How the Flyover defense is bringing back old school football players

The different alignment of the Flyover 3-3-5 defense is bringing back old school football players who'd been chased off the field by spread offenses.

The Flyover 3-3-5 defense is primed to continue its takeover of college football in the coming year. Initially designed to help disciplined but perhaps athletically limited teams field sound coverages against spread stress, it’s proven to be much more. The inherent philosophy of the scheme is actually a paradigm shifting approach to defense, utilizing a “defense in depth” strategy rather than the “attack” oriented nature of many modern schemes.

Why the Flyover defense is taking over football

But while it’s philosophically a new approach to defense, one of its impacts is actually to bring back the old school at a few key positions on the field.

Whereas the 4-2-5/2-4-5 styles of defense which had become ascendant were putting an increasing premium on fielding freakish, hybrid athletes all over the field, the Flyover creates a new division of labor for stopping offenses. The new alignments recreate old jobs which had become defunct in the 4-down’s adaptations to become spread-resistant.

If you’re new to the Flyover 3-3-5, which isn’t the same as the old 3-3-5 defenses the game has seen many times before, we’ll go over the structure and explain how it’s bringing some old school back.