Defensive Coordinators...STOP IT!!!
Running some fancy, unique defense against a Wing-T does not mean success...especially if it really doesn't fit your base scheme!!!
That is something I noticed quite often this past season with Delphos Jefferson. We would get these fancy defenses or modified versions of a base defense. You could see that the kids felt out of position and not comfortable with their reads/responsibilities. They would think too much and make way too many mistakes to be an effective defense. The teams that played us tough were also the ones that stayed in their base defense with minimal adjustments made. Our defense runs our base defense against any Wing-T team on our schedule and did very well against those teams.
So why the hell am I writing about defense and telling them exactly what to do against us as a Wing-T team?
Because deep down, I am just as fanatic about defense as I am about offense. I have been a defensive coach that has helped call and adjust defenses in games for many years. I also am a coach that looks to give people ideas on how to better themselves and their team's success.
With that said, I would like to give a few ideas of what you need to keep in perspective when playing a Wing-T team:
1. Any defense can work against a Wing-T, it just needs to be EXECUTED.
I am not to promote any specific defense, as I have played Wing-T teams with many different defenses and have had success with those defenses. The key to the defense working has always been that the defense was executed to near perfection. Execution is the key to the game of football...scheme doesn't really matter because they all work if they can be executed.
2. Make sure your base defense is flexible and sticks to the KISS method.
A base defense is no good if you have to have a million checks or shifts to adjust to different offenses. You are just shooting yourself in the foot by trying to get kids to learn all that and be able to execute it. I have always found that the simplest answer is usually the best answer when it comes to football. The least amount of checks/shifts/adjustments is going to lead to minimal thinking on the part of your defense. That will lead to execution of the defense if the kids just react and are not frozen by thinking.
The best defense I have ran that fits this description is the 4-3 Cover 4 defense. It is not for everyone because you need to have certain personnel to run it. It is probably the most flexible defense I have ran where we had minimal checks and the defense flows well with changes in the offense. I have run it with 2 different programs, 2 different ways, but had success with both programs. Our kids were able to line up and play ball with minimal thinking about responsibilities or reads.
3. Practice your Wing-T responsibilities/reads during the summer/start of the season.
You cannot expect your guys to just jump into Wing-T week and get it within the week. You need to address what adjustments you would make to a Wing-T team during the summer when 2-a-days are going on. That way when you get to Wing-T week, the kids are familiar with the adjustments and recall them back from previous experience. I do with all kids of different offenses that would require adjustments, like Empty teams, Option teams, and Wing-T teams. Use the time you have in the summer to get the defense install and you can fine tune the adjustments when you get to the week of the game.
4. Realize your defense has weaknesses and find ways to minimize the damage of that weakness.
Every scheme, offensively or defensively, has a weakness. That is the nature of football. Someone will find the chink in the armor and exploit it. Your job is to minimize the effects of that weakness. Make the kids aware of the weakness and coach them up on how the other team will attack you. That will give them confidence in the scheme and they will know what to expect because if the other team is smart, they would attack the weak spot. It minimizes the options of what the other team will run against you and focuses the limited options your guys have to defend.
If you run some fancy defense, the guys are not familiar with the weak spots and now they are running a defense they don't normally run and are not sure how they will be attack or where the weakness is. That will set you up for failure.
5. Realize what the ultimate philosophy of Wing-T is...Conflict and Flexibility.
The Wing-T offense is not just a formation and a set of plays...It is a philosophy. It is about putting the defense in conflict and taking advantage of the conflict. When a team puts in a fancy defense to stop a specific set of plays, all you have done is put yourself in a bad position where the Wing-T team can still attack you somewhere else.
Wing-T teams almost have a set checklist of what they are looking for a defense to do. They always have an answer for some alignment by a defense (talent does not factor into that statement because the Jimmys and Joes discussion trumps that). So when you go into a wacky defense to take away something, you are putting your guys in an unfamiliar defense, unsure of their reads/adjustments, unsure of the weak points, and now can be attacked by some other set of plays that you exploited yourself to.
Just a few things for you DCs to think about when going up against Wing-T.
I also wrote this so that Wing-T guys also think the same way a defensive coach would. I have always felt that to be a great offensive coach, you have to be almost just as good of a defensive coach. If you understand the defense and what they do, then you know where to attack and when.
Just some food for thought....
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