Coverdale Passing

Looking through the Coverdale books and videos and powerpoints this weekend and basically wrote down every concept he has and looked to see if they could ALL be put in an offense. If you'll notice, in his books he has 11 5 steps 51-59 as well as 50 triangle and 50 Over. For his 3 step 90 series he has another 12 plays: 91-99, 90 Wheel, 90 In/Out and 90 Spacing. When first looking at that I thought, dang, 23 concepts...that seems like a lot. But then I started breaking them down by the reads and a lot of them shared simple reads.

For example: The Hitch/Seam, the Out/Seam, the Curl/Flat, the Slant/Flat, the Stick, the Short, the Hinge, the Flood and the Mesh...all keyed the same thing: the #2/flat defender.

While the Smash, Quick Smash, Stop, Fade/Breakout and the Indy choice route all keyed the movement of the CB.

The 4 verts (both 90 series and 50 series) and the Vertical switch concept key the Safeties and the Dig and the Over key the LB drops.

Triangle is really the only one that doesn't fit into one of the above 4.

Covderdale himself, in Bunch Attack, said there was no way that he would use all of the plays he presented in his book in a season and he basically just wanted to give a solid group to choose from. What I see though is 4 different types of reads that can attack a defense in a multiple amount of ways.

In one of the quick passing game books Coverdale explains how you can cut down on the plays using tags.

So for example you teach Slant and Hitch and then you can tag them to create Out/seam, and short. Coverdale and Robinson are big or keeping the concept and adding formations. What Formations are cheap to learn and teach. Just by moving guys around some you can get what you want without having to carry a different concept into the season.

Coverdale is at Trinity and it appears at least that they do not run a ton of concepts. If you watch his offseason planning DVD it goes into part of what you are talking about. You can get determine which concepts will not fit and which ones you need. That way you are prepared before you even start spring. Also keep in mind that the 90 series can be taught to your feeder program and run by your freshman so it is less teaching for those concepts. They are big on reading 2 and putting him in conflict through formation, motion and run actions.