Youth Football:Offensive Line Building

Whether or not you believe it, you soon will understand that you need to have your offensive line in order if you are going to be successfull in youth football or at any football level.

Without a doubt your offensive line is the single most important group of your football team. Without a decent offensive line it really doesnt matter who your quarterback and running back are, if they don't get the blocks then they will struggle.

Yea for sure I have seen, especially at the youth level, where a dominant athletic back can overcome poor blocking and use his size and athleticism to move the ball and score touchdowns. But I also have seen the same back struggle down the stretch against more formidable opponents.

Bottom line, get your offensive line house in order and with that athletic back dominate the opposition. Evaluate your personell and build that offensive line into a solid unit. Size helps but isn't the deciding factor. Perhaps the slowfooted middle linebacket that can hit like a mule would make a great center or pulling guard or that large slow moving kid, with some work on his footwork, can play tackle. Look for certain strengths in the kids that you have not placed in a position and mold them into offensive linemen.

Size can be overcome by designing a blocking scheme that has more downblocking, better angles, traps and double teams. Speed and quickness can be a factor as well and close the size gap, hit fast and hard, and get a jump on the defence.

Cheers!

Youth Football Practice Plan

We have all heard that saying "practice makes perfect". Repetition of skills is the best way to get your players to perform better. Knowing what to do in a given situation is one of the characteristics of a good player. The more you practice, the more inclined your players are to do the right thing at the right time.

A majority of successful football coaches share one very important characteristic- they are organized and structured in their approach to practice planning. Football is one of the most challenging sports to coach because there are so many different positions, skills, and plays that need to be worked on throughout a practice.

Having an organized, structured practice plan allows you to cover the most amount of material in your allotted practice time. The most effective football coaching practice structure involves dividing time into structured “Training Elements”.

There are 7 key Training Elements which should appear in each of your practices:

Warm-up & Stretching
Review of New Team Plays and/or Conditioning
Individual Techniques by Position
Special Teams
Group Work
Game Preparation and Team Drills
Cool-Down

Make sure that you cover each training element during your practice and allot a specific time for each element. Once the time is up, move on to your next scheduled element. Stick to your schedule and your players will get the most out of the practice. You'll have good flow to your practice with very little down time!

Football and Troubled Youth

I have come across many troubled youth over the many seasons that I have been involved in coaching youth football. Youth from all different backgrounds, and social levels. Youth addicted to drugs and alcohol with poor attitudes.

Youth that nobody wanted to even be around!

I always gave them a chance

I figured that it was the least I could do, and if they didn't work out nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Most would quit on their own, but some stayed with it and football became an outlet for them. It became their family. It kept them busy, made them be responsible. It took idle time from them. It made them feel important!

Football has turned the lives around for many of our youth. It teaches commitment, and dedication and an opportunity for them to change. I had a small running back once play for me that was impossible to bring down and in the open field impossible to catch. He was driven, broken home, death, foster care, he had every reason to be bitter. He was a relentless machine, a good kid that turned it around. He managed to graduate, the first in his family to do so!

Yea, football can make the difference in somebody's life; don't deny any kid that opportunity! Besides why do we do what we do?

Cheers!

Youth Football Offensive Line Blocking Rules

Offensive line blocking rules vary from coach to coach. Blocking rules that are implemented are basically the personal philosophy of the coach on how he wants fronts to be blocked on a given play. Choosing blocking rules is like choosing any football system, it all depends on what you like and what you think will work for you.

You may like one coaches blocking rules over an other coach. That doesn't mean that the other coaches blocking rules are wrong, it just mean you like one philosophy as opposed to another. Either or, in youth football, its important that your offensive linemen know their blocking rules and that they are simple enough that when the defensive front changes its alignment just before the snap that your offensive linemen are able to quickly make their blocking adjustment as well.

If you find yourself telling your offensive linemen to basically just go down and hit somebody then you are effectively setting your offensive line up for failure. It's important that they have structure on that line of scrimmage. Having coached youth football for many seasons I have adopted two sets of rules for blocking. Again, the rules are geared towards youth football players. The first set of rules I have used in the past would be Gap-On-Over or to simplify it more, refer to it as" Goo" blocking. Now in the "Goo" blocking scheme the offensive linemen on their pre-snap read would refer to their rules on a each play and determine who they would block. First they would check their inside "gap", if there's a defensive player occupying that gap then that's their man, if not then go to the second blocking rule which would be the man "on", again no defender lining on. At this point the third rule would come in effect and that would be the man" over" such as a linebacker. There he is, go get him and make sure your heads on the play side! Against gap attacking defences I have modified the " Goo" blocking scheme to become the "Go-go" scheme or to simplify it more the " Go" scheme. In the " Go" scheme the rules would now reflect Gap-On-Gap-Over . The offensive linemen would now check inside gap, on, outside gap, over, on his pre-snap read and this would determine who he blocks on the line of scrimmage.

Whatever rules you like is entirely up to you as the youth football coach. It's possible that you could start with one set of rules at the beginning of the football game and your halftime adjustment would be to switch to the second set of rules in order to adjust to the defence.


Cheers