Good read for youth coaches

Good stuff, Coach, thanks for the link.

Thanks too to Dave Cisar for writing it. Lot's of good tips from him.

Remember most youth teams are not select teams, the equation goes out the window when you get to choose the best of 100+ kids etc Most of us have kids that are first year players and we all have kids that will never play HS football and most of us are playing those kids in every game., On the offensive line.
Reading that as a running back is no easy task either, I see High School kids practicing 6 days a week around here that cant do it after 3 years in the system LOL.

Only 1 link worked there, it looks good, do you have the QB reading the DE?

Nice, that's what I was originally going to do till I found the Power t (now the wishbone T)

We are 10-12 yo with 6 13 yo who are older but lighter kids. We play age and weight the weight limit is 145lb and 125 for older but lighter. And thanks for the compliment we are still learning but so far so good.

Mike

In a 4-4 you only need 2 linemen, In most offenses you have 5-7 "linemen".

I dont play MMP players at DT
I do play MMP players and less athletic players on the offensive line and so do most non select teams. Since we only have 22-23 kids on the team and plenty of rookies and we never cut or run anyone off there are rarely enough "athletic" linemen available in that group. The kind of kids that even with great coaching just cant block lienbackers in space. We will pull/trap/doubleteam/cross block/down etc but we cant do it with everyone.
BTW we have a 7 year NFL vet as a full time OL coach thsi season, and hes 100% with me on our scheme and not zone blocking.

Are you sticking with the A-11 this season or dumping it?

I agree and disagree with the article. I believe you can teach concepts on the zone blocking scheme without committing to it entirely. I do believe angles and controlling the line of scrimmage is the most important thing in youth football. Double at the line or give the kids angle blocks where they can succeed and let the lead backs take care of the lbsor coutner em and let the lbs take themself our of the play going with the flow. I have a 5th grade team who is 38-1 over the last three seasons. We run right at ya and dare you to stop our power game. We defeated teams from 3 different states last year in a tournament with in your face power football. We work alot with chip blocks. We will double at the line then go get the lb. The difference is that I tell them who will go get the lb after the double at the line. Based on flow and read at a young age a coach should know where the lb will be and coach a linemen to double at line, release and go to second level. You get the zone concept without taking away the aggression of the drive block. The best advice I can give a youth coach about the offense line it that YOU coach them. Most of the time the head coach will be with the qb and rbs and leave a dad down with the linemen to "coach". I do it just the opposite. I spend 80% of my time with the linemen. I drill, drill, drill. Footwork, steps, firing out low. 45's , reach, etc.... The linemen love the head coach being there and they have to work instead of loaf. Spend as much if not more time with the big kids up front and they will respond.
I had more than one official state in games last year .." thats the best 4th grade line I have ever seen." This site has great resources. Use them. Call your local high school coach and ask for his help. I have done all of the above. My 2cents

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As stated many times the difference in hand picked select teams and take all comers no cut teams is night and day,. Ive coached both. You coach a hand picked select team, I coach the first 23 kids that sign up from flyers that are hnaded out to every kid ad at the loca grade school.

I do zero recruiting, I dont know who the kids are until the first practice minus the kids that return from the previous year > Since I play everyone no matter what in every game, we rarely lose even the worst players every year, so even the bad ones come back etc. A much different dynamic than select teams. Most youth coaches are not coaching select teams and fall within the dynamic and constraints I coach under.

IF you have all studs or in your case just 1 player that is a rookie and hand picked kids, you can do much more than a team that is very diverse talent wise with some vry weak players starting on the O-line etc.

I think the point Dave was trying to stress was.... the quality of athletes playing on the o-line for your average 12 and under youth team may not be the best candidates for zone blocking schemes......couple that with limited weekly practice time dedicated strictly to blocking schemes in general.....theres a bunch of easier ways, with the average kid lineman, to get the job done.....also depends on the offense you run.......the predominant defense's you face.....what stunting or blitzing said defense's are allowed to do in your league, etc? We were a man blocking scheme, but also a quick hitting north/south offense, the defense's we played against didn't stunt or blitz(against our rules), so this allowed our scheme to work with relative success......under different circumstances, it might be a terrible blocking scheme at the youth level........I do agree about zone eventually turning into man blocking raider, the thing about zone is....... they gotta pick the right pair of defenders to block in the first place..... "who" has the down defender and "who" has the 2nd level guy are "not predetermined"......it requires both o-line to get an equal piece of the down defender with eyes on the LB.....drive him off the los....then the appropriate o-lineman come off the initial block, depending on the flow of the backer....then his buddy take over the block on the down defender.....in our man blocking scheme the "who" blocks "whom" was already predetermined by the front, right or wrong(cause they stayed in the same thing the entire game)......wedge or (down and pull) schemes(such as Dave and others use) are actually the "easiest" and "maybe the most versatile", to me, for youth....easy rules.....can handle most stunting and blitzing....the RB pretty much knows where to expect the hole, really doesn't have to read much.......(I will say, the reason we chose not to use any pulling, was the personnel makeup of our teams, over the years (unlimited weight league = large, relatively slow, not super coodinated linemen.....ball carrier weight limits = small, very fast backs.....just didn't want to slow them down, waiting on the big boys, lol)....Point is.....you're always gonna have kid o-linemen missing or chasing a block at times......the key would be to find the best scheme, to try to eliminate as much of this as possible......generally speaking.....with most teams I coached, zone blocking would have increased the amount of confusion and chasing.....just my uneducated opinion though.....don't beat me up too bad, lol los

The zone/combo item, you pretty much have to assign one of the two to that player to the play side and peel the other blocker to the next level after helping on the LOS.

More like a power series where every down lineman has an accounted for blocker, a back lead blocks, and the cut gets read off how blocking help develops past the actual hole.

More or less like a power series for deuce without an actual pull block, just helping the next player from the center's backside to play side. That way you get enough movement to maybe cut all the way back to center and still force their LB to track straight down to the line so they hesitate pursuit and blocks still develop.

If they are blitzing around it and stunting, the people helping should at least deny penetration by tracking to play side off the gaps they count.

It's basically an OZ/IZ track.
The best team here runs a true lead. They double down off the EMLOS or player inside him, depending on the bubble, and kick out that player. They do not pull though, it tends to cloud the backside LB's read a bit by staying on your start point, but they do it simply out of not pulling.

LOS,

Understading your constraints and Mission in any activity is important before you develop a strategy to solve any problem. While many teams we face meet more often than we do, I only practice the kids 3 days a week before school starts, then just 2 days per week thereafter. Due to darkness we are at 1.5 hours per practice as well.

Add to it our Mission of "Developing a love and appreciation fo the game in each player we coach" which means we will play everyone regardless of game circumstances and we are not a select team, which means we will have very weak players not only playing but in many cases starting on the o-line which means I feel zone blocking would be a very poor choice for us. Even with great coaching, incredible focus on first 2 steps, perfect footwork, speed development and perfect technique my weakest players can not block linebackers ( the other temaws very best and fastest players) in space. A 7 year NFL o-line vet now coachng with me concurs BTW

Thats a good post JH.....makes a lot of sense.....even in my homemade man blocking scheme, I couldn't expect "most" kid lineman to realistically block a good LB consistently or for very long, even if he was right in front of them, 3 yds away, and we were running directly at him, lol....now....if they came up close to the los or the kid had an angle, that was different. Better results, lol