Penn State's old Inside Zone Run Game vs. Yurcich's Wide Zone

[CaliLION79]

FTB Film Study - Inside Zone vs. Wide Zone

Glad to see this channel is back for spring ball. Always enjoy these popping up in my YT feed. Question after watching this for any coaches/X's and O's nerds on the board: How hard is it to re-condition/deprogram OL who have been primarily running Inside Zone plays under Moorhead/Rahne/Ciarrocca to learn the nuances of Wide Zone? Same with the RB...is that a big learning curve understanding new steps, reads and aiming points? Thanks in advance.

 

[Waste Management Consultant]

The generic answer is Zone blocking is essentially the same. Who they combo might not be. Should be Some minor tweaks, The main difference is what fronts the defense is showing and how many at the second level. Really it’s a matter of where the coach wants to attack/ personnel advantage rather than any difference if executed correctly.

edit: for the rb, the idea is that you are letting him run on instincts, rather than teaching a “location” many times the seam will show up in different spots, depending on the defensive alignment.
See Urban below:

 

[ziplock]

FTB Film Study - Inside Zone vs. Wide Zone

Glad to see this channel is back for spring ball. Always enjoy these popping up in my YT feed. Question after watching this for any coaches/X's and O's nerds on the board: How hard is it to re-condition/deprogram OL who have been primarily running Inside Zone plays under Moorhead/Rahne/Ciarrocca to learn the nuances of Wide Zone? Same with the RB...is that a big learning curve understanding new steps, reads and aiming points? Thanks in advance.

This is an interesting overview and highlights the difference between systems and philosophies. In the system my school uses, none of those clips would be a straight inside zone call. Our system would classify them as triple, split zone or zone lead.
Split zone and zone lead differentiations are pretty straightforward. The distinction between inside zone and triple is less obvious without watching the back closely. In inside zone, the back is working off the first frontside double. In triple, the back is working off the first backside double.
When teams get overly aggressive at second level against your inside zone, you run triple to exploit that and lose the scrape backer.
First two clips look like triple to me based on where the back is looking through the mesh.

 

[harbest]

Years ago, I was in bookstore and picked up a hardcover book Vince Lombardi on football. He went over all facets of football play and his thoughts and philosophy on it but what I found fascinating was his blocking techniques. He stated there was the old neanderthal train of thought that the O lineman went out and tried to move the D lineman the way he wanted him to go to make the play work. Like one mountain trying to move another and sometimes that other mountain didn't move. His solution was to have the O lineman go up to the D lineman and let him go in the direction he wanted to move in. The QB would simply hand off to the RB, he would read the line blocking and look for a hole to run through,

 

[sluggo72]

This is an interesting overview and highlights the difference between systems and philosophies. In the system my school uses, none of those clips would be a straight inside zone call. Our system would classify them as triple, split zone or zone lead.
Split zone and zone lead differentiations are pretty straightforward. The distinction between inside zone and triple is less obvious without watching the back closely. In inside zone, the back is working off the first frontside double. In triple, the back is working off the first backside double.
When teams get overly aggressive at second level against your inside zone, you run triple to exploit that and lose the scrape backer.
First two clips look like triple to me based on where the back is looking through the mesh.

I can't tell on the first clip, but what SB runs in OT vs Min was not a true inside zone play. Your explanation of Triple makes much more sense. It truly looks like the old inside veer where you read the 5. Watch the whole line blocks back, there was no way they are trying to run inside. I did not know what you called SB play, so thanks. I know a veer team would call in 32 read or something, as it was inside veer.
Now on to the outside zone of MY.
Outside zone imo is the best play in football, however I like it much better from under center than in side car.
why? it is easier to go both ways. In the clips, side car to the left outside zone right. How are you going to run outside to the left? Bring the back over and have him cut back? Too slow imo. You see them run that but it is more of a counter play.
IMO in outside zone you want a downhill play, OL coming off the ball (in a zone blocking scheme). When you are under center, the back can go left or right, open or closed side. The RB momentum is forward not sideways as with the side car. The reads are the same. The QB comes off with a boot for great Play action pass game

Outside zone makes inside zone better, imo
FTR there are a ton of videos on outside zone, Alex gibbs made it popular in Denver and Atlanta, so watch them.

here is John Strollo explaining the difference. He calls it A gap run vs C gap run, which is inside vs outside thats all. I love his terms of match, stove pipe, Apache. Makes a lot of sense.

 

[ziplock]

I can't tell on the first clip, but what SB runs in OT vs Min was not a true inside zone play. Your explanation of Triple makes much more sense. It truly looks like the old inside veer where you read the 5. Watch the whole line blocks back, there was no way they are trying to run inside. I did not know what you called SB play, so thanks. I know a veer team would call in 32 read or something, as it was inside veer.
Now on to the outside zone of MY.
Outside zone imo is the best play in football, however I like it much better from under center than in side car.
why? it is easier to go both ways. In the clips, side car to the left outside zone right. How are you going to run outside to the left? Bring the back over and have him cut back? Too slow imo. You see them run that but it is more of a counter play.
IMO in outside zone you want a downhill play, OL coming off the ball (in a zone blocking scheme). When you are under center, the back can go left or right, open or closed side. The RB momentum is forward not sideways as with the side car. The reads are the same. The QB comes off with a boot for great Play action pass game

Outside zone makes inside zone better, imo
FTR there are a ton of videos on outside zone, Alex gibbs made it popular in Denver and Atlanta, so watch them.

here is John Strollo explaining the difference. He calls it A gap run vs C gap run, which is inside vs outside thats all. I love his terms of match, stove pipe, Apache. Makes a lot of sense.

View embedded media

sluggo,
100% agreement on outside zone. We run outside zone from sidecar occasionally but it is definitely more effective in pistol (unfortunately, we don't run it under center). Also gives better looks with boot and deep on the play-action stuff, IMO.
Back on the triple call - it is exactly the old veer that you describe. In fact, if we want to run it as that, we utilize Zeep motion and the Z becomes the pitch man in that series. However, most often we just use it to come back the other way when the scrape gets overly aggressive or they start slanting to the inside zone lane.
Take care.
ziplock

 

[Woodpecker]

Years ago, I was in bookstore and picked up a hardcover book Vince Lombardi on football. He went over all facets of football play and his thoughts and philosophy on it but what I found fascinating was his blocking techniques. He stated there was the old neanderthal train of thought that the O lineman went out and tried to move the D lineman the way he wanted him to go to make the play work. Like one mountain trying to move another and sometimes that other mountain didn't move. His solution was to have the O lineman go up to the D lineman and let him go in the direction he wanted to move in. The QB would simply hand off to the RB, he would read the line blocking and look for a hole to run through,

One might refer to that as running to daylight

 

[ChiTownLion]