by Darrell Sutherland
Head Coach, Bartram Trail H.S., Jacksonville, Florida

As Published in the March, 2002 issue of Option Central

Our bread and butter is the Inside Veer. We primarily use the Spread as our base Personnel group/Formation because of its ability to spread and balance the defense. We use fairly traditional scheme (see 32 Option diagram). The triple option makes play calling easy, because the defense must unbalance in order to win the numbers battle. If the defense does over shift, we will respond with something that hits backside (Counter, Counter Option, or backside play-action). If they do not over shift, we have angles and numbers – and we put at least one of their secondary run support defenders in a run / pass bind. There aren’t many things that take the aggression out of a defender like telling him “you’ve got to fly up on the pitch, but don’t give up the pass.” It’s like telling a pass rusher to pin his ears back and rush 100 miles per hour, and then reminding him to watch for the screen. Our first play-action pattern we introduce each year is our Seam pattern (see 1032 diagrams); it is designed to take advantage of the player in that predicament. We like starting with the Seam because it complements our number one run play and because it is a simple read.

The quarterback and inside receiver get a pre-snap read from the alignment of the pitch key. This defender’s proximity to the LOS will determine how
long a mesh the quarterback will have with the fullback and how quickly the receiver should look for the ball. Post-snap: The quarterback “pins his
chin” and reads the defender responsible for the pitch as he rides the fullback. This not only sells the option, but it allows the quarterback to
get a long read without tipping the defense to where he is going to throw.

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