The Belly Series has been the most suc-cessful part of our offense for the past threeseasons. Because the Belly Series is prob-ably 70% of our offense, we have designedvarious blocking assignments for the line.This way we have available our moste ffective blocking to meet the varyingdefense used against us from week toweek. We use the play from regular for-mation and with various flankers. We tryto analyze the opponent’s defensive strate-gy and then decide which formation toattempt the play from and with which typeof blocking.

In the January proceedings there is anarticle on the Belly Series by my backfieldcoach, Frank Broyles, in which he dia-gramed the various methods with whichwe run the play. In this article I am goingto try to answer some of the questions mostoften asked by other coaches about theSeries. These questions are:

1. IS THE PLAY A THREE WAYOPTION BETWEEN THE FULLBACKKEEP OFF TACKLE, THE QUARTER-BACK KEEP, OR THE PITCH OUT TOTHE HALFBACK? OR IS EACH PLAYCALLED SEPARATELY?

In our Series we make one of two callsin the huddle. One for the fullback to carrythe ball with the desired blocking. Theother is the outside play with the quarter-back having the option of keeping or pitch-ing off depending upon the defensive end.Having the three way option would beideal if the quarterback could make thecorrect decision. But we feel that is askingtoo much of the quarterback. Duringspring training we tried the three wayoption and did not have success with it. Inaddition we want the desired blocking foreach play. For example, on the off tackleplay our guard will block the end out. Onthe pitch out he will fake a block on theend and turn downfield.

2. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR THE QUAR-TERBACK TO RIDE WITH THE FULL-BACK TOO LONG AND THUS HURTTHE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE PLAY?

Yes. This is the most important phaseof the play. If the quarterback rides morethan one step with the fullback, the lefthalfback cannot run at full speed becausehe will be too wide for the quarterback to

make a safe lateral. If you slow the playdown pursuit by the defense will hurt theplay. We do not slow our play at all, andmany of our long runs have had pursuit bythe defense only one step away from ourhalfback when he cut down the field.

3. DOES THE QUARTERBACK EXE-CUTE THE SAME FOOTWORK ONBOTH THE PITCHOFF AND GIVE TOTHE FULLBACK?

No. On the outside play we do not wantthe defensive end to see our quarterbackwhile the ball is in the fullback’s stomach.The quarterback can best accomplish thisby arriving at the faking area a little late.When the quarterback puts the ball in thefullback’s stomach he should be an arm’slength from the fullback so he can make agood distinct fake. The quarterback cannotgo down the line of scrimmage because hewill get to the faking area ahead of the full-back. His first step should be a 45∞ diag-onal to the line of scrimmage.

When the fullback is to keep the ball,the quarterback should get to the fakingarea first. Then while he is riding the ballin the fullback’s stomach, the defensiveend will see the quarterback and usuallystay to the outside thinking that the quar-terback is trying to fool him. This natural-ly helps the fullback keep play.

4. FROM A REGULAR "T" FORMA-TION IS IT BEST TO DIVE THE RIGHTHALFBACK OR SEND HIM AROUND

THE DEFENSIVE END?Both of these plays have a place. We

instruct our quarterback to dive the righthalfback except on short yardage and onthe goal line. In these two instances wefeel that the defensive end will be comingto the inside regardless of what the righthalfback does. Also the halfback is theonly man that can block the defensive half-back who will be playing up very close onthese situations.

Other than in these two situations wehave found that the defensive end will pro-tect wide when the onside halfback startsat him. That is the reason for diving thehalfback and pulling the guard as tho hewere to block the end out. These two fac-tors, plus the fullback with the ball in hisstomach headed for the off tackle hole, willusually pull the defensive end to the insideallowing a successful pitch off.

5. WHY DO WE SOMETIMES SENDTHE OFFENSIVE END FOR T H EHALFBACK AND OTHER T I M E SBLOCK HIM ON THE LINE OF SCRIM-MAGE?

There are two reasons for this. Firstwhen we run the play on short yardage oron the goal line (Diagram 1) we expect thedefense to penetrate and we are afraidsomeone might break through and interferewith the ball handling. Therefore, we usestraight ahead blocking on the side of theplay to prevent any chance of a fumble.

THE GEORGIA TECH BELLY SERIESBOBBY DODD, Georgia Institute of Technology

BOBBY DODD

Secondly, we don’t want the defensivehalfback to be able to "key" on the offen-sive end to the effect that when he blocks itis the run and when he releases downfieldit is the pass. We have found that when theend releases downfield (Diagram 2) thehalfback does not come up as fast thusallowing a better chance of success for theplay.

6. WHAT IS THE BEST WAYTO RUNTHE PLAY AGAINST A BOX DEFENSEWITH CORNER LINEBACKERS?

On a box defense neither the end northe guard can get a decent block on the out-side linebacker. It is possible to run thegoal line belly against a box defense. Theend will release for the twin safety if thereis no one on the line for him to block.

We didn’t want to lose the threat of thebelly play and pass when we set flankersagainst the box defense. We tried to keepthe blocking and faking the same. There isno change on the blocking against an oddset. The series is designed so it is possibleto run with the flanker or against theflanker. If a team does not revolve with theflanker, we run towards him. If a teamshould mix up their defenses so as torevolve part of the time, we will set theflanker and decide on direction of play atthe line of scrimmage by an automatic call.I will diagram the play using both the openflanker and the cross flanker.

If the team loosens the corner line-backer to cover the open flanker the play

would be run toward the flanker. Theflanker should not try to block the cornerlinebacker, but push him back as if for apass then turn in and block the twin safety.

The off tackle play can be run with any

flanker set, and I will use this set to illus-trate the blocking we use. Keep in mindthat we use this same blocking no matterwhich flanker we have set.

The pass from this set has been effec-tive for us. Anytime we find the twin safe-ty coming up fast this pass should work.The end should go down the line just as hedoes on the run.

Should the defense revolve with theopen flanker we would run away from theflanker with the same blocking. We do notslow down our halfback at all on this play.The quarterback does not try to ride verymuch with the fullback. The lateral shouldbe a two-handed lateral.

Also, we set the left halfback to see ifthe defense will revolve toward the flanker.If they do not the play should be runtoward the flanker, with the flanker againpushing the corner man back.

Most of the time the defense willrevolve with this flanker, consequently theplay should be run back away from theflanker.

We believe this is the best way to throwthe running pass. The safety man will beover toward the strong side of the forma-tion and will have a hard time supportingthe halfback. The defense must respect thepass possibility and thus keep the defen-sive halfback from charging up too fast.

7. DOES THE FULLBACK RUNUNDER CONTROL SPEED?

No. The fullback should run just as ifthe off tackle play had been called. Sincethe quarterback does not stay with the full-back long, it is important that the fullbackcontinue his fake. It is best when the full-back runs into a defensive man at the holeto give the impression that he has beentackled.

W H AT IS THE INSIDE BELLYPLAY?

The inside belly play is run with the lefthalfback carrying the ball off tackle. Thefullback fakes in the gap between theoffensive guard and tackle. The play isvery easy to operate and ties in very nicelywith the other belly play. Sometimes wefind the defensive end will flare to protectoutside the minute the ball is faked to thefullback. We will run the inside belly untilhe starts playing his position again. Thisplay had the highest gain average of anyplay we ran last year. The quarterbackshould ride the fullback all the way into theline and at the last minute reach out andhand off to the left halfback fairly close tothe line of scrimmage.

We have two blockings for the play. We

wedge block on the strong side with thefullback hitting in behind the wedge. Theright halfback goes at the end and blockshim out. The left halfback comes straightacross then cuts into the hole leveling offfor the goal posts as he gets the ball.

The other blocking that we use isturnout blocking. The end and halfbackswap assignments. The end will alwaysturn the end out and the halfback willblock the man at the hole.

Occasionally we give the ball to thefullback using the same blocking we usefor our dive play.

In concluding this discussion, I wantto emphasize three MUSTS for running theBelly play:

Do not slow the play by allowing thequarterback to stay with the fullback toolong.

Do not let the quarterback arrive at thefaking area ahead of the fullback.

The fullback must continue his fakingafter the quarterback pulls the ball back.