Basic building blocks of X's and Os: The drag route

Shallow crossing routes are a staple of football offense. Few things beat a short, quick pass to someone fast on the run.

Mike Leach had a particularly famous mantra that you’ll hear from time to time which was meant to encapsulate his Air Raid offense.

“We want to throw it short to people who can score,” was the quip. It wasn’t necessarily true, I can readily recall (and have written about) the Michael Crabtree Red Raiders of 2008 who ran an awful lot of 4-verticals with everyone going deep. I don’t know if it was any more true of earlier Leach squads where the best player was Wes Welker, or even the 2007 Red Raiders who matched Crabtree outside with Danny Amendola (5-foot-11, 183 pounds, 4.25 shuttle) and Eric Morris (5-foot-8, 178 pounds) in the slot.

Even when he had a bunch of speedy little white dudes in the slot Leach still liked to chuck it down the field.

But, throwing it short to people who can score was certainly a component of the Air Raid and that often mantra often refers to one route in particular, the “drag” or “shallow cross.”

For those old Raiders, that often meant the dreaded “mesh” play, which featured two shallow crossing routes which would intersect in the middle of the field and often spring one open to one side.

“Shallow cross” is another overall route concept which is really popular in the college game, as is “Levels” which is extremely similar but with a few different routes in the overall combination.

The route will always have value because there are so many receivers who are dangerous when they catch the ball on the move and any quarterback can be taught to throw to them.

Today let’s dive into the ways this basic building block comes up in college football.