From time to time here at your Flag Football Source we like to go in and study what the best flag football coaches are doing. Today is one of those days. Specifically we want to look at an important game from a couple of weeks ago where Ottawa faced off against Keiser down at Reinhardt University in Waleska, Georgia. It was a great game from pretty much beginning to end with Ottawa finally edging Keiser out late in the fourth quarter 32-28.
We may go back and break down some other plays and defenses from this game later because these two teams are among the better coaches that you will find anywhere in flag football right now. Ottawa's five national championships speak for themselves but Keiser is also right in the mix every year. In fact, today I want to focus on how Keiser did a great job attacking the defensive coverage technique used by Ottawa.
The first thing we are going to point out is that Keiser ran the same play to score their 2 point conversion as they did to score their first touchdown. In a world where few offensive coordinators are smart enough to stick with a play if it's working the Keiser coaches did just that. They essentially ran double slants to one side with a slant corner concept to the other. Once again, they just flipped the formation bit attacked the same area of the field.
The next thing that Keiser did was to recognize and attack the Ottawa defensive technique. You will notice in the video clips that Ottawa was playing inside out on all four Keiser receivers. The Ottawa technique has the defenders aligned inside of the receivers with their rear ends pointed inside. The technique is obviously designed to take away the inside by alignment and play everything else inside out.
In fact, unless you are going to bracket a receiver in the red zone taking away the inside routes is almost mandatory. The problem that Ottawa had on both of these plays is that the slot defenders did not take away the inside slant routes. As you will see on both of these plays the slot receivers from Keiser attack the defender's technique and break the slant route off in front of the defenders for touchdowns. There was no help inside and Keiser took full advantage of it.
Please keep in mind that this was the first drive of the season and both teams are working out the early season kinks. This game was also played in a heavy downpour for the entire game. Early game or not though, what we can learn from this video is the importance of playing good coverage technique, particularly in the red zone. You can also bet that if you play Keiser later this spring, their receivers are going to be taught to attack the technique of your defenders. So hats off to them on teaching great technique!
As we navigate the spring flag football season we will be breaking down plays and defenses from time to time. If you have a video that you think we should look at them please contact us at flagfootballsource@gmail.com and send over your video.