Outside Zone Midline in the spread offense is another great way to get your athletes to attack space. There are several ways to run midline, whether its off inside zone, outside zone, or even your favorite gap scheme. The way I preferred running it this past year in 2022 was off outside zone.
My plan was to install midline off inside zone first and then outside zone. After initially installing midline off inside zone, I found the spacing was never great and it was difficult for my QB to make an accurate read on the DT. In practice the DT kept making plays in the backfield and it just never hit well for us on offense. I believe the lack of success was because we weren’t maximizing the space between the mesh point and the read key. The unblocked DT could essentially play both the QB and RB at the mesh and muddy everything up for us in the backfield.
I quickly moved on from inside zone and looked to outside zone midline as nice wrinkle to our offense. This became a great scheme for us against even fronts as we would typically read the 3 technique to the backside of the center. Although we didn’t always get the 3t to our backside (shaded nose or 2i), we had great success with it because of the horizontal stress it put on a defensive tackle with the “give” and “keep” options at the mesh point. Defensive tackles are usually not that great in space, and are rarely left unblocked in our offense, which makes them a great option to read in the run game.
Here’s how we run outside zone midline against even under and over fronts:
Outside Zone Midline vs Under Front
| LT | Base block against 5 technique. Take 6 inch lead step with the playside foot and immediately get post step in the ground with focus of backside knee through crotch and hands on sternum. |
| LG | Responsible for the 1st LB to the backside of the centerline. With a 3 technique on the outside shade, take 6 in lead step with the play side foot and avoid contact with the DT. Quickly work back after avoiding DT to balance up the BSB. |
| C | Execute regular outside zone blocking rules. In this example, take a lateral lead step and try to get backside knee through crotch and backside hand through sternum. |
| RG | Execute regular outside zone blocking rules. Covered on the backside shoulder so show backside hand while taking a lateral lead step and an emphasis on backside knee through PSLB’s (1) crotch. |
| RT | Reach the 5 technique. Take a lateral lead step with playside foot with a focus of getting the backside knee through the crotch on the 2nd step and backside hand through sternum. Facemask on outside armpit. |
| T | Drop step and set track for ghost TE. |
| QB | Drop step right foot first and then left. Read the 1st downline to the backside of the centerline. |
Outside Zone Midline vs Over Front
| LT | Base block against 5 technique. Take 6 inch lead step with the playside foot and immediately get post step in the ground with focus of backside knee through crotch and hands on sternum. |
| LG | Responsible for the 1st LB to the backside of the centerline. With a 2i inside shade, avoid contact with the DT by stepping laterally with left foot and quickly work to 2nd level to balance up the BSB. |
| C | Execute regular outside zone blocking rules. In this example, take a lateral lead step and try to get backside knee through crotch and backside hand through sternum with the 3 tech. |
| RG | Execute regular outside zone blocking rules. Since covered playside, take lateral lead step with playside foot and get backside knee through crotch & backside hand through sternum with eyes on LB. |
| RT | Reach the 5 technique. Take a lateral lead step with playside foot with a focus of getting the backside knee through the crotch on the 2nd step and backside hand through sternum. Facemask on outside armpit. |
| T | Drop step and set track for ghost TE. |
| QB | Drop step right foot first and then left. Read the 1st downline to the backside of the centerline. |
Running Outside Zone Midline in the Spread Offense
You can see that even though we didn’t block it perfectly at times, we were still able to have success with this nice wrinkle. Outside zone midline became more of a QB run for me as I anticipated our QB keeping it majority of the time. Knowing my QB would keep it on the backside, I would try to formation the defense out wide to the field and away from the point of attack with the QB keeping it to the boundary.
Midline is a great addition to anyone running zone blocking schemes. It’s another way to get your athletes in space, switch up read keys, and use the same blocking rules and principals as your base zone run game. I think you’ll find how inexpensive it is to install with results of chunk plays and explosive runs.