Simplifying Defense: The 4-2-5 System Explored

In this episode of the Coaching 101 podcast, Daniel Chamberlain and Kenny Simpson dive into the nitty-gritty of defensive football strategies, specifically focusing on the 4-2-5 defensive formation. Joined by first-year head coach Brady Bradbury, they discuss the evolution of Bradbury's coaching career, transitioning from player to coach, and his recent shift to embracing the 4-2-5 defense at his school. The discussion further delves into the simplicity and flexibility of the 4-2-5 system, comparing it with the 3-4 and 4-3 schemes, and how it allows for easier adjustment to multiple offensive formations while keeping defensive principles straightforward. The episode emphasizes the importance of adapting coaching strategies to the team's available personnel and keeping coaching methods simple for effective teaching and execution.

00:00 Welcome to the Coaching 101 Podcast

00:23 Introducing First-Year Head Coach Brady Bradbury

02:18 Coach Simpson's European Adventure with Family

05:30 Simplifying Coaching and Upcoming Projects

08:41 Diving Deep into 4-2-5 Defense Strategy

19:21 Decoding Football Strategies: The Power of Personnel and Formations

19:52 The Tactical Debate: 3-4 vs. 4-2-5 Defensive Formations

20:56 Adapting to Offensive Trends: The Return of Tight Ends and Fullbacks

23:19 Simplifying Defense: The Philosophy Behind Choosing a Formation

25:08 Handling Multiple Formations: Strategies for Defensive Flexibility

35:10 Closing Thoughts: Keeping It Simple in Coaching

To watch the video from this episode or others like it, check out the YouTube pages of Kenny and Daniel.

What is the major difference between the 4-2-5 and the 4-3 defenses?

• 4-2-5 is the old 4-4, but for most teams, the overhangs are now DB type players
• 4-3 makes adjustments with the LBs, where the 4-2-5 makes adjustments with the backend
• Strong E plays a 6 in the 4-2-5 vs a 9 in the 4-3

Why choose even front over the 3-4?

• Simplified 1-gap football
• Personnel dictated what defense to use
• Seeing a lot of 11 personnel on your schedule, you’ll be in a 4 front anyways

How do you handle multiple formations teams?

• Adjust with the back 5
• Keep the box the box

What NOT to do as a Coach

• Today’s Lesson:

Social Media

• Brady Bradbury
  • bradybradbury@gmail.com
• Daniel
  • Twitter: @CoachChamboOK
  • Email: chamberlainfootballconsulting@gmail.com
• Kenny
  • Twitter: @FBCoachSimpson
  • Email: FBCoachSimpson@gmail.com
• Coaching 101 Podcast
  • Twitter: @Coaching101Pod

Transcript

0:04

What's up coaches. This is the coaching 101 podcast. I am Daniel Chamberlain joined tonight by the legend, Kenny Simpson, How about that? the man, the myth, the legend. If you asked my wife, she would not call me that. So I don't know. I don't know, man. I think the whole world does at now we'll see. Uh, Kenny and I are joined tonight by the eight air head coach. First year head coach, right? Yes, sir. First Oh, that's awesome. Brady Bradbury is joining us tonight from just down the highway from where I'm sitting. So, uh, finally gotten a real local guy on the show. Yeah, excited to be here. glad to have you. Um, you know, I don't want to screw up your introduction. So I'm just going to let you do it. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and what your coaching journeys looked like and where you're at now. right. Well, I'm I'm Brady Bradbury. As you guys said, I graduated from eight air in 2013. I walked on at Pittsburgh State to play football. I know he's had coach Graham one that played up there as well. Um, spent six years there. Got hurt one year, redshirted one year. Uh, was gonna stay and do the G. A. Route through the college had all built. Well, I had my first son. Um, our superintendent either happened to be my high school coach called me and took the job was the quarterback coach outside linebacker for a year and became the O. C. For the last three years. And this year is my first year being head coach. So pretty short. So hopefully I kept it under a minute. That's a good one. The, uh, so a couple of years ago when I was at J me and coach ended up having to go again, I was the DC, he was the OC. So look at that. And, uh, you know, it was, uh, what a shootout it was that night. I did not do my job. He did. You got, you got turnover. That's what it's about now. There you go. Oh man, what a night. Well, coach man, we're super glad to have you on the show. Uh, thanks for reaching out and and you know, he's a living testament. If you wanna come on the show and and you know what you're talking about, shoot us an email or a text or a call or whatever and we'll get you on the show. Um, coach Simpson. You just got back from Europe. I did. Man, it's pretty cool. You know, my daughter's a senior. And so, um, you know, I don't have a lot of, like I don't hunt or collect things. I, I waste my money on traveling. I guess if you're gonna waste it, I think that's a good thing to do. And so she's kind of grown up doing that. You know, she's actually been to Italy when she was younger. So for her senior year, uh, she wanted to go back. Our school offers a trip. So it was a school trip with a couple of her friends. And, um, we went to Italy and we went to Greece and, you know, I'd encourage any coaches that are listening to this. There's, there's lots of opportunities in that. If you want to lead trips where you can make it affordable for. For yourself and your family to go. I know I used to lead these trips and so there are companies you work with where you lead a trip and so many people come and you get to go for free and we're able to do that. And then this year I just went as a dad. I just paid for us both to go and just kind of enjoy being on the trip. It was really cool. And I enjoy seeing Italy. I enjoy seeing Greece, but I mainly went to. Be with my daughter, you know, it's probably the last real last hurrah before she goes off to college. So that was kind of bittersweet at times. Cause you still see, you know, if you're, you're a young parent, man, it goes quick and people will tell you that. And you know, it does. Well, um, I saw your, your picture there at the museum. Oh, my cake up one. Yeah. yeah, baby got back picture. well, here's the deal. I'm still a kid, you know, my daughter, we're walking around a museum and I'll get bored about 20 minutes. You know, I like history. I do like to read. I enjoy studying that stuff. But after about 20 minutes of staring at statues. I'm going to figure out some way to pose and make fun of something. So I think Daniel's referring, if you guys are follow us on Facebook, I think I put on Twitter too, or we found the statue that it looked like what, whoever that was had been squatting a ton. And so I managed to stand right behind it. You know, we've got pictures of me doing that, or my daughter doing that, or my wife doing that. I got in trouble at the Vatican one year doing that because I guess the Catholic church doesn't find it as amusing as I do. Pose next to their statues. But to me, just try to have fun, you know, it was a lot of fun. Well, good man. Well, that's, I mean, that's what you went on the trip for. So I'm glad you found ways to do it. Um, well, glad you got back, got back safely. Uh, you know, that flight, especially right now, it seems like there's chaos going on with, you know, With so many Boeing planes and everything, you never know what plane you're gonna Yeah. I'm glad you guys And of course, anytime I go on, on those long planes, you get like six movies you can watch. There's a long, you know, it's a long day. One of them always is going to be like a final destination, or I watched one where the guys on the airplane, I always just. I don't know why, maybe it's some weird thing I do, but there's always a movie I'm watching with a plane involved in it as you've taken off. Just, I think it makes the trip a little more exciting. I'm the opposite. I take Ambien and go to sleep for that 15 hour trip. But, you know, mine was a little different, uh, destination, so. Well, good, man. Well, coach, before we move on here and get started tonight, uh, why don't you tell us some ways that we can simplify coaching for ourselves and our players? Sweet. Um We'll come back. We'll talk just a, just a little bit about the a sports ads pretty long. So I'm not worried about talking about it. We'll talk Zach and your coaches cap and then the head coach Academy. And we'll fly through that and then we'll get to our first question. it. Sounds good. All right. Thank you, coach. Um, you guys, I know it's, you know, spring balls right around the corner. You're probably not going to use your headsets and spring ball. If, if you even have it, I doubt you're going to break them out for seven on seven, but. You know, practice is just right there. And if you're needing, um, headsets done, that's a good time to get them in and get them worked on or get new ones, you know, reach out to Zach, he's going to hook you up, uh, that little loud mouth thing they have, that's pretty neat. If you're a guy that. Won't go to the box cause you can't talk to your quarterback. Well, they've changed that now. They've kind of changed the game on how you can OC from the box and still talk to your quarterback. So, um, it's a good, great place to consider it. Coach. I know you still got the hat for sale, right? Coach, caps are going quick. I guess guys are realizing, hey, football season's here. You need to get a boonie cap. And so, uh, we've got the cap with the Fox 40 whistle attached to it. You know, if you're going to buy a booty cabin, I would encourage you all the coaches, if you're not buying mine, that's fine. There's other hats to get, but take care of your skin. You know, I've, I've had personal bad experience with that. So do that for sure. And if you're like me and you forget your whistle. You go to over coachescap. com and it's got the bucket hat. That's got the UV protection and it's also got the whistle attached to it. And I think it's the price of what you'd pay for a hat. So you're kind of getting a two in one there. That's coachescap. com and then we've got the head coach Academy that came out about, uh, maybe about a month ago. So if you are a new head coach or a guy who's been a head coach, maybe just wants a refresher, it's all things non X and O. So liability, hiring coaches, getting the job, all the crap that nobody wants to learn, but you have to, to keep your job or to get a job. So, uh, again, it's theheadcoachacademy. com. A lot of information or you get the workbook that's over there too. And then coming out soon, Daniel. I'm excited about it. It's not out yet. But it will be soon is we're putting an offensive line academy together and man, it's going to be a really, really good one. Get some really good speakers in there talking about O line drills, talking about different parts of the O line gap schemes. The stuff we've been kind of talking about in our podcast, but now we're bringing in dudes that are like really, really good at that and letting them go in depth on those topics. So it's the O line academy. That'll be out here in the next couple of weeks. So I'll probably be kind of Pushing that a little bit. I'm hoping to have it out here, you know, early to mid April. Yeah. The, uh, the sleeveless wonder Bogold It'll be on there in June. Two sessions. Two sessions. Yeah, man, I'm, I'm pumped. Uh, I appreciate him reaching out to me, just check up on me and everything. But it was good to get to talk a little ball with, with a coach that I know. So I'm looking forward to that one as well. Uh, you know, it's a role I'll get to take over this year is for my first year to be the primary O line coach. And, uh, so I'll be, I'm sure I'll be digging in to try to use it as well. All right, man, let's get into our questions tonight. So we're going to talk a little 4 2 5 defense, which is, is new to this podcast because Kenny's ran the 3 4 and I ran the 3 4 this year. Um, you know, like I said, Coach Bradbury is from right up the road here at 8 Air, Oklahoma. So, um, we we've actually played against each other and, or coached against each other, you know, he's a four, two, five guy. And in my heart, I really am too. That's where I cut my teeth, you know, learning under Joe and using his very, very simple system. And so I thought, why not? Let's just, let's break into that and have a little conversation about it. So, um, coach, uh, Simpson, we'll start with you here at first. And just what are the major differences that you see between the three, four and a four, two, excuse me, four, two, five, and the four, three? Yeah, and that's, and I'm curious to hear what Coach says on this. You know, we ran, back in the day, we ran a 4 4. You know, that was when I was coaching probably 20 years ago. I was in D. C. and we ran, we called it a 4 4, but now that's kind of morphed, in my opinion, into a 4 2 5. And so here's what I see, and coach may have a difference of opinion on this, but, you know, to me, when you're running a 4 3, you have three true linebacker type kids. Uh, and then you have, you know, obviously four offensive linemen and four dedicated DBs. Now, I see the game as 4 2 5, guys. I almost see it as 4 2 5. 4D lineman, two dedicated inside backers, trying to keep a six man box as much as you can, you know, depending on what you get, but for the most part, trying to keep a six man box. And then I see this as five DBs, you know, where you can have multiple kids that can give different looks where you can, uh, maybe play to the field and put an extra guy to the field where you can go back and even look like a three safety look at times, uh, where you can do a lot, you can, you can get to a traditional 4 4 look. Cover three, if you want to get to that, or you can get to a two high look. And so it kind of gives you the ability to get better, more athletes on the field, in my opinion, over a four, three, uh, and it gives you more versatility. You know, those are kind of the two things that I see coaching against it. Like if I'm coaching against a 4 3, it's pretty easy for me to manipulate that into a 4 1 box. Like there are ways I can kind of manipulate you into a 4 1 box or a 4 2 5, you're pretty much going to have six in the box at all times. And you're going to be able to move guys around on the back end to try to protect it. And so to me, the major difference is. In a 4 2 5, you're making your adjustments with your back five, like you're figuring out ways to adjust with your back five or a 4 3, you're making your adjustments with your three linebackers. You're sitting in that cover two shell and the three linebackers are the guys that have to kind of move to trips or to move to a tight end or move to a whatever. So just again, from the outside looking in, I'm not the expert. We run a 3 4. You know, I'm curious to coach here. If I was looking between the two of them, if I wanted more flavor, more ability to handle spread teams, potentially, or more ability to give versatile looks, or maybe I just want more athletes on the field, I'm looking at a four to five, uh, if I'm wanting a more traditional type defense, Um, I'm going more 4 3, or I, or I don't really want the illusion of different looks, I want to be really good at what I do, uh, then 4 3 would be kind of a road I would look at. And again, that's just a very, very general viewpoint from it. So I'm coached by his a little more he can enlighten us on. Bradbury, same question to you, man. What's the differences you see in the 4 2 5 and the 4 3? the 4 to 5 for us is it just kind of what coach Simpson said. It lets us be a little more versatile on how we want to attack people, and it keeps it really simple for for our guys. Like the front six really don't have to change as much, you know, getting a guy in, you know, if you got the tight end wing stuff to add seven and eight into the run fits, we can get You know, you can fix that with the back end guys per se. Uh, four, three is pretty standard. I can get them into four ones, two high shell stuff with that four to five. We can. We can be a one high, we can be a three high, we can be a two high, you know, we can be, you know, cover zero. So it lets us kind of be more multiple, but keeping it simple for, for your front guys, which, which I like, that's kind of the differences for us. That's why, cause we can bump into a four, three, look if we need to. It lets us kind of, it's kind of like the three, four, you know, be able to bump into the three stack look if they needed to. So it makes it, makes it multiple, I think. So that's how we use it. Yup. think that the, uh, Yup. you know, it was, it was brought around for a reason and it was to stop old school option football, right? Like triple option football. And, and that's where it, it gained its popularity and shutting down those defense back in the Miami days. And. I'm not so sure that that's needed in the same function anymore. There's very few teams that are running old school triple option. We're still getting a triple option. I mean, you're still going to get RPO. Um, Kenny has now broken the world open with, with running the quarterback off the backside of any stinking play, right? It's not zone read anymore. It's run read. If you're running the ball, you're reading something. Um, So I think there is still at least option football. If not triple option is out there, we're doing stuff with it. But like Kenny said, you've got to have that nickel type player who can stick with a S a slot receiver who used to be a fullback or used to be a tailback. You don't mean even in the wishbone that would have been. a halfback. Uh, now it's a little speedy dudes. You've got to have a defender to stick with him and and also come and play force in the run. I just think the 43 is a lot harder to coach. I think the angles make it different. You're talking a lot of two gapping with your defend, you know, with your linebackers because you're telling a guy in the box, he's also got to play force, right? You're boxing all your run plays with a dude that's already in the box, which of course is a lot harder than You know, what does four to five guys like to do and just let those overhangs come and turn it back to everyone else who's spilling. So, you know, I think angles and blitz angles and stuff get changed up a bunch. The four to five is kind of bland. Um, the four, three, you can fly around and send some crazy blitzes and you get nice angles and you know, America's fire zone blitz is everybody's favorite thing to talk about when they start talking four, three, uh, and that's a lot harder to do in a four to five. And I think other, um, just, just technical differences, how you're playing that strong side defensive end. If, if, if the opponent gives you a tight end, you know, four to five coach, I'm not sure how you do it, but we always put our strong end in a six and he generally owns that inside gap, right? We're not gonna, I'm never going to make him force where in a four, three, that defensive end is in a nine and he owns the outside, right? And that's kind of what I'm talking about. You're going to ask him to box. Because the backer right behind him is probably going to fit the gap right between, you know, right underneath. So, so just some technical difficulties there in, uh, difficulties, technical differences, um, in how we're playing those guys, uh, beyond that, man, it's really just kind of alignments, right? On personality, I think in a 4 3, you better have a freak at Mike. Like, if you're gonna run a 4 3 and be good, that guy at Mike's gotta be really, really talented. Uh, and then your two, your Sam and your Will, you know, a lot of times those 4 3s will morph. They'll morph into a 4 2, depending on what you give them, you know, but to me, you gotta have do, you gotta have three do's to run a 4 2 5. You gotta have the three safety outside linebacker kids, however you're playing that. So they don't have to be, but here's the deal, um Sometimes it's easier to find three DBs on a team that can kind of run and do different things than it is to find a kid that can plug a gap and cover like that can be tough to find. So as you're kind of looking at these two defenses. If you're going to run a 4 2 5, or if you're going to run some kind of 3 high safety ish look, all those looks, you're going to need to, those positions become uber important. Like your overhang, safety, those are kind of, we're going to start an in there. But I might be able to get away with just some thumpers at linebacker in that defense. Like they don't have to run and go cover stuff. You know, they just, they're going to play A gap to C gap. And so you might be able to put some thicker, slower linebackers. If you're in a 4 3. That Mike's got to be able to play almost C gap to C gap. Like, he's got to be able to fit all the way there. And like, think about Ray Lewis. And those are the guys you kind of think about in a 4 3. You know, where if you're in a 4 2, 4 2 5, you're thinking more the Ed Reed type guys that can kind of, or Paul Amalo from the Steelers back in the day, can kind of come in the box and come back. So it's just different types of kids as you're trying to morph it. He may be able to. Talk more on that subject, but in my mind, that's where I would start in a 4 2 5 is your edge. Linebacker, safety type kids. That's where I'm putting my best kids and then I'm building from there. Yep. We, we, we like to put, yeah, the, uh, the free safety, just those three safeties. I mean, you don't have to play a three high safety look by any means, but you're going to have a strong week and a free and, and those are your hybrid players. Those are the guys that are doing both. They're playing run and pass on every single play. Uh, you better make them good kids. All right. So, uh, question two here, you know, why, why pick an even front over the three, four, uh, coach Bradbury, we're going to let you get started here because you said you just made this conversion. So, well, you know why, why even front over a three, four? 1 was simplifying and making it everybody have 1 gap for us is why we moved to that. Um, and then kind of building it around our what we have coming up in our junior high. We got a bunch of alignment that might be able to. to platoon at our level, which is huge and get some of those skill guys not having to play both ways, which we got to do a little bit this year and we saw a major difference in our offensive output with that. So, um, that's kind of why we made the conversion to it was the simplicity and being able to add another lineman out there to help stop the run. Awesome. Yeah, those are, those are definitely good. I mean, personnel I think is where everyone should start, right? Let's, it doesn't matter what system you wanna run, I mean, we've been talking about the four three tonight, and in this episode it's really about the 4, 2, 5, but it's called the Miami four three for a reason. And if you don't have Miami kids. And I'm not talking about even today's man. I'm talking those kids, right? You, you mentioned Ed Reed and, and, uh, um, Ray Lewis. Like those were the guys that were actually there running it. And that's two of the most popular guys at their positions because of how good they were. Right. So, um, you need to have those dudes on the field. Um, so I love hearing a coach that says, Hey, personnel dictated what I'm going to coach. That's, that's a wonderful answer, especially small school ball, where. You never know man, like you absolutely never know what you're gonna Well, three, four, to me the biggest difference than the three, four and a four and a and a 4, 2, 5, or any, any forefront. So a three front versus a forefront is when if you're gonna see a bunch of two tight end looks, you're gonna see some tight end on balls, man. The the three we run, the three four. That's tough for us. Like you come out with a tight end and that changes the game for us. And what happens is we end up getting in a forefront with our personnel, but our personnel is not really made for that. So if we were going to see multiple teams that were running what I would call heavier offenses, that could be a, Like when I run off at like a tight end wing, that could be a tight end fullback, that could be high, that could be full house, that could be name it, that could be whatever. You know, you probably are going to end up with a forefront regardless, so you might as well start off with that as your base. You know, if we were seeing that, we're seeing, where I live, we're seeing majority spread. Like when you go to win games to win state championships, we're generally seeing spread. However, I've coached small school ball before, and I've coached in old school areas where now you are seeing, and it's starting to gain more popularity, you know, where you're starting to see the tight end make a comeback. The fullbacks make a comeback. You're, you're honestly better off in a forefront against those teams. And that's just, you're better off having bigger bodies out there that are comfortable in that world. You know, so to me, that would be the argument for going to a forefront as opposed to an odd front. And an odd front coach mentioned it. You have one more skill kid on the field. So the argument for running an odd front most of the time is we're putting eight guys that can run and three D linemen. Yeah. You know, when you're watching a lot of teams like the NFL that are on the tight front, the Dolphins do this a lot, three big D linemen that are going to kind of two gap and an athlete's everywhere else. That's the argument for a three front. The argument for the forefront is I can get an extra big thick body in there and handle that tight end that's coming at me. And now I still have seven athletes, but I'm not just getting, I'm not asking 165 pound outside linebacker to come down at a nine technique. I'm going to go ahead and play a. 240 pound defensive end at that spot, you know, and that's kind of the trade off in my mind between an odd or an even front and then in the odd front, you got to have four guys, you got to have two outside linebackers and two safeties that can do a lot of things. In a forefront, you probably only need two or three guys. You need, if you're a 4 2 5, you're going to need those three hybrid guys we talked about. In a 4 3, you're going to need the mic and the safeties. So you only need three guys that can do a lot. In a three front defense, I think you need at least four, both outside linebackers and both safeties. So just, those would be the arguments in my mind towards going to a forefront versus a three front. Yeah, I mean a lot of stuff you said there, you know, but as a Guy that studied trying to study both sides of the ball It's first thing I know is about three fronts is every time there's a tight end you bring them down into a forefront anyway So you might as well take advantage of that, right? You had another comment in there that I really, really piqued my interest. I remember what it was. So that's, that's okay. Um, you know, I, I think that I look at defensive fronts a little bit different. So some people say personnel wise, but we have a whole bunch of defensive linemen. Um, so I want to be a, a, a, a forefront, but I kind of run my forefront different. Um, I want those defensive ends to be more of a safety type, right? Maybe not. Maybe even an inside linebacker type. I want to be a little quicker. I like to kind of speed the game up there on the D line. Um, and so I can make do with less D linemen, but have more people with their hand in the dirt. Well, I figure like if you go to an odd front, you need three absolute dudes that are D linemen, right? Cause they're going to be anchoring double teams every single play. Um, Or getting washed down Or you're going to by big Yeah. Like we're, we're a three, four, but we're undersized, so they better be super quick. right. Um, yeah, cause you're, you're probably asking them to play four eyes. You know, the, the tight fronts made a huge, um, surge here in the last few years or so. Um, and then you got to start thinking about, you know, what are your backers? Are you going to have, because now you're two gap in backers and coach Bradbury said something about that earlier, you know, he switched out of his because he didn't want to have to two gap as backers. And that's another thing. You need three stud D lineman and. You got to have backers who can to gap, which is not always what we all have. So I think that the, uh, the four, two is a more simple defense to teach. It's easier for new coaches. You know, if you're a young head coach with, and you're basically developing a staff from scratch, um, you know, it's an easier defense for you to teach them to teach the players and everybody can get developed. And then you can mess around and be in multiple front or whatever. So I think that, uh, it definitely plays into that. Um, you know, not a lot of talent in coaching or not a lot of talent in, uh, in the playing development or playing realm. So, um, last question here, how do you handle multiple formation teams? And coach Simpson, we'll start with you Okay, this one's uh, this is tough for me. I'm curious to hear what coach says on this because in my opinion the 3 4 shines in this area. Like this is where the 3 4 really shines is there's so limited adjustments you have to make. Like this is, that's an area where I would argue the 3 4 probably is ahead of the 4 2 5. It's when you're playing teams that are going to show you empty and all kinds of junk. You can just bump guys over because you're in a 3 4, it's really adjustable. However, the 4 2 5 offers that too. We mentioned it kind of on the first question, you know, the 4 3 is going to struggle with those teams. Like I said, a 4 3 team is going to have a really hard time against a team that's going to show multiple formations, multiple personnel groups. You're going to be able to manipulate that defense pretty easily. 4 2 5's got some kind of But they got a little bit extra they can throw at you. Like in my opinion, you're making your adjustments with your back five. So you're keeping that stagnant six man box, which makes it really simple on your kids. You know, you have a couple of rules with tight ends and stuff, but for the most part, you're going to keep a six man box. So all your rules and all the time you've got to spend on formation recognition, which if you're a DC in today's game, you're probably spending 20 percent of your practice time on formation recognition. every single week. Like, in my opinion, that's just kind of the way the game is going. You're only having to do that in this defense with the back five. You may have to work one of the inside linebackers on extreme overload cases. But for the most part, when you're going through formation recognition, you can take your six man box and send them over there and let them work inside drill. And your back five guys are the ones that are having to make adjustments. With a 3 4, you're having to make it with at least, at least six guys, if not seven. So it's 4 2 5, like you mentioned, you guys have kept using the word simple, simple, simple, simple. In my opinion, the most simple defense is the 4 3. However, it's the most manipulated, I can manipulate that more as an offensive coordinator. The 4 2 5 is the next most simple defense, in my opinion, uh, but you do have some answers. The 3 4 defense is probably the hardest one to put in and do right, because there's so many other moving pieces, but it does shine against those. Multiple formations because you have so many athletes out there. So that's kind of my simple overview of it. 4 2 5, to me, those back five guys have got to make you right. And so if you're seeing trips, quads, empty, tight end wing, tight end, clothes, trips, all the stuff you're going to see, those back five guys have got to kind of know what's going on. But your front six, for the most part, they've They don't have to know anything. They just have to know what is my base rule? What is my gap I'm fitting? What's my responsibility in coverage? If I'm one of the two linebackers, the word simple, I think you guys have kind of hammered home on this and I think I would kind of go back to that. Like if you were a guy looking for a simple defense, some simple fixes, I think the 425 is going to do really, really well. When you're going against multiple looks. because Bradbury back to you, man, how do you handle multiple formation teams? Uh, when we get multiple people, first thing we're looking at how we're going to handle the trip side of the field and then formation into the boundary. That's I mean, are we going to bump out a backer? Are we going to, you know, check roll to trips? Uh, are we playing what we call special to the trips? We're kind of palms in the inside to manning up one. Uh, It, like Kenny said, it's really not, it's not over complicated. You can just use your back five to fix it all. Um, so which makes it easy for run fits for us. So in a way there are backside, like our bandit side and corner or boundary, as some people call it in the four to five there. We have some adjustments there and some automatics kind of hurricane talking about automatics the other day. We have some automatics to those multiple formations. So and just through your scouting report what we're gonna do to those things. So As you're going through it, Coach, I'm assuming this is standard, I think, for every defensive coordinator, but, like, we put formations in families. Like Trips could be, there's lots of families of trips. It could be trips, trips bunch, trips wide, it could be trips with a tight end, it could be tight end wing that makes a trip. So there's But that's all one rule for your DBs, like that's TRIPS. We may have to adjust something small, or SINGLE is always SINGLE. It could be a single receiver, it could be a nub tied in, it could be a nub winged, whatever it is, that guy is SINGLE. This is our rule to SINGLE. Or TWINS. Our rule to TWINS, whether they're wide, tight, tied in in a split, whatever that looks like, we kind of put that in a family grouping. I'm imagining with your back five, is that kind of how you're handling those rules? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the trips trips probably gives even in the three, four, that's what gives us the most fits balance formations. Not so much. Um, so what are they doing? Do I need to roll sky on the backside? Do I need to play cloud? I need to play a solo, whatever we need to do back there on the single side. That's where we can make more adjustments. Um, really on the front side to, to those autos. It's. this or it's that so it makes it really easy for our guys. And then where I've had success against 4 2 5, I'm curious what you do with this, is I've caught a lot of those 4 2 5 guys that have that automatic where they're playing their bonus guy always to the field. Like they're always going to stick that bonus guy to the field, so we'll just go tight end wing to the boundary until the cows come home. You know what I'm saying? So like, How are you guys kind of handling that stuff? You're going to start doing that. We're definitely going to roll down. It'll be your traditional probably four four look for us and whatever you're doing off of that, you know, just depending on what you want to do. Like we had a team running the pen and pull stuff or buck sweet stuff out of empty, which gives you fits with with the four, four, four, four in there. So finding your guys that can can set that edge can get tough at our level because you don't always have the personnel for that bandit safety roll down in the box. But, uh, When we, when we converted to it, my old head coach, that's what he said. We just find the overhang and run away from it while I'm like, well, we don't sit back there at 12 yards with the other guy, you know, we'll, we'll spin him down and get into a fourth floor. Look, uh, at times, you know, you've heard Joe say this, we call them safeties just to make them feel faster. They're really outside That's right. So, uh, but that's kind of how we handle that stuff. Um, We just like, it's, and what I like about it can get, it can get. each year that you do it, you can add more to it, make it more multiple, a little more complicated. Uh, but like this year it was in phase one. So we played a lot of base, maybe had one blitz maybe. And if that was what we got in our formation report, but uh, covering the multiple formations is easy, I think, because you just use those five to kind of manipulate what you're doing. Yeah, Uh, you know what? I, I think that the four to five is kind of where I cut my teeth. And anyway, we handed multiple formations. Kenny's kind of what you said. You just put them into little buckets. Right. And so, um, you know, we had to have a condensed edge rule. So we knew how to flip because I don't want my corner being the force guy. Uh, I definitely want to swap him with a safety. Um, you know, trips checks, they kind of end up all the ways. I think every, every defense has fits with things like ACE or, uh, you know, those two tight looks. Um, so you've just got to have rules for that, but just like offense, when you're trying to teach an offensive line, um, how to face a multi, you know, any, any number of fronts, I think you kind of do the same thing with that D line and then just spill everything and make sure you have a force guy. And once you're. The thing about 425 is it's very easy to get gap sound and keep it that way, right? You don't have to be, um, some blitz guru drawing up crazy stuff in the sand. You can just play base. You have a guy for every zone, every gap. There's nothing they can, there shouldn't be, uh, a glaring weakness in the 425. Now we all know that the weak side flat, wherever you don't put your bonus guy, you know, against any kind of a twins look, that's going to be a weakness of yours, especially if you're trying to run a too high look. Um, but that's, that's just part of it, especially if you get in like quarters, you know, coach, I heard you talking about sky and cloud. So, you know, you run in quarters, especially first year in the 4 to 5, like it's, that's a brave move because you're the simplicity of that, that core defense, that front six allows you to spend all that extra time, um, with your backside and you can, you can do stuff like run quarters, which is way more fun to coach than. Being a cover one cover three team. Now it's even more fun to win football games. yeah. if you're losing to have fun coaching, uh, you don't need the quarters in there. But, um, so yeah, I think you, you guys basically hammered it, you know, just put things in the buckets, give kids rules. Uh, it's no different than coaching O line, you know, and then let those back five guys make you right and, and personnel them to do that as well. So, well, sweet guys, uh, we're kind of banging on through this one. I'm having some connectivity issues. So I don't know if you guys are seeing that or not. Mine's it's, it's kind of going nuts over here, but, um, so we'll go ahead and start trying to close out here. Uh, coach Simpson, why don't you tell us our lesson for what not to do as a coach? Yeah, so I, to me, I try to always do something here that will catch on. I think the word simple was brought up a bunch right here. So here's my lesson for what not to do is try to make things hard so you seem smart. Coach kind of mentioned that during the intro where you go play college. And so you hear this, and I'm not saying college coaches are immune to it. Sometimes college coaches are the worst at this where they, Oh, this kid's 18. Now he knows everything. And so they teach 35 different coverages and they make, and they use words kids don't understand because they've heard it at a clinic or heard it on Twitter or whatever it is, and so we're going to say this stuff and you know, I've always heard, Instead of doing that, instead of making things more complex, talk to the lowest IQ in the room. And a lot of times that's me. So you talk to like who is the lowest one you need to, and that way everybody's catching what you're saying. So the goal as a coach should be to make complex things simple. To me, that's genius. That that is genius at any level of any business you do, especially in sports or in education is if you can make complex things simple for your kids, you are a genius coach. Unfortunately, a lot of times as coaches, we try to do the opposite. Something that should be really simple, like force. Like being a force player, we have to use 55 words for it and confuse a kid and make something that should be really easy, hard. Like think about if he was in the third grade, you'd say, don't let him on the edge. Now we're going to come back and do something different. So to me, that's the lesson for today is to keep things as simple as you can. Take the complex and make it simple. Awesome. Well, we're having some more technical difficulties, so that's fun. This is a good episode. It's a good episode to remind yourself to always, uh, always troubleshoot all the things and have contingency plans, right? Even in the four to five defense. All right guys, uh, one last time. You know, I just wanna mention you guys, you know, a sports is offering you an opportunity to fundraise, uh, like a maniac. Um, you know, I know Coach Simpson used him. I don't know, coach, did you get your turf first or your, your video board We did turf first. If I could go back and redo it, I'd probably do it together. There you go. So, uh, you know, call mark, call Ryan. If, if, if you're in a small town okay, and you want turf and you can't afford it 'cause it's expensive, right? They offer you a way to make a lot of money. In a, in a reasonable amount of time. And now that's not a 20 year plan to get turf. It might be in your five year plan, right? And you can pay with the cash that you raised by fundraising with that board. So, so kind of think about that. What, what big ticket item do you need? Reach out to Mark or Ryan. Um, you can, I think all of Mark's info is in that ad at the beginning of the episode. So you can go back and reach that. Uh, and then once again, we always, we always got to mention our guy, Zach Welchman with ProCom. Um, you know, if you're needing any kind of headset needs right now, you need to get them changed, you need to get them, you know, add one or whatever. Um, it's a good time to switch. Go over to ProCom. It's ProComWelchman. com. Well, he's got Coach Simpson, you already mentioned heads up on the, on the pro com guy too. I think he's got the little thing you can put in the quarterback's helmet. Now pro com is selling that thing. So really good for seven on seven, I think would be to have something like that. coach Simpson, we're not, we're not, I text him, uh, this morning actually. And he said, he doesn't think we're two years out from that in high school I agree. with, with college now accepting it, uh, much like that kickoff that the NFL just changed guys were probably not too far off from that high school level either. So, um, might as well have a system that lets you add that on the fly versus having to buy a new one when that comes around, you know, Um, social media, Coach Bradbury, where can we, if somebody wanted to reach out and talk to you about the four to five or, or eight air Uh, you they reach out my email, uh, bradybradburyatgmail. com all lowercase. And then, uh, I'm on Facebook right now. I haven't been on, uh, any of those other things, which is rare for a younger guy, I guess, but, uh, I'm not on Instagram or anything like that, but you can reach me through, through Facebook. That's, that's one of my favorite ones. So that's about the two places you can get me. I Perfect. You can catch me on Twitter slash X at coach Chambo. Okay. The email is chamberlainfootballconsultingatgmail. com. Uh, once again, you know, coach Bradbury is a, uh, a guy, a living Testament to, if you want to come on the show and you got something to offer and bring to the table, reach out. We'll get you on here. No matter if you're a 20 miles away from me or, or 2000, you know, Coach Simpson, where can we find you at, sir? Uh, all things FB coach Simpson. So at FB coach Simpson on Twitter, FB coach Simpson. com, uh, or FB coach Simpson at gmail. com for my email. Wonderful. The podcast is at Coaching101Pod. Um, we want to thank you for being a listener to the Coaching101Podcast. We hope you'll join us next week as we continue to make the complex more simple. Please consider subscribing to the show so you'll always know when new episodes are out. Coach Bradbury, man, we can't thank you enough for coming on the show and, and sharing some of your knowledge about the defense, and we hope to have you back guys. Thanks for having Um, we'll have to do it before football season because then we'll really give away trade secrets, you know what I Exactly. Thank you guys so much. We'll leave you with this. It's hard to beat someone who never gives up no matter the situation find a way