(Photo via usatodayhss.com)

The 2017 Mater Dei (Santa Ana, California) football team was ranked as the number one team in country before the season and finished number one after beating its arch nemesis De La Salle Spartans (Concord) in the CIF State Open Division championship. The Monarchs lost their previous four matchups to the Spartans, which made the victory even sweeter for them.

The Monarchs were a ridiculously stacked team with 19 NCAA Division I, players including the nation’s top-rated quarterback in J.T. Daniels. The Monarchs remarkably never trailed for one second during their title run. It was a team effort but their high-powered offense, led by Daniels, was unstoppable.

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They scored 724 points for an average of 48 points a game, including 55 against De La Salle in the championship game. Those are video game like numbers. What makes it more impressive is that they scored all these points against the best competition in the country.

Their offense featured pro passing concepts that you’ll see from colleges and in the pros mixed with a steady diet of spread run concepts.

Let's take a look at some of their best concepts:

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Hitches/double slants

There are some concepts that are better suited to beat certain coverages. For example, a slant/flat combination is better against Cover-3 than it is against Cover-2. That’s fine if you call the right play against the correct coverage, but if you don’t, you could leave your offense in a bind. Most high schools don’t have a sophisticated audible system, so having two coverage-beaters to both sides serves the same purpose.

Double hitches to one side is good against Cover-3 because it’s hard for the inside wall defender to cover the slot, which leaves the flat defender in a bind. Double slants are good against Cover-2 because it overloads the inside wall defender’s zone. Mater Dei combines both of these concepts so Daniels could have an answer to both coverages. He simply has to count the deep safeties and eliminate half the field based on what he sees.

 

In the clip, the defense came out in a two-deep safety coverage. Daniels counted the safeties pre-snap and knew right away he was going to the double slants side. The inside wall defender went outside, so he made the correct decision by hitting the inside slant.

If he saw the defense in a one-deep safety defense, he would have gone to the double hitch sides. You could see how both route got collisioned by the two-deep coverage.

Mater Dei runs a lot of hitch concepts to take advantage of the space defenses give underneath. If you could perfect the timing necessary to execute these routes consistently, they are practically free yards. The Monarchs certainly take advantage when they see off coverage.

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Mirrored RPOs

The Monarchs offense isn’t reliant on RPOs the way a lot of high school offenses are, but they have a few in their playbook. One that they use often, is out of 2-by-2 with an inside zone run.

 

They’ll run different pass concepts to each side against different coverages, but they would accomplish the same purpose — to take defenders outside of the box to give them a numerical advantage inside.

The Monarchs didn’t use Daniels as a runner much, which makes sense. He’s more of a pocket passer, so in order to run their inside zone effectively, they need a five-man box. In the clip, the defense had a six-man box. There’s one more defender than they could block. However, by having that extra player in the box, they were outnumbered to the frontside bubble screen.

Daniels saw that pre-snap and made the correct decision to get the ball to his playmaker in the perimeter.

Draw

The Monarchs also use a simple “draw” RPO that I first saw Noel Mazzone use during his time at UCLA. The concept is simple — the quarterback receives the snap and finds the playside inside linebacker. If that linebacker drops back, the quarterback will turn and hand the ball off to the running back.

If the linebacker doesn’t react or moves up toward the line of scrimmage, the quarterback will throw the pass concept.

 

On this draw, the Monarch offense has mirrored slant/flat concepts. Daniels is reading the linebacker to the right of the formation. The linebacker dropped back, so once again, Daniels makes the correct decision by handing the ball off. If the linebacker stepped up, Daniels would have thrown the slant behind him.

Teams that use this concept have to practice the handoff technique over and over again. It’s not necessarily difficult, but it’s different than a regular handoff. The goal is to get the ball to the back safely and have him in position to accelerate once he’s secured the ball.

 

As the ball is snapped, the back should take a couple of shuffle steps toward the quarterback so the QB doesn’t have to reach to hand the ball off, which could cause a turnover.

Some coaches will have their back form a pocket as soon as possible, but the Mater Dei back didn’t form a pocket until he was about the get the handoff. His knees are bent and he has some weight forward so he could accelerate as soon as he secured the ball.

The quarterback simply takes a one-step drop to show pass and find the linebacker. If he wants to hand the ball off, he pivots toward the running back and gets his eyes on the back’s pocket and safely puts the ball there.

Empty sticks with backside “in”

This is a great play because coming out with an empty backfield spreads the defense out and puts them in a quandary. To the three receiver side, the offense has a stick concept called. To the two-receiver side, the slot runs an “in” route. If the defense doesn’t adjust to the trips side, the stick concept should free a receiver up.

However, if they put another defender to the trips side, there won’t be any inside help for the “in” route, which is hard to stop because of its proximity to the quarterback. Additionally, if the defense brings down a safety, it will be susceptible to the fade routes on the sideline.

 

On this play, the defense is in man coverage with two safeties deep, which means the fade routes aren’t options unless there is a blown coverage. Because of the man coverage, the three receiver was matched with three defenders. However, there isn’t any inside help and Daniels is easily able to hit the in-breaking route to convert the first down.

Bunch shallow cross

When defenses face bunch formations, they’ll have checks such as playing banjo technique to avoid picks. Motioning into a bunch could be especially tough for a high school defense to adjust to on the fly.

 

Here, the motion into bunch caused confusion for the defense pre-snap, but even if it didn’t, the shallow cross out of the bunch formation would still put a lot of stress on the defense. On the boundary, the single receiver runs the “dig” part of the shallow cross concept while the running back on that side runs a swing.

The No. 2 receiver from the bunch runs a drag from the other side, which creates a triangle read to that side. I’m unsure of how Mater Dei reads this, but it’s difficult for a defense because its attention automatically goes to the bunch and to avoid getting picked, but the shallow cross concept actually develops on the opposite side of the bunch.

On the bunch side, the No. 2 receiver goes inside as mentioned before. The No. 3 receiver that motioned over runs a delay shoot route. Though the No. 1 receiver runs outside of the screen, it’s likely that he ran a corner route, which is essentially an inverted smash concept to that side, which creates a vertical stretch.

Slot dino

This is a great concept against quarters coverage, especially when you put your best receiver in the slot because he would usually get isolated against the safety. If your receiver could run an effective dino route (fake corner to skinny post), it’s very difficult to defend.

Mater Dei runs the concept out of 2-by-2 with its No. 1 receiver running an “in” underneath the dino route. If the underneath coverage drops back to help on the “dino,” the quarterback could hit the “in.”

 

In the clip, you can see the underneath defender step up toward the “in” route, which leaves the safety in 1-on-1 coverage vs. the slot that is running the “dino” route. The slot receiver goes upfield for seven steps before breaking into the post for three steps and then going back inside.

This play is a great complement to the smash concept or snag concept, which both involve the slot corner.

Obviously, having a lot of great players and a refined quarterback are key to executing these concepts. Not every team is going to have 19 D-I players on their teams. Most don’t even have one, but these are all sound concepts that I believe can be taught at most high schools if it fits your system or personnel.

Follow Ted Nguyen on Twitter at @FB_FilmAnalysis

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