Every run game book you’ve ever read assumes the same thing: your guys up front win their fits. If they don’t, the scheme breaks.
Coach Luke Schleusner, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at the University of Idaho, built his run game on the opposite assumption. He didn’t have the horses up front. He ran the ball anyway. The scheme that made it possible is Mid Zone, and the rules behind it are what the rest of this email is about.
Video: Luke Schleusner on Idaho’s Mid Zone Run Game
The Reframe: Lateral, Not Vertical
Coach Schleusner says it plainly: it’s easier to move defenders laterally than vertically.
That one sentence is the whole argument. If your line can’t knock a defender backward off the ball, you don’t need a better line. You need a scheme that doesn’t ask them to.
Coach Schleusner ties it directly to the NFL. The reason the scheme gained so much traction at that level is the same reason it should matter to you. In his words, “you look at all these huge nose guards and three techniques that are running around the NFL.” Moving those bodies laterally off their spot and running off of them is a completely different problem than trying to knock back the line of scrimmage. Your line can win the lateral fight even when they lose the vertical one.
Built In Answers
Because the back isn’t locked into a single landmark, the play has answers built in. Coach Schleusner names the hit points himself:
– All the way off the edge
– Between the tackle and the tight end
– Between the tackle and the guard
– Between the guard and the center
– Backside cuts when the front overruns it
“I think that’s the reason why it’s been so popular in the NFL as well,” he says, “is just the ability to hit multiple spots.”
Variation for the Defense, Simplicity for the O-Line
This is the second half of why the scheme wins without elite talent. Your line reps one thing. The defense preps for a dozen.
Coach Schleusner runs Mid Zone from:
– Offset and pistol backfields
– To the split end side or away
– Spread formation with the quarterback running it
– Fly motion variations
The tight end placement changes. The quarterback read changes. The formation changes. None of it matters to the offensive line.
“Mid zone is mid zone,” Coach Schleusner says. “They know when they hear that play call, the variation of what the front side tight end doing doesn’t matter to them a lot. The variation of the quarterback reading really doesn’t change much for them either. They’re still blocking it the same way.”
Same combos. Same footwork. Same aiming points. That is how a line without the horses still ends up executing at a high level. They’re mastering one thing, not installing a new look every week.
The Two Aiming Points That Run It
The back’s landmark changes by formation. The line’s landmark does not.
The Running Back
– Pistol: the back aims for the butt of the tight end.
– Offset: tighter path. The back aims for the outside leg of the play side tackle.
Coach Schleusner shows both on film. The difference in the back’s path changes where the cut lanes open and how the track develops.
The Offensive Line
One rule. Every lineman. Every variation: aim for the play side armpit of the down defender.
Pistol or offset. Tight end or no tight end. The landmark doesn’t move. That is the cue that produces the lateral displacement the whole scheme depends on.
You don’t have to out-muscle anyone to run the football. You have to pick the fight your guys can win. Lateral movement instead of vertical. A plus-one box instead of a blocker-for-blocker count. One set of rules the line reps every day instead of a new install every Monday. That is the Mid Zone argument, and it’s the one Coach Schleusner rode when Idaho didn’t have another option.
If you’re installing a run game this spring for a line that won’t win on physical matchups, Idaho Run Game: Mid Zone and Power is the full playbook. Coach Schleusner covers the foundational Mid Zone techniques out of pistol and offset, the split flow reads, how he manipulates defensive fronts to create running lanes, and a full study of the Power game with its blocking schemes and situational adjustments. Two complementary schemes built off looks that complement each other and punish defenses once they start cheating one or the other.
If Mid Zone is the fight your line can actually win, this is the install.
