Defending The Youth Football Toss Sweep
FirstDown PlayBook has always been huge proponent of teaching fundamentals first when it comes to youth football. This means coaching proper stance, alignment and techniques. However; it does not end there. The Pop Warner plays and defenses that are taught must utilize the fundamentals or they will not make sense to your young football players. Today we will look at defending a very common youth football play, the toss sweep. What we teach today is not the only way to defend it but it is a sound starting point for any youth football coach.
One of the fun things about doing what we do here at FirstDown PlayBook is that we dissect football from both sides of the ball. It’s at the crux of what makes football such a great game of chess. For every move there is a counter move.
The youth football sweep is a popular play because at it’s core the plan is simple. The offense is going to toss the ball to one of their best players. They are going to try to get as many blockers out in front of that player as possible. At the end of the day, it is an attempt to outnumber the youth football defense with blockers.
This is why a good Pop Warner defensive coach is going to be teaching things like formation recognition. This is really just a fancy way of saying your USA Football defense should see if there are more players to one side of the formation than the other.
This Youth Football Toss Sweep Is Moving The Gaps Your Defenses Must Defend
By the time you get to your first game you should have already taught defensive gap control. Your front eight players should understand their responsibility when it comes to defending A gap out to D gap. In the case of this toss sweep now you are going to teach that those gaps have moved to the outside.
This video takes you through the basic approach with defending the toss sweep by defending the new gaps that have been established. As the offense brings more blockers to the perimeter, what they have done is re-establish the gaps your Pop Warner defense needs to control.
Is this the only way to defend the toss sweep? of course not. Every year we get the question from youth football defensive coaches about offenses picking on their smaller cornerbacks who are trying to keep contain. The problem can be real and we offer solutions to that with personnel and scheme.
Teaching Proper Pursuit Angles & Running To The Football Are Also Important
However, for the sake of the defense in this video we defend the toss sweep the traditional way with the corner playing contain. The rest of the defense rallies to the ball inside out. Which brings us to our last point. Nothing we talk about here replaces effort and pursuit to the football.
What we talk about in this video should be practiced enough that by the time you get to a real game, this is instinctive. The effort and pursuit angles to the football must also be taught early and often. All defensive coaches understand that failing to play perfect gap control can be overcome with effort and great pursuit angles in most cases. Enjoy the video!
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!
