Handling Four Strong Route Concepts in Fire Zone Coverage

Here is a fire zone pressure clip from Alabama. The Tide are in a Dime personnel with OLB bodies as the DE's.

The Rush:

The Mike covers the center creating a bear spaced front with all 5 OL covered. The Rush backers on the edges are contain. The strong DT is moving inside to the midline. The Dime  takes a path through the DE's heels creating a full speed straight line run to the QB.

The Coverage:

3 under 3 deep fire zone 

The initial path of the Dime fools the RB into taking a wide path. When the Dime goes through the heels of the up field DE, the RB struggles to redirect and make the pick up.

The coverage does a great job handling the 4 verticals from a 4 strong formation.

The formation presents 4 receiving threats to the strong side of the formation. The Mike is the seam dropper relating to the #2 receiver. In this formation the #4 strong is also #2 receiver weak. Weak side the corner is playing an aggressive man style technique with limited coverage help. To the strong side there is a choice to make about the strong corner's technique. The corner could play a divider zone technique deep 1/3. Instead the corner bails to man style technique leaning on the #1 receiver. The Nickle in the seam is playing match-carry-deliver seam technique. With the #2 receiver vertical the Nickel carries the route. With the RB #4/#2 blocking strong the drop down safety has inside help from the weak seam dropping Mike LB. The safety and LB do an excellent job of passing the route. The Mike gets is eyes outside to see the threat and makes a man turn and rolls back with the vertical from the #3 (once the route distributes it is the new/final #2). The drop down safety is able to pass the inside vertical and zone off over the top of the RB who becomes the new/final #3.

This is a good understanding of a four strong formation and how to pass and match the route distribution from Alabama. Good stuff from Pete Golding and Nick Saban.