Man/Drive Blocking
1. Drive Blocking - Straight Ahead
This is the standard blocking that we think of: one lineman matches up against one defender, takes an angle on the defender, and drives forward into the defender to push them either off or down the line of scrimmage. When a defender is lined up head on with the lineman, the forward explosive block into the guy right in front is just called a drive block (to drive them back).
2. Angle and Hook Blocking - To the Left, to the Left (or Right)
When the defender is lined up to the inside or outside of the lineman, a side step is taken first to gain leverage on the defender. If the lineman wants to keep the inside running lanes open, he takes a step to the inside and explodes outward, pushing the defender toward the outside of the line. If the lineman wants to keep the outside running lanes open, he takes a step to the outside and explodes inward with his inside shoulder pushing the outside shoulder of the defender.
The thing about these types of blocks is that a lineman is assigned a defender to attack and push back away from where the play is heading.
Zone Blocking
In a zone scheme, two blockers will team up to block a designated area rather than specific defenders. These two blockers will usually target a lineman and a linebacker. First, the two blockers double-team the immediate threat in the area they are assigned. Depending on what the defensive lineman does and where he lined up, the blocker with the better position will take him - the other blocker releases and readies to attack the linebacker, who will be moving to plug the gap.
 |
| From mgoblog, "The Zone Stretch" |
There are no fixed assignments of which guy takes the lineman and which guy takes the linebacker; it depends. There is an excellent writeup of how zone blocking works on Niners Nation that shows this using actual NFL footage. mgoblog posted a nice summary in 2008 of zone concepts with good success and failure examples of zone plays. For another good take on zone blocking with diagramming of how the cutback lanes work, check out this blog post at Dawgs By Nature.
Seeing this in-game
Now let's look at how these blocking techniques show up in EA NCAA. The following play is a RB Stretch from the I with strong side to the left.
First look at the formation. We have a 4-3 Under look (the SOLB is the guy standing up in front of the TE) from the Temple defense with two deep safeties that appear to be playing Cover 2 (each patrolling the deep part of the field, taking half each). In this alignment, the TE, strongside Tackle, Center, and weakside Guard all have defenders covering them. The strongside Guard and weakside Tackle are uncovered by defenders.
Here is the play at the handoff. Each of the covered linemen engage the defender in front of them. These are our Man/Drive blocking assignments. The uncovered strongside Guard flows with the play, combo blocking with the strongside Tackle like a Zone block. The uncovered weakside Tackle engages the DE on the backside edge.
The HB takes the ball and follows the FB to the corner, looking to cut the ball upfield. Note the double-team of the strongside OT and OG has a free floating MLB who can move laterally to disrupt the play in front of them at the next level. This is where the Zone blocking release happens, and we'll see the strongside OT (#75) release and move up to attack that MLB.
You can see in the upper left corner, our WR (the flanker) has set up a block in the secondary on the cornerback. If you go back to watch the video, you can see the CB dropping back into a 3 Deep zone, making the original read of the formation wrong - the SOLB you see getting pushed by the TE in the third picture is moving over to cover the flat zone vacated by the CB. Toward the end of the run, you can see the FB coming around looking for something to block, and he ends up trying to help on the MLB (which has already been taken by the OT coming off the Zone double-team).
The run here goes for 14 yards and a first down, with the tackle made by the strong safety deep in the secondary.