The Chalkboard

What we can tell you is that we've always been fascinated by the X's and O's "chess match" part of football, but consider ourselves to have just enough knowledge to be dangerous.

Fortunately, new Cardinal head coach, Denny Green, has from time to time generously shared the technical nuts and bolts of his offensive and defensive philosophy with fans and media. But since the info that flows out of press conferences and interviews tends to be fleeting, the technical stuff tends to go in one ear and out the other. So - before all this good stuff is lost forever, we've decided to preserve some of the X and O stuff here on this page both as  "refresher course" material and for posterity.

For the time being, everything will be "in the narrative", but perhaps down the road - when time and understanding permits - we'll add some blackboard diagrams to help us all put Denny's words into something visual.

The "Under Defense.
“We are going to play an under, and there are very few teams that play an under. In the under, the nose tackle goes to the strong side most of the time and the end to the right side is on open space most of the time, so that the guy who plays beside him over the guard is an under tackle.”

“We are very excited, Bert will play at right end for us, an ideal position for us because of the style of defense we are going to play. Primarily, it is an under defense with four men on the line. Bert will play that exciting right end position normally to the open end side. He’s an every down player where he is always applying pressure and we are excited about having him here.”

Denny on Cardinal Offensive Philosophy (Video Link - You will need a media player like RealOne)

Denny on Cardinal Defensive Philosophy (Video Link - You will need a media player like RealOne)