June 6, 2009

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Keith Pogue here at Mahomet-Seymour High School and today I want to talk a little bit about our inside zone blocking. We do things a little bit differently here at Mahomet-Seymour High School for inside zone. I think your typical inside zone team teaches a thumbs up attitude when they strike. We don't do that. We believe in hitting with the shoulder first and getting movement on the first level, before we go into our zone double teams and get off into the linebackers. So I wanted to talk a little bit about our teaching sequence, which I think is a little bit unique from a lot of other zone concept teams. With me today are a couple of my offensive linemen: Ethan King and Nick Jarvis who did a fantastic job at this this year. One of the first concepts we teach is a form fit. So if Nick, if you'll take the defensive up position and Ethan, if you'll go ahead and get into a form fit. If the balls going left on a drive block here, Ethan has his head in the armpit he's striking with the shoulder first, his hand will come second. This foot will be straddling the crotch and his target foot, he's a little wide on this, will be outside the target foot. So we're outside foot, straddling the crotch. We're in a good form fit position.
As he comes out of his stance, we'll emphasize hitting with the shoulder first. Now you'll here the college guys and the NFL guys talk about using hands and coming up with hands first, and hand position is important, but if you watch the college game and NFL game when they're running the football, there is a shoulder strike first and that's what we talk about. It's a lot easier to zone block with momentum then it is to try to get momentum with that hand strike.
We're going to do a 1 step drill here so what I'm going to have Ethan do is take one step with his power foot which is the foot that's in the middle of the crotch, so let's form fit again. This foot is up a little bit on this, and he's going to drive this foot, and for a coaching point as an offensive line coach I'm looking for this foot to be like a piston driving that knee right through his crotch. One step, GO! That's it right there. We want that foot to drive and we want a high knee and we want to plant that entire foot right in the ground. And he's goes through this what will happen is that he gets momentum. Go ahead and form fit, now we've struck, we've got momentum, he's started to go, he's going to roll his hips and he's going to start pushing with his hands, hands, hands, then he's going to drive through with his hands and now if Ethan and I are double teaming. We both have our power foot up, this is our zone now. We're driving, and now as I take over I'm pushing off, now with the hands. We feel it is critical, that you get momentum on the line of scrimmage before you start to move to the second level. And we do that through a shoulder strike.
If there is anything we can do for you here at Mahomet-Seymour High School, please give me a call.