Football is, by nature, a cyclical game. What’s old will be born anew, and what’s new will be tossed aside, and on and on it spins. After years of zone-based run games, college football is starting to see counter, one of the defining staples of old-school football, rise again as the base element of running games. In the modern era, the pioneer of this push has been Oklahoma/USC’s Lincoln Riley. With defenses keeping 2 high safeties in response to his explosive, air-raid-rooted passing game, counter became a sound and explosive base play to punish empty boxes. From a defensive perspective, the juxtaposition between defending counter from 2-high and 1-high is stark.
LSU vs FSU: Over the Counter
