How to beat speed

Coach Castarizz,

we had the same situation this year in our youth division. Only exception: Our opponent ran from the I-Formation.

We scored a lot of points against them with our Run & Shoot. Attack the flat-zone and a deep area, read the Cornerback, let the WR find a zone to drop in or cross your routes in man coverage. Perhaps move to Trips (motion) and try to pick e.g:
Split End choice (CB inside -> go, CB outside ->slant or skinny). Flanker rub (pick) on OLB. Slot Back attacks flat. Quick Passes will help.

We scored 25 points in 4x8 minutes, but poorly we lost because our defense could not come up with their passing game.

Hope i could help... if not, write back!

Thanks for the info. I like the option but unfortunately our QB is a little on the heavy side. He reminds me of the QB for Kentucky last year, oversized lefty with a cannon. Not very mobile.
Coach Cal

the thing with the option is, speed really helps, but if you make the right reads, you can make yards. you won't break long runs, but you can chip away at a fast defense by making smart reads. counter plays against speed is also very good. i think about the fb traps nebraska ran against a very fast miami defense in the 94 or 95 orange bowl. miami players just ran right on by it.

I have a very fast team and there are some things that teams try to do to stop us. Make them gain every stinking yard the hard way--Defensively--Make them run inside / fast teams do not want to run at people they want to run around people / you may have to play an unsound defense--Don't let them throw over the top of you--disturb their releases--Offensively--Run right at them / if you run a sweep or try to bounce the outside zone it better be to keep the D honest--the old saying is run at speed and around power.

It is very hard to prepare for speed. I talk to D Coordinators and one of the things they always say is that we are hard to prepare for because it is impossible to imagine speed. You read keys or focus on tendancies. A trick that I picked up was moving the Rec up five yards on all routes. This makes the breaks much faster. When we practice JV on Varsity 7 on 7, we move the rec up. Very useful tool.

on offense, i always like to put an extra jv linebacker or d-linemen on the field.

when playing against speed, players and coaches always say it felt like there were 14 or 15 guys out there. well, then against fast teams, we practice against a few more. it makes it tough to work through assignments, but sometimes we make a varsity guy 2 defenders.

Not very good. They blitz the heck out of us and we couldn't catch the football. The o-line had trouble picking up the right defensive player. On offense they beat us with their qb. He was fast and strong. Broke alot of tackles. We had good coverage and tried blitzing them but their qb was more athletic than our defense and broke for big gains. Thanks for asking though.
Coach Cal

Fast teams usually don't like you to run staright at them. Trying to run wide will play into their hands, especially if you don't have the speed to get outside.

When it comes to the passing game, the shotgun will help to give your QB more time.