The Role of the Screen Game in Explosive Offense
In today's fast-paced and competitive world of football, having a difficult to defend offensive strategy is crucial for success. At the 3rd Annual Lauren’s First & Goal Clinic, Tiffin University Head Coach Cris
Reisert shared insight on building a powerful offensive strategy
tailored to your team's unique strengths and goals.
The Foundation of a Winning Offensive Strategy
Before diving into the details of a successful offensive strategy,
it's important to establish the foundation of your team's offense.
Coach Reisert builds this foundation on four main principles:
1.
Simplicity: Your offensive strategy should be simple and easy for your
players to understand. This allows them to focus on executing plays
without overthinking or getting confused.
2. Speed: Playing
with speed gives your team an edge and puts added pressure on the
defense. It's important to communicate and execute plays quickly to wear
down your opponents.
3. Physicality: Encourage your
players to be aggressive and make mistakes without fear of failure. This
mentality allows them to play without inhibition and attack with more
intensity.
4. Explosiveness: Remember that it's the players
who make the plays, not the plays themselves. Focus on putting your
best players in positions where they can make explosive plays and create
opportunities for success.
The Importance of a Layered Approach
A
layered approach to offense means seamlessly integrating runs, RPOs
(run-pass options), screens, and passes into your offensive schemes.
This approach creates more opportunities for success on the field by
forcing the defense to defend multiple aspects of your offense at once.
The best offenses often look like they're running the same play
repeatedly until they catch the defense off guard with a different play.
Incorporating Up-Tempo, Space-Driven, and Multiple Offensive Schemes
When
building your offensive strategy, it's important to be up-tempo,
space-driven, and multiple in your offensive schemes. This means playing
with speed, forcing the defense to defend the entire field, and being
versatile in your play-calling. By doing this, you can create more
opportunities for big plays and maintain control of the game. For the
Dragons, the screen game fills a major roll in accomplishing this.
The Crucial Role of the Screen Game
The
screen game is an essential part of a winning offensive strategy. By
incorporating screens into your offensive schemes, you can create
high-percentage situations where your best players can make plays in
space. Additionally, a strong screen game can help increase your team's
passing completion percentage, which is vital for offensive success.
Let’s take a look at two of the screens which Coach Reisert shared in his clinic.
The 2-Count Screen
There
is a lot of grayness in screens which makes it challenging to coach.
Coach Reisert believes in allowing players to get to a spot and catch
the ball and go and create. They drill these often to help players
understand assignment but every player has to get that feel of doing
their job in space including the offensive line. Here is an example of
their 2-Count Screen. (The video is in the link below.)
Watch here
The 1-Count Screen
The one
count screen is more for the tunnel screen off of the run game. He
shows how they use the GT counter to draw defenders away from the screen
and run the tunnel into space that is created.
Allowing Your Team's Identity to Grow Organically
Lastly,
it's essential to allow your team's identity to grow organically. This
means not forcing an offensive identity on your team, but rather letting
it develop based on your players' strengths and the specific plays that
work best for them. By allowing your team's identity to grow
organically, you can create a more effective and cohesive offensive
strategy.
