I designed the SWAT No-Huddle offense to solve a specific problem – coaching in Football Poverty, a level of bare-minimum resources that has to be experienced to be believed. The SWAT No-Huddle System is a solution for poor teams to beat rich teams. One of our annual problems has been limited coaching staff. Very few people will work for free. I have had to be a quadruple coordinator – offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams coordinator, and strength coordinator. I have coached entire teams alone during half of my 40-year unpaid football coaching career.
The last article, part 1, included a hand-drawn pass play that illustrated just one of our limitless passing plays that we design at the line-of-scrimmage without a conventional playbook. It’s one version of our double-cross concept that doubles big plays. Please refer to part 1 for the hand-written pass play.
This pass play is another Stretch Pass Concept. It stretches the defence vertically and horizontally creating a void in the middle.
Film study shows that no amateur defence will stretch itself successfully both horizontally and vertically to cover every receiver in this play. Additionally, a horizontally and vertically stretched defence is a vulnerable defence. A horizontally and vertically stretched defence is vulnerable to Big Plays because Post-Reception-Gain (PRG) dramatically increases when a defence stretches both horizontally and vertically.
We call yards-after-catch PRG instead YAC to build the SWAT MINDSET of expected gain. We expect a gains on every pass play. The words ‘gains’ is more specific, more productive, more forceful, and more impactful than ‘yards after catch.’ Yards-after-catch is a passive term that doesn’t promote the same expectation. Language matters. That’s why we don’t call any passes “Short Passes.” We don’t have a ‘Short Passing Game.’ I don’t use the phrase ‘short pass’ when teaching the SWAT offense to our players. Every pass, regardless of distance of pass, is expected to be a deep pass, regardless of where its caught. Mindset is the #1 element of explosive offense and doubling big plays. 2X Big Plays will guarantee a winning record against rich teams.
Any Pass Play where 2 routes form an X has Big Play potential regardless of defensive coverage. Research from our film study shows a direct correlation between any X-shaped pass patterns, anywhere on the field, has 2X Big Play potential regardless of coverage at the amateur level. Any X-shaped pass pattern are both zone-busters and man-busters.
A pattern that crosses the X has 3X Effect. It triples the Big Play potential, regardless of coverage because of the Micro-Stretch Effect, referring to a horizontal and vertical stretch in an isolated area that is undefendable at the amateur level, especially when the No-Huddle speed is operating at Mach 1.
These are only the first 5 key/teaching points. This represents the first learning unit when I teach it to our offense. The rest of the key/teaching points will be explained in part 3.