Introduction

Several years ago, we decided to scrap our flex bone offense and made the wholesale switch to
a shotgun spread offense. In doing so, we knew we would need to incorporate many ideals that
would help us become more consistent and successful at throwing and catching the football,
but one drill that we run everyday is the Noose drill. I first encountered this drill in Lubbock at
Texas Tech under the direction of Mike Leach. Most of you guys by now, probably know the
story of Coach Leach and his tutelage under Hal Mumme. Then, when we went into spread
offenses, we became clients of Tony Franklin and his System, another branch of the Air Raid
offense family tree and came across the drill again and developed a better understanding and
application of this drill.
The reason I like this drill so much and we use it everyday is for a couple of reasons. I have
never seen a drill that encompasses so many of the little things that receivers and quarterbacks
need to be conscious of in one drill that can be done in 5 minutes. Secondly, we are a small
school (1A in Texas, our high school enrollment is 185) and we have guys that play both sides of
the football and our entire coaching staff must coach both offense and defense. Coincidentally,
we typically only have an hour for our offensive half of practice. Since were lacking some of the
individual time that bigger schools may have, noose is great because we can coach so many
details for our positions without having to spend a great amount of time on it during individual
offense in practice.
Again, one of the best things about Noose is that it covers a myriad of things that we will harp
on that we believe are critical to being a good receiver. In listening to many Air Raid spread
offensive minds (Mumme, Leach, Franklin, Dana Holgerson, Sonny Dykes, Art Briles, etc.) speak,
one common thing that most will mention is that the best way to get embarrassed in the
spread offense is to not able to defeat press man coverage and not be able to get off the line of
scrimmage and get into your routes. You may only see it once or twice a season, but when you
do, you better be prepared for it. So for this reason, we work everyday on man press releases

and the first few steps of the drill reflect this. Its a worst-case scenario mentalityif you can
get off man press, everything else should be easier.
We run noose drill everyday in pre-practice as a warm up. Another thing that we dont waste
time on anymore is an old-school, static, block-type stretch, where it takes 5 minutes everyday
just to get the freshmen in a straight line in the back. Instead, we warm up with Noose.

Drill Set-Up
The drill is set up with two cones five yards apart (we use the boundary and yard lines). Some
people will use stand up dummies or trashcans instead of cones or you could even use two guys
that are in line. The cones are used to represent a defender, particularly a linebacker for the
purposes of this drill. The receivers will line up behind one cone, facing the other cone. The next
man in line will step around and be a defender. The QBs will be perpendicular to the cones,
about 8 or 10 yards deep.

Wide Receiver Mechanics

STANCE The first thing we coach our guys on is their stance. So for stance, we want
our guys to have a wide base, a fighters stance with their feet about shoulder width
apart. We dont worry about one foot or the other being forward, because we dont
count steps in our routes. The next thing is we want our shoulders lower than the
defenders shoulders and our hands up and ready.
FOOT FIRE Our next step is a foot fire technique. Here we are rapidly firing our feet
and hands. We want to gain some ground and threaten the DBs cushion and get into
him, all without giving him a clue as to what our first move is going to be. We want to be
violent with our hands and not let him engage.
STICK OPPOSITE Here we want to begin our single stick release by sticking our toe in
the ground in the opposite direction that were going. We want them to do a good job
of selling that they are going in the direction of the stick, so we want a good head and
shoulder fake. We encourage them to put some flavor in it just like theyre being
covered by their brother in the back yard.

CLEAN THEIR HANDS Here we need to be violent with our hands. After weve set the
DB up that we are going the other direction, we want to break his wrists or break his
elbow are good visuals that we will use here. We want to get the defenders hands off
of us as were going into our dip.
DIP AND RIP Next, we want to again be violent with our hands and rip through the
defender while at the same time, we want to reduce our surface and give the defender
very little opportunity to grab. We want a low shoulder pad level while turning our back
to the defender and trying to slide past him. We do not want to try to swim past him
and open up our rib cage to the DB.
RE-STACK After we get even with the defender, we want to try to lean back into him
and if we can, we want to put him behind us. We tell them to get back on the
numbers which is our normal alignment landmark or re-stack the defender. When
using the boundary or yard lines, we want to make sure that they are getting back on
that line and not tending to fade to the sideline or get rooted out by the defender.
STICK We prefer to stick our routes by sinking our hips and sticking a toe in the ground
and not decelerating by chopping our feet or cleaning our cleats before our breaks. To
simulate this we will get into a half speed, high knee type action to the opposite cone
and stick with our outside foot away from the QB. Again here, we pay attention to
making a good head and shoulder fake and tell them to hide their numbers from the
defender. They should always stick with the outside foot and turn towards the QB, all
the way around and back towards the other cone.
SETTLE After returning or almost returning to the original cone, the receiver will stick
again and turn and face the QB. They are told not to settle in the middle, but rather to
be closer to one cone or the other, which gives the QB a correct shoulder to throw to.
NOOSE- The name of the drill comes from the diamond made by your hands when your
index finger tips and thumbs on your hands meet. This is a key point in being successful
in catching the football, so it is being emphasized here. The receiver should hold up his
hands and show his noose to the QB or he should not throw the ball.
WORK BACK TO THE BALL once they have made their final stick and are facing the QB
with their noose up, we want them to work back to the ball. We tell them to keep a
wide base and their feet hot while working slightly back to the QB to keep a defender
from stepping in front of them and intercepting the ball. We do not need them to gain a
ton of ground here, just working their feet as the QB may still be working his footwork
or reads and may not be ready to deliver the throw just yet.
EXAGGERATE THE CATCH - We want to make sure our guys are looking in the ball and
catching the ball with their noose, not flipping their hands at the last minute. We tell
them to take a picture of it like they are holding a camera and clicking it just for a
second before they tuck it away.
TUCK Eyes to the tuck is what we will tell them here to make sure that they
exaggerate tucking the ball away and are not trying to run off before they have the ball
caught.
DROP STEP We want to get skinny and gain ground as soon as we catch the ball, so we
work on a drop step with our foot that is away from the defender (nearest cone and
hopefully towards the shoulder that the QB has delivered the ball) to get straight up the

field right now. Some guys will jump in place and throw their feet like the old quarter
eagle drill, but they are not gaining any yardage.
HIGH AND TIGHT The last thing we harp on in every drill is ball security. We want the
ball tucked high and tight up on the breast plate of those shoulder pads on our drop
step and immediately behind the cones we will have two defenders that the receiver
must split as they try to rip the ball out. After the receiver clears the strip defenders and
scores for about five yards, he hustles the ball back to the center high and tight all the
way (again, if we do not have our centers, he will give the snap) before he returns to
take the place of one of the strip guys and they get in the back of the line.