Skills We Need to Teach by Year

I'm not sure you have to have such a difference between 7th and 8th grade - you can pretty much treat them the same. Maybe be a little more demanding of your 8th graders. The specifics of exactly what kind of blocking (zone, pulling, pass pro, screens, etc), coverage (man, C2, C3, etc), routes, etc depends a lot more on your scheme and what skills the players need to know to run that scheme than it does on their age. There is no reason kids a lot younger than 7th grade can't learn to pull, zone block, play man coverage, etc. In fact, man coverage (in my experience) is a lot easier to teach than zone, so if you do want to teach them in separate years, I would start with man.

In any event, there are a few things that jump out from your list. Number 1, you indicate that you're teaching "chop blocking" - I hope you meant "cut blocking" since a chop block is an illegal double team block that often results in serious injury to the defender. Run fits and filling is about as fundamental as defense gets - that should be taught at every age (down to about 5 anyway), so I certainly wouldn't wait a year to get that in. Same for no huddle, motion, and PAT/FG (I've seen teams as young as about 9 convert these consistently). Unless you're running air raid or run n shoot, I see no reason why you would need to use a choice route at the MS level - there is no harm in it if you can coach it and it fits in your scheme, but I certainly wouldn't make it a priority. Same for the swim move and zone blitz. Also, you mentioned option reads - are you planning on running a lot of option? Option is kind of an all or nothing proposition - I wouldn't recommend doing it at all unless it's going to be a big part of your offense - it just takes too many reps to be worthwhile otherwise.

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I'm a middle school coach, and we've got A and B teams for both 7th and 8th grade. The problem is, all but about 5 of my kids have never played football before. So, we have to start from the very beginning.

I mean... these guys don't know the difference between offense and defense. They don't know the positions. Some days I have my doubts that they even know their goal is to score or stop the other team from scoring, despite what we say. This isn't peewee football in the burbs where I grew up.

So, we start from the top. How to tackle... how to line up... how to block... who to block...

We start with a 4-4 on defense, simple zones so they don't have to figure out which guys is theirs to guard. We line up the same every time.

On offense it's I-formation, starting with toss and lead, simple zone blocking so they know who to get (the guy right in front of them, or the guy on the 2nd level).

From there, I'd like to build into things like cut blocks (yes, I definitely typed the wrong thing really quick), pulling, and screens down the road... double-teams working to the second level, etc.

Passing plays start with locking on to one route, a slant, or a deep ball on play action off of lead. From there we go to a flood type route where they're just reading one CB, whether he sinks deep or stays shallow, and they hit the other guy.

Option read just meant zone read, basically. We run a midline and a zone read as they get more comfortable, and we basically have to tell them before the snap whether they should give it or keep it.

I definitely realize this should be tailored towards what your high school runs, but ours does a little of everything, so I'm just trying to get them prepared in an a logical, layered way.

To me, as a middle school coach, the biggest things that LBers need to learn/develop is the ability to take a proper first step, figure out where the ball is going (read), and run the correct angles.

Too many times, they want to step back with that first step. They have to learn to take a read step (forward). For the read, I like to key near back, but that varies with coaching. Once they can determine which direction their key is taking them, they have to take a good angle. They need to learn to run at 45 degrees (approximately). Too many times they want to run flat and chase the ball to the sideline.

When you get a linebacker doing those things, he's ready to begin high school ball.

TEACH FUNDAMENTALS EVERYDAY HAVING COMPLEX SCHEMES IN MIDDLE SCHOOL MEANS NOTHING! Teach them to run correctly, tackle, block, and get off blocks. Do this and your high school will love you!