Attacking the 3-3 Stack and broken stack with Unbalanced Formations: Notre Dame 2023 Offense

This article looks at attacking odd defenses with unbalanced formations. A good way to attack 3-3 stack and broken stack teams is to use unbalanced formations and also go big and run 12 and 13 personnel packages. This changes the gaps and forces dbs into the run fit as d and sometimes e gap defenders. The one thing that using unbalanced formations does against 3-3 stack and odd broken stack teams is forces them to make adjustments on the perimeter.

This was executed by Notre Dame when they played NC State. It took a primarily 3-3 stack team and made them a 4-2 scheme vs these sets, thus changing their defense and run fits accordingly.

They ran mostly gap schemes against this, often running power, pin and pull and counter.

Let’s look at the formations:

Twins Tackle over with the Y weak:

Twins Tackle over FB/H weak: The Y is on the backside. As the game went on NC State got away from their stack look and went to a 4-2 defensive scheme.

TE Wing with Twins over:

Later in the game, they went to this look on the goal line.

Let’s look at the one scheme and the rest will be discussed in the video that follow.

Here is power:

They create good angles and pull the backside tackle. The H back has an excellent angle to kick out with the tackle pulling on the backside. They hit this early and it changed the way NC State played it the rest of the game.

Video with 7 clips and schemes below: