SPREAD OFFENSE IN YOUTH FOOTBALL

Spread Offense In Youth Football

Spread Offense In Youth Football

Introduction

Before the ball is snapped the offensive team lines up in a formation. Most teams have a "base" formation they prefer to line up in, while other teams leave the defense guessing. Teams will often have "special formations" which they only use in obvious passing situations, short yardage or goaline situations, or formations they have developed for that particular game just to confuse the defense. Because there are a nearly unlimited number of possible formations, only a few of the more common ones are listed below. (Lahman 2008)There are many very talented youth football coaches out there that know their stuff. They may have coached youth ball for decades and clearly understand what average kids can and can't do. They understand that even with the best coaching in the planet and even 4-5 days a week practice, there are certain things most average skilled kids just can't do.

Discussion

On the other hand there are also plenty of dads that get pressed into coaching youth football that are uncertain what they should be able to get out of the typical grouping of non-select football players. Some of this group sell the kids short and don't get as advanced as they should, but many others think their kids are mini NFL players and put them into schemes and techniques that the average player has very little chance of succeeding with. (Kanasky 2009)The good coaches with all the experience usually sit right in the middle of these two extremes and put their kids in a system that is the right "fit".

Now back to the coaches clinic, the speaker seemed to be a very articulate, well educated, well meaning person who knew the game well. He played Division I football and had a fairly well organized presentation, he had credibility. His topic was the spread passing game for youth football. (Stowers 2002)His premise was that anyone could run a spread passing game down to 9 years old and be successful with it, all it took was a commitment and lots of practice. He was preachin it and the first time 9 year old head coach sitting in front of me was nodding his "amens" and buying it hook line and sinker.

The presenter demonstrated some well thought out fundamentals for youth quarterbacks and even had some nice film of an impressive 10 year old passer. The coach did admit that he had coached this player since he was 7 years old including extensive individual off site training in the off-season. Now I don't know about your teams, but I just don't have year round access to my players or the time to individually coach my kids aggressively year-round. (Schatz 2008)

The presenter also showed extensive team film clips that not only showed some very well executed spread passing plays, but some very nice zone blocking runs as well. The unusual thing about these clips were that every player had a different colored ...