The stretch play is one of the most effective calls in the NFL and college football.

The scheme is simple enough to teach at the high school and youth levels, but it does require a large amount of time to drill and perfect.

At a high school where I coached, we installed our zone schemes and used them to break every school rushing record and even developed Ohio’s leading rusher.

Here is how you can teach effective offensive line fundamentals within various blocking schemes, using the stretch play as the starting point.

SEE ALSO: Read more of Keith Grabowski’s Building and Offensive Line blog series

SEE ALSO: Teach offensive line principles before scheme

Once members of an offensive line have the basics of gap responsibility and landmarks down, continue building on that foundation by teaching the outside zone/stretch play, including proper hand placement and punch.

When a lineman locks onto a defender to reach him, the punch is of utmost importance. If the blocker can get the backside hand to the sternum, he will reach the defender. If he throws short of the sternum, he will have a tougher time gaining the leverage he needs.

An uncovered offensive lineman with an inside aligned defender can punch in order to slow penetration and allow the lineman who has that gap responsibility to take the block over. We give the outside, playside hand target as the bicep. Ideally, that punch is coming up through the outside hand of the defender where the breast plate and shoulder plate come together. Hand targets are illustrated in the following video.

After the linemen have a sound understanding of their footwork landmarks and targets for punch, they are ready to learn combinations and overtake techniques.

The next video illustrates the different overtakes, including footwork landmarks and punch targets.

Ultimately, the defense is going to run to not be reached. Emphasizing great footwork at the landmarks puts an offensive lineman on the right course after everything begins to move.

Initial teaching of combo fundamentals occurs with a 2 technique or head-up defender alignment with a linebacker aligned inside of him. We have the 2 technique defender work straight across, to his inside gap and to his outside gap.

Now that the landmark is moving, one lineman can come off the block and the other can step off to the second level. They should work to stay on the block until they reach the cone and then step off to block the linebacker at this point in the teaching progression. This drill is diagrammed and explained in the video below. It shows our combinations being worked on Day 3 of our preseason camp. We would like to see some better footwork and technique, but the first concern in teaching the stretch concept is that players understand what they are doing. We refine by teaching them the “how” with working on individual techniques.

Keith Grabowski has been a football coach for 26 years, currently serving as an offensive assistant and technology coordinator at Oberlin College in Ohio. He previously was a head coach at the high school level for eight years and the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Baldwin Wallace University. Grabowski serves as an advisor for several sports technology companies. He is a columnist for American Football Monthly and writes his own blog at thecoachesedge.com/blog. He’s the author of “101+ Pro Style Pistol Offense Plays” and five other books available on thecoachesedge.com and operates Coaches Edge Technologies. Follow him on Twitter @CoachKGrabowski.