4 Bad Youth Football Offenses (We Added One)
Let’s talk about bad youth football offenses. When you sign up to coach a youth football team, it should go without saying that you are doing it for the players. The players, for the sake of this blog are kids aged 12 and under. You have signed up to develop young players technically and to teach them the fundamentals of our game.
If along the way you develop a good football team, more power to you. The moment that you step in and introduce some special nuance that makes it more about your scheme than teaching youth football, that’s when we are out.
If this is why you are in coaching then you should go get a big boy coaching job. They are out there. There are plenty of high school, college and professional leagues where you can match wits with other coaches. Trust me when I say that it is very competitive if that’s what you are looking for.
Here at FirstDown PlayBook we have watched some schemes seep into youth football that make no sense to us. We have not been shy about dismissing them. We have also tried to help coaches who are playing against them to run that offense off the youth football field.
Originally we had three such offenses. This year we have expanded our list of examples to four youth football offenses that you should be careful about. We have also redirected you to previous blogs that might help you if you face these types of offenses. Let’s get started.
1. Spread Offense
Let’s face it, if someone is trying to spread you out at the youth level, they are doing it to help their run game. Most of the time they are doing it to help their quarterback the football. As you remove three or four of your defenders from the box life becomes much easier to do this.
Our advice? Don’t do it. Make that ten year old quarterback beat you with their arm. Make them throw out routes all day. Whatever you do, stop the run first and foremost. Lean more about that here.
2. Up Tempo Offense
There is nothing wrong with playing the game with tempo. However, if your objective is to run the offense before a youth football defense can get lined up, this is just bad for the youth football players. Who does this actually help?
It serves no purpose to teach the youth football players the game if they never line up in a football formation or defense. The officials can help with this and they should. Once the structure of a game begins to break down and it turns into a coach clap drill, the refs should stand over the ball until a football structure is regained.
3. Beast Offense
This has been an interesting study. Here at FirstDown PlayBook we still do not understand the value of this offense. The best we can come up with is that maybe the splits ar bigger than what we have seen on video. What we have seen is a scrum or rugby. It does not look like youth football to us.
If your beast offense is lining up shoe to shoe with no offensive line splits and you coach your quarterback to bulldoze your way to a four yard gain on every snap, we don’t buy it. Show me one high school, college or NFL team that lines up like this and I will shut up. Before you invoke the tush push, go back and read the first part of this article. Here is how we would defend the beast.
4. RPO Offenses
This is our new one and I guess it was inevitable that it would seep into youth football. You have to crawl before you walk. Teaching your youth football quarterback a run pass option offense is not fair to that player. It is important that football is taught with a progression. The progression, if taught properly, involves learning the fundamentals first. Taking a snap, a base block, defeating a base block and route running are examples of what should be taught.
When you teach a football play, that play should be called by the coach and run by the youth football offense. RPO’s can be an easy way out for offensive coordinators. Before you put it all on the quarterback, make sure you, the youth football coach, can call a good football play.
What To Do…
Make your own decision but please keep your youth football players in mind. Remember. You are not an NFL coach or a college football coach. Not a high school football coach either. You are someone who is so much more important, a youth football coach.
FirstDown PlayBook offers you 12 different Pop Warner formations. You should consider one or two of these for your Pop Warner offense. Tap on any one of the tiles below to visit the article describing that formation. After reading the article then go join FirstDown PlayBook and get busy coaching your Pop Warner team with the best football playbook available!
