As our youth team first began to find success when running our “Opposite“ sweep concept, we decided to develop a small group of very basic plays that could be run easily to each side of our double slot, one back formation.

To quickly review our “Opposite” concept, we would let the QB change the original huddle call if he felt that the defensive alignment was going to make running the called play very difficult. An example play call from the sideline would be “sweep right”, but our QB could “change” the play so that we could run “sweep left” if the defense’s alignment dictated that they had the manpower advantage on our right side. Our other offensive players picked this concept faster than I might have imagined.

The “Sweep” was the first of our “Opposite” audibles, but we quickly added three additional plays that utilized the same concept of reading the alignment of the defense. These three plays were the triple option, an off tackle power play and an isolation (blast in our terminology) aimed at the guard area. Over the years I have added other plays to my “opposite” package (including a couple of pass plays), but have never gone beyond four such plays to be readily used in any one game.

The Sweep Play

The sweep play is as old as the game itself and is designed to outflank the defense as well as to get further away from the majority of their pursuing defenders.  Each of the blockers try to pin the guy to the inside while the ball carrier attempts to run around the widest defensive player.

Diagram 1: The Sweep

The Triple Option Play

The triple option is designed for the quarterback to “read” several defensive players instead of having to ask his blockers to block them.  The quarterback either gives the ball to the fullback or keeps it himself after reading the ‘dive key’ defender and quickly after either keeps it or pitches it to the motioning slot back after reading the ‘pitch key’ defender.

Diagram 2: Triple Option

The Power Play

The power play is a direct descendant of the sweep and tries to take advantage of those defenders who are attempting to widen far enough to the outside to prevent being outflanked.  The power is identical to the sweep at initiation, but then tries to block a couple of those widening defenders to the outside (the direction that they were moving) and have the running back cut inside of those blocks.

Diagram 3: Power

The Isolation (aka Blast) Play

The Isolation (I call it “Blast”) play is a play that tries to take advantage of the either the defense leaving an area near the center unprotected or if the offense thinks that their lead blocker (fullback in this case) can block (challenge and defeat) the defensive team’s inside linebacke in order to make a path for the trailing running back.

Diagram 4: Isolation

All four plays look exactly alike at their beginnings, but are designed to attack the defense in different ways.  Also, all four plays are easily run to either side of the field allowing them to fit very well into the “opposite” concept we use to take advantage of  a possible alignment weakness that our opponent’s defense might show.  Our quarterbacks are trained to find such mis-alignments, change the play called to a new (and better play) and execute the new play.

Due to defenses reacting to our slot back’s motion in the four mentioned plays, we follow the “opposite” concept with our “Two Plays in One” concept in our audible progression.  In our “2 plays in One” scheme the quarterback and the fullback “read” the defensive team’s adjustment to our motion man and run a play that exploits the area they have left uncovered to chase the motioning slot back.

If you enjoyed this playbook, sign up below to receive the free e-playbook for the the “Two Plays in One” package of Sweep plays.

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• “Two Plays in One”- The Sweep / Bootleg Combo Play
• The First Youth Football Audible Play, Opposite!