Scot Defense:
A Way of Life
D efense is the cornerstone in any suc-
cessful program. At Highland Park,
we have established an aggressive but
simple philosophy that has allowed us to be
successful. Knowing where you are on the
field and where your help is coming from
helps us be aggressive by nature. We are
a basic 4-3 scheme, an over shade nose
look at times. We will be an eight-man front
team while bringing various stunts to help
compliment our chances of success. In the
secondary, we will disguise our coverages
when possible, but play no more than four
or five different looks for our opponents.
In determining what’s important in our
defense, I will go over some philosophy,
priorities and objectives that we want our
defensive personnel aware of going into
our ballgame. It is important that we as
coaches prepare our kids as well as we
can, but be as consistent in developing a
plan that will put our defensive squad in a
position to be the very best on game day.
We are a gap control defense. We rely
heavily on our intelligence of where
everyone needs to be on formation
recognition, and when that ball snaps, on
our determination to defeat the blocker
Tom Callahan and get the ball. We pride ourselves in
our team pursuit to be involved in the
Defensive Coach play. Since we still use the numbers
defense, we have the flexibility to be var-
Highland Park High School ious fronts if necessary. But by keeping it
simple and allowing our players to be
Dallas, Tex. aggressive on their keys, this has helped
our takeaway ratio for the year. This has
allowed us to be sound in all areas of our
defense.
Principles of Defense
1. Defense must be a team effort; there
is no place for selfishness in football.
• Each man must know his individual
assignment and responsibility and must
take care of his country.
• He must carry out his assignments
positively in order that the defense may
function as a unit.
• Any gambling or hunch-playing by an
individual can only lead to grief in the long
run. Our defense is based on each man
carrying out his assignment completely.
Any breakdown can be traced to the failure
of a man to carry out his responsibility.
• Each play is individual and is designed
to score. Therefore, you must play each
play completely out until the whistle is
blown.
2. Pass defense is the great challenge!
• AFCA Summer Manual — 1999 •
• It starts with pressure on the passer.
The pressure must be sound — the pass
rushers must stay in their lanes and get to
the passer by the direct route. The passer
must be contained. If he is allowed to run
out of the pocket and away from the rush, it
will hurt us.
• Our linebackers must hold up and
generally create havoc in order to disrupt
the timing and/or patterns of the
receivers. They must know their coverage
and hold up in a manner that will not take
them out of position. Never let a receiver
cross in front of you unmolested.
Eliminate him! Earn the respect of
receivers by punishing and harassing
him. If you can make the receiver become
more concerned about hitting him than
catching the football, your job is half-done
before the play begins.
• Our defensive backs must learn their
responsibilities and the technique that must
be used to enable them to cover their
responsibilities. They must realize that the
secret of covering a pass receiver is con-
centration and desire.
3. Desire is the secret of defense.
• In order to defend against the pass,
you must first make the correct adjustment
to the offensive formation according to the
coverage called. In order to do so, you
must know your assignments so well that
they came as second nature to you.
• The secret to making the tackle is a
burning desire to get to the ballcarrier and
then to drive your hat into the football.
Have complete concentration on your tar-
get. Power without balance is wasted. The
two must be coordinated.
• The secret of rushing the passer is
simply the desire to get there. Never allow
a receiver to run free past you.
• The secret of holding up a receiver is
complete concentration on your target.
4. The defense must know the oppo-
nent’s offense!
• Know the enemy. No one is so good
that he does not need all of the help he can
get against the team we will play.
• Know the tendencies. All teams have
pet plays and receivers or ballcarriers in
certain situations. By your extra effort, this
can make the difference between you and
your team being average and great.
5. Victory comes at a price, and this
price is high. You must pay it if we are to
carry on the Scot tradition!
•A total dedication is a must both on and
off the field.
 • The test of this willingness will be your
every act. Your promptness to all meetings,
your hustle in practice, your attitude toward
work, school, teammates and coaches. The
coaches and your teammates can tell if foot-
ball is important to you. There is no place for
indifference in athletics.
6. Everything the coaches do is in terms
of what is best for the Scots.
• The things you are asked to do are not
to incur a hardship on you. They are the
things the coaching staff believes are nec-
essary and in the best interest of the team.
• These things will be neither impossible
nor unreasonable, but will be the win-test-
ed necessities.
• The coaching staff will tell you, show
you, and do everything in their power to get
you to use what they believe are the best
tools in the business, but it is still up to you
to use them.
The Importance of Defense
1. If they can’t score, they surely can’t
beat you.
2. The defense can score six ways:
• Blocked punts.
• Intercepted pass.
• Punt return.
• Recovered fumble.
• Safety.
• Return field goal.
3. The offense can score four ways:
• Run
• Pass
• Field goal
• Kick off return
4. These defensive scores are not
breaks of the game.
• You have to know what to do.
• You have to work on it, not just talk
about it.
5. Each team will have the football
approximately 12 times per game. If we
can recover two fumbles and intercept two
passes, we have cut their chances of scor-
ing almost 33 percent.
Each time they lose the ball without a
punt, the defense has picked up approxi-
mately 35 yards four of these are 140 yards
We wonít have anything like a 35-yard
average on any of our offensive plays.
If we work on punt returns, we should
average from eight-to-10 yards per return,
and we will, because of our great effort and
confidence in our return, bring one back all
of the way occasionally. In any event, a 10-
yard average on a play is more than we will
average on most of our offensive plays. We
are guaranteed five plays on offense, and
our first play is our punt return.
We should field every punt we can safe-
ly. We not only get the yardage, but we also
save the yardage we would lose on a bad
bounce toward our goal. Our safety must
be a center fielder and break at the crack of
the bat.
Rules for Successful Defense
1. Know the down and distance.
2. Know the position on the field and what
an opponent usually does in the position.
3. Know opponent’s best personnel in
that situation, and what you expect from
watching practice and films.
4. Know the defensive game plan which
includes normal, short yardage, long
yardage, and what to do in the different
areas of the field.
5. Keep your poise, whether ahead or
behind in the last two minutes of the game.
We must know our available time outs and
what to do when they are used up.
6. Know your scouting report. It is pre-
pared for your benefit. To become a suc-
cessful part of our defensive team, it is nec-
essary that you study and thoroughly
understand your opponents.
Defensive Philosophy
Football is a team game. The quality of
the team is more than just the sum of 11
players. All 11 playing the call with good
discipline make the sum greater than the
total of 11 individual talents. This creates
overlap, which is the secret to consistently
successful performance. Overlap means
that everyone does his job so thoroughly
that there is always more than one man
making a play.
1. Failure occurs for several reasons:
2. Breakdown in responsibility.
3. Breakdown in adjustments.
4. Poor techniques.
5. Being physically beaten.
Anyone on our squad will have enough
physical ability to compete most of the
time. Being physically beaten is actually the
most acceptable failure, since it is possible
for someone else to be physically superior.
It is not necessary to fail in responsibilities,
adjustments, or techniques; you can con-
trol all of these.
There are some assumptions about our
players that we make and are a part of
being here:
1. Everyone is a hitter.
2. Everyone finishes every play.
• AFCA Summer Manual — 1999 •
3. Everyone can apply self-discipline to
his play.
4. Everyone can mentally prepare himself.
5. “Bad days” or “bad downs” don’t have
to occur.
There are some attitudes all of us
should establish:
1. Believe in the availability of success.
2. Develop winning habits day by day.
3. Mental toughness — performance
under pressure.
4. Allow no ”unearned” scores.
Mental preparation involves several
things:
1. Relate your responsibility to your
technique — your job helps you
understand how you want to play.
2. Relate your responsibility to those of
your teammates — this allows for
more positive and aggressive play.
3. Develop a mental picture of yourself
actually playing the game.
4. Achieve an understanding of the
offense, not just memorization of
tendencies, etc.
5. Know what you have to get done and
what you might also get done —
keep your priorities in order.
Defensive Priorities
To be a good defensive football team,
you must place special emphasis on the
following things. You will be working on
these every day in practice. It will be very
repetitious and at times may seem monot-
onous, but you as a football player must
mentally prepare yourself to work hard on
them every day. You can’t loaf through
them or toward the middle of the season,
you will go downhill as a player. The only
way to improve on them is to continually
work on them, and we know from experi-
ence as coaches, that key, technique,
quickness and tackling are the most impor-
tant things to have a good defense. If they
weren’t, we wouldn’t spend every day in
practice working on them.
Key
Before you do anything else on defense,
you must read your key.
You must concentrate on your key in
practice every day. This is mental. Learn
your assignments early in the week so you
are not confused and can be aggressive.
Technique
This is the next thing that will happen to
you after you read your key.
 Take people on tough. Control the line of
scrimmage.
Be aggressive in your technique and
don’t just control the offensive man, but
whip him.
Concentrate every day in team work and
your technique will improve.
Quickness
After your key and you play your tech-
nique, then immediately your quickness
becomes of utmost importance.
You can never be too quick.
It is possible to give up some size and
strength for quickness and play. You can
never give up quickness for size and
strength, though.
Your quickness will give you great team
pursuit and gang-tackling.
To improve quickness, you must con-
centrate in practice on the many drills we
use to improve foot speed.
Defensive Objectives
Prevent the Offense from Scoring:
This is our primary objective.
Force Turnovers: Meeting this objec-
tive will enable us to: score, set up scores
for the offense, give the offense field posi-
tion and stop drives.
Control Field Position: Develop a
sense of urgency to stop our opponent now!
Prevent the Big Play: Don’t give them
an easy score.
Accept and meet the challenge of sud-
den change.
Score on defense.
The Approach to Successful Defense
Hard work and great effort.
Physically On The Field: Work hard to
improve techniques and skills. Work hard
to get into and maintain great condition.
Develop effort habit in practice — go full
speed from snap to whistle. You must prac-
tice hard to play hard.
Physically Off The Field: Added
strength and flexibility will give us the win-
ning edge.
Mentally On The Field: Listen, concen-
trate, and absorb coaching; then apply it
physically.
Mentally Off The Field: Concentrate in
meetings. Know your assignments perfect-
ly. Study your playbooks, scout report, and
game plans.
Discipline
Play the defense called.
Play your techniques properly and elim-
inate mistakes.
Don’t guess — have confidence that
your teammate will do his job.
Toughness
We must be physical and we must be
aggressive. We must punish our opponent
with aggressive hitting and gang-tackling.
Play with Confidence and Poise
Eliminate careless errors and penalties.
Most games are won in the fourth quarter.
Believe and play like you always have a
chance to win.
Playing the game requires awareness of
the following things:
Situation
1. Down and distance.
2. Yard line.
3. Score.
4. Time remaining.
5. Weather.
Offense
1. Formation.
2. Personnel.
3. Play selection history.
4. Tips and cheats.
5. Audible mechanics.
Rules
1. Playing rules.
2. Some administration rules.
Down and Distance Theory
As a defensive unit, we must at all times
know the down and distance situation. Our
opponents will, in most instances, classify
themselves according to down and dis-
tance as to the formations they will use,
and the type of play (pass or run-inside or
outside) we should be expecting. With this
in mind, you should memorize the following
down and distance chart to better help you
understand how we try to act our defenses
up, and to help you prepare yourself for the
situations that will present themselves.
First and 10.
Second and three-to-six (Normal).
Second and seven or more (Long).
Third and one-to-two (Short).
Third and three-to-five (Medium).
Third and six or more (Long).
First and 10
We must expect in this instance either
pass or run, and use one of our combina-
• AFCA Summer Manual — 1999 •
tion defenses which gives us an excellent
running defense plus a strong passing
defense. At times, due to calculated fre-
quencies through our scouting system, we
may concentrate more emphasis on one
phase of their attack rather than the other
in the particular down and distance. Good
time to offset or use sound stunt to cause
blocking problems.
Second and One-to-Two
Waste Down
Many teams have a tendency to go for a
home run play on second and one or two.
Second and Three-to-
Six Yards to Go
In this situation, percentages tend to
show that most teams will favor their run-
ning attacks, although this does not elimi-
nate the possibility of a pass. Due to such
a percentage, we would tend to select one
of our running defenses that is designed to
impair our opponent’s running game, but
still gives us ample pass coverage.
Second and Seven or
More Yards to Go
Due to a high frequency of pass plays by
most teams in a second and long situation,
we will concentrate our defenses on stopping
the passing game. Good time to rush passer.
Third and One-to-Two Yards to Go
We must expect our opponents to select
their best offensive play in this situation. We
will definitely concentrate on stopping their
best play with our best running defense. Our
theory is to meet strength with strength in
this situation. We must stop their offense for
no gain or a loss in this situation.
Third and Three-to-Five Yards to Go
We regard this situation in theory the
same as second down and normal, but
whatever the offense selects to run against
us, we must hold them to less than six
yards to force them into a kicking situation.
Third and Six or More Yards to Go
In this situation, we find through per-
centages that most of our opponents tend
to rely upon their passing game more fre-
quently than their running game. With this
in mind, we will select one of our defenses
that is designed to give us maximum pass
coverage. In other instances, we may
select one of our blitzing defenses to cause
the opposing quarterback to suffer from
undue pressure, thus disturbing the timing Run/Pass Fumble Tendencies
of their passing attack. Toward variation. Ball-handling characteristics.
Away from variation. Intense area reactions.
Screens
Tendencies Backfield Motion Scramble and Plaster
Down and distance. Run/Pass Tendencies Quarterback escape characteristics.
Formations. Formation. Secondary routes.
Field position. Down and distance.
Game situation. Quarterback Drops
Anticipated defense. Pattern Tendencies Types of drops and pass directions.
Formation. Depth of drops and routes.
Play Recognition Down and distance. Play-action and routes.
Receiver tips. Run/pass tips from quarterback stance.
Line — Sets and timing. Run/Pass
Backs and quarterback — Atypical pass Toward variation. Substitutions
movements. Away from variation. Receivers.
Backs.
Responsibilities Tight End Tips Procedures.
By defense called. Loose Adjustment categories.
Due to offensive action. Run/Pass tendency.
Pattern tendency. Game Situation Caller
Draws Backfield set relationship. Down and distance, time, score.
Tendencies Slow pile, fast pile, in-bounds, out-of-
Down and distance. Stance bounds.
Formations. Left/right stagger. Time-out caller.
Field position. Weight distribution.
Game situation. Huddle General
Anticipated defense. Line Tips Game situation caller.
Splits Huddle discipline.
Play Recognition Maximum.
Line — Set and go techniques.
Backs and quarterback — Atypical pass
Minimum.
Down and distance.
100 Percent
movements. Backfield sets.
Receiver releases and routes. Run/pass. That’s what a coach asks of
Point of attack (Backfield set?). his players and that’s what
Responsibilities the AFCA is asking of foot-
By defense called. Stance ball coaching staffs at all 680
Due to offensive action. Stagger.
plus institutions fielding col-
Weight distribution.
Receiver Splits lege football teams through-
Run/Pass Tendencies Backfield Tips out the country.
Formation. Stance
Down and distance. Stagger. One hundred percent mem-
Weight distribution. bership in the AFCA by
Pattern Tendencies
coaching staffs will result in a
Formation. Fullback Cheats
Down and distance. Up/Back. more effective voice in mat-
Strong/Weak. ters affecting the game and
Run/Pass the coaching profession,
Toward variation. Halfback Cheats from rules legislation to
Away from variation. Up/Back. coach of the year voting.
In/Out.
Receiver Motion
Run/Pass Tendencies Offensive Cadence and Audibles Set the standard. Be sure
Formation. Pre-snap look mechanics. every member of the football
Down and distance. Audible procedures. staff at your school is a
Pattern Tendencies Live sounds. member of the AFCA.
Formation. Recognizable audibles.
Down and distance. Quick/long count off-side techniques.

• AFCA Summer Manual — 1999 •