Building a championship football team

by Paul W. Bryant

I think it is very important for a team to be able to go into a “Victory Defense” when the occasion warrants its use; for example, when you have a slim lead with little time remaining before the termination of the first half or the game. We will go into a 5-man line if we have the game won and our opponents are not close to our goal line. Under such circumstances we can afford to permit the opposition to get a first down or two, but we cannot afford to let them complete the long pass or the long run for a touchdown. We believe our victory defense is sound, and we are playing sound defensive football when we employ it. [Figure 24] illustrates the victory defense we used eight times in one year, and we intercepted our opposition’s intended forward pass on seven of the eight occasions.

Figure 24

The individual and team duties and responsibilities when we employ our Victory Defense are as follows:

Middle Lineman—Sole responsibility is to look for the screen pass and/or for the draw play.

Ends and Tackles—Line up on the outside shoulder of the offensive ends and tackles. If the offensive end(s) splits, we will adjust on them with our three deep backs. We want our defensive ends to shove the offensive ends to the inside, holding them up if possible, and then look to the inside for a trap block or for a screen pass. Should neither of these occur, the ends are to contain the passer, not permitting the ball to get outside either of their respective positions. They should play loose and proceed with caution, rather than rushing hard into the offensive backfield.

The defensive tackles should play back off the line of scrimmage with their feet even and parallel. Each tackle must keep his man in front of him, not permitting the offensive tackles to block them in or out. When a pass develops, the tackles must rush the passer, making certain to stay in front of the football.

Linebackers—Line up about six yards deep and at a spot opposite where the defensive end ordinarily would line up. By lining up wide, we hope to funnel the offense toward the middle of our formation. By this I mean we want them to direct their attack toward the inside and we don’t want them to turn the corner, to get outside or to kill the clock by running out-of-bounds.

Halfbacks and Safety—We want our halfbacks to be at least 12 yards deep and well outside the offensive formation. We want our safety man at least 12 yards deep and in the middle of our defensive alignment. The three backs will play their regular defense.