Gators PB Offensive Strategies

[mchardj]

I thought I would get a thread started on the Gators PB. I really like this playbook and think it can be used for not only the Gators but other teams as well. It helps to have a mobile QB, two good HB's, and at least one speed WR. I will be throwing in some ideas over the coming days. Feel free to post your ideas.

Gator Heavy
TE Cross-(I like to flip this play to the strong side of my QB. For example, for Tebow I flip the play.) For this example, I will write up as is. Streak your B TE. Roll out and look for A TE across the middle against man and zone. Your X WR can also split the safties depending on the defense. If nothing there, go for your RB LB on the delayed route.

Sluggo Y-Shake-(Again flip the QB to your strong side). Streak the A TE and the LB RB. Look for your B TE first and then progress to your X WR.

This is a set group of plays to look at: WR Jet Sweep, PA Jet Sweep, QB Power Fk Jet, Jet Option, Z Screen, & TE Options. Take a look at the plays and start to develop your own ideas for a scheme. For example, you could come out in TE Options or Power FK Jet and see that the defense is bunched in the middle. You could audible to the Jet Sweep or Jet Option and kill the defense to the outside. Vice-versa if the defense is spread out in zones. Play around with this and you will see what I mean.

I will look at different shotgun formations from this PB and add more in the days to come. Please feel free to put your two-cents in also.

[warmachine904]

Tonight I beat the brakes of a dude using the Shotty Ace formation with the wr at hb package. This put my fastest receiver (98 speed) at the running back spot. I ran the hb option play off this package. Against zone all the defenders dropped back way too far and let me get an easy catch on the curl route. Against man, my fastest player was matched up one on one with a MLB. Can you guess who won that one?

Another good play using this package is the playaction qb choice. Streak the two outside receivers and slant the hb(my fastest receive) to the left. Against man you can look for the TE on the left running the crossing route to the right or you can wait for your "hb" on the slant to the left. This was awesome against the blitz. My "hb" would be wide open against cover 0.

The third play I ran was the hb slip screen. Again, with my fastest receiver at hb. Against man, I motioned my left TE to the right and hot blocked him. Then I hot blocked the TE#1. I did this to take advantage of defensive man assignments. Once again my "hb" would be fairly open with a wall of blockers in front of him. The only thing is the DE on that side got super smart and instead of rushing in, he went and covered the flats. I labbed it up and it required no defensive hot routes. Unfortunately he was trying to cover my fastest dude. It was almost unfair.

At the end of the game I needed to run the ball to wind down the clock. I switched back to the normal package in Shotty Ace and ran a couple plays. Then I started picking plays out of the ACE TWIN TE SLOT formation. It's got better runs and it shows the same personnel as the Shotty Ace with the normal package.



Word to wise:
If you hated the Trio formation in Madden 08. Prepare for more headache. The Gator playbook has it and it's on steroids. Not only does it have TE CROSS and HB OUT in it, but it has a receiver screen and a couple option runs in it. There's no cross punch, but there are a couple plays (i'm keeping them in my pocket), that have potential to be deadly one play schemes.

[mchardj]

Not trying to give you a headache, but... the PA QB Choice in the Trio HB WK (or Trio from Atl) is a pretty good play. I fade my X reciever. Then against zone, for some reason every time the A reciever is open. If its man, I look at the streak and fade routes of my Y and X reciever, and if there is nothing there the TE B running the inverse post route over the middle is pretty nasty.

You mentioned the Ace formation and those are some great things that I will try. I also like the the Inside Cross. I don't make any changes, just run it. Against man, the TE's get wide open, and against zone the B and the X reciever routes play well. It helps to have Ingram at TE with 90 speed, but I would think any TE with 80 plus speed could make this work. Or you could audible down from the spread formation to have WR at your TE positions for the cross/drag routes.

The Split Slot is the same as the Shotgun 2 RB from Madden. It's got the WR Post Corner, Slot Cross, and Slip Screen (all of which have been wriitten up by other people in OTHER forums, just go find them), but two plays I also like from this fromation are:

Backs Cross-First off, change to the duel HB option, and then I streak the A and X recievers. Against man the backs pick themselves open, and if they blitz with their LB's, they get open quicker! If its zone, look for the B reciever over the middle he should split most zones and be open.
Mesh-this is basically a man beater. I put both RB (remember duel HB's) on out routes, and then hike the ball. Between the out routes from the HB's and B and X recievers crossing routes its a cluster-**** over the middle and someone WILL get open. I guess you could put the A reciever in a curl route to help out against zone (don't know for sure, just thought of that).

You also have the Shotgun Tight in the playbook. I am not going to say anything from this formation, because everything I use from here I mostly got out of old forums from last year from Madden. So, look through the archived/old forums on this website and you should find some Run & Gun Shoutgun Tight strategies that work just as WELL in the college game.

One last point, the Shotgun Hail Mary formation actually has two good plays: Hail Mary Mid and Circus plays. Both have been written up both another website, so I do not want to steal, but I will say look for the A reciever in the Mid and the LB in the Circus, nuf said. These are probably in all PB's, but I wanted to point them out. Later........

[mchardj]

Another thing I am really starting to love are the formation audibles. I was going to look at them here. You basically get four audibles for each formation, plus whatever else you want to put in your personal audibles. For example:

SG Tight-
Quick pass audible-All cross, great against man
Run aud-WR motion option
Deep aud-HB Option, great against zone with the option route and you can also overload the weak zone side
PA Aud-PA QB choice, great deep option with *********** website setup and a fast WR (Y) mixed with a defense that sneeks up or fake blitzes

SG Trio Wk-
Quick Aud-Curl Flat, good against zone, just overload the weaker side of the zone
PA Aud-PA Choice Wrap-look at my write-up above
Run Aud-QB Blast, careful with your QB
Deep Aud-Flood, again good zone buster, just overload the weak side of the zone and read the defense.
So, you could come out in the Inside Cross, HB Out, or TE Cross (all solid Man beaters as mentioned earlier) and audible to these zone busters.

These formation audibles really open up offenses. I think they are in Madden. In fact I hope they are because it just gives some much to work with!

[NezDogg]

What are your Gator Roster linups?

I like #8 at HB or Slot.

[mchardj]

I put 8 and 21 in at HB. This puts more speed on the field especially in the two back sets. All of there recievers have speed, so thats no problem. I also like two TE sets because both of them are mismatches on LB's.

[mchardj]

Hey guys, you can put the WR at HB in a lot of playbooks. I could also do it with USC or MIssouri. Its a formation set-up with-in the game. Do you guys have any startegies to post from the playbook? Memphis, if that's all someone did or have on offense you should shut them down once you see what they are doing. In fact, they deserve to be shut down if thats all they depend on. But its not cheese, its trying to create mismatches on the field to exploit. Its also a video game, and not actually real football. Again, do you guys have any strategies from this playbook????

[snaponic]

middle slant out of trio weak is the best play in the game and its not even close. i normally put the outside wr doing the curl on a streak.

[mchardj]

Snaponic, I want to check that play out but cannot find it. Is that the correct name? Is it the Tio HB WK formation? Thanks!

[snaponic]

oh my bad its not in the gators book, thats why i stopped using. Its basically cross punch which we all know how flithy that has been recently. Ive been using arkansas playbook. If floridas playbook had middle slant id use it.

[TwEnTy20ViZioN]

I love using the Gator Heavy and switching formation to Quick QB, which brings Percy Harvin as QB and do the QB run plays.

[mchardj]

Even though its in the game, doing it every play could be cheesy. To each their own, though. I will say this, Harvin is not very tough and I would not want him taking too many hits from Linemen and LB's. I have run two dynastys with Florida and he has gotten hurt and missed time in both. Just saying, you could risk loosing a great weapon. I had another couple plays I wanted to describe. Its similar to the Mid Slant Snaponic mention earlier.

Trio HB WK TE Cross-Strk TE B, Drag WR A, Slant out left RB LB. Hike and read the defense. I have run it over and over and their is always someone OPEN. I know this is similar to the Cross Punch from last year, and I don't want to steal anybody's ideas, but this is a great play. It mimics the Mid Slant pretty well.

Slot F trips PA QB Choice-Slant Y RB out to left or block him depanding on the pressure. The LB WR (sub in the all WR package) gets wide open against Cover 2 and most zone blites. If he is covered look at the B reciever going deep over the middle. Plus you still have the RB in most situations as a safety valve.

Also, I believe this may have been mentioned, but have you guys noticed the deep slant out in the SG Tight HB option (B WR) is deadly if you pass lead to the outside (not up). The receiver goes into an animation. It looks as if he is not going to get to it and all of a sudden he runs it down. It can work against man (like everything else) and many zone situations. Anyway, later!

[M-Dub?]

The WR at HB formation sub isn't cheesy in and of itself. If you want to put Harvin at HB and run an option or hand it off to him, I don't really have a problem with that. But if you're going to motion him out and/or hot route him to a streak, that's pretty cheesy, because your opponent can't counter it, even if he knows what you're doing. If there was a CB at LB formation sub or just some way to assign a certain defensive player to always cover a certain offensive player regardless of where he lines up, then it would be OK. But as it stands, you'd have to go into your depth chart and manually sub in a CB at MLB. That's not very practical.

Doesn't Madden have that feature, BTW?

[aruthless]

any chance we could get this thread back on topic cause this is a pretty deadly playbook even without putting harving in the backfield.

Ive found that if you need to get some yards and the defense is running man coverage the trips formation works really well with hitting the RB out of the backfield on an out route to the same side as the WRs. Mean while set one WR to drag another to slant and the last on a streak.

[aruthless]

If you have any stick skills at all gator heavy can be beat, all it takes is practice, Play 335 bear with man defense control the FS and make the SS qb spy if they subbed in the "quick QB". Its not difficult. Everything has a counter to this game except qb sneak.