Where do you put your best lineman

[Rebel Yell]

Coaches- where do you put your best lineman? In the past we we put our best guys at guards and our less then best at tackles b/c they did so much down blocking in veer schemes. What do you guys do, and why?

[tribepride]

We put our best OL at the OT position. Reasoning: We run a ton of midline and see many 4 front teams so the G doesn't have to be a stud to get in the backer way. The guard usually get help when we run ISV from the OT. We like to have the good OT knocking the snot out of the other teams LB's on down blocks (slows the backers down).

[bkoption]

We use a system that plays to the strength of the specific lineman. We often refer to this as the Driver and the Ripper. We put the Driver were we need the drive block and the Ripper were we need the Dip and Rip to the LB. Often times our best offensive lineman has been our best driver and our best ripper. In this case we place them acording to the weakness of the other lineman. I always tell our O-line to be self-aware. If you are having trouble executing a certain technique in a game don't be stuborn, let us know and we'll adjust acordingly.

A few years ago I had a very "average" o-lineman who endedup being a 2 year starter on our strong side simply because he was self aware. He new he couldn't base block an outside shade so he would adjust and switch with our other strong side lineman (which happened to be one of the best o-lineman I have ever had).

We put much more stock in Strong side and quick side than G and T.

(just like tribw pride - in our OT set we usually have our best o-lineman at OT. It makes for easier going in the belly option, fly sweep etc. where we need a base or reach block on the DE)

[olinecoach61]

We put our best OL at guard. We like to trap and pull the guard alot with plays such as Jet so we like an athletic kid there. We like the OT to be the beef, dropping the hammer on double teams.

[bkoption]

I like the idea of having the large OT coming down on the double team i.e. OV.
We do not use a true double team very often. We have gone almost exclusivly to a combo block (off to the LBer) with the exception of a few plays were we have to have great movment at the point of attack.
I feel that our smaller more athletic lineman are usually better combo blockers because they are quicker to the combo point and quicker once they get to the second level. The problem I run into allot of times is finding an OT who can both combo down effectivly and reach a good DE when needed. This year my TE was the closest to being able to do this so we left him in place in our OT sets.

[mikeervin]

We put our quicker people at tackle and larger a guard. The reason we do this is because we face allot of even fronts and want to put big on big and quicker on quicker. If we think going into a game we need to switch it we will. We also flip our line so the the strong side is also the strong side and vice-versa. Hope this helps.

[jaybodine]

I think you always start in the middle and work your way out. Center should be your best lineman and guard tackle requirements should be based upon the defenses you see and what type of option offense you run most frequent(inside veer v. Outside veer)