Smashing in 8Man

In the early 90’s we began running a play against the 4-2 defense we called 222 Double Flags. It was a very hard play for teams to stop because the LB would have to try and decide if we were going to run the lead or if it was play-action lead. Most times the FB would run right by him and was open on the little three yard flag. Most of the time the Safety would cover the deep flag. To our surprise we noticed that the route worked fairly well against a 3-2 defense as well. Eventually we sent the backside end on a post because the single Safety was rotating so fast with our play-action it was leaving the middle of the field wide open. We started putting our fastest receiver at the left end because he would be the one running this “Back Post” and that is what we called the route when we added it to the “Double Flags” route. This was one killer play and we were able to capitalize on it and counter it all the way to the State Championship. Many of the counters to this play are detailed in the book “The I Formation With A Little Crazy Mixed In.” In fact, some of the “Crazy” in that book comes from the counters to this play like the “Hex” and the “Diamond.”

We never knew we were basically running a “Smash” play. Later we started running these plays from spread sets which basically forced a man to man coverage on our primary receiver most of the time. 

Below is UP 222 Backpost