One of the biggest topics we have noticed this year regarding NCAA 09 Football is that players are struggling on play defense. With man coverage not being very effective underneath, players are finding it hard to stop the short passing game. I’m sure you’ve been victimized by dink and dunk offenses that just nickel and dime you up and down the field. Defending in NCAA Football 09 will require a completely different approach than normal.


Slants, curls, drags, outs, digs and other short pass routes rip man coverage apart. The best chance to defend these types of pass routes is to call zone coverage with multiple players playing zone coverage underneath. This year we like to call Cover 2 and Cover 3 zone coverages. Cover 2 does a better job at defending the underneath pass routes because there are 5 or 6 defenders playing underneath pass coverage. With more defenders covering underneath, they create less throwing lanes.

When we are playing Cover 2 zone coverage, we like to control one of the defenders underneath and patrol the short areas of the field (5-7 yards from the line of scrimmage). We watch for any receivers coming in our area.

Believe it or not, our objective is to force our opponent to throw deep. We do this because we believe we have a better chance of picking off the deep pass rather the short pass. The reason we say this is the ball is up in the air longer on deep throws than short throws. This gives us more time to switch to a defender and pick off the pass. Now if you don’t have good user stick control, you will have major problems trying to defend a player who knows how to rocket catch on offense. If you know how to rocket catch on offense, then you shouldn’t have much of a problem rocket catching on defense.

Something else you may want to look into is hook zones. On some defensive diagrams, it shows a defenders dropping in a particular area while in a hook zone. The problem with these diagrams is they are not always accurate.

The diagram may show the LB dropping straight back in hook zone, but once on the field, he moves at a left or right angle while dropping back. This takes him out of position.

One way to solve this problem is to hot route the defender into a hook zone. Instead of taking an angle while dropping back, he will now drop straight back into a hook zone.

For more tips and schemes on how you can improve your defense and get pressure on the Quarterback, check out the Virtual Playbook for NCAA Football 09 at http://www.ncaa09tips.com