This week on The Board Drill Podcast, Kyle sits down with Coach Wallie Kuchinski, Associate Head Coach and Defensive Coordinator at the University of St. Thomas, for an hour-long install of what Coach K calls the king of all blitz patterns.
On tape it looks like the NCAA pressure everybody runs. It is not. It is a single five-man zone pressure built on reading offensive linemen instead of assigning gaps, and that one distinction is what makes it hold up against every run scheme and every protection a coordinator can dial up. Coach K teaches it the way you wish every clinic taught it, all the way down to the footwork: the flat step, the pound-step head fake, the lean off the snap so you never tip the pressure, and the term the Tommies use instead of box or force, splatter.
From there it builds. How the front cuts the field in half and turns pulls into tackles for loss. Why a bunch of single teams gets extra hats to the ball. How the pattern beats outside zone, power, and RPOs, and the three-man loop that asks a center to do something he simply cannot do. Coach K also shows how the whole thing travels from a 3-4 into a 2-4-5 nickel, so the 4-2-5 crowd can run it too.
It is a heavy install with a ton of drill tape, and it closes with Coach K on what 19 years with the program has taught him about teaching defense, plus the story behind the Tommies’ jump from Division III to FCS Division I.
If you coach the odd front, or you have ever written NCAA pressure on a call sheet and wondered if there was a better way to read it, this one is worth the notebook.
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro and tonight’s topic, the king of all blitz patterns
01:11 Sponsor, Sideline HQ
01:59 The 3-4 front and kicking into a 2-4-5 nickel
05:00 Non-pressure run fits, scrape, spill, and splatter
08:40 The scoop technique and the arrow-to-contain player
11:00 Drilling the line, flat step, point the toe, pound-step head fake
12:30 The trace technique on the tight end and the five-minute install
16:00 Force and scrape in space
18:50 Why this beats the NCAA pattern, cutting the field in half
23:02 Defending outside zone and mid zone from the pistol
26:00 Run-throughs that turn pulls into tackles for loss
29:56 Splatter and why phone-booth tackles win
35:50 Denting the tight end and the second-step climb
40:49 Falling back across the formation versus zone
42:01 The C gap power counter
44:00 The no-tight-end catch-all and attacking RPOs
47:02 The power of simplicity
50:00 Protection beaters, the half slide and the hot throw
52:35 Three-man loops and the center who cannot pass it off
57:00 Running the same pattern from 11 personnel in a 2-4-5
59:55 The closing question and the jump from D3 to FCS
