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
I was thinking the very same thing you have here but instead using a monster back to shadow the offenses best player. I would like your thoughts. I like the idea of blowing up the play before it starts while containing the outside.
I have not responded to this board in a while. And youth football in central NJ has changed a lot. First of all i am the oc of a jr peewee team and we are now running the single wing. We won our division going 5-3. But the 3 losses came from teams that ran a zone read pistol offense. And we played a gam. I told the head coach and dc that it is unsound to run a man scheme against a competent option team. He now believes me as we lost the game in the first round of the playoffs. What i am getting at is whether it a 6-2 , 5-3, gam,4-4,etc… if u only teach a man scheme against a zone read option, you might be in a little trouble. The team who beat us could throw really well for a jr peewee team and to add insult to injury ran a no huddle offense. They would run trips to one side and the run the zone read away from the trips. The dc wants to run dave cisar’s wt 6. However, in my humble opinion, i think that we will have to teach at least a cover 3 zone.
I run a 5-2 Monster against spread formations. With my 5th grade and above teams we run a multiple defense shifting from 6-2 WT to a 3-3 stack, Gap 8, 6-2 tight, and a the 5-2 Monster depending on formation and game situations. Because just one defensive scheme never works. I still prefer man coverage with a safety over the top or maybe 2 if really good passing team. Your pass rush is the best coverage though. Get after the qb.
How to score on a 11 in the box defense
pop passes to TE or Wing.
We destroyed this defense running double wing power traps, with wide splits this year. It has vexxed me for two seasons and I finally found the kryptonite for it. By running wide splits the C gap DTs widen with your line creating more space for your FB to kick him out. The DE is playing contain so you can leave him alone or use your playside WB to control him. You TE and OT are free to attack the LBs. Scored 35 pts on a team that beat us in the regular season 13-7.
The way I would adjust to this is to have defensive tackle crash the “B” gap and have the defensive end crash the “C” gap with the cornerback now I having outside containment.
I agree with you steve. As a youth coach we want to have a simple defensive scheme, however as you get into the playoffs and the competition gets harder, you might want another scheme. And i know, this is easier said than done when it comes jr peewees. Youth coaches seem to watch a lot of TV and want to run what they see on saturday. I still can’t believe that youth football is now running spread offenses and some are doing well with it. The key question is can they run this every year. I hope not. At least not when our team is on defense!
Tips for a guy just starting out? My son is starting his first season and I’m going to be coaching. All first season players, tips would be appreciated.
Ron. Offense- single or double wing. Defense-pick one that has an 8 man front. They all have a weakness.
Hi great video of your version of the wt6. We run the wt6 as well. We only use 3 fronts and 3 coverages. Cover zero cover 2 and cover 3. We have 5 stunts.