Welcome to the era of Total Football: Minnesota's Hybrid Odd Front

We are now officially in the post-Spread Era. What does that mean for defenses? You'd better be multiple.

The Odd Front structure is probably the most popular form of defense in football because of its innate ability to be multiple. With technically five defenders attached to the line of scrimmage, a defense can use pressure and alignment to counter any offense. The Even Front’s rigidity forces it to have only a few basic switch-ups, typically changing the front strength or adjusting the Nose’s width (e.g., from a Shade to a 2 technique).

Starting with Bill Arnsparger and his ‘53 defense,’ the Odd Front revolution was primed for the ‘70s. Enter Lawrence ‘LT’ Taylor, who teamed up with Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick to accelerate the front's adoption. The ability to send pressure from anywhere while maintaining relative numbers in the backend was a vital new defensive innovation.

The ability to run ‘safe pressures,’ as Arnsparger would call them, opened up the creative genius in a whole generation of coaches. Parcells and Belichick were not the only ones to further their careers off the structure. The use of LT also changed offenses forever. The left tackle position became a premium slot on the roster, and the quarterback sack was established as a significant stat for evaluating defensive ends.

Related Content: Hybrids - The Making of a Modern Defense (book)

Dick LeBeau, who became the godfather of the Fire Zone, directly took the basic structure from Arnsparger, who he would visit in the offseasons. Later, LeBeau would use secondary players to amplify the structure and establish himself as one of the premier defensive coordinators in NFL history.

In today’s game, the Odd Front allows defense to close the fulcrum of the modern Spread attack, the B-gap. As the Spread gained popularity alongside the Air Raid system, defenses shifted to a four-down Nickel package that primarily played an Over Front. The issues stem from the open B-gap bubble and the conflict it created.

Offenses with new plays, such as Zone Read and perimeter screens, started taking advantage of the space and the open gaps within Even Fronts. Run-Pass Options (RPOs) and the Zone Read exploded through college and high school football. Defenses were left reeling, and a simple way to regulate the space was needed, which was now created by Spread offenses.

Defending the Zone Read

Nickel became the new base defense at almost every level as passing and quarterback play improved throughout the 2000s. By the late 2010s, defense around college football shifted to more Odd Front structures, mainly the Tite Front. Dave Aranda and Ron Roberts were the most notable coaches who started this trend. The Tite Front defense featured a Nickel personnel package, but three interior defensive linemen became the new standard way to attack the Spread.

Looking at Saban-adjacent and Aranda playbooks now, one might be confused about which one is which. The marriage of the two most dominant systems began in 2014, following Alabama's 42-point loss to Ohio State. Then Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator, Tom Herman, told Nick Saban and current Georgia Head Coach Kirby Smart to visit Todd Orlando, who had learned the Aranda system as his successor at Utah State.

Thus, the Tite Front era was born in college football. Even now, the Tite Front is a base defense for many coaches at the lower levels. Coinciding with the Tite Front movement was the three-high revolution, which combined the Odd Stack, Odd Fronts, and multiple safeties to counter the uber-Spread systems blanketing the college and high school landscapes.

Mint Package vs. Tite Front

Today, we are in the post-Spread era. Defenses are becoming increasingly hybrid in structure, requiring them to defend diverse systems and alignments at lower levels. Although the 11-personnel, Y-off structure remains the base look in the FBS, many offenses are starting to incorporate more pre-snap motion, condensed formations, and ‘heavier’ packages, similar to those of their counterparts in the NFL.

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