG must also be an unselfish, Team player. Many of the NG's techniques will cause disruptions in the Double Wing scheme but will not show any statistics for the NG. Example The best game I saw a NG play against the Double Wing he ended up with 0 tackles but he was voted MVP of the game. The NG rammed the center back, causing three fumbled snaps. He was constantly getting double team from the guard leaving the LB untouched. The LB that game made 18 tackles. His biggest asset was he stopped the backside pulling G/T 8 times and had 4 hits on the QB on their buck sweep. The center was called for holding 4 times as he started to tackle the NG on every play. I have used a 300-pound Division 1 player to a119-pound wrestler at NG. The great thing about the 119-pound wrestler was he was line up across from a 300-pound center. Most of the time you could not see him on the film but he was creating piles and keeping the pulling linemen from getting to the POA. The best NG types are 190 pound quick, fast LB's Defensive Tackle The DT spot has to be an aggressive type. I like the "Rudy" type of undersized player with a huge heart. Many times I have put in a back up who does not play much and will do what you ask 100%.A lot of the times a normal DT wants to pursue and try to make reads but this does not work. The DT position takes an unselfish player who will make the cut and will give up his body for the rest of the team. The DT main goal is to cut his OT every time causing a pile at the POA or stopping his OT from pulling. Either way he has taken away a hole or someone from the Double Wing attack. Example The best game at this position was a guard who did not play defense ever but was very coachable. He cut his DT and crabbed through him every play. He did his job in giving up his body and made 6 tackles in the 4th quarter.Another great game was played by a 175 pound back up who made his cut ever time. His CB to his side had game high 25 tackles. My 300-pound stud that would not cut played worst. He was the best block for the Double Wing team as he was constantly being pushed back on the double team. He was eventually benched for the rest of the game as he told me, "he could not cut every play and had to play normal defense."

Defensive End The DE has to be a kamikaze, contact player. He has to "shorten the neck" of the FB and not get kicked out on the play. The DE must make the play bounce outside so the CB can make the play. He cannot be too overaggressive and crash so hard inside that they run the Toss outside of him. The DE must make huge disruptions on the Toss and Reverse plays. He has to be disciplined and not go up field or he will give a huge lane for the reverse play. Example The best game at this position was our short, squatty 5'5 195 DE. His wrong shouldering to a cut of the FB bounced the play or caused a pile so many times his CB to his side had 25 tackles. Worst game was the same over aggressive kid who started to bite on the misdirection and was getting up field too much. This left a huge lane for the Reverse. He also was crashing so hard inside that the FB logged him in and the backside G/T/QB pulled around him and triple team the CB on the Toss play. Linebacker The LB position needs to have discipline players who will read their keys and not the backfield motion. They have a lot of misdirection and deception to decipher and needs to be smart, heads up players. Quickness and toughness are also needed, as they will take on many blockers. Example The LB's over the years have been pretty consistent in their play. They make their reads and flow to the ball. The worse case was I had two LB's who were reading the backfield flow and were totally lost. The Double Wing team we played ran 22 reverses that game and almost every time my two-LB's run into each other as one read the flow and the other read the reverse. That game the Double Wing team kept the ball the entire 4thquarter on us. Cornerback The CB position needs to be played by your best open field tackler. The CB spot will be in a position to make every tackle as everyone is funneling the ball carrier to the CB position. The CB can be any type of position as long as he can shed blocks and make tackles. This is the glory position as this player averages about 20 tackles against Double Wing teams. Example The best CB I have seen was our leading tackler SS who was a 145-pound wrestler. He made 25 tackles and only missed 2 times in a 1 on 1 situation. His DT and DE to his side were unstoppable in their job of sacrificing themselves for the CB. Many of the tackles the CB had were one on one situation and he made them most of them for no gain or a loss. Worst case was when I had a cover CB plays here and he either missed the tackle or was run over. Most times he was avoiding contact and looked like he was playing two-hand touch. Free Safety The FS needs to be a smart player who can make a tackle one on one like the CB. The FS must be able to come up quick and be a force and contain player but does not get caught in the play action and gives up the home run pass play. Speed or size is not really an issue as heads up or smart play is more desirable. Normal DB's or even displaced LB in the Defending the Double Wing Scheme can man the FS position. Example This position has been pretty consistent for me through the years. I have had weaker cover CB and outside backers play here along with normal safety types. They all have done a good job of making tackles and covering the Play Action. Their pursuit was good and the made many Touchdown saving tackles. The Worst case was a hard-hitting SS who kept coming up and making big hits on the Toss play. Even though he was doing a great job in stopping the Toss he gave up three huge play action passes with two of them going for scores.