The most important piece to an effective initiation cut is the thrower. To get open, you need to be able to challenge the defender into at least two different places. In the typical flat-stack set, there are three spaces open to the interior cutters: open-side, break-side, and deep. If the thrower can hit all of those spots, getting open is no problem. Fake to one of them, cut to another. Throw, catch.
The biggest mistake I see young teams and players make is settling for the open side, come-back cut. This cut is worthless. It gets five yards and a mark on. Why not just leave it in the hands of the initial thrower? Yes, this cut works great against bad teams. It even works great against the freshmen at practice. So what? You need something that works against good defenders.
How do you get there? Begin by throwing. Move to drills. Finally, challenge your thrower to break the mark in a scrimmage. Challenge them to huck. They will be terrible at it at first. But through demanding they do it, they will learn. When they have these tools, you have the tools you need to challenge a defender.
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