About this episode

Kyle interviews Coach Wallie Kuchinski about a unique five-man zone pressure blitz pattern used in football coaching.

This week on The Board Drill Podcast, Kyle sits down with Coach Wallie Kuchinski, Associate Head Coach and Defensive Coordinator at the University of St. Thomas, for an hour-long install of what Coach K calls the king of all blitz patterns. On tape it looks like the NCAA pressure everybody runs. It is not. It is a single five-man zone pressure built on reading offensive linemen instead of assigning gaps, and that one distinction is what makes it hold up against every run scheme and every protection a coordinator can dial up. Coach K teaches it the way you wish every clinic taught it, all the way down to the footwork: the flat step, the pound-step head fake, the lean off the snap so you never tip the pressure, and the term the Tommies use instead of box or force, splatter. From there it builds. How the front cuts the field in half and turns pulls into tackles for loss. Why a bunch of single teams gets extra hats to the ball. How the pattern beats outside zone, power, and RPOs, and the three-man loop that asks a center to do something he simply cannot do. Coach K also shows how the whole thing travels from a 3-4 into a 2-4-5 nickel, so the 4-2-5 crowd can run it too. It is a heavy…

People in this episode

Hosts: Kyle Bradburn, Matt Dixon

Guest: Wallie Kuchinski

Topics covered

• blitz patterns
• defensive strategies
• football coaching
• NCAA pressure
• defensive coordination

Keywords

• blitz patterns
• NCAA pressure
• defensive strategies
• football coaching
• tackles for loss
• 3-4 defense
• 2-4-5 nickel

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of St. Thomas

More episodes of The Board Drill Podcast

• Bracketing in Cover 7 with Coach Chad Broadrick · July 15, 2026 · 58 min
• One Play, A Dozen Ways to Run Counter | Coach Sean Cooley · July 8, 2026 · 1h 1m
• Installing Stump Coverage with Coach Colin Lark · June 17, 2026 · 59 min
• Nathan McPeek on Team Standards and Leadership · June 3, 2026 · 51 min
• Coaching Modern Linebackers: Drills, Reads, and Block Destruction · May 27, 2026 · 1h 29m
• Why Programs Are Built On People, Not Schemes with Kurt Hines · May 13, 2026 · 1h 1m

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Board Drill Podcast podcast page.