What Is Best Way To Attach Man-On-Man Defense

[A Name Already In Use 1]

I am seeing alot of man-on-man defense this season and frankly have never had to deal with it before. Most of my plays are setup for shredding the zone, so these coaches must be getting smarter. What type of plays work best when dealing with a man-on-man defense.

5-on-5, 8-10 year old, 5 second count rush.

[Orange 26]

Same as most sports, iso, or isolation plays. Look for a good matchup and isolate that receiver.

I have a video of a very basic iso play. Trips left, center fakes left and runs right with QB. I knew my center was way faster than the guy covering him so it was an easy 6. Turn down the volume unless you want to hear my friend do a very poor play by play.

Because of the trips left the entire right side of the field is wide open.

Another thing that good teams do is a wash or rub play. There are lots of discussions on this forum but it's pretty basic. All the receivers go one way except one who goes against the grain after pausing for a brief second. The idea is that the first wave washes out the defender covering the go-to guy. If your washing receivers get a good push, the underneath guy should be wide open.

Other than that, you can run slants or crossing patterns and if you have a good QB, you can hit some passes.

[A Name Already In Use 1]

Now that is slick! Gonna borrow that! Thanks! Got an issue with our QB too on an earlier post...any advice would be much appreciate. Thanks again Orange!

[spider 0]

We run the center drag play orange is referring to, works all the time. In addition to running with the trips you can run it with different formations so they don't know every time your in trips its coming. We often have a slot guy running toward the qb and we fake to him as the qb is running and then he dumps to the center. Man coverage should be pretty easy to beat at that age. I try to stay away from using man coverage unless my defense is on the one yard line in the no pass zone. One thing you do not want to do is put your best receiver out wide. It's easy for the deffense to cover man on man if he's just running a go route or something simple. Put the intended receiver in the backfield or near the center and let him go under and rub off other kids. Try some plays where the kids cross. You want to get kids moving one way and then hit the receiver going the opposite direction. So the other defenders are not in position to pull his flag because they are running to cover their man on the other side. It's also confusing to the defense if you have a set with a bunch or stack. Because then the coach or kids have to say you have the first guy, so and so has the 2nd and so on. Ultimately you may find the best way to attack it is with your running game and misdirection plays. End arounds or counter plays.

[YMCA Coach 1]

Hi there! There are some great ideas listed here, have to say I'll use some of them.

Now, we run 8 on 8, 2 player can blitz once every set of downs, and anyone can rush if: 1) it's longer than 5 seconds, 2) the QB moves out of the pocket, or 3) there is a handoff/lateral/pass. So since most run 5 or 6 players, ours is a bit different, wanted to share that before I suggested anything.

I often run into defenses playing man, sometimes all game and sometimes only part-time. But when they do, I try to use it.

I'll load up three receivers on one side, and iso one receiver on the opposite side. The trips side will run various short and out patterns, to take their defenders away from the middle of the field. The iso'd receiver runs a quick slant, right into the middle of the field, getting a step on his defender. This is done assuming that the defenders are playing outside technique, forcing the play inside. If they are playing straight up, the quick slant still works. On those slants, the QB has to get the pass off within about 2 seconds, in case the defender is athletic enough to catch up.

If the defender plays to the inside, I have them run either a short out or an out and up (some call it a "chair"). I'll have them mix in a go pattern, deep post, etc.

I can do this because I have the players who've played with me for a while. They've learned over the seasons how I want them to view the coverage and how I want them to react. The QB's have also both been with me a while (one being my son), so they end up reading things the same way. But if you have players who can make an instant shift for a quick slant, and a QB who can throw a pass with total trust, anticipating where the receiver is going, you can do well with it.

In addition, I have two of the three receivers cross each other short, the last doing a deep out or comeback. If the primary receiver is still covered, one of those should be open.

Good luck!