We have most of our backfield from our Spring Super Bowl team and made some outstanding additions to our team in the Fall 2011 draft.  At KYA you can only freeze up to 6 players from season to season.  We froze four and drafted 12 new players to our team.

We are 3-0.  We are averaging close to 200 yards per game and 35 points.  We are running a Pro I formation with a little Beast thrown in for good measure.  Our defense has not allowed positive yardage.  In three games total offense from opposing teams is a negative 59 yards.  Yes -59 total off yards.  We are running a hybrid 6-2, with many adjustments.  Our special teams is also doing very well with 2 on-side kick recoveries in 3 games.

I hope your season is going great.  Play for Fun and Winning is Funner!

Thanks
Coach Parker
Keller, TX  / Fort Worth, Texas

If you have a slower than average team then you need to think inside TE’s plays with overloaded lines and or misdirection plays like those used in a traditional single wing, double wing, wish bone or T formations.  The first thing I would do is overload one side of your offensive line.  Put more numbers of players at the point of attack, and make sure these are your best blockers.  You only need 2 hard running backs so a lead blocker and a ball carrier.   Run a tight gut play with misdirection, an off tackle play, misdirection gut counter, QB bootleg reverse and a TE quick pass.  But, don’t bet on the sweep if you have slow running backs.  In this situation I run my variation of the single wing that some call the Beast by moving all the backs just behind the o-line to the side I am running to.

Don’t worry if you can’t sweep.  A coaching friend of mine had a slow team in the Spring.  They beat us the first game and made it to the playoffs running tight single wing running plays with good blocking.  We won the Super Bowl in the Spring with Speed, but his team gave everyone fits trying to stop his big Power running back up the middle and off tackle with an overloaded line.

Remember to adjust your offense to your players.  I to have a offensive system I like to run but if your players can’t run your offensive system then be flexible and adjust to meet the skills of your players.

Play for Fun and Winning is Funner.

Thanks,
Coach Parker
Fort Worth, Texas / Keller

1. “Attack” – Blitz – Center will identify a Middle Blitz and adjust blocking based on the LBs
2. “Yellow” – Help – Lineman will make a call to request double team help
3. “EMU” – Outside – TE or End Man on Line EMOL will attack outside defender
4. “Green” – Good -  Lineman is ok and does not need help
5. “Black” – Dummy Call – Does not mean anything

You can get more complicated and call a cross blocks or folds, just depends on what your age group can handle. 

I hope your season is going well.  Have fun and Winning is funner.

Every defense has a chink in its armour.  If the offense finds this weakness then you must adjust and do it quickly.  I learned my lesson last year against a really good Highlands Ranch Colorado team.  They ran to the C gap just about every play and beat us by one TD.  If I could have adjusted my defense, we would have won that game easily. 

So this year, I run the 6-2 Wide and 6-2 Tight Defenses as my base defenses.  If I have a team that runs wide and does not have a good power game, I start with the 6-2 Wide.  If the team has a good power game up the middle I run the 6-2 Tight with my Big D-Tackles over the B gaps.  From these two base defenses I have 20 stunts, blitzes and pass coverage calls.  I can attack just about any gap with these calls to adjust for my defensive weakness on a specific play. 

We beat a team the other day, and we then saw the coach scouting another game that we were also scouting.  We heard him say to another coaching staff that we played sandlot defense.  He commented that we were all over the field, and they did not know whom to block.  We shut his team down in the second half and they did not score.  I guess this is sand lot football.  Or better yet, smart football. 

Out of the two base defenses, I can adjust into multiple defenses.  And what’s amazing is that my 5th grade players can make these adjustments and remember all the hand signals.  Expect more and you will see the benefits.

So coaches, don’t settle on one defense.  You don’t run just one play on offense.  Find one or two good base defensive fronts and develop stunts and blitzes to overcome your potential weaknesses.

Good luck this season.  Play for Fun and Winning is Funner!

As a youth football player, our coaches never used Helmet Reward Decals, so I was not open to using them, until last year when I saw Willie Nelson’s eyes tear talking about his Gold Stars.  That night, after watching the WIllie Nelson interview, I Googled Helmet Reward Decals and found the SportStar website.   I ordered about 100 reward stickers from SportStar and implemented the reward program when I received the stickers three days later. 

Our youth football players went wild over the stickers.  Many of the players collected Pokemon Cards and the reward stickers became our Pokemon Man Cards and my best motivational tool to date.  My reward program uses 9 different helmet reward stickers.   By using several stickers, our players try to collect them all and compete over who has the most of each sticker and total stickers.  The RIP Skull sticker above is for a Win.  Below are the other Helmet Reward Decals in our reward program.

1. The Red Star sticker is for showing up on time to the game and playing in the game.
2.  I use the 110% sticker for the best player at each practice.
3.  I use the football stickers for Touchdowns.
4. The Black Skull sticker is for great plays like football recoveries.
5. The 3D star is for the MVP player of the game.
6. The Hammer is for great blocks
7. The Dead Bug reward is for great tackles behind the LOS
8. The White Skull with Patch is for great plays on Special Teams

Yes, it is a lot of work calculating the rewards, but the motivational rewards program has been a huge success for our team.  The kids love the stickers and the helmets look great after the second or third game.  The base color of our helmets are white, so all the reward stickers really spice up our look.  Plus, it is a psychological advantage when the other team sees all of these stickers on our players helmets. 

Last season, the stickers cost me about $30 a game, but I handed out a ton of stickers to offensive linemen.  In our program last year, every offensive linemen received 5 football stickers for each offensive TD.  We scored a ton of TDs, so I was handing out a ton of stickers to the o-line.  This year they will only receive one sticker for a TD.  The stickers are $6 a pack, so you should be able to keep the cost to about $10 a game.  I guarantee the $10 is well worth it. 

Let me know what you do to motivate your team.  I would love to hear from you.  Click on the Comment / Reply link and let me know your motivational tools.

Have a great season and remember to Play for Fun and Winning is Funner!

In my base 6-2 defense, I ran many blitzes out of this formation.  Safety blitz up the middle over the center gaps, single or double cornerback blitz, linebacker blitzes to various called gaps, and an all out blitz by everyone.  We also played zone if we wanted to read the offense.  See diagram below for 6-2 defense. 

In the diagram, Diamonds are Cornerbacks & Safeties, Triangles are Lineman and Diamonds with lines are the Linebackers.

Our main Blitzing defense to stop sweeps was our Pirate BK Defense which is a version of the 70 Eagle Defense.  We moved the linebackers / blitzers around to a “Tango” outside blitz as shown below, to a “Maniac” double A gap blitz to “Double Whopper” double right / left outside blitz.  Depending on the blitz the DT or Corner would have contain responsibility.  The main play for this defense is the “Tango” blitz.   The LBs are suppose to run the sweep lanes and hunt the ball.  In practice, I have the two blitzing LBs run the sweep lanes and give each other a low five as they run past each other at the point where the QB would be standing in shotgun formation.  I tell the LBs that no one should touch them as they blitz.  Run around the blockers, juke the blockers, but DO NOT get tied up with a blocker on the Tango blitz.  This has been the most effective blitz for us.   It also works well for off-tackle plays, if you tell the LBs to take a shallow sweep lane.  Sometimes, we would move one the the safeties into a MLB position and go into a 7-1 if we needed more horsepower in the middle. 

Our base pass defense is the 5-3.  This defense works well for most situations, but for this age group it worked great for us as a passing defense, because most of the passes are within the reach of the linebackers. 

 We did not blitz out of the 5-3 defense.  We read the defense and watch for passes.

One defense which I read about this last year and have been playing around with on paper is John T Reed’s GAM Defense, Gap Air Mirror.  I really like the GAP concept and the Mirroring concepts.  I will test this defense out this year, especially in goal line situations.  The GAM defense is a GAP 8 which most team play on goal line defenses.  It looks pretty interesting.

This year, I am going to stick closer to my BK Defense and test out the GAM defense.  I will continue to use a 5-3 variation against successful passing offenses.  But, I doubt I will see many great 5th grade passing teams.  Maybe next year. 

Here is a link to a great summary of defense; http://www.guidetocoachingsports.com/football_defenses.htm

Good luck this season.

1) Radar Blocking by Leo Hand published in 1985
2) Football Principles and Play by David M Nelson published in 1962
3) Sports Illustrated Book of Football published in 1960
4) Defensive Football by Louis R. Oshins published in 1949

The latter book by Oshins is a nice children’s book explaining defense. Its only 30 or so pages and is a fun book to have in your collection for the 1950′s era descriptions of football. 

The Sports Illustrated Book is another fun book about 90 pages in length.  Its also a young adults book but it did describe a defense that I have been running called the Eagle developed by Coach Greasy Neale of the Philadelphia Eagles. 

Radar Blocking by Leo Hand is a must for the true aficionado of coaching books and media.  Coach Hand spends 210 pages outlining almost every conceivable block against 14 different defenses.  It is an awesome book for any offensive line and defensive line coach.  I highly recommend this book.

The last book I purchased is the Nelson book from 1962, Football Principles and Play .  Its 450 pages of pure football genius.  It is a must for any football coach.  Yes, some of the information is now outdated but the basic strategy of football still comes through in this football masterpiece.  I paid $45 for my copy off of eBay.  It’s worth that and more. 

Over the next few weeks or so, I will post some key points from these books as I study them to update my 5th grade team’s playbook.

I bought a copy of Leo Hand’s excellent book on blocking, Attacking Football Defenses with Radar Blocking.  I have been studying the book for about a month.  I think for Jr Hgh Schoolers it makes since to run 10 to 12 Master Blocking Calls and Line calls but I just don’t know if my 5th graders can handle it yet.  I have also been reviewing the Severe Angle Blocking Presentation (SAB) by Coach Jack Gregory.  I am leaning toward SAB a blocking scheme because of the simplicity.  We have been running a Gap, On, Downfield scheme the last two years and I am not getting the productivity from my linemen.  Maybe I am expecting too much.  Let me know what you think.  I would appreciate the input. 

If you can get your hands on the Radar Blocking book, its well worht the $40 for the out of print book.  I picked it up online through Barnes and Noble’s used bookstore Network.  Hand has outlined just about every blocking assignment for you.