Football Strategies:Defending the Wishbone Offence

For the longest time I thought the wishbone offence was basically a power game that featured a trio of big power backs that would go head to head with your defence with the goal of over powering you at the point of attack grinding out hard yards wearing you down and patiently moving the football along down after down beating your defence up along the way.

I thought it was grass roots football at its best, a simple but effective method of playing football.

I always wondered why teams would choose this type of football offence with all the offences to choose from when they know that the defence will simply load up the box to defend the extra back.I always just viewed it as a power verus power match-up.

Then I realized that this philosophy on defending the wishbone is exactly why they run this scheme. They know that you will load up the box, and attack gaps. Its exactly what they want you to do. They use this predictabilty to their advantage. While the defence is becoming so wrapped up in stuffing the run, being aggressive, and looking for the big hit the wishbone is methodically luring you in, setting you up with misdirection and play-action, as well as bootlegs and reverses.

This is when the wishbone is most effective! They want you to load up the box and basically get your defence being over aggressive and ruuning around.

The key is to maintain defensive assignments.Contain guys must force and filter the ball effectively back inside. Middle linebackers must be disciplined in their assignment, key on their near back and play tough, and not being sucked in on play-action. You can bring up your strong safety in the box to account for the extra back and my most success was to man up on all of the recievers and coach them up not to veer out of this man coverage no matter what in order to take away the play-action pass. Again, contain is important! Contain players are coached up not to get caught up on the misdirection of the wishbone and be ready for a bootleg or reverse. All in all maintain defensive assignments and make them grind out the yards and pay the price while doing so!

Cheers!