Implementing the Spread

We are a spread team, and have the luxury of having our entire program 1st grade up through high school teaching various components of the spread game. It depends on a lot of things, like what you used to run and what support you'll get from your feeder programs, but this is what we do.

All our feeder programs are built on the philosophy of making the game fun for everyone. We want as many of the players to stick with it as possible.

~ Our 1st & 2nd graders play a game called "ultimate", which is just a throw it and catch it game (similar to the frisbee version).
~ Our 3rd & 4th graders play flag football and begin to learn some of our formations (one or two) and terminology (hole numbers, position names, etc.). The run game is pretty basic as you might imagine: Up the gut or sweep with your stud. The pass game is mostly bubble screens, HB flares, or huck it deep to your stud.
~ Our 5th & 6th graders put the pads on for the first time and learning how to block and tackle becomes the number one priority. At this point in time some of our players can run some more advanced stuff like trap, reverse, play action, etc.
~ By the time they hit middle school (7th and 8th grade), they have a pretty good understanding of terminology, formations, positions, how plays are called, even some of our passing tree, and they have started to sort themselves out into their positions. At this point, they are ready to add some 3 step passes, shot gun, motion, possibly zone blocking. However, we are still emphasizing the basics of blocking, tackling, having fun, getting everyone as much PT as possible.

Just a couple of lessons we learned the hard way. First of all, at the 3rd through 6th grade level, you must agree upon some limits to what you can do defensively in order to have any offensive success. Our town league has everyone running a 5-3 with no blitzing allowed. Second, and this is realated to the above, your young guys are going to have a heck of a time learning how to run block and pass pro. Make it easier on them by including a tight end and even a full back once and a while. Shoot, we are a 4 and 5 wide team at the varsity level, and it doesn't hurt us a bit that our middle school lines up in the offset I a good deal of the time. Football is football, and success breeds confidence and enthusiasm.

Hey, this turned into quite a book. Sorry about that. Hope it gives you some ideas. If you need any more info, I'd be glad to talk to you.

Coach 'Em Up
Brant Nyberg
Head Coach - Riverton High School