Schooling U: A Brief History of Counter

We wanted to run a five man pass protection against some elite defensive ends but we also wanted to run a guard-pull heavy gap scheme. Normally when you want to pull guards they’re the tall, lean lacrosse guys and the tackles are the big oafy throwers used for down blocks.

But when you run that scheme in high school, that means your tackles aren’t going to be the best at one-on-one pass pro. Pulling a tackle on the other hand, means that he is the faster of the linemen, the lacrosse type, and probably can play out in space on a four-star edge rusher.

The conundrum Dennis Erickson found himself in, back in 1992, wasn’t quite the same as the one I found myself in back in 2018, but it wasn’t that dissimilar either. The Miami Hurricanes offensive line had gone from a strength in ‘91 to a weakness in ‘92.

The OL was plagued with injuries and future NFL tight end Carlos Etheredge had moved to the room midseason. At six-foot-five and 235 pounds, Etheredge wasn’t the most intimidating of offensive tackles. For reference, Francis “SiSi” Mauigoa clocked in around 6-5 and 315 pounds as a true freshman.

Miami reached into the bag and installed counter-trey for their one-back offense. Against the Penn State Nittany Lions in ‘92, Etheredge was listed at 236 pounds; but Kipp Vickers was the next lightest on the line at 275. Vickers as a two-way OL/DL in his time in Coral Gables. Rudy Barber, Mario Cristobal and Tirrell Greene were 285, 280, and 292 pounds, respectively.

So Etheredge was put in a position to be able to work against D-Ends 1-on-1, which he was fine doing. But he wasn’t winning the base block zone run game Erickson liked at Miami. Thus, why not run a little counter which allowed him to pull and took advantage of his athleticism along with TE Coleman Bell’s?

Counter and Counter-Trey

When I first got into coaching, my fascination started with Navy’s triple option. But quickly my old love of the Nebraska I-Option shone through the fog of being a rookie know-nothing coach and I began studying the Nebraska teams of the 80’s and 90’s, coached by the legend Tom Osborne.

Osborne is the coach that’s given credit for counter as we know it today, with NASCAR owner Joe Gibbs (oh... he coached a lil football, too?) having made it famous with the Washington NFL team in the 80’s and 90’s. The quote below comes from a Grantland piece called “Football 101: Why Power Running Works” by none other than Smart Football’s Chris B. Brown.

“We stole it,” Gibbs told Sports Illustrated. “We saw some film on Nebraska, and Tom Osborne was doing some really innovative things with his line up front. We were watching it and thought, God, that’s good stuff. So we stole it.”

Counter, at Nebraska, was originally a “GT” counter. What that means is that the guard and tackle are the pullers.

As you can see from the Nebraska Cornhuskers old playbook from 1997 (I was a playbook collection nerd for like a decade) against Miami’s over, over strong and shade (common fronts at Miami in under Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson), Nebraska is running two TE’s and pulling the backside G and T.

Gibbs married his power and counter runs together, creating GY and GF counter. Gibb’s used TE’s and FB’s as pullers, along with guards. That way his power and counter would look similar to DC’s and LB’ers. Think: Tecmo Super Bowl offense. The base run (power), the counter (literally, counter) and the play-action (power-pass) with the reverse (counter sweep reverse, another Nebraska classic).

Eventually, teams moved to the shotgun and pistol sets more prevalently after Urban Meyer’s offensive system took off at both Utah and Florida. Seeing the Meyer spread on TV caught fire with high school coaches and eventually at the college level as well. Naysayers went from “it won’t work in the SEC” to copycatting his system.

In the gun, Meyer loved power and QB power. Gus Malzahn loved the power and counter 1-2 punch (read more about it here) like the wing-t hoss that he is. Malzahn’s trick was to run power left and counter right. Yeah, everyone knows it’s just power right and counter left and yeah, he still won an FBS National Championship as an OC, and coached in another as a head coach.

Eventually Lincoln Riley added in the QB Counter which included a read option, and tagged RPO’s on as pre and post snap reads for the QB. When you have a mobile QB like Riley often has, adding in a read just makes sense.

Now... back to State College

So Carlos Etheredge is 235 pounds and working against DE’s in an era where most of the Big Ten was playing bully ball even more so than today.

Above- you can see Etheredge on a counter, serving as the “wrap” player for GT counter. This allowed Miami to get numbers at the point of attack, while using the speedier former TE to work to the LB.

Under Erickson, Miami ran a ton of inside and outside zone. But with the OL being decimated with injuries, including at times to Barber, Cristobal, Zev Lumelski, and others- it was time to adapt or waste one of the best collections of talent in UM history.

Above- You can see a successful counter run with Donnell Bennett at “FB” in Erickson’s scheme. The FB was a running back while the TB or tailback was the slot (think: Kevin Williams, Jonathan Harris, Randal Hill).

Above- Later, Bennett scores on a counter run with Etheredge leading the way.

Above- Larry Jones cuts off his blocks and runs hard. He’s another “FB” in Erickson’s one-back scheme.

Above- Did Etheredge have the technical skill to dominate in pass pro? No. But he did a solid job of matching up against D-Ends out in space. There’s no kick slide or

Above- Base blocking also won’t be an undersized lineman’s strength. Here he does enough to get in the way of the DE but they miss the LB filling the gap vs. the run.

The Wrap

Counter and counter-trey have been staples of nearly every football offense at the college and pro level for years. While not truly a ‘base run,’ counter is a great adjustment call for any offense. Miami under Mario Cristobal and Alex Mirabal will run counter. I would expect to see some GT and GY counter with OL like Mauigoa, Jalen Rivers, and tight ends like Cam McCormick and Elijah Arroyo who have size on their frame.