How to Get Speed in Space: The Shallow Cross
Short throw... fastest athlete... a ton of space, what's not to love?
The shallow cross is a prototypical air raid concept. Like many air raid concepts, the shallow cross is designed to work as a “long handoff” of sorts. The QB does not need a phenomenal arm or any funky read. They simply have to look at the play-side inside linebacker and determine what they are doing. Many coaches, especially in high school ball, do not like the idea of crossing routes because they take forever and a day to develop. After reading this, I hope you find that the shallow cross is an explosive play that makes the defense play the whole football field!
The Basics of the Shallow Cross
The shallow cross is a play that combines the following routes:
Dig route about 10-12 yards down the field
Shallow cross about 3-5 yards off of the LOS
Vertical route by the play-side wideout
Curl or vertical route by the back-side wideout
In its entirety, the concept should look something like this:
(Sidenote: I found that I miss drawing these things out, so instead of using a computer program, I hit y’all with the authentic drawings this week)
This is about the simplest way you can run the shallow cross concept. This is how a lot of the air raid teams in college run this concept. The go-route and the post are pre-snap access throws. If the defense is giving them up, take them. After the rhythm throws are called for, the QB moves onto their read, which is the high-low concept in the middle of the field. The back leaking out of the backfield makes this a much easier read, especially if the defense is in man coverage. The ILB will have the running back and there will only be one LB to read, that LB has to decide if they are going to defend the high route or get beat by the shallow route running underneath of them. Either way, this play will pick up some serious yardage.
The Oklahoma State Shallow Cross
The Oklahoma State Cowboys run this play a little bit differently than most other teams do. Instead of having their outside receivers run vertical routes or a comeback on the backside, they put their wideouts on deep-out routes. This becomes a deadly access throw for the QB if they deem the coverage works for a deep out route. The play turns out like this:
This style of the shallow cross is more focused on pre-snap reads than anything else. If you are a team that runs vertical routes with your outside guys and they have been burning the defensive backs, this might be a good idea to mix things up a little bit. If the defensive backs on the outside are not giving anything up (outside leverage and only 4-5 yards off) then the QB will move straight to the inside high-low read with the shallow cross. The RB will check for protection then release to a hitch in the middle of the field, the shallow cross should have cleared that zone by now. If your QB is fantastic at seeing what the defense wants to do pre-snap, consider adding this concept into the playbook!
The Classic: Bobby Petrino Style
Long time coach and the current head coach at Missouri State, Bobby Petrino, has a very unique take on the shallow cross concept. However, Petrino’s style has actually turned into my favorite version of shallow cross strictly because of how versatile it is. The concept itself is put into the playbook like this:
The wheel and the post are considered “alert” routes. The QB should only throw these if they are absolutely certain they will complete it. The post becomes a MOFO (Middle of the field open) beater and the wheel becomes a MOFC (Middle of the field closed) beater. If the QB does not like those, then he begins the post-snap reads. Bobby Petrino trains his QBs to read this play low-high. The goal is to hit the shallow cross behind the wheel for a big play. If they take the shallow cross away, then hit the tight end on the deep-in. If that is covered, then the comeback route on the backside should beat man coverage or anything else that might lock this play up. All in all, the shallow cross is more about trusting your best athlete and allowing them to run themselves open to what should be an easy completion for the QB.
Once again, thank you all for reading and I hope these blog posts are doing these concepts justice. These concepts are all amazing plays in their own right. I know everyone is not a fan of smash or shallow cross, for example, but they have their place in this great game. Have a great week, coaches! Keep getting better!
Best,
Coach Davis