Need a system for 7-8 yr old team

hey Coach, Ill suggest running the double wing fantastic five plus two play action passes.

you might do well with:

wedge
power both ways
counter both ways
sweep both ways
trap one way
power pass one way
boot pass other way

defensively any of the usuals, gam, 46, wide seven, 65 goal line

Eh, a million success stories for dwers in that age group, no need to hype it, the footwork is a breeze and pulling is just runnign from point a to point b. THEY CAN DO IT IF YOU CAN COACH IT. Coach has ten years of experience, my guess, hes a capable instructor.

actually, BEAST has its own set of challenges, if we are going to be purely negative and focus on potential problems, the beast and any other direct snap attack can give you snap issues, such as the center rolling the ball or snapping it over a backs head, the back can and does take his eyes off the ball and drops it.

I know you love direct snap stuff coach, and so do I however Ill stand by my suggestion of running the double wing system. I never claim it to be the easiest offense to coach, heck if you just want easy then put the kids in crunch and use man up blocking and let your qb just take the snap and run wherever he wants. do you want kiss or do you want to win?

Of course, although I think on the whole the problems with a conventional hand-to-hand snap are greater than with a snap tossed a short distance. However, if under center were to turn out easier, there's always crunch, which is just like beast but has the ball snapped to a QB under C instead of to a FB.


I was going by the original question, which said he wanted KISS.

The Mighty Mites (8Us) where I coached in 2007 had the best or 2nd best team of the 6 the organiz'n had, and they used triple I with just 4 plays in each direction to start the season. More complicated than beast or crunch, but still much more forgiving than double wing.

Answering the original question:

Ive run the Single Wing with this age group many seasons and have had great success, scoring lots of points, getting everyone the ball and allowing my MMP kids on the field. The age groups we have overlap that group, combined we went 63-4 with 5 different teams. Real good retention etc

Reason I like the SW for this age group:
Simple and safe 2 yard low direct snap. Much safer and much easier to teach than traditional indirect snap that if fumbled ( happens alot at that age group, gets gobbled up by defense)

Not a lot of handoffs and pitches which take a lot of time to teach and perfect and when they go wrong, you lose the football. Handoffs and pitches often slow a play down to a dead standstill, snap and go.

No need for the ball to go through the hands of one playerm dont have to depend on the dexterity and mind of one 7 year old. We won our league title in 2005 starting our 4th team "QB". You just cant consisitently train 4 traditional QBs in youth football, with all the footwork etc and expect to still score 30 +ppg

Get anyone the football. it is VERY rare at that age that we dont get every single player the ball. In 2007 and 2008 we had 24 different kids score TDs at that age group with every eligible player carrying the ball at least 1-2 times. We dont train them at all, waste practice time on it, In endzone at half when up by 3 TDs we just ask them to catch the ball and run behind #21 etc, No handoffs or motion or fancy footwork needed.

Pulling just 1 player. In non select youth football, very difficult to get MMP kids to pull with consistent effectivness. But we can usually find and train 1 that is reasonably athletic and very consistent. That is why you see so many Double Wing teams flopping their lines and giving up where they are going, they cant find 4 effective pullers.

By 95% of the "experts" on the DW , the don't consider it KISS, they consider it quite coaching intensive. If your team is like most, you can only spread yourself so thin, your assistants have to coach as well. The largest group of them go here:
forums.delphiforums.com/dwingers/messages Im positive they will say the same thing.
You can get the perspective of the biggest Single Wing group on the net here:
forums.delphiforums.com/SingleWing/messages

Ive run the DW and SW and have studied both extensively. We standardized on the SW many moons ago for the above reasons.
The DW is a very good series based offense, but I feel we can do everything out of the DW in the SW, get there quicker and with less risk, while allowing me to get the ball to everyone. Later in the season if the kids are getting it, we can add what no other offense has, the full spinner series, considered by many including Ted Seay as the most deceptive series in all of football. Nearly all the "gurus" of the indirect snap offenses are addind direct snap components to their offenses, It isnt the other way around.

You start with 6 basic plays plus 1. A power, Sweep, counter, trap, wedge, PA pass and Pop Pass 4 plays to the right and 3 to the left.

QB already has depth, simple to thow out of

You can snap the ball to 3 different players, the defense doesnt have a clue who you are snapping to

11 on 11 football at its finest

Direct snap, I dont have to worry about my QB getting run over by my puller

The only reason I would ever go under center again was if I was forced to and if I was forced to, I wouldnt coach there LOL> I know a lot of guys decide to go under center because it looks more palatable etc for me, that doesnt matter. Last season at 2008 and the previous at 2007 we had maybe 4-5 bad snaps total, and just 1 that resulted in a turnover at age 7-9. Several here on the forum have those complete season every snap DVDs etc.

As Bob stated the very bluntest version of the SW would be the Fat or Yale formation that some refer to today as beast. Su[per simple, I prefer the ability and deception of snapping to 3 different players, so not a favorite of mine.

I, too, like the SW for that age group. I used Dave's. As far as ease of coaching, the base plays were pretty much 'find the RG's (puller) tailpad and follow it'.
You'll probably use different coaching terminology. But, in the end, it came down to following the tailpad. Almost every player on your team will be able to understand that. Once they understood that concept, I could bend the rules when needed (no pull, decoy pull, a couple of plays that I installed). But, it was rarely needed.

I would use the Wide Tackle 6 on defense. Although, a simplified version of Calande's 46 Gambler defense could work as well.

The UBSW is a very good offense for the youth level. Not hard to coach and it is very effective. I got Coach dave's stuff last yr and i was very satisfied.

SINGLE WING! Check out Dave Cisar or Adam Wesloski at Directsnap.com. On Defense you can run anything you're comfortable with 44, 53, 62, 61, 7D...just have to stop the big play (sweep). Best wishes!

Like catz, I'm a big fan of the Jet/Fly series, but it is somewhat coaching intensive. Choose something you're comfortable with and go for it - just make sure you have the following components:

• Series based. Have a package of plays (3-8) that look similar (at least in terms of backfield action) and attack different parts of the defense. Look for who is making the plays for your opponent's defense, and then call the appropriate complementary play to take advantage of that player's over-aggressiveness.
  
  
• Simple blocking rules. You can pull and do different things to make it interesting, but your players have to know their assignments. You can use OIL or GOD or GDB, etc. - just make sure your players know the rules for each play so they go to their assignments aggressively. At the youth level (especially the younger ages), most blocks don't get defeated because of poor technique as much as because the blocker either doesn't do his assignment or is unsure and goes so tentatively as to get in the way more than block.
  
  
• Don't ask the kids to do things they are not capable of - i.e. don't set them up to fail. Most 7-8 yr old kids can only throw the ball about 10-15 yards, so don't ask them to complete 25 yard throws. Most kids that age don't have the mental capacity or attention span to learn much more than the names of the positions and their assignments, so don't ask them to make complex reads or understand complex concept plays with multiple options.
  
  
• Be Minimum Play Player (MPP) friendly. Make sure your offense (and defense, for that matter) have places where you can put weaker players (unlike HS, in most youth leagues everyone MUST play - even if not by rule, that should be your policy). You don't want to just put Johnny out wide and tell him not to move - as Dave Cisar says, find a place and assignment where each player can legitimately add value on each snap.
  
  
• Focus on fundamentals. No one should be overly concerned with wins and losses at the 7-8 yr old level - just teach the kids the game, make it fun, and get them fundamentally sound and they will keep coming back and success will be a natural result.

Good luck to you, coach - let us know how it goes.