How many Plays in a Playbook? Top 8 or 24 Plays Coaching Youth Football
How many Plays in a Playbook?
In this conversation, Zach Davis and Coach Parker delve into how many plays in a playbook for football and the intricacies of football coaching, focusing on offensive strategies, play selection, and the importance of adapting to team personnel. They discuss the significance of having a streamlined playbook, the art of play calling, and the role of experience in coaching. The dialogue emphasizes the balance between plays and formations, the concept of series in play design, and the necessity of confusing the defense while simplifying the players’ understanding. The conversation concludes with reflections on offensive philosophy and the evolving nature of football coaching.
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How many Plays in a Football Playbook?
The Great Playbook Paradox: How Many Plays Do You Really Need to Win?
Welcome back, Youth Football Coaches! I’m Coach Parker, and if there’s one topic that gets coaches riled up on YouTube or in the forums, it’s this: How many plays should you have in your playbook and or you run?
We’ve all seen the single wing guys who swear by their “Sainted Six” or “Sainted Eight”, but I’m a Melville guy myself—I prefer multiple options. Over almost 30 seasons of youth football, I’ve found that the answer isn’t a single number. It’s a paradox revolving around one key question: What is a play?
Does tagging a play in a new formation count as three or four new plays, or is it still the same core concept? That’s where the fun starts!
Volume vs. Execution: The Diminishing Returns
I’ve had playbooks with 36 or 48 core plays (that’s 96 left and right!). But my good friend Zach and I agree: if you get above a certain number, you can’t practice them enough, and you get diminishing returns on execution.
What you carry depends heavily on your personnel and their age and football IQ:
- Younger Ages (Base 8 and Below): For 8-year-olds and younger, I feel they really can’t handle much more than a base set of eight plays. We stick to that core to ensure strong execution.
- Core 24 (10+ Teams): Once I have a group of players that sticks around and develops their football IQ (we even draft smart kids over just talent sometimes!), I move to the Core 24. This is three separate series of eight plays, run out of different formations (like Beast, Fat Cat, or a Speed Spin Double Wing combo).
Why the multiple formations for older kids? Because I’m a defensive guy at heart, and I know defensive coordinators. I believe a coach might figure out how to shut down one of my formations, but they can’t figure out all three.
The Art of the Series
One of the most powerful concepts—especially if you run power football like we do—is the Series. A series sets plays up by making them look very similar, but they hit separate areas of the defense. You’re trying to lull the defense into thinking they have you set up, and then you exploit their over-shift.
My favorite Beast Offense series works like this:
- Plays 1 & 2: Beast Left Tank (Power) We run this power play twice to really shift and suck the defense in. Even if we only get three yards, that’s fine, because we are setting up the next play.
- Play 3: Beast Left Even Wedge Tackles Once the defense is shifted, the middle (usually the A gaps) opens up. We run the wedge right down the middle, often for 20 yards or a touchdown.
- Play 4: Backside Tight End Pop Pass After three straight run plays, the defense is aggressive and sucked in. The backside tight end pop pass hits wide open, leveraging the pressure we created.
Sometimes, you have to take a “hickey” (a small loss) on an early play to set up a bigger strike later. That’s just being a smart coordinator.
The Secret to Volume: Tags and Standardization
If you want to run more volume without confusing your players, you need to standardize your systems.
For our linemen, the blocking is simple—80% of the plays use the same four, five, or six standardized base calls. This means we don’t have to teach our offensive line a heck of a lot when we change plays.
Once the blocking is streamlined, you can add “wrinkles” or “window dressing” through Tags. This is how eight plays suddenly become 70 to 90 on your call sheet!
For example, our offensive line just knows “GT Counter,” but we can run it out of the I-formation, out of the Gun, or out of the Gun with an RPO tag. That’s one core play concept, but it’s presented as multiple volume plays to the defense.
Game Day Focus: The Sweet 12
Even if I have 48 core plays in the library, on game day, we focus hard. Coaches like us may have 70 plays on the call sheet, but the real key is knowing your Top 12 to 16 plays that you’ve worked in practice and that will attack this specific opponent’s defense. If they don’t stop that family of plays, you just keep running it.
And here’s a final tip for my fellow youth coaches: If you are building an offense, you absolutely need to include Double Tight formations. Why? Because the modern 3-3-5 and 4-2-5 defenses in high school and college often struggle to deal with that formation. Double Tight forces the defense to balance up and makes it easier to call plays. In many ways, running power out of the Double Tight is the new spread because defenses aren’t built to handle it anymore.
Coach Parker’s Notes for the Podcast – How many Plays in a Playbook?
What are your thoughts on How many plays in a Playbook for youth football or High School football?
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Contact me anytime. I love to talk coaching youth football and the Beast.
Remember, Play for Fun and Winning is Funner!
Good Luck this Season,
Coach Parker
Keller, Texas, DFW, Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas
