One of the great advantages of the 3-5-3 Defense is the ability to ‘create’ nearly any defensive front, while showing the same look pre-snap every play. The myth that the 3-5 is not a good run defense is wrong, because you can turn it into any defense that you want. The argument that only having 3 defensive linemen makes you weak against the run will lose out quick when you look at most high school teams, and realize that true defensive linemn are tough to come by. We’ll use line movements and stunting linebackers to create 4-man and 5-man defensive fronts.

As I’ve talked about before, its important that your players understand situations and know if they are in a run or pass situation. Using the stunts we’re going to draw up today, we want the linebackers to actually engage the half-man to the inside of the gap they are stunting, as a defensive lineman would do. We also want them to read blockers on the run. Essentially, we want them to become a defensive lineman. This is in opposition to the pass blitz, where we want them to avoid contact with Offensive Linemen, use their speed and quickness to defeat blockers, and get to the Quarterback. Instead, we will engage the Offensive Linemen and read their blocks to take us to the ball carrier.

The first front we’ll create is the 4-3 Over. Its no secret, this is the defense that I’d prefer to be in, if I had the horses. So if we’re running a 3-5 Defense, I’m going to create this front pretty often to stop the run. We’ll do it using a combination of line movement and a one-man Linebacker stunt to create a 4-man front.
We’re going to use a Weak Slant by the defensive line, coupled with a Sam stunt. We’d probably run Cover 3 behind it, though you could just as easily run a Cover 1 or get more creative. So the call is Slant Weak – Sam – Cover 3.

A second front we’d create is the Under Front, which is similar to a 5-2 Defense. This is my favorite front for trying to stop the Wing-T. Now in theory the 3-5-3 Defense should be meat against a Wing-T, but it doesn’t have to be the case. We’ll create an Under front this way:

There’s certainly more than one way to do this, and to do it well. But I think this way fits well with a Fire Zone coverage, rather than running a man coverage. We’ll Slant Strong and bring the Sam and Ram linebackers on the stunt. You could just as easily bring the Sam and Will to get the same look.

The last thing I’ll throw out is running a 2-Deep coverage from the 3-5-3. Now, if this is what you want to do a lot of, you might as well start calling it a 3-3-5. Don’t get caught up in the numbers, all it means is that we’re playing those OLBs a little further back, particularly the weakside guy. The reality is they can range anywhere from a yard deep to 9 yards deep.

This is something similar to a 4-3 Cover 2, although it really ends up as more of a 4-2-5 Defensive look (because of the Linebacker coming down to a 6i or 5 technique, rather than a 9-Technique). You can vary your coverages a lot with this defense. We taught the Defensive Linemen an “EL” technique, with the “L” being for “Loop.” That meant they took a wider step and took contain responsibility against the pass. Roll the Will back soon enough that he can settle is feet. The cornerbacks are contain responsible versus the run. They have to be taught the technique though!

We’ve taken a pretty in-depth look into the 3-5-3 Defense over the last couple of weeks. I want to take some time off from it, because it makes me want to run an odd front again and thats not happening soon! If there’s another defensive scheme that you want to see more about, let me know. I may need some help on it though, but there’s always something valuable in learning new defensive tactics!