Last Thursday, we began looking at the zone blitz, and how it is used to effectively bring pressure and shut down the passing game. Today, we'll look at how it can be an effective scheme to defend the running game, too.

As we explained before, the first thing you need to teach in the zone blitz is the secondary coverages; for the purposes of our discussion, we're looking at Cover 3/3 Under zone. It is important that the secondary knows who the wall-to-flat player for the field, hook-to-free player, and the wall-to-flat player for the boundary are in every coverage. To make this discussion easier, we have renamed those short underneath zones Abel, Baker, and Charlie. Abel is wall-to-flat to the field, Baker is hook-to-free, and Charlie is wall-to-flat for the boundary.

Underneath Zones Named

For our look at run defense in the zone blitz, we're going to look at Zorro coverage. Mark Snyder, formerly the head coach at Marshall, now the defensive coordinator at South Florida, uses this coverage in his zone blitz scheme. In Zorro, the SOLB takes Abel, the MILB takes Baker, and the FS drops to Charlie. Notice how they all come up and show blitz before taking their drops; this is an important part of the illusion of the zone blitz, that the house is coming on the blitz, and then everyone takes their drop. The Strong Safety drops to the deep middle third, and both cornerbacks take their drops to the deep thirds.

Zorro Coverage

Once you have the secondary coverage down, the linebacker coach and defensive line coach can get together and let their imaginations run wild with blitzes, twists, and stunts. Let's look at a strongside stunt with a weakside blitz in Zorro coverage:

Strongside Stunt With Zorro Coverage

The Nose Guard and Strongside End stunt, with the Nose looping to the strongside C gap, and the End coming under to the strong A gap. This is called a Ned stunt, because it involves the Nose and End. On the weakside, the WILB, Weak DE, and WOLB all come on the blitz, bringing backside pressure. This is an effective blitz and stunt combination for any teams that like to run Counter to the weakside; the SOLB drop to Abel also prevents teams from releasing their tight end for the play-action passing game off of Counter.

If you face a team that likes to run Power a lot from the pro-set (I think we'll see this from texas this year), you change the LB coverage responsibilities, and switch the blitz and stunt side.

Zorro Coverage With End Stunt

The MILB and WILB have switched blitz and zone responsibilities, with Will now dropping to cover Abel, and Mike blitzing the strongside C-gap. The NG and SDE does an End stunt, with the DE looping underneath the NG to the A-gap on the stunt, while the NG goes over to the B-gap. On Power, the backside OG usually pulls, so the WDE will stunt inside and follow in his hip pocket, blowing up the play from the backside. The WOLB blitzes through the backside B-gap and plays contain and watches for any misdirection. There is a chance the MILB will get caught by the lead block from the FB playside; when that happens, you have to tell him he needs to be a football player, keep leverage, outside arm free, and stuff the TB.

Here is the same type of backside blitz, but with Magic coverage, and the MILB and NG combining on a twist.

Magic Coverage With M/N Twist

The SDE takes Abel, SS takes Baker, and WILB takes Charlie, so both OLBs, your WDE, and NG are all free to pursue the football inside-out. The nice thing about the secondary coverages in a zone blitz is they give you a second level of containment in run defense, because defenders are playing the ball and not the receivers.