Some Youth Football Books Are Worthless!

[CoachGT 0]

What's up everybody,

I recently bought Coaching Youth Football ( The Official Handbook of USA Football) by ASEP. The book is decent, but it is not very indepth on anything. A lot of the information is vague in my opinion. Like the blocking techiniques described in the book. The descriptions are not very good. All illustrations show kids holding or do exactly show what the describes. Can someone please describe for me the proper Drive Block, Angle Block and Cross (X) Block. I have been trying to teach my kids those techniques. I figure that would be enough.

[CoachSteve 0]

Yup, many Youth Football Books are entirely worthless. Fortunately, there are some good ones out there though. However, the best offensive line book I have ever read I posted in another thread - I repost below for your convience. Yes, that book is more designed for college level play and you are just not going to get into some of the advanced stuff like true Zone blocking at the youth level. However, the techniques are well explained and you can take that and apply the basics from it. I do often read the 'higher' level books but I boil it all down to something very simple to teach.

The drive block is the basis for all other blocking. The first advice I have is do not teach "Flipper Blocking". I had a long discussion about this with my son's coach - he is a tiny mite but I coach Jr. Midget - who is teaching Flipper Blocking. His concern was the kids will want to grab the other team's jerseys. He has a valid point as he is teaching his defense to grab cloth while tackling. 5,6,7 year olds do struggle to differentiate between offense and defense. I defered and decided that I will teach my son correct blocking on my own. Anyway, I digress. Proper drive blocking starts with a good stance, good footwork, and an explosion from the hips just prior to contact. A good 3 point stance has most of the weight on the feet and the feet are not too far apart. Good footwork for me is shorter steps, not long striding ones. The reason for this is that if you overstep, you are off balance and easily knocked over. Short steps are harder to teach and harder to get them to do (especially in a game and when they are tired). Still, I think it is worth it because they are keeping a solid footing and balance. Just a fraction of a moment before contact, I like to see them explode from their feet, through their legs and into their hips so that their hips kind of 'roll'. The idea is to have their pads shotting up and out around 45 degrees. You don't want to go straight forward because you get no lift. You don't want to go straight up because you get no drive. I teach the hands close together and giving a good pop to the defender's chest (the numbers) along with the explosion. This helps get a little more lift; the more lift, the more you are under the defenders pads and the more successful the block will be. Now, to finish, I have them STOMP their feet through the block. They need to keep their body in touch with the defender and just STOMP to glory. A lot of coachs teach chopping the feet. I do not like that image because a chop, to me, means quick light steps. I do not want quick light steps; I want hard drving steps so I use the 'stomp' image. Last is head placement. I do NOT teach the head or facemask into the man; I teach the head to the side of the man that the ball is going. If the ball is going left of the blocker, his head should be on the left side.

On an Angle block, I teach leading with the foot to the side you are blocking. If you are going right, step with your right foot first. Again, good stance and good footwork. The stance should not tell or project the blockers intentions to the DL. Again, I teach short steps. Just as before, there should be an explosion from the hips. Here, things can be different depending on what you are doing with the angle block. If this is a single man block, I get the hands on the closest number and head to the side I am attacking from and stomp my way out. If I am going into a double team block with a teammate, I want to hit the same way but as I stomp, I want my hips to come together with his hips so we can not be split. If I am chipping and sliding off to get a backer, I just want to make that initial contact to ensure the guy is square in front off my teammate and then slide off and go for the backer. I do not teach sending hte head to the other side in a single man block (like in an outside zone block). That is just too much and I don't like having their heads go in front of the charging DL/LB. One thing I teach on the angle block is empowering the OL to alter his line of attack. What I mean by this (and it is especially true for the last guy on the line Y or uncovered T), is that the first step can be completely sideways or even backwards and out if that is what it takes to get there. If you start with a 45degree attack angle and the DE beats you into the backfield, you have to flatten your attack angle out by stepping sideways. If that does not work, you have to step back and out.

I don't use cross blocking so I will defer to others.

Of course, this is how I teach it with some decent success. Others may have different ideas or thoughts; I would love to hear them.

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Coaching Offensive Linemen (Paperback)

by Dave Christensen, James A. Peterson "The first thing you should consider when building a championship-level offensive line is your criteria for personnel selection..." (more)

SIPs: seal blocker, backside blocker, fan blocker, inside shaded defender, inside zone block (more)

CAPs: Check Red

(2 customer reviews)

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I pulled that information from Amazon at

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846

[patscoach 0]

GT,

I'll take a crack at it...

Drive block - Mostly used in "man on you" situation to push the defender back off the line of scrimmage. In most cases the blocker will need to gain body position to turn the man and establish the hole. I teach them to fire out low and get underneath the shoulder pads of the D man, push up and through with hips and churn the feet and legs forward, all in one fluid motion. I also teach the OL to know where the play is headed, to his R or L and to "get your head in the hole", i.e. if he's the 4 man (RT) and the play goes 6 or 8, (to his right) he should step forward with his right foot and place his helmet and left shoulder between the defender and the hole, then drive as above with movement forward and to the left. This will keep him between the defender and the hole. Coaching points are a proper 3 pt stance, good and proper first step, fire out low, helmet position, continuance of leg drive after initial contact and play to the whistle. Simply reverse the body position for plays to the blocker's left.

Angle Block - Used when the blocker is not blocking a man in front of him. AKA down block, the best example I can think of is where the RT4 man faces a 40 D (no man on his head) and needs to block either a DE (man over tight end) or DT (man over guard). First step extremely important here. If blocking man to left, RT must take a hard step to his left down the LOS with his left foot. Head must get in front of man to seal off penetration, since the guard is usually vacating the spot on a pull assignment. The toughest block of all, it combines everything to work. Angle blocks v. 40 D are also used on double teams between guard and tackle, where guard drive blocks and tackle angle blocks the DT with his helmet and left shoulder "in the hole" and if a double team with the TE with the DE as the target, RT4 now steps with his right foot and gets his right shoulder on the man with his helmet in the hole (angle blocks to his right) and the TE now is the drive blocker.

X Block - an O line stunt block between two men next to each other on the LOS. Using RG2 and RT4 as an example, RT "angle blocks" down on the man over RG using technique described above, allowing NO PENETRATION. RG takes a "drop step" with his right foot at a 45 deg angle to LOS, allowing the tackle to clear his spot and get to the guard spot. The guard then drive blocks at that 45 deg angle to the LOS into the man that appears in the spot vacated by the tackle, usually a LB vs 40 D's, or a DT vs. 50 D. Draw it out on paper and you will see that once the guard takes his first step the whole thing turns into 2 "angle blocks" with the intent of prying open the hole in a scissors like fashion. X blocks also happen in between G and C vs 40, where the C blocks the DT over the guard and the guard steps around the C to pick off the ILB on blasts and some counter plays. This one requires good communication between C, G AND QB, as I've seen guards slam into slow QB's.

In general, the success of each blocking technique begins with a proper 3 point stance. If your kids are having trouble getting the first step, staying low and being effective with it, start from the stance. I've seen pages upon pages of written word on blocking techniques and all of their nuances that fails every time when you're working with a heavy, uncoordinated kid that simply can't get in a 3 pt stance. There are some threads on this message board that describe how others get the kids to get it right, here's how I coach it. Have your players point their toes forward, not out, at least a bit more than shoulder width apart. This will establish a good foundation. Then squat down so their butt is over their heels, heads upright and slightly higher than their butts. Contrary to what I've read here, I allow them to support their upper bodies on their knees with their forearms. This at least gets them comfortable. Then have them put their hand to the ground with weight slightly forward and their down hand in front of that foot. Lots of kids put their hands down in the middle of the stance, wrong in my opinion. Without some weight forward, the kids will immediately stand up at the snap and lose effectiveness. With some weight forward they seem to stay bent over and go forward on the snap much quicker than if they place too little weight there. They do, however, need to be able to maintain a good stance if you try to knock the down hand out from underneath him. He will need some slight weight shifting to recover without falling down.

Lastly, DO try this at home before headed to practice so you can coach the obvious trouble items.

Hope this helps,

Pats

[patscoach 0]

Coach Steve,

Good thread. On the down/angle block - I coach 8th graders that will need to be able to do this at the JV level in HS next yr. For that reason I want them to know it, try it and expect that next year they will need to do it. At worst the kids do get to the shoulder of the man being blocked instead of whiffing from a poor point of attack.

We also changed some of the x blocks to base blocks (drive). LB's at this level don't read guards enough for the technique to have max effectiveness. Mostly based on personnel ability, we do some x blocking with kids that don't drive well. Same energy when applied at an angle will produce a better result. The RB sees 2 jerseys like his and splits them for the hole.

[CoachSteve 0]

Patscoach,

Yup, this is a great thread. JAG put a great write up of blocking in another thread too. Great stuff.

I am a huge fundamentals guy; I like to teach proper footwork. I do understand that in the heat of the game, they are not going to be perfect but we keep rep'ing it. I think this gives these kids a huge advantage when they get to HS because they have at least seen it before and have practiced it. This gives "my kids" a leg (foot?) up when they get there.

S

[Soonerhawk 0]

Agree, I bout Coaching Youth Football. I thought I would share it with the other coaches in youth football since I am also on the football board. Once I really read through the thing I came away with nothing, zero, nada. It gave no clear pointers, very few diagrams. I was just terribly disappointed with the book all the way around. It seemed as though they were working their way into techniques and then would just stop without finishing.

The book was kind of like our offensive line this year. Good job of firing out but never really sustained their blocks.......

[patscoach 0]

If you're looking for a decent resource, try the NFL/NFLPA/NFF Coaching Academy Play Book. I got mine from a coaching clinic put on by my league with Coaching Academy instructors as well as local college, HS and Youth coaches. Lots of the material in it is geared for the high school level, but then again, so much that is written is. They did a good job helping us weed through some of it and adapting the rest to the kids we have on our teams. There is a lot of info on general program stuff as well if you're looking.

I have "Coaching....." as well, and do agree that it lacks a complete and detailed approach. I do, however put what it does have to offer with the best info from other books I've read and things I see here to make my program. I never do depend on one book or one man's opinion when it comes to football, the most complex sport of all (or so my wife says).

[CoachSteve 0]

Pats,

Very true - there are lots of ways to skin the cat in this game - the options are seemingly endless. I also try to take the best of what I learn from others. I like to have my knowledge bank loaded up so if I run into situations that are not working the way I want, I have literally hundreds of years of other coach's experience to draw upon. I offer some of my opinions here but I realize that if I knew it all, I would be Head Coach of the 5 time SuperBowl Defending Pittsburgh Steelers!!! No replies on that from you Patsfan - ....too many painful memories served up!

S

[patscoach 0]

CoachSteve,

DOH! Oh well, we do have the "snow bowl" from that era, and much like Yankeefan telling me I now need to wait another 86 years I'll concede to the Steel Curtain until this coming January when we make our lasting mark.

[CoachSteve 0]

we will see, we will see.....Pats are still the team to beat until somebody does it....but sooner or later, all dyansties come to an end.....The Packers did, the Steelers did, the 49ers, the Cowboys......yup, Enjoy the Pats Reign while it lasts!

[coachjones49224 0]

yes Coach Steve all dynasties some to an end. But if no one else steps up I don't see it coming to an end any time soon. Indie, can't beat them, the Fins, will need a couple of more years, Redskins-Gibbs should,ve stayed stayed with NASCAR full time, and Philly if those two guys won't communicate well it aint gonna happen. Yes, I know preseason game no.2 they hook up for a touchdown but, that was against a db whose probably bagging groceries right now. just my 2 cents.