From the Northeast

Coach,
Thanks for taking the time to address our issues. Coach Reed was my first step in starting out a couple of years ago. I thought his views and insites were perfect for the youth game. I still use lots of his practice techniques, I also keep reading "Coaching Youth Football" over and over.... Good point also about not looking for the super stud to play deep in the I, the quality of player we have is more than talented enough to drive the field and control the game. I've been looking into the "Equalizer" System
of Coach Freeb. I like the direct coaching involved in the exacution of each play. I believe with some work we can adapt this system to our needs. K.I.S.S......I try my best too....The double wing is a great system but with the pulling and the constant east west running I had a tuff time getting our backs to the holes quickly. Also pulling linemen did not hold their blocks long enough on tosses and sweeps.
Do you or anybody else have any drills for hitting the holes quicker? Thanks again for your help.

Coach,

Let me tell you a story, and if it is not too long, maybe you can get some ideas from this. My first year coaching we ran an "I" formation system. We taught the kids back and hole numbers, and then drilled the line and backs separately, but intensely. We spent a lot of time in group drills....even more than team execution. What happened was we spent more time developing athletes than installing plays. Each week we would mess around with plays, and used the ones that the kids were comfortable executing. Every offense has the sweep,off tackle, iso, dive, counter, and bootleg plays. I don't care what formation you run, every play is some form of the ones I just listed. Anyhow, I taught the I formation because it is what I knew. During game time, when defenses would stop certain things we ran, I would be able to make adjustments very easily. We went 7-2 and lost our first playoff game to a team we should have beaten. I figured it was the system that was at fault, not realizing at the time it was me that made some poor decisions.

I then began looking for a "system" that would allow me to win the championship. I found the wing-t. After running the wing-t for 2 years, our record went to 7-11. I believe the reason was I was looking for a system to win, instead of using what I was comfortable with and developing athletes within the system I knew how to teach. This year we are going back to the I. Contrary to what most people believe, the I is a great offense at the youth level. One team in our area has won the championship three years in a row, with only one loss running out of the stick I. You don't have to have a dominating back to run the ball well in the I. As one coach has already stated, the game between the tackles is wide open. If it is not, they are giving you the outside. We like to line up in a split back set wit h a slot on the right when defenses crowd the line. We motion the slot to crack on the LB, have the TE hook the DE, and the fullback lead on the corner.....it works every time, plus it opens the bootleg. Once they start to widen, we run a dive play, or go back to the I and power them up the middle.

My point is......coach what you know, no matter what the system is. If you know how to coach it, you can win football games. In the end, it comes down to talent. You can have the best system in the world, but if you don't have kids with talet, you will not win a championship. I'm not against the double wing, or wing-t offenses....I'm just not as comfortable coaching them, and therefore end up having a much more difficult time teaching it to the kids.

Coach what you know, develop athletes, and you can win in any system.

Tim

I couldn't agree more with everything that eaglecoach said in his posts. Although I think all coaches have at one time or another searched for or even thought they found that "silver bullet", we all eventually discover that it is truly not the system, it's teaching your kids what they need to be successful in that system and adapting the system to meet the talents present on your team. "Know what to coach and coach what you know" is a great motto to work by in my opinion! Thanks again for your participation on the board guys.