Youth Football Blocking Tips

Adjust your splits for Run Blocking:
Once you have established your blocking scheme for your youth football team and your offensive linemen are confident in their assignments perhaps it time that you tweak your run splits a little bit to try and gain some slight advantages. One thing that you can do as a youth football coach initially is get your offensive linemen to slightly increase their running splits on the hole that you plan on running the football through. You'd be surprised what an extra couple of inches does in regards to a run split, it opens up that running lane just a little bit more for your running back to run through.

But be careful as there are some pretty sharp middle linebackers around that will pick up on your run splits and know right away where the football is being run. Just be crafty in your approach and like anything else don't go to the well with it all the time, otherwise those middle linebackers will blitz the hole and kill your play. Probably at the younger youth football levels they won't pick up on a slight increase in your split on a running play. If they don't adjust, then run it that way until they catch on, then back-off a few series and try it again. Coaching in football sometimes requires that you become a little crafty at times, this football tip is just one example.

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

Practice Football Fundamentals

As a youth football coach its important that in every practice that you focus in your group work specific fundamentals. More importantly this group work should include drills that cover what we refer to as core fundamentals such footwork, tackling, blocking, and block shedding drills.

Plan your practices so that each week you cover all of these core fundamentals. Try and keep good flow to your group so that players don't get distracted or fool around. Don't spend more than 15 minutes per fundamental as youth football players will become bored with it easily. Make sure that they do each fundamental properly. The best approach is to have two coaches work the group, one runs the drills while the other points out mistakes and makes adjustments.

With so much to cover in practice each week to get ready to play, do not veer away from practicing core fundamentals. They are the center stone of good football. If they are good fundamentally it will reflect in your football systems, they will have confidence, and it will show in their performance.

A good block or tackle can spell the difference in any games.

Cheers!

The 3-4 Defence

A lot of coaches in the NFL are currently switching to the 3-4 defence. The trickle down effect is that a lot of coaches in Middle School and High School are switching to the 3-4 schemes as well.

Why the change?

A lot of coaches like the way the defence has the ability to pressure the offence by showing many different looks, blitz's, and stunts. With only 3 down lineman, you can mask different coverage's and bring blitz's from all over the field confusing the O- line and quarterback, pressuring them into making mistakes, creating fumbles and turn-over 's.

Life in football land seems good!

There are drawbacks to this scheme.

First of all you need to have a solid Nose-Tackle who is a football player and is strong enough can take on the double team. If you haven't got one of those guys, you're in trouble especially against teams that like to zone-block. By zone-blocking they will double team one of the D-lineman at the point of attack and then one of them will chip off and get one of your linebackers. Or they will down block in the same direction get all the defence flowing in one direction and try to "wash down" the defence while the running back looks for a cutback. This is usually what knocks you out of your 3-4 defence.

I like the 3-4 defence. When things are going good you can pile up the sacks and fumbles. But beware of the downfalls. Probably is a good idea to have a 4 man front somewhere in your defensive scheme to counter against a good zone blocking offence.

Cheers