Cut up the day Finale: Cross/Boot
The last “base play” in our arsenal, and the final in post in my “cut up of the day” series is the cross concept. It has got to be the most popular bootleg concept in football. It is essentially the same as our Flood play but from a 2×2 alignment. This concept is run at every level of football and from any sort of personnel group.
You end up with a Go/Clear out
a quick route in the flat (from spread it is a slow played out to sell the run look)
teams often use a TE, H back, or FB to chip block and then get to the flat
The backside slot or TE runs the deep cross over the inside LBs (who should be biting on play action)
We hit the out very often as the OLB covering him was often out leveraged due to his alignment and initial run read. We were also able to hit the cross a few times when the OLB jumped the out, and ILBs sucked up on the play action, leaving a void. Even against man the cross is a great concept because it is difficult to cover a speedy slot WR across the width of the field.
We sprinted to this concept, play actioned with sprint out pass pro
but my favorite way to run this concept was using a “boot” protection featuring a guard pull
I thought this concept worked exceptionally well for us because the guard pull added to the run action and in one game particular (where they had a DE who we simply could not block) this played slowed him up a whole lot. He could no longer crash down when he read down block and blow up our guard.
Some of the clips feature a QB who began the year as our 3rd stringer! Starter got suspended a game, and he beat out the kid who was our backup all year during that week of practice. The clips with #12 at QB were his first start at QB of his life.
I didn’t include it in the film but he even picked up a huge 4th and 4 conversion on this play with his feet when the defense didn’t bite on the run fake and flew out for pass.
I see this concept being a bigger part of our offense in the future as we begin to explore the use of some TE/H back stuff.
