Nub 4x1
Nub 4x1 is a set that I have used the longest out of any of these 4 concepts that I have been sharing with you. It started in 2009 when we were not very good at running the football. We were very small on our offensive line and needed to find away to gain an advantage on the defense. Our TE was a very good blocker and an average pass catcher. We decided to cover him up and use him as an extra offensive tackle. We found that the defense would still play us as if our backside tackle was still an eligible receiver. This gave us a tremendous advantage to the 4 receiver side.
Power Midline
One of our base plays in our offense for the last four years is the Power Midline. We like the versatility of this play because we can use it against over and okie front. You will see in the video below we are reading the nose versus the okie front. Because we are placing the four receivers to the field you will see the Mike backer has to flex out of the box allowing our Nub TE to block him easily. The Quarterback reads the nose, and he takes the running back, so the quarterback will keep the football.
Inside Zone Weak "Lock"
Depending how the defense chooses to lineup against 4x1 Nub you can even manipulate the defense to force the corner back to be the quarterback player in the Zone read. In the video example below you will see the quarterback does a terrific job taking the mesh point to the line of scrimmage. The offensive line makes a "Lock" call on the defensive end and it leaves the corner back to the boundary as the only player to take the running back or the quarterback.
Empty-Speed Option
We run many variations of Speed Option. One thing we like to do early in the game is motion the running back out of the back field creating an unbalanced empty set. This will allow us to see if we will run QB Outside Zone weak or Speed Option to the 4x1 Nub side (strong). The safety to the TE side is the pitch read. Our offensive line blocks their outside zone "Lock" rules. This is a great example of the quarterback attacking the read and making a great down field pitch.
Inside Zone Give "Lock"
In this example we are going to give the football to the running back to the strong side. This is another example of a "Lock" call versus an odd front. Our offensive line does a terrific job working their double teams to the second level. Our Nub TE does not climb to the safety, because of this we do not execute the play, and the safety makes the tackle after a 9 yard gain.
QB ISO-Orbit Motion
My last example of running plays that we use in the 4x1 Nub formation is QB ISO. In this example we motion our slot into the backfield using orbit motion. The reason we do this is to take linebackers eyes of of their keys. Quarterback is going to find the shade and attack that A-Gap versus over front.
Conclusion
We use unbalanced formations a lot with our fast tempo. I shared with you some of our run game that we have used over the years. You can find all of the running and pass play diagrams and video that we run in my Spartan Spread System. I also have made an eBook that shows all of our RPOs that we run in the unbalanced formations that I have shared with you. If you would like the eBook and the 1,000 clip Hudl video library click RPO LIBRARY. If you are just interested in the book and it's 50 diagrams click RPO eBook.