8 V 8 Defense (4, 5, 6 Year Olds)

[VolsDad 0]

Hey all, Here looking for some more possible suggestions. New coach a little lose in some areas on defense. I know football, but not much about flag football.

Rules: QB/RB/WR can run the ball

Passing allowed anytime

Defense can blitz immediately, line up 2 yards in front of the ball.

I am thinking I should either run a 4-3-1 or 4-4. I have seen teams passing the ball successfully.. suprisingly at this age, so there is that fear there, but it isn't great.

Personnel wise I have 1 stand out player who is really good at flag fulling. I have 4 other who are certainly above average, and the rest are new/struggling at times.

So my question is this: Where would you place the best player, and the 3 other above average?

Conventional football wisdom would indicate that he play MLB.. however I have had other coaches tell me that a really fast kid on the line can be very disruptive.

My initial thoughts were to have the two best kids play Defensive End, the next two play OLB (so hopefully no corners turned) and put the other one at MLB.

or

Do you think the best kid should play MLB?

Thanks ahead of time.

[Coach Rob 26]

Personnel wise I have 1 stand out player who is really good at flag fulling. I have 4 other who are certainly above average, and the rest are new/struggling at times.

So my question is this: Where would you place the best player, and the 3 other above average?

Conventional football wisdom would indicate that he play MLB.. however I have had other coaches tell me that a really fast kid on the line can be very disruptive.

Do you think the best kid should play MLB?

Thanks ahead of time.

Your 4-3-1 sounds like a good D. My inclination would be to put the best flag puller at MLB. With the defense allowed to blitz immediately only lining up 2 yards off the los, I'd have another better player rushing almost every play unless it was ineffective. I think you're correct using the other two better players as OLBs. Since the QB can run and there's a possibility of a blitz every play, I can't imagine the QB isn't keeping the ball a lot.

When you can, I'd switch a few players in as the rusher. Kids like it and you might be surprised which ones catch on.

On a side note: If I wanted to be successful on offense with those rules, I'd run trips/quads way out to one side, have a slot in the backfield on the non trips side and have my QB hand off the first play. Next play I'd run the same thing, but fake the hand off to my slot and run a QB keeper running opposite side of the trips/quads.