Playoffs: Could Use Assistance

[Guest dcguy477]

We have a playoff game this weekend against a team we've played a few times in the past year. They always give us problems, likely because they're talented but also well coached. Our teams are very evenly matched athletically, but their coaches make very solid in game adjustments. These are mainly fifth and sixth graders and we play 5-on-5.

Their offense usually lines up one of two ways: either a center, QB behind center and RB behind QB, with twins to the right or left. Or they line up center, QB, twins right or left and one WR on the other side. They have one very good WR who scored twice on us the last time we played, so we put our best cover guy on him in the second half and we shut him down once we did that. We plan on doing that this time as well. In our last game, after getting beat on a couple TD passes, I moved our D from a traditional 2-3 (two ends and three DB's) to a 1-3-1, and they countered by running the ball effectively on us (with just one end, they ran really wide and beat our ends).

We can also blitz 7 yards off the ball and we have a very fast blizter who causes problems for opposing QB's. Their two money plays are to run their RB wide the opposite side of the twin WR's or they play action it, and the QB rolls in the direction of the twin WR's. The WR's almost always run deep routes when they pass, and the RB and center have short routes, but their QB checks down when there's nothing available deep.

I am thinking of starting in a 3-2 this week, with ends wide on either side, our best overall D player 5-7 yards back in the middle (that way he can patrol the run and also drop back and help cover their center or RB, both who they like to throw to). With their top WR accounted for, I figured we could have our remaining DB (who is also very solid in coverage) cover deep zone on the second WR and our other guys play zone on the RB/Center and stay with them if they go deep, since our two DB's will essentially accounting for the WRs.

I was also thinking about blitzing our fast end any time they show twins on his side (thinking that they'll either play action right into him or run wide to the opposite side).This has helped cause turnovers in the past, but their coach has countered by sometimes throwing dump passes to the side he's blitzing some to account for the open space.

How would you guys attack this kind of D? Is there anything else I should consider that I'm not thinking of? Their coach always comes up with a new wrinkle, so I want to be as prepared as possible. In obvious passing downs, I could even go back to the 1-3-1 but he's not afraid to run in those types of situations, either.

Thanks...

[Coach Rob 26]

Sounds like you have it pretty well thought out to me. With the playoffs coming up this weekend, you don't have much time to throw in too much new stuff.

I like audibles on defense based on what I see coming out of the huddle. One audible I like is taking the best overall D player in the middle and calling an audible to have him right up on the los. If we suspected a run, we'd call that audible and he'd sprint up to the los either right or left of center before the snap. His focus was to anticipate a hand-off and get in the backfield as soon as that happened. If no hand-off occurred, he got back for help with coverage in the middle. We'd also fake that audible having him go up and back before the snap.

We had other audibles to show the offense different looks, like you've done with the 3-2 and 1-3-1. We also had an audible for sending two rushers off a 2-3 set. The 3 were 7 yds back, 2 on the los. Upon snap, 2 DB's came in for the rush and the 2 on the los sprinted back to cover the pass.

Sometimes the audible gambles worked, other times not so much. I think it was more of a psychological thing more than anything else. Kids liked it and I think we kept the offense on their toes. We practiced these audibles every practice though.

Honestly, the biggest advantage we had was pressuring the QB. The quicker we could make the QB get the play off, the better chance we had.

Best of luck!