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How to Run Ultimate Frisbee's Stack Offense

Spacing and timing are key to Ultimate Frisbee's stack offense

By Craig Haley
PlaySportsTV Managing Editor
 
Nothing against beehives, but that’s the last thing Anthony Nunez wants to see at an Ultimate Frisbee field.

The Ultimate Frisbee coach at Columbia High School in Maplewood, N.J. – where the sport was born – wants to see excellent spacing, not players crowding around the disc. One of his former soccer coaches used to call the crowding a “beehive” – a scenario known also by other names and all too familiar to youth soccer coaches and parents.

In Ultimate Frisbee – also known as Ultimate of Ultimate Disc – the best way to advance the disc toward an opponent’s end zone is with spacing and timing. To achieve both goals, especially against player-on-player defense, a team generally uses an offensive strategy called the stack.

“Depending upon the position that the player is taking – if they are a receiver or a handler – depends upon what space they will be taking up onto the field,” says Nunez, who coached Columbia to its first Ultimate Players Association Eastern High School championship in 2008 – on the 40th anniversary of the sport’s birth.

The stack gets its name from the way four or five of the offensive players line up away from the disc thrower, each spaced apart and prepared to cut to an open space to catch the disc. This offense often works best with quick passes, one after another as the disc is advanced up the field.

The stack’s formation is usually horizontal or vertical, with the first player about 15-20 yards away from the thrower, and then each following player in the stack about 5 to 10 yards apart.

If the stack is horizontal, two players usually stand off to each side of the person throwing the Frisbee, working as safety valves in case the 10-second stall count is winding down against the thrower’s marking defensive player, or if one of them is in position to make a better pass to a teammate. When one of these players – often called the dump or reset – receives a pass, the stall count resets.

A vertical stack offense uses only one dump, thus putting five players in the stack as opposed to only four when there are two dumps.

“To advance a disc, a thrower has three rules,” Nunez says. “One is, throw it to a space where the offense can get it. Two is, throw to a space where a defense cannot get it. And three is, throw a high-percentage throw, which means a throw that would be more likely to be completed. With any good offense, the thrower will keep that in mind and just wait for the perfect cut or the perfect throw to make. And, if not, then he can reset himself by using the dump.”

Players in the stack who are closest to the throw are called “handlers,” players in the middle are called “mids” and players farthest from the thrower are called “longs.”

To create perfect passing opportunities, the players in the stack need to be in synch with each other. The sequence of their cuts can be predetermined, but the offense should communicate on the field and adapt to the defense.

“What you have is people cutting in different lanes on the field,” Nunez says. “So if you split the field into four sections, basically those four sections are cutting lanes for a player to be in. Depending upon where the disc is, obviously, is where the stack sets itself up.

“Basically the stack you set up has people who know exactly what order they are cutting in to get to those open spaces.”

A cutter who does not receive a pass should turn to re-enter the stack, and the second runner should already be in motion.

Since a defensive player is marking the thrower (also known as holding the force), often the best offensive option for throwing the Frisbee is to the side opposite where the marker is standing.

The thrower does not want to get caught watching his throw; he wants to move afterward. When the thrower completes a pass, he generally rotates to the dump and the dump rotates into the stack to become a cutter. This should all be a seemless flow.

The line, Nunez points out, will “adjust to where the disc was placed. So if the disc is in the middle of the field, a lot of times the best place to have your stack is to be set in the middle of the field. If the disc is close to a sideline, let’s say to the left side … then the best place to stack yourself is (to) angle yourself. If it’s a vertical stack, so that’s it’s at a diagonal with the disc, (a team wants to) have open lanes to throw to and cut to without getting in the way of the disc floating. The other offense, which is a horizontal stack, the people are set up across the field usually I would say anywhere from seven to 15 yards away from the disc.”

Nunez recommends teaching the stack offense first without involving a defense. An Ultimate Frisbee coach wants to emphasize the different responsibilities of the stack and the angling the cuts for high-percentage passes.

“Usually when I first start teaching stack offense to beginning player,” Nunez says, “what we do is we set up the stack and we have the player make the cuts that they’re supposed to cut even without a disc so that they get used to what a cut looks like, how to make the proper form of a cut. That drill is just a simple cutting drill.”

“You don’t want to cut too soon or too late in the stack. And depending upon the person’s strategy - the coach’s strategy and the player’s strategy – our player could cut off another player and completely take that player out of the offense because they’re drawing their (defensive) man onto that offensive player who is open. It does come into a play of timing of when to cut and how to cut.

“You want to be able to give everybody enough spacing to do something to make a play.”
 
Without a beehive getting in the way.

Photo courtesy of Dan Stedman/Ultimate Players Association

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