Defender on the ground? Get rid of the disc!

Frisbee IQ means seizing your opportunities

Update (2023-12-05): It turns out Hive Ultimate has, in fact, made a video on this topic. Thanks to Felix for finding the link—watch it below:

A lot of what "high frisbee IQ" boils down to is noticing and taking advantage of the opportunities available to you. An opportunity that comes up semi-frequently is when your defender is on the ground—usually after a failed layout.

The best thing you can do when your defender's on the ground is to run away from them! But, obviously, you can only do that if you get rid of the disc. The best players know this, and will look aggressively for a short pass that they can turn into a give-and-go move. Too many players treat this opportunity nonchalantly. When the defense is out of position, don't stand around waiting for them to catch up—press your advantage.

Let's look at a few examples. I'll update this article with more examples—both good and bad—as I come across them in the future. (I vaguely remember watching a Hive Ultimate video where this concept was mentioned offhand. I couldn't re-find that clip, but if I ever do I'll add it as well. Update: see above.)

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Our first example comes from my recent article, Brute Squad's fast break ferocity. Lien Hoffmann catches a short pass, while her defender lays out and hits the ground sliding in the wrong direction. Hoffmann makes an immediate ten-yard pass and then cuts up the field to get the disc back for another ten yards, completely unguarded.

The huck that ends the possession doesn't work out in this case, but that doesn't dampen the high frisbee IQ of what came before it.

Playing a smart, aggressive style helped Brute Squad move down the field with ease on this possession against what's likely a top-five defense in the world.

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Here's a clip of Travis Dunn from 2023 Mixed Nationals. His defender dives to try to intercept a short pass, and he turns and immediately throws a five-yard pass and starts running upfield.

The thrower and Travis don't quite manage to link up to keep the flow going. Travis continues cutting deep, and he still has separation from his defender, but the thrower decides against a deep shot.

The only reason this play isn't more deadly is that the defense was playing high-IQ frisbee, too. As Travis cuts upfield after his throw, the defender marking the thrower forces backhand for a second, because they recognize that the biggest risk at that moment is the give-and-go back to Travis.

They switch back to the forehand force once the immediate threat has been neutralized.

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Taking a quick detour, this sequence actually includes a second example of high defensive IQ. Watch Axel Agami Contreras from Crocs, who starts the play guarding the break side handler:

When he sees Travis is beating his defender deep, he backs up to play help defense, even though Travis is on the other side of the field! Only once the scoring threat has been neutralized does he go back to guarding his original assignment. Even though nothing really "happens", this is a high IQ play that really epitomizes what I'm thinking about when I write about playing team defense.

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Here's a final example, of Dylan Freechild (I believe?) in Hive Ultimate's "How to Dribble" video:

The defender lays out, biting on a pump fake, and he reacts by immediately throwing the disc and running away from the defender.

If I have one quibble about this play, it's that Freechild and the receiver he throws to don't seem to be as aggressive as they could be about continuing to press their advantage. But the clip cuts off before the play is over, so it's hard to say for sure since I don't actually know what happens next.

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Final thoughts

A few small notes to add last-minute nuance:

First, it's possible to argue that holding on to the disc when you have no one marking you is actually the right choice—after all, with no marker you can throw any throw you want to as soon as one of your receivers gets open.

That's true, but my experience tells me the give-and-go is almost always more effective. If you don't get a throw off, your mark will catch up to you in a couple seconds. But if you give-and-go, your defender may never catch up to you for the rest of the play (as we see with Travis Dunn making his deep cut in the clip above).

Short passes to wide-open receivers are maybe the highest-expected-value play in ultimate, while a huck is risky even when the thrower is unmarked (as we saw in the clip of Lien Hoffmann).

Second, it's not just on the thrower to take advantage when a defender is on the ground. As cutters we can help our thrower out in these situations—if their defender is on the ground, we should be working extra hard to get open immediately to help them take advantage of their opportunity.

Thinking from the other side of the disc, the opportunity of a defender on the ground is a big reason why I'm not a huge fan of laying out. I don't want to give a smart offense such a big opportunity without a good chance that my layout will successfully generate a turnover.