Five-Step Protection Scheme

At Olivet Nazarene University we base all of our passing philosophies on protecting the quarterback first. Our five-step passing game is based on three different protection schemes, the ability to have 7, 6, or 5 men to stay in and protect the passer. Which protection we use is not always based on formation, but rather we base our protection scheme on the needs of a particular route concept. Sometimes we will line up with two backs in the backfield. But a particular route concept may call for one of those backs to go out into the route, so even with two backs in the backfield we would use our 6 man pass protection scheme. While some of the descriptions of these schemes may sound elaborate, our players find them very easy to incorporate on the field. As with all protection schemes we can and will make adjustments based on our opponents but I will describe our basic rules and concepts in