Welcome to the NDSU series! North Dakota State has consistently been the best football team in the FCS. NDSU has been successful not only for their abundance of talent, but also because of their great coaching staff. With that being said, due to the fact that NDSU is a relatively open program in terms of information sharing, as their coaches have done several clinics to help the community, alongside with their excellent reputation, to celebrate the return of this website, I will be writing several articles on the information I learned through their clinics alongside with tape examples.
This first article in the clinic will go over QB technique used by NDSU, following the clinic given by long-time coach, Randy Hedberg, who played a fundamental role in developing multiple NFL QBs, including two first rounders, Trey Lance and Carson Wentz.
General QB Philosophy
So in general, NDSU prefers to have QBs who are multi-sport athletes since they are a run-first team who consistently use the QB run game to their advantage. They also prefer them coming from footballing families, with their parents either being athletes or coaches (pretty standard stuff here). NDSU's offense is heavily QB reliant, as the QBs have to check protection calls on the LOS, as NDSU rarely works with huddle calls (unless the huddle call had 7 man or 8 man protection, which they dont change too often). Because of this, the QBs are coached by the QB coach over what the different protections are. The QBs are also in charge of the Kill and Maybe system of the calls NDSU runs, so at the LOS they have to process defenses a lot.
QB Offseason Preperation: Understanding Defensive Football
Over the summer for the first year QBs, the coach starts to go over the QBs with a manual, which goes over understanding defensive football and basic quarterback mechanics.
As NDSU is a run-first team with the QB being a vital part of their run-game, the first aspect of the game the QBs learn is the different defensive fronts, in order to be able to call them for the run game. Below, you can see the part of the manual that goes over defensive front alignments.
After learning about different alignments and different fronts, they also learn about how teams gap control from these fronts. Below, is a photo of how QBs are taught gap control from Over and Under fronts.
Lastly, for the run-game, they learn different supports based on coverages, and how defenses contain the run game. This is extremely important for NDSU and is something that they touch upon quite often.
The QBs also have to learn about different field zones and coverages (the manual pictures are below). While the manual goes over each coverage specifically, the main focus for NDSU is for QBs to be able figure out if the coverage is MOFO (middle of field open, like Cover 2), MOFC (middle of field closed, like Cover 1), and whether it is man coverage or zone coverage.
Fun Fact: Since NDSU's defense plays over front, Tampa 2 as their base coverage and front, the NDSU QBs are usually better at recognizing this coverage and front.
QB Offseason Prep: Basic QB Mechanics
In addition to learning about defensive football, the QBs also learn about basic QB mechanics in the offseason. NDSU is a under center football team, with half of their snaps coming from under center, and the other half from the gun (1st and 2nd downs usually from under center, and 3rd downs from gun). Most of their vertical throws down the field are from under center, off of play-action, while their dropback gun passes are usually for intermediate throws.
Starting with under center, the QB starts in a staggered stance with his dominant foot forward. Their goal here is for the QB to avoid false stepping. Because of this, they keep their run-game and play-action mechanism the same, with the QB usually using a reverse pivot on both.
In gun, the QB starts with his toes at 5-yards, with a balanced stance which is preferred for the QB run-game. Trey Lance, in his first season in the NFL used this stance as he was more used to it, before transitioning to a staggered stance (used by most NFL QBs due to less amounts of QB run-game), this season.
After the QB has received the snap, in both gun and UC, he will seat the ball on himself. If there is any run-action involved in the play (any handoffs or anything simulating one), the QB would seat the ball on his belt buckle, while if the play has no run action, and is a pass, the QB will seat the ball on his chest. Below, you can watch two back-to-back plays going over this, the first one with, and the second one without run-action.
In terms of quick-game footwork, from Under Center, they have a 3-step drop. In all quick-game passes, the QB should know if he is going left or right pre-snap. When throwing to the left, as a right-handed QB, you need to have a dove-tail in order to open up your hips without additional movement to the WR in quick-game. A dove-tail means that the QB will angle his hips away from the direction of the throw. To do this in a 3-step drop for a throw to the left, the QB will take a normal depth-step as his first step, then, on the crossover in his second step he will have a slight angle, and then on the third step, which is another depth step, he will continue that angle to open up the hips. You can view this below. Additionally, when throwing a 2-3 man concept to the left, you want your front foot (left foot), to be pointed at the widest target which allows you to go through the progression easier without having to change your stance much. However, when the QB throws to the right, he will not use a dove-tail but instead, drop straight back.
When throwing quick-game from gun (1-step from gun), you will catch the ball, and then use the 1 step to open your hips to the direction of the throw, as seen below.
It is important to note that for 3-step throws from gun, and 5-step throws from UC, the same dove-tail principle to the left is maintained. In addition to these points, some more drop mechanics shown in a slide, but not mentioned directly by the coach can be seen below.
When teaching drops, NDSU will also teach QBs if the drop is supposed to be "firm" or "close," with each concept having one of these attached to the drop for it. A firm drop, means that there is no hitch in the throw, while a close drop means that the QB can have one hitch. In addition, QBs are taught different drops with reference points, using the clock as references.
In addition to teaching QBs how to drop, QBs have to also learn the importance of rhythm and maintaing a proper base as they navigate a pocket. As most throws in a game dont happen from a completely clean pocket, and a QB has to move to different spots in order to complete throws, to emphasize this, NDSU will usually have someone move the QB off of the spot in their drills when the QB is throwing routes on air to receivers. Interestingly, while previously NDSU used to teach their QBs to move with their backfoot first when navigating the pocket and getting to a spot, nowadays, they allow the QBs to have the freedom to get to their spot in any matter that is comfortable and efficient.
In a throwing base for NDSU, the feet have to be underneath the QB, with slight bent knees, with the feet not too far apart but also not too close. When moving within the pocket for a throw (such as hitching up), it is important to maintain this base, by taking small steps and essentially step replacing, instead of having the feet come together. You can see Lance doing this properly below.
When it comes to the throwing motion for the QB, the ball starts at the front pec and is then brought to the back pec (the backpack), which is called the loaded position. From here, the off-hand will act as a guide, pushing the ball backwards and up, which is called the trigger position and the throw is then made, with the elbow up and higher than the shoulder, with a slight tilt up on the ball. There should be air between the palm and the ball and the last digit to leave the ball should be the index finger.
What NDSU wants QBs to avoid is being a "2-piece" thrower. Simply put, a 2-piece thrower (as seen below), will push the ball back AND then bring it up to the trigger position, somewhat like a baseball throw (baseball athletes thus struggle getting out of this habbit), instead of doing this in one motion, which is what NDSU wants (1-piece thrower).
QB In-season Preparation: Weekly Tape Watch
In NDSU, most of their football players are instructed not to pick classes prior to 10AM and to attend classes online. For the QBs, their week starts on Monday, as they are brought in at 7:30AM from Monday to Friday to watch tape together. On Monday, the QBs start watching 2-3 games of the opponent's defense they are playing and start taking notes. On Tuesday, they watch 3rd downs and start on the pressure clips, watching similar pressure path clips together in order to figure out tells of the defense based on how they line up. On Wednesday, they watch red zone cutups, and continue working on the pressure clips, while also practicing on their 21, 12, and 22 personnel stuff together. On Thursday, they will start looking at the 2-minute things they will do that week, review 3rd downs, pressures, and red zones. They will then create a cutup of the defense they will play to simplify positional meetings, including the pressures they might come up against, and how they want to call protections against those pressures. Lastly, on Friday, the QBs will meet with individual position groups (WR, RB, TE, OL), talking about position specific demands, such as where WRs should line up, or the protection calls the OL might get.
Gameplan wise, the coaches follow a similar schedule to coincide with the QBs, working choice downs on Sunday and Monday (1st and 2nd downs), 3rd downs on Tuesdays, Red Zone on Wednesday, and reviewing everything on Thursday. The main difference here is that the coaches work pressures every day to gameplan around them.
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