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
First year head coach, looking around for a sound d what do you think about gap-8? Or the 63?14-16yr olds With little Football knowledge .all the d’s i read about sound good in on paper, but so those communism.-
Our league dosen’t allow you to line up over the center or rush the “A”gap to protect the center. What kind of alignment do you suggest?
Put them over the Guards and slant to A gaps
This Defense sounds great and something I would like to implement at the 5th grade level this year. Could you send me the link on the book and/or video for this Defense? I’m deciding whether 6-2 or gap8 is the best choice and I would really like to read the book and watch the video to see how to implement this. I like how this would stop the sweep and allow for a number of stunts with your LBs, FS, and Guards.
Did you find that your FS was really just an extra LB playing up at LB depth. I don’t see many teams pass and if they do it is quick passes no more than 10 yards to TE.
Just search Google for 6-2 defense, there is a ton of information on the 6-2. I use Gap 8 for Goal line. As far as the safety, unless its a clear passing team they either play as a MLB or I will put in a noseguard and move the A gappers to B gaps, basically in a 70 defense; 2 corners and two SS / LBs.
The 6 – 2 Wide is a great defense. I changed it around a little. I coach 7 and 8 year olds. My two guards bear crawl the a A gap. Their first priority is to beat the center/guard and stop the QB. These are my weakest players. The tackles line up in the C gap. His responsiblity is to push the OT into the B gap causing a 9 kid pile up right in the middle. These are my strongest players. My DE and CB keep containment. These are my best tacklers. My LB clean up any and everything that happens to get through the middle or to the outside. These are my smartest and fastest athletes. My S is a rover position. He lines up to either side of the LB depending on the heavy formation. There is not much passing at this age. But our CB can cover if needed.
So if they put a reciver wide who covers him
Hey Coach,
Your idea for DT’s to be in c gap with your best athletic linemen is sound. We play ours down in the c gap and attack the outside shoulder of OT trying to close the b gap with the OT. Obviously this takes a very strong player. If your DT’s win this battle there is no offense that will beat you.The hardest offense to stop is I formation power off tackle. The only team that had any success against us would dbl down on our DT with TE, kick our end out with F, and use wing to get LB. We countered this by crashing the end hard to meet FB just behind c gap. CB (OLB for us because we really are in 6-4-1) becomes contain for the bounce. we cheated safety to strongside for a second level outside contain. Note! LB’s are free when they run this. Bottom line you’ll have know real worries against run if DT’s win their battle. I learned this defense from a national high school hall of fame coach Jack Perry. He put our best players at DT with great success.
Guards in gap between center and og, DTS man up over ot, des shade out and in space on weak side, lbs, behind DEs, safety up to 5 yds behind lbs and in middle, CBS on wides and hold contain. Works very well in u10. The NGs take outside shoulder of center and rush up to QB.