We would call on of our spread defenses that we had prepared in practice based on our scouting report and the type of spread and or spread back we were facing. It was almost ways a rotating zone with two corners and a safety. The three line players would be utilized to rush 1 or two players with the remaining one or two players playing the short zone for dump passes or scrambles by the spread back.
On occasion I would use one of the corners with more speed to be one of the rushers. If I had a bigger player, slower player on the line vs. the opponents tight formation, he would move to corner that was closest to our sideline for one play and come out for one of our back up corners.
I have coached a team or two when playing our big D line players was not possible against teams that played spread 50 percent of the time or more. My preference would be to never have a slow kid on the field for defense.
Our players were taught to adjust from the base to any formation.