Winding up in the black in the red zone. (run option package for football)

A run option package that will force the defense to play assignment football in the must-score zone

Many One-Back or Run & Shoot offenses seem to become uncertain when they reach the all-important "Red Zone" or must-score area down by the goal line. At Iona College, we avoid uncertainty by going to our pre-designed Run Option package - working our base one-back formations without changing any of our strategies and keeping our passing options open.

Being a former high school wishbone option coach, I have always incorporated an open package to keep the defenses off-guard and force them to play assignment football. That is, to force them to assign defenders to each phase of the option (dive, QB, and pitch), thus making them play a more controlled, less reckless type of defense.

Run & Shoot formations also force the defenders to play some kind of assignment football, especially down by the goal line. One of Run & Shoot's first principles is to have the QB look for the open uncovered receiver.

Goal-line defenses are primarily man packages that cover all the primary receivers. As shown in Diag. 1, the pass assignments have the corners covering the ends, the safeties covering the outside halfbacks, and the middle LB covering the fullback.

The option assignments have the MLB, DTs, and DEs assuming dive responsibility, the OLBs assuming QB responsibility, and the safeties having pitch responsibility.

Though the responsibilities may change, someone will always have to be responsible for each phase of the option.