FROM I- FORMATION AND WING BACK

Coach Dino;

First off, welcome to the rather exclusive fraternity of youth coaches that care enough about their players to want to improve their coaching.

Youth football is the most complex sport you could coach. It bears no resemblance to the game you see on Sundays. The professional game has destroyed football at the youth level for thousands of kids, because they get stuck with first year coaches that think nine year olds can run pass routes and throw footballs like Cris Carter and Brett Favre.

Allow me to say this one more time because it's the most important thing I've learned after reading nearly a hundred books on coaching youth football: IT IS NOT THE NFL.

My advice echoes that of Coach Shine; head to www.johntreed.com and order two books from him: "Coaching Youth Football" and "Coaching Youth Football:Defense". If you read nothing else, those two books alone will give you a solid set of fundamentals to build on for your team, and a strong head start on developing your own system.

Further advice I would give:

1) Build your defense first. Most youth coaches want to be offensive coordinators. They envision touchdown passes and long runs from scrimmage. However, I'd like to point to the success of the Baltimore Ravens, even with a rather poor offense. Further proving my point is the St. Louis Rams, the NFL's best offense. They barely made the playoffs, and were beaten in the first round.

Last season I simply asked my players as a group: "If we don't let the other team score any points at all, then how many touchdowns do we need to score in order to win?" Everyone understood my point. Our defense was the league's best, and because of that, our rather average offense was able to score enough points to win every game.

If you have a draft, draft for defense FIRST. You can teach a good, quick linebacker to carry the football, but you can't teach the linebacker instincts of reading flow, pass coverage, and making plays. A decent cornerback can play wide receiver as needed, but the case is not always the same in reverse. Get that defense put together before you do anything else on draft day!

2) Practice snaps. If you place a QB under center, you ABSOLUTELY MUST practice QB/Center snaps DAILY. While the rest of my team practices tackling, my QB and centers must get 75 snaps. (The starters practice snapping, and rotate very 25 snaps with their backups.)

Look at it like this: EVERY SINGLE offensive play you run will start with a snap. If that snap is fumbled, you can kill a drive or turn over the football. This is IMPORTANT. That snap absolutely must be automatic. After the warm up snaps, we also start every offensive and defensive drill with a snap. My goal is 1500 snaps before the first game starts. That means we need to get another 75 at every practice, assuming a ten practice preseason. (We fumbled three snaps last season, all in one game played in sideways rain and foot deep mud. By contrast, our opponents in that game fumbled NINE snaps... and we recovered four of them.)

3) Do not run the I-formation as a beginning coach. Honestly, I wouldn't run it even as a veteran. There are some coaches that swear by the I-formation, but in my opinion, it hampers your offense considerably because it REQUIRES a feature running back, OR a great offensive line. If you have an AVERAGE back and/or an AVERAGE line, you're dead and buried. The I-Formation also requires far too much one on one blocking for my taste.

Instead look for a system that has been proven to work in the past, but is no longer in fashion. There are several, from the Single Wing invented by Pop Warner, to the Notre Dame Box (T-Formation), and others. Look for systems that give your offensive linemen a mechanical advantage over their defensive counterparts. For example, the Double Wing's most famous play, an off-tackle, has NINE blockers on FOUR defenders. That's better than a 2:1 advantage in favor of the offense.

One on one blocking at the youth level is at best a TIE. That means you don't win, but you don't lose either. If the next Walter Payton is on your team that can be all you need, because once he sees a crease, he's gone for six.

Unfortunately, the odds are extremely low that you'll have that kind of talent, so look for ways to maximize the talent you DO have. Offensive systems that give you a chance to down block, kickout, trap, and double team are the systems you should be most interested in. If you are lucky enough to get the next Emmit Smith, he can only do better in a system that gives his blockers a better chance to seal off the defense.

One last complaint about the I-formation: it's designed for one feature running back. You're going to have between 18 and 30 kids on your team. Don't they all deserve a chance to play, and maybe even carry the ball? Try to find an offensive system that spreads the ball out among your players. This not only may help you discover a rising star when timid little Joey turns into a gameday maniac, but it also keeps the second and third stringers happy, because they'll have a better chance to get some carries in. Dum Coach's Wing-T is a prime example. In his first five plays, five different kids get the ball. Those are five kids that have something to tell mom and dad over ice cream after the game.

4) Misdirection is KEY. One of the reasons I do not like the I-Formation is because it has almost no misdirection. With the exception of a tailback cutback, the QB keeper, and a flanker/split end reverse there is NO way to trick the defense. By way of comparison, the Wing-T 30 series can give the ball to any of three different backs by using the same backfield motion on every play. This means that the defense is never sure just who has the ball. That defensive hesitation can make an offense with average talent into a scoring machine. (This is why the Wing-T is so hard to stop, and is still in favor at the high school level after nearly forty years.)

5) Don't throw the ball. Typically, youth players complete about 20% of their passes (according to Jack Reed, whose books I recommended above). About 30% of their passes are intercepted. Personally, I'd rather have the ball. I call passes for one of two reasons: to score (not to move the ball, but to SCORE) and to scare the defense and keep them honest. Other than that, I prefer a strong running attack. There have been teams in history that were successful and never, or rarely threw the ball, but there has NEVER in the history of football, been a team that was successful throwing only.

Running the ball also gives you the ability to control the clock. Most youth football games have eight minute quarters. If you can consume one each time you get the ball, you can keep your opponent from scoring anything, or at the very least you can stop them from scoring enough points to win.

Passing is also much more time consuming to teach. It requires far more fundamentals, and is also a "random" element. When that ball is in the air it belongs to neither team. Most good defensive coordinators tell their teams that a ball in the air belongs to THEM. A running attack is considerably safer.

6) Scout your opponents! Reed's books will cover scouting in exhaustive detail. I suggest you follow his advice. There is nothing finer than watching your defense completely shut down an opposing offense because they already know all your opponent's plays. Conversely, there is nothing worse than watching your opponents come out in an offense or defense you've never seen before. It's a great way to get your ass handed to you, and your players deserve better than that. If nothing else I've said catches your eye, please remember this: Scouting is the main reason my team went undefeated in 1999. My defense would have only been half as good if I hadn't given them a sneak preview of the opposing offenses each week.

7) Teach safe tackling to a set standard, and insist upon it. My advice on this matter is to go to www.coachwyatt.com and order his tackling video. (He is also the source for the best Double Wing offense information, should you choose to run that offensive system.) Tackling is the number one skill in football. If you can't tackle, then you can't stop the offense. More importantly, it is the most DANGEROUS skill in football. If you do not teach it correctly you run the risk of getting a player injured, and that can end your coaching career in a hurry.

Find a safe tackling standard, such as the one described in Hugh Wyatt's tape, and teach it to your assistants. Then designate an assistant to be the remedial tackling coach. When a player screws up in a drill or a scrimmage, then send them to that coach and have them tackle a dummy for him five times correctly, in motion as slow as they need it to get it right. Do not accept incorrect tackling. Sooner or later it will get a kid hurt or lose you a ball game. Neither one is acceptable in my opinion.

8) When choosing assistants, pick ignorant ones that KNOW they are ignorant. Remember, as the head coach, YOU are responsible for everything that happens at practice. That means if an assistant THINKS he knows more than you do, ignores your commands, and wants to do things his own way, he could get someone hurt, that that's YOUR ass.

The best assistant I had was the one who told me "I don't even know the rules, but if you tell me what you need done, I'll take care of it." The worst one I had was the one that ran a "forbidden" tackling drill while I was on the other side of the field. He got a kid hurt, his ass chewed out by me, and was nearly fired. If the kid had been seriously injured I'd have been much more irate.

As a rookie coach, there will be assistants, dads, even a few moms that think they know more than you do. However, YOU are the one doing the research; reading the books and spending time on Infosports, so YOU should have the final say. Try to find assistants that are willing to let you be the expert, and support you 100%. Loyalty to you takes precedent over any knowledge or playing experience that an assistant may have.

9) Organize your practices with a plan, and stick to that plan. Do not waste even a second. Switch drills every ten minutes or so to keep the players interested, and run your offensive plays as fast as you can. Don't waste time chatting after every rep, just coach the kids that need it while everyone is lining back up, and then run the play again. If the same kid does the same wrong thing again, pull him, put in his backup, and stick him with one of your assistants to correct the problem.

10) Remember the importance of the offensive line. Without those guys up front, there will be no touchdowns. No touchdowns means no wins. They need to feel like they are part of the team, even though the defensive linemen get to make the sacks, and the offensive backs get to carry the ball. Kids don't dream about being Keith Millard or Anthony Munoz, they want to be Jerry Rice and Kordell Stewart, or Mike Singletary and Ronnie Lott.

For me, I generally pick my game captains from the ranks of offensive linemen. I also have a helmet sticker award for the hardest working offensive lineman of the week, and that player is also announced at the game. Plus, offensive lineman is the only position on my football team that can be challenged by a player. If you are a second stringer, all you have to do to be the starter is beat the incumbent in a blocking match.

Because of this, my offensive linemen are generally proud to have numbers like "76" and "63". After the preseason meeting where I talked about how important the offensive line is, more than 75% of my players REQUESTED offensive line positions. Compare those figures with the average youth team where everyone wants to be the next Michael Irving.

This is turning into a bloody book so I'll break it off here. If you have specific questions about any particular offensive or defensive system, or anything else I can help you with, please let me know, either here, or via email at CoachWade@infosports.net. My coaching web site will be online in a couple of months, and it will have a lot of offensive and defensive information available as well. The URL is www.FBforYouth.com, but it is not online yet.

Hope I helped out some.

~D.