Adjustments to Defeat the Tite Front

• By Keith Grabowski

Just as the RPO has dominated the conversations and late nights in the defensive staff room, the Tite Front (4i-0-4i) and it’s variations have popped up as an answer to the inside zone and RPO and cause issues for gap schemes as well, and now the offensive staff room is occupied a little later into the night.

Matt Drinkall, now the tight ends coach at Army, was very familiar with this defense and had a solid plan to defeat it to the point that he looked forward to facing the Tite Front.

First, whether it is with tackle over or by adding a Tight End, Coach Drinkall likes creating a three man surface against the Tite front. The issue with using a gap scheme with the tight front is that you will lose a blocker for the backside linebacker as illustrated below:

The three man surface allows a blocker to be assigned to the backside backer.  In this diagram, the tackle and tight end work together to the backside linebacker:

So the first thought against the tite front should be “how can you create a 3 man surface with your formations.”

Next, you can implement an “out” call when the frontside End moves back out to a 5 technique.  The will block down to the backside backer, the tight end will handle the walk-up, and the “whammer” will block the 5 tech.  

Now everyone is handled again.  It becomes a chess match of where they want to play the end and having calls to account for it rather than having to add a play.

In the video below, coach explains these adjustments to the Tite front for gap schemes as well as how the “out” call can be done with a two-man surface (click on image for free video)

Whether you know you are seeing it this week or you will see it later in the season, it’s never too early to build in your adjustments to your schemes in order to keep the execution of your plays efficient regardless of what the defense does.