Ron Vanderlinden is a defensive coach, who was with the Colorado Buffaloes national championship team, then spent time at Northwestern University, coaching for their 1995 Big 10 Champion, before moving on to coach linebackers for Joe Paterno’s Penn State Nittany Lions. In this book he describes the Eagle and Stack defenses, the Eagle being the 4-3 defensive scheme he learned and developed while at Colorado, the Stack being Ron’s term for a defensive scheme derived from Jimmy Johnson’s Miami 4-3. The defense he describes is thus a melding of  two schemes, one better suited for strong running teams (the Eagle) and another better suited for spread formation passing teams (the Stack). In this, there is an analogy between Tom Landry’s 4-3 inside and 4-3 outside formations, the melding of which led to the 4-3 flex.

In depth detail on a 4-3 defensive scheme, this book is highly recommended.

This book describes in depth a very successful college program and defense, and as befits a book that describes a whole coaching system, it begins with a certain set of drills, pursuit drills in the very first chapter. After describing drills it them proceeds to the player profiles required for the various positions in the Eagle. Once complete he then gets into the Eagle Defense (4 chapters), the Stack (4 chapters), fusions of the two (2 chapters), 3 chapters on positional technique, and then 3 chapters on special situations, such as goal line defense. As such, in the wealth of practical detail, the book resembles a college textbook, and has a level of difficulty akin to a sophomore organic chemistry text, or a junior level biochemistry text.

This is a good coaches book, and for the casual fan, it should be skimmed and used as a reference. There are discussions of schemes I’ve not seen before, such as Cover 7, or Cover 5:

2 safeties close to LOS aid in run defense. 2 deep strong side DBs cover 1/4 of field, while weak side DB covers 1/2. FS has TE (light blue) and post responsibilities.

The Stack defense, though generally an umbrella defense, more easily allowing 4 deep coverage, can easily be converted into a 4-4.

To note, Ron  has his own unique nomenclature for offensive gaps (1 for “A”, 3 for “B” and so on), one that makes the gap assignment align with the defensive technique. His use of 6, 7 and 9 technique I found confusing, but that’s because the standard technique assignments aren’t consistent once you get to tight ends (I would have thought them to be 6, 6i and 7 respectively, but consistency is just a hobgoblin of small minds)..