Zone

Who am I and why would you care? These are the first questions that I always ask when looking over other peoples blogs.

As you can tell by the title, I am Coach Roth.  I have been an assistant coach at Lakes High School for the past 5 seasons. My goal is to provide other coaches little nuggets that will help. If I can impart one nugget to one person, than this blog has done its job (even if it is me who finds the nugget.) Because really that's what I like about other peoples blogs as well.

SO.....
I have had the privilege to coach in an offense the last 5 years that holds very true to my core beliefs...spread them out, play fast, be as wide open as you can, and when in doubt back it up with a mentality that says 'I will physically dominate you.'

One of the keys to this has been the implementation of a zone blocking scheme. This allows us to accomplish two major factors in the above: spread you out and have a physical mentality.


The basic tenants of zone blocking are these: 1) Each offensive lineman is responsible for the playside zone 2) The defense moves, so how do counter act that? 3) We have five offensive lineman, it is therefore our job to block five defenders.

Here is a diagram of Zone Left.

Each player will step to the left and block a player with in that zone.

So what about rules? Most (if not all) O-line coaches will go on and on about rules. I, however, prefer to think of it as a framework, more like an "If, Than," statement. I want my players to have freedom, with in that framework, to figure out how best to accomplish the result I desire.. For us, that process will start with a question: "Am I covered by a defender, or am I uncovered by a defender?"

Here is a video of zone.

Versus a 40 front:

 

 

Here are some cut-ups of Oregon running the zone play.

Covered/Uncovered framework coming.....