How do you beat Cover 2 in College Football 27?

Attack the two soft spots: the hole in the deep middle between the safeties, and the sideline over the corner and under the safety. The throw everyone loves is a slot post into that middle hole, and four verticals or the seams stress the safeties to open it up. Smash, a hitch under a corner route, hands you the sideline. Watch where they user a defender in the deep middle and throw at the spot he leaves.

How do you know it is Cover 2?

Find the safeties before the snap. Two deep safeties splitting the field in half, with the corners squatting near the line instead of bailing deep, is Cover 2. One high safety means it is single-high, like Cover 1 or Cover 3 instead.

What is the weakness of Cover 2?

The deep middle and the deep sidelines. With only two safeties splitting the back end, the hole right between them opens up to seams and posts, and the strip behind each corner opens up to corner routes. That strip is the honey hole.

Tampa 2 sends the middle linebacker deep to wall off the hole, so the underneath and the sidelines open up instead. Hit the flats and curls the Mike vacated, then run smash at the corner for the easy completion.

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How to Beat Cover 2 in College Football 27

5 min readCFB 27 Dynasty

Cover 2 might be the friendliest shell you will ever see online, because it leaves two soft spots wide open and they basically never move. There is the hole in the deep middle, right between the two safeties, and there is the strip down each sideline that sits over the corner and under the safety. Find the defender sitting in the deep middle, then throw at whichever spot he is not protecting. You will move it in chunks.

Read it before you snap it

Start with the safeties. Two deep safeties splitting the field into halves is your tell. Add corners squatting down near the line instead of bailing off your receivers, and you are looking at Cover 2. See just one deep safety back there instead? That is single-high, and you attack it a different way over in how to beat Cover 3.

Now you have the picture. Two safeties own a deep half apiece, the corners sink into the flats, and three linebackers clog the hooks underneath while four guys rush.

Cover 2 shell: two deep halves, five underneath zones, four rushers — Cover 2: two deep halves, five underneath, four rushing. The hole lives dead center between the two safeties.

The thing that actually wins you the rep is the user. A real opponent almost always grabs one defender and parks him in the deep middle to steal that hole, basically playing Tampa 2 by hand. So hunt for him before the snap. If he is camped in the middle, the sidelines belong to you. If he chases your seams and widens out, drop it in the hole behind him.

Reading Cover 2: find the user in the deep middle and throw where he is not — Who to read: find the guy they park in the deep middle. Camped in the hole, you take the sidelines. Widened off it, you take the hole.

The deep middle is the money

The throw everyone loves against Cover 2 is the slot post, dropped right into that hole between the safeties. Run your outside guy up the sideline to hold the safety, then bend your slot on a post in behind him. The safety cannot widen for the vertical and squeeze the post at the same time, so the second he leans, your slot crosses into open grass. Confirm the two-high look and let it rip.

Slot post attacking the deep middle hole in Cover 2, with the seams on the other side — Slot post into the hole: the outside go holds the safety, the slot posts in behind him. Same job on the other side with the seams.

Four verticals is the same idea with both seams at once. The outside guys pin both safeties while the slots run up the gut, and each safety still carries only one. Read his hips and take the window he leaves. If they squeeze down on the seams, drop a dig or the post into the hole they just vacated. One thing to know on the sticks: the middle linebacker usually has a deep run-through right in that hole, so clear him out with a vertical first, then sit the post in behind him. Make him wrong.

Smash the honey hole

When you just want a clean throw down the sideline, run smash at the boundary. Your outside guy sits on a hitch around six yards while your slot climbs a corner route behind him, into that strip over the corner and under the safety. The corner is stuck in the flat. He can squat the hitch or sink under the corner route, and he cannot do both. Whatever he picks, you throw the other one.

Smash concept versus Cover 2: hitch under a corner route into the honey hole — Smash: hitch underneath, corner route over the top into the honey hole. The flat corner cannot carry both.

That honey hole around eighteen yards on the sideline is the softest grass in the whole coverage. Smash hands it to you, and so does a plain deep comeback the second a corner bails with depth.

Flood a half and pull them up

If your buddy starts squatting everything underneath, flood one deep half and stretch it on three levels. Put a go up the sideline to run the safety off the top. Underneath it, break a corner or a sail route into the honey hole around fifteen yards. Then leak your back out to the flat. The safety has to honor the go, the corner gets pinned down on the flat, and you take whoever is left in the middle of that stretch.

Flood concept versus Cover 2: go, sail, and flat stretching one deep half — Flood: the go runs the safety off, the sail sits in the honey hole, the flat pulls the corner up. Take whoever is left.

Pounding that flat route does double work too. It drags the corner up and pulls the whole defense forward, which is exactly what springs the deep shots later. Hit the checkdown enough and they start jumping it, and that is when the route behind it comes wide open.

When they take the middle away, go the other way

Here is where the sharp guys get you. They user the deep middle, or they flat out drop into Tampa 2 and send the Mike to wall off the hole. Your pretty seams get swallowed. Do not keep forcing it. Go the other way, because a defender sunk deep in the middle means the sidelines and the flats are sitting wide open. Take your smash and your comebacks until he climbs back out, and the checkdown over the ball is there all day.

And respect the trash underneath. Those squatting corners are cloud defenders waiting to pounce on a lazy out, and the hook linebackers will undercut any dig that sits down and dies. Keep your routes on the move, clear a zone before you throw into it, and you will not gift him the easy pick.

The whole plan

Find the safeties, then find the user. When he sits on the hole, smash the sideline. When he widens off it, split the safeties and drop it in the middle. When they squat the whole thing underneath, flood a half and make them chase. Boot it up, hunt for that two-high look, and go cook.