At the Surface to Air System and Emmett High School, we are known for attacking through the air and on the ground.
Last week, we needed every play in our repertoire to pull out a win against the #4 team in our State. In fact, we had to overcome a 13 point deficit with less than 2 minutes to play to win the game 42-41, putting us at 5-0 in the conference and firmly in the driver seat to win the Southern Idaho Conference with one more win.
Our opponent was determined to stop us from running Power and Counter last week, plays that we are renowned for running here at Emmett High School, so we needed to turn to another group of plays to help us pull out the victory.
Our rules for Pin and Pull are simple:
The Tight End always has Head Up to Down.
PS Tackle, if he is not pulling, is Down.
PS Guard, if he is not pulling, is Down.
Center, if he is not pulling, is Head Up to Down.
BS Guard, if he is not pulling, will combo with the BS Tackle.
BS Tackle will combo with the BS Guard unless the Guard is pulling, in which case he has BS B Gap.
Rules for the Two Pullers:
First Puller kicks out D Gap defender or first man past the Tight End.
Second Puller will 'pull for the Mike' accounting for him wherever he goes, even if he's blitzing.
The Quarterback reads the BS C Gap defender and a simple quick game RPO finishes the concept.
Pin & Pull with our Guard and Tackle
You can see the PA Tackle set to kick out the overhang Backer and the PS Guard ready to pull up underneath him
It's difficult to see, but their End cuts out our second puller, which is why Power was difficult to run against them. This causes the play to bounce wider than normal, but our first puller continues to kick out and our Tailback now turns into the second puller.
Our QB stays patient and waits for a seam to open, sticks his foot in the ground and cuts up field for a solid gain.
This concept helps us to "protect" the interior run game by disallowing the defense the opportunity to isolate and attack it.
Having Pin and Pull helped us roll up big numbers in the run game to the tune of 357 yards, 5 Touchdowns and a huge win over a Conference Rival even though we were not able to use our base Power and Counter plays.
I go into even more detail on our gap scheme run game and RPOs in "Down and Out: Gap Scheme RPOs in the Surface to Air System".