5 Extra Man Offense Looks 👀

Happy Sunday, Coach.

Welcome back to FCL’s Coaches Corner. Our quote of the day is from James Franklin, the head coach of Penn State football for 12 seasons and now head coach of Virginia Tech.

Let’s rock,

Matt Dunn & Deemer Class

(Missed the last Coaches Corner? Catch up here.)

Today’s Quick Links for Coaches:

Every offensive coordinator knows the deal. We’re in the back half the season… “need some new EMO looks, coach”.

All coaches are thieves. Drills, concepts, and especially: EMO looks.

We’re just here to make your job a bit easier 🤝.

Enjoy these 5 EMO looks from NCAA men’s offenses. We’re also linking a playlist of these full plays here for your convenience.

Duke begins this set in a 2-4 set. All they do is run a typical wheel action on one side, swing the ball and do it again.

The wrinkle comes when Dyson Williams decides to cut back down to the pipe instead of wheeling up to the top of their formation.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that Brennan O’Neill is a known threat from the perimeter.

Here Duke is putting a ton of pressure on BU to make a decision on who to leave open. Every player on Duke is in a scoring position when the ball is top center.

What starts as a simple wheel, and finishes with an exchange becomes a deadly combo.

Notre Dame here sits in a 3-3 for the entire possession. They run a total of three shallow cuts and one exchange.

Notice how their crease player has not been active at all during this possession. I tend to think that this is intentional.

The shallow cuts are occupying the perimeter defenders.

They are lulling the defense to sleep.

When the ball swings back to the starting point and it seems they are going to do the same thing again… what happens?

A simple backside exchange occupies the low defender leaving a wide open space to catch and finish for Notre Dame.

Penn begins this set in a 2-3-1 and transitions to a 1-4-1.

With two players on the crease and one at X, this puts stress on the 5 man rotation that Dartmouth is running.

Look how much attention the X player draws when he simply pushes the pipe.

The crease players have an important role here too. One is in a dangerous location on the back pipe, and the other is cutting straight to the ball.

They both demand attention.

The combination of those three players gets Dartmouth to commit 4 players to 3, something defenses never want to do.

Maryland runs a beautiful set here. It is a simple repeatable motion that commands attention on the ball side.

They put a ton of pressure on Michigan to not only cover the ball side adjacent players, but also the crease.

This motion can be run on both sides in a cyclical nature, but what I love most about this is the spacing.

No matter how you slice it, Michigan must work extremely hard to cover this.

If you commit four players to the ball side, the backside split is very big.

If you commit 3 players to the ball side, Maryland must only step into gaps and move the ball quickly to force rotations.

Of course lets not undervalue the skill of being able to snipe a corner like this either!

One player is off screen here, but UNC starts in 2-2-2 with every player above GLE. They quickly rotate into a 1-4-1 here.

I think what makes this seal so deceptive is that the Syracuse SSDM watches the second UNC crease player leave, but does not see the new one enter.

If Syracuse is communicating about the new cutter coming in, it seems like the SSDM doesn’t hear it.

And let’s face it, the Dome is not a quiet place.

On top of that, UNC does not cut very hard to the ball.

Quick movements typically catch a defender’s eye and put them on high alert. Slow movements can sometimes fly under the radar.

UNC does not hesitate either. They make the pass immediately and catch it loaded.

Syracuse fell asleep for just long enough to give up an easy goal, and you know they want that one back.

Sometimes, the sneaky seal is all it takes.

We hope you enjoyed this weeks coaches corner. We wanted to show some great plays that you can take with you to your team, or to show your players.

Thanks for stopping by the office. If you are looking for a deeper dive, we have posted numerous videos on our Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube channels.

Stay tuned for more content and email us at [email protected] with any questions and let us know your thoughts.

This week’s freebie is from our webinar with Coach Mikey Thompson. Coach Thompson delivered a webinar centered around zone offense.

It is an extremely insightful webinar where Coach Thompson dives into everything from how to get teams to rotate, principles, to ways to drill these skills.

We wanted to highlight a segment where Coach Thompson breaks down a number system he uses to create a common language between his staff and players!

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