Defend Your Youth Football Opponent. Not Grass.
“Coach, why don’t you give us more youth formations with extended receivers?” FirstDown PlayBook gets that question every now and then. Well, there are several reasons, but if we were coaching youth football defense, we think we could run your youth football opponent out of their spread offense out of it by the end of the first quarter. How? We would defend that Pop Warner quarterback not grass.
When you look at it on paper, it’s a valid question. Why don’t we offer more youth football spread offenses? However when you look at it on the field, it is not. We just don’t think your 9 year old quarterback is going to be able to do all the things you may want them to.
There is a reason why a lot of the successful youth offenses have everyone packed into a phone booth. It’s because those offensive coaches know that eventually they will run into a defensive coach who is going to partially or totally ignore their wideouts.
Beat Double Teams With Defensive Slants & Angle Stunts
Here’s the deal though. Many youth football coaches continue to get these “spread” formations because they allow it to happen. There’s an old saying in football that says “don’t defend grass”. If you are defending receivers that the quarterback can’t get the ball to… then you are defending grass.
Here are three suggestions for defending a youth football opponent who is using a spread offense.
NFL Coaches On 6 Sound Youth Football Defenses
1. Get Your Free Safety Involved
Get your Free Safety up in the line of scrimmage and involve them as an extra defender or as a blitzer. See if that quarterback can win throwing the ball outside.
This overloaded front will give you one more rusher than they can block. This will also give you one more defender vs the run which is really what they want to do anyway. Play your corners at a depth that fits your personnel matchup.
2. Make Your Corners Unblockable
Align your corners well inside of the wideouts so there is no way they can possibly be blocked on the perimeter. This will effectively give you two more defenders in the run game and the corners can rally to the pass. Our guess is the offense brings those receivers back in tight before it’s over.
3. Did They Just Blitz Their Corner?
Blitz one of the corners off of the edge and gain an extra defender this way. The Free Safety can roll over to cover the wideout late. The Quarterback must get the ball off before the unblocked corner (he will be unblocked) gets home to the Quarterback.
NFL Coaches On 12 Formations To Consider For Your Youth Football Offense
So the next time a youth offensive coach comes out and spreads the field with his ten year old Quarterback, do yourself a favor and don’t line up like you are “supposed to”. Line up to take away the run game and make them prove to you they can throw the ball.
FirstDown PlayBook offers you 6 different defenses for your youth football team. You should consider one or two of these for your Pop Warner defense. 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!
