If you’ve watched any College football in the past year or if you’re connected to any consistent online Football content posters, You’ve heard all about the in-vogue “Tite” front. It’s a Double 4i front (Inside eye of the tackle) with a head-up or shaded nose. Every defense has run a version of it: From SEC’s Alabama, UGA, and LSU; to the Big 12’s Iowa State and Texas, and every PAC-12 squad. It’s a great counterattack to Spread out offenses, by clogging up the middle and making it bounce to quick triggering defenders.
But you can ask any Offensive Line Coach, the 4i has been a pain in the neck long before this defensive evolution began.
Why is the 4i one of the most annoying and difficult alignment’s for offenses to face? One of the most aggressive and dictating scheme to defend an offense is to force Offensive lineman to win 1-on-1’s, much like teams using bear fronts did in the 80’s and 90’s. Offensive Coaches hate the 4i Alignment because it does just that! An Offense only has 4 gaps between the tackles, and a 4-Down front typically caps only two of those gaps with Hand-in-the-ground defensive lineman, allowing Offensive Lineman a much better chance to get hands on the inside linebackers; but with two 4i’s, that creates 3 capped gaps, with only one inside the core for a Linebacker to fill. Linebackers can fill windows fast, and force ball carriers to spill to the wolves. This is because the Offensive Tackle is on an island with a 4i, and Offensive Guards don’t have the angle on a 4i to base block, like he would a 3 technique (outside shoulder of the Guard). “Ceteris Paribus”, meaning all else being equal, the Tackle is at a disadvantage when a play goes away, (Tight or Wide Zone) because the 4i is closer to the B Gap than he is, like a 3 tech, but also the 4i will stake his hands on the OT first, fighting the pressure of the OT attempting to wash him down the LOS horizontally. In theory, he should not be able to get across the 4i’s face and scoop him without help from the Guard (in which would cause the Offense to lose numbers at the Playside attack). This squeezes any life out of the cutback, allowing Backers and other Run fitters to Scrape hard and trigger fast.
Facing a run fit at the 4i can cause major headaches for the offense as well. Against Zone toward: the Guard doesn’t possess a good angle to stop B-Gap penetration, and the Tackle cannot get a free release to attack the scraping C-Gap defender because The 4i is striking into his breastplate. If an offense is looking to pull a blocker playside and insert him into the B-Gap, The 4i striking the breastplate of the OT while having his hips in that inside gap is going to force the pull to widen (against a well-coached OL) while the tackle is down-blocking the 4i, the playside backer the puller is aiming for is scraping to the Open Windows meeting the Ball carrier either before the pulling lineman, or Spilling the puller and ballcarrier while the calvary comes and tackles a ball going laterally.
A secret of Offensive lineman play is that a Head-up or tight inside shade slightly alters the foot steps in both Gap and Zone schemes, and creates some hesitation as to how the defender is fitting the play. Adding in a Head-up Nose to create some hesistancy on where that third capped gap will be post-snap allows Linebackers to play more aggressively, getting OL bodies off them. Any time you’re slowing up the thought process of the hardest position on the field to play, and testing the athleticism of arguably the least-athletic players on a High School field, it’s a good thing. Most intellegent OCs understand the best way to counteract this front is to add a 3-man surface to the core of the offensive line (Tight End). But there’s a couple weaknesses that Defensive coaches can attack with that knowledge. The first being, many High schools around our area (Jacksonville, FL) don’t have TE bodies let alone a TE on the roster, and this alignment suffocates 4-WR sets. Even when an offense does have a TE-type, it is just as rare for that TE to be a productive player in both the Run and Pass game. If a defensive aligment is dictating an Offense to dispatch players on the field that are not their best eleven, that is a huge win for defensive coordinators. Also, If a defense can dictate that a 3-man surface be on the field, it can use post-snap movements (Full & Half Line) and pre-snap stemming to muddy and attack and limit blocking schemes they will face.
The theory is there, but as most coaches understand it’s about streamlining as few techniques as possible with enough multiplicity to have answers. I would venture to say that teaching Inside Shade Defensive lineman has more turnover to Outside shade technique then many believe. Every single block defensive lineman will face can be summed into 4 Types which I have covered before in the Simplify to Maximize series. The Key Read does not change, the Lineman attaches his eyes the next inside Offensive Lineman’s Near hip and triggers with his Read. The only difference between any inside shade to outside shade is hand placement. The 4i’s hands strike into the Inside hip and Breastplate of the Offensive Tackle, and he will fight against any Force (Pressure Key) against him. That is it. That’s the full description of the difference in teaching a 4i and a 3 Technique. I would recommend Compartmentalizing your daily Key Read drills into Outside Shade, Head-up, and Inside shades sections; Deciding how much practice for each dependent on how you line up the most.
4is place Offensive Tackles on islands, keep scraping Linebackers clean, and push Spread concepts intended to hit off the Guards (IZ/Power) to instead bubble to the alley where the Force player, alley, and inside-out pursuers all meet and restrict the air out of today’s modern High-flying offenses.
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