Coach ,

Coaches will throw out superlatives from time to time, especially in clinic talk, but when Alex Atkins said they were the best in the country running the counter scheme, it wasn’t hyperbole.

The Florida State Seminols were #1 in college football with the counter in rush attempts with counter, rushing yards off counter ,explosives, and yards before contact on counter.  Here’s the graphics he shared on each category.

To get good at something you do it often.  The Seminoles ran counter more than any other FBS program:

Production is always important for a scheme.  The Seminoles counter scheme produced more yards than anyother program, averaging 6.5 yards per counter attempt:

Not only was the run efficient for them, it was explosives.  We all know that just a single explosive play on a drive increases the chances of scoring greatly:

We all want a scheme that starts with the offensive line opening gaping holes in the defense and then allowing the back to take over to get more.  What may be most impressive of all of these stats is that the Seminoles also led the country in yards before contact on the counter scheme:

What led to this productivity? 

It started with examining today’s defenses and understanding what they are doing that especially gave them trouble with those schemes.

Because of the evolution of defenses and things like how the defensive line attacks a man more than they attack a gap now. Techniques like gap peeking, playing a gap and a half or two gaps, etc. Coach Atkins wanted to counterbalance those strategies and techniques. 

He started tailoring the game plan. In his presentation he said, 

“I started doing was I started tailoring the game plan and said, all right, based upon how the D-line or the defense kind of attacks gaps or attacks man, let's adjust the scheme to how they're playing it. And that went from that was, you know, back in Georgia, so that went to. Now. Let's just find a way to make this our hard hat. We believe in run game and let's tailor it to kind of fit us the best.”

You can listen to the beginning segment of his talk on the Coach and Coordinator Podcast today. He talks about more like Teaching and Implementing the Counterplay, Maximizing the Counter Scheme, Defining Physicality in Football, and his Philosophy of Counter.

The Scheme

Coach Atkins went into every aspect of how they teach the scheme during his presentation including drill film of all the techniques. In this video he shares the scheme and explains how this is more than just drawing up six on six in the box.  He also illustrates how they take care of the safeties with the receivers and with the threat of quarterback run. Click on link for video:

Video: Counter GY

The Takeaway

The Seminoles run counter better than anyone else and a lot of their offense comes off of the counter play. Having a starting point play not only establishes base plays, but it also establishes a thought process, plan of attack, and adjustments on game day. 

Thinking about offense like Coach Atkins did to esctablish their superiority with the counter can go a long way in helping you enhance your offense.

The entire C.O.O.L. Clinic is up on replay now and every presentation was outstanding.  There’s a ton of value in it for every coach, not just the offensive line coach.

Passes are still available here: cool2023.coachesclinic.com

Always be growing!

Coach Grabowski