6-2 Defense for Youth Football
After being focused on offense the last two seasons and reading Football Principals and Play by David Nelson, I assigned myself the Defensive Coordinator role this season, so I would focus my efforts on Defense for my tackle pee wee football team. Coach Nelson is right, if your opponent doesn’t score, you can’t lose. And as many youth football coaches have learned, defense is easier to teach than offense. My goal is to go undefeated this season, by implementing a sound defensive strategy. We had a top 6 defense last year in our league based on total points allowed, but I want to be number one this season.
This off season I have read several books on defense, Coaching Youth Football by Reed, Football Principals and Play, Winning Youth Footballby Cisar, The Complete Guide to Installing the 44 Split Defenseby Roman and countless articles in American Football Monthly and youth football websites. After much research, I am going to use the 6-2 Wide tackle defense as my base youth defensive formation. I ran this last year as a variation to my base 6-2, but after reading and watching Coach Cisar’s book and video, I think the 6-2 wide tackle should be my base and move to a 6-2 Tight formation in short yardage situations. The 6-2 is also easy to move into 4-4 and Gap 8 Defensive formations for pass and Goal line situations.
In my new 6-2 base defense, the defensive tackles will align in the C Gap just inside the Tight Ends shoulder pads. This will give the D-tackle a great attack angle to beat the O-tackle into the C Gap. I want the D-tackle to blow past the offensive tackle and be behind the O-tackle before the play develops. I am thinking about using skill players as d-tackles upright in a two point stance to take advantage of their quickness. Most youth offensive lineman will stand straight up before moving forward to block, so we should be by them as they are standing straight up to block air. Since most youth offenses run Gap On Down or Angle blocking schemes this might give us advantage to bull rush the gap, because the O-tackle should be worrying about the B Gap. We should be past the Tight end before he can get an angle block on us to the inside and thus free up our D-End for contain. Yes, this will put a lot of pressure on my two linebackers in the B gap, but I have two very strong LBs. Plus I am hoping the D-tackles can make B gap tackles if they are able to blow into the C Gap and scrape down for B Gap runs. Here’s what it will look like.
6-2 Base Defense – Wide Tackle
So what do you think? Let me know. Have a great season!
Update 6/7/16
Check out my new video on the 62 Defense that I run.
For all my videos check out http://www.youtube.com/c/StephenParker
Up here in CT mostly all of the teams have moved out of the under center snap to a shotgun spread offense using double splits on both sides or spread offense. The WT6 hasn’t been that successful at the upper grade level against it but it does still stop the outside run. Kids have to be aggressive and always penetrate in order for this defense to work against the spread and you need really good corners and aggressive Tackles as well.
we are 5-1 and will be playing a team who beat us once already. they are bigger and faster than we are. they run outside, outside and outside and once in a blue moon in between the tackles. most of it is shotgun motion trips right or left and/or twins right or left hand it off or keep it. what kinda d should we run. we ran a 4-4 last time and every now and then a 3 3 5. played a triangle off the ends and the ends shot out/ it worked but we had some injuries and had to change.
go 5-3 with a corner in the flats on one side and a linebacker in the flats on the other; 2 safeties over the top . the safety and corner are your force outside-in guys.
I too use the wide tackle 6 and use my two guards to bear crawl the a gap until the ref told me that was illegal that they had to make contact above the knees first and then could bearcrawl. Has anyone run into this? We play under NYS HS rules.
We are in Texas and have not seen this yet. Maybe in the NY rules. I thought this might be coming on defense soon.
Coach Parker
Thanks, can’t find this rule anywhere
As I read the rules, in the free blocking zone virtually anything goes. We teach our OL to crab block/cut block bigger opponents and the refs say that it is legal as long as both the OL and DL start out between the tackles. This should apply to nose guards as well. We did have a LB called for an illegal block below the waist when he went low on a lead blocker and caused a pile in the hole.
We play our inside down tackles (NGs) head up on the OGs. They crash the A gaps. Our Tackles are head up on the OTs and crash the B gaps. The Ends are strictly contain. The LBs read flow and fill C gaps if needed. We usually use our best LB to spy the premier back. We play Man Press on the outsides with our Corners and Safety is over the top and reads QB shoulders. When facing the spread, we play Cover 3 with Ends in the flats and LBs dropping and reading. We then use a weak side call to (x) or twist rush the QB. We do this by having the Inside Tackle cross the face of the guard and attack the B gap. The Tackle then comes off the butt of the Inside Tackle and attacks the A gap. This usually causes confusion on the Offensive Line. Our weaker of the LBs will blitz strong side B gap just to add pressure. Hope this helps you guys.
Coach S
We played the 6-2 spread. A little different than the diagram. DT in the B gaps . Linebackers over the C gaps.Corners are good open field 1v1 tacklers, Safety 10 yards off the ball. We go into double containment with one or both LB or Cb’s depending on formation and spot of the ball.
DE and LB discipline is the key. If he has a bad game so will the defense.
Gave up 3 offensive TD’s. Went 6 games without giving up a first down.
The weakness is to figure out which side has the weaker players and run right at the DE/LB combo and brute force them and wear them down with a fast pace. You just keep hitting them from different angles using TE /Double Tight End/ Power I alternating between off-tackle and off-end (not a sweep)
It makes for a long drive and a ball control type game but it’s better than losing.
You can pass your way out with an exceptional QB and inside slants but that isn’t realistic for most teams.
I want to run this defense but with a twist, I want to line my DTs headsup with the OTs. I would call C gap or B gap which tells the DT which gap to go to. I will line the LBs right behind them and they would have resposibility of the other gap. When we ran this last year the DTs lined up in the B gap so at the snap the OTs just dived into the gap causing a logjam. This would be ok but on the 7-8 year old level most of the plays were outside and our DTs were athletic so it would take them out of the play. I think this would keep the OTs honest and you could always blitz LBs off this and posibly have the DT and the LB come free if the OTs are confused. If anyone sees a weakness to this please respond. Thanks
We run our Defense just like that, gap assignments for the g,t’s and lb’s.
Line your line head up or in a gap, give them a gap assignment and blitz opposite gap , say have g’s both lineup on and shoot “a” gap and have tackles go outside shoulder of tackle for c gap and blitz your two lb’s in b gap, ends must contain and yourguards have to explode thru the center taking 3 players to block 2. You can also reverse that blitz shooting your line all outside and lb’s inside a gap, again ends must contain and corners stay home as well. We even bring safety down in mike position and position our mlb now over center and either crash the center or loop him in a gap to either side by using gap assignments on this, works great.