Best Defensive Formation

[gator13 0]

What would you all suggest is the best defense to run in Youth football, 8-10 yr olds. 4-4, 5-3,

[coachjay 0]

What would you all suggest is the best defense to run in Youth football, 8-10 yr olds. 4-4, 5-3,

everyone is going to have an opinion on what defense to run and all can be sucessfull my personal preference is the 4-4 having the 2 tackles lined in the 1 gap between the gaurd and center and the 2 ends playng the 5 between the tackle and end but the line can always be adjusted to shift and even line up head up playing two gap and eventually stunting but at this age i would give them a gap and have them stick to it nice and simple then i have the 2 middlebackers shade the outside shoulder of the tackles covering the 3 gap and have the 2 outside backers tight to the line in almost a 7 technique but having them shade a little off the widest wing or lineman not having them rush but more a read and react covering the outside as most teams at this level like to try to get to the outside with a sweep or reverse i line the corners tight if not covered with a wr and if they have a wr i play them off as at this level most the time the wr is a blocker but you must always tell your corner to respect the pass with keeping an eye in the backfield for the sweep or bootleg the safety is deep shading a little to the strong side this defense is very strong against the run but is suceptible to the pass but as the kids get older and you can teach the lineman more stunts and the backers more blitz combinations this defense is set up well to run many zone coverages and zone blitzes and is ideal for a cover 3 which is very popular at the youth and high school level like i said all good defenses work as long as there taught sound principals i just prefer the 4-4 at this level giving every player a gap and as the kids grow has many areas to expand in it's schemes to combat the different offenses you see just make sure whatever defense you use stick to it and be commited to it because when you start changing things ever other week you'll never get the kids fundamentally sound to run any defense good luck with whatever choice you make and have a good season coach

[ltlacy 0]

I agree with the other coach. I like to run a 6-2 gap defense. I have four down linemen in the a and b gaps. 2 DE's boxing to QB then ball. Mlb who plays like a safety or roverback. 2 OLB's covering TE's and c gap's. 2 CR's covering first back to their side and boxing to back, if back comes toward them hit them. Like the other coach said keep everything very simple. I believe in repeating over and over and over.

What would you all suggest is the best defense to run in Youth football, 8-10 yr olds. 4-4, 5-3,

[gator13 0]

Thanks for the input guys, my intention is to keep it simple and not confuse the kids especially this young. I am an old 4-4 guy myself, ran it in HS and College.

I apreciate your input! Thanks again!

[Coach Calande 0]

What would you all suggest is the best defense to run in Youth football, 8-10 yr olds. 4-4, 5-3,

Without a doubt you need to avoid MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL SYNDROME thinking that you need multiple zone coverages and multiple fronts. You arent playing against lil Joe Montana and Lil Jerry Rice. My suggestion based on helping thousands of coaches with attacking man to man defense is to begin research on the 46 Gambler defense (46 is not a 4-6, its got 5 men in rush and 5 in coverage with a "free backer" used to creat stunts and unblocked "hit squad" players at the point of attack). Another great choice is the "GAM" or gap/air/mirror which our 46 Gambler borrows from at times.

Go for the throat, teach man to man press coverage with 1 or 0 free safties and come after the offense, break up the run game completely and destroy the qbs confidence with a rabid dog approach to defense. I have dvds, manual and clinic footage available should you decide you are intrigued. if you just want a free power point to explore teh defense some email me and ill send it to you. im a big believer in the 46 Gambler (as are the many guys that come to the WAR ROOM to discuss it every day)...

www.coachcalande.com will take you to the war room

coachcalande@comcast.net is my email and ill send you the free power point of the Gambler. You will love it, but i warn you, its a coaching defense...you must commit and coach it as i instruct. -Steve

[Titanscoach 0]

What would you all suggest is the best defense to run in Youth football, 8-10 yr olds. 4-4, 5-3,

Without a doubt you need to avoid MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL SYNDROME thinking that you need multiple zone coverages and multiple fronts. You arent playing against lil Joe Montana and Lil Jerry Rice. My suggestion based on helping thousands of coaches with attacking man to man defense is to begin research on the 46 Gambler defense (46 is not a 4-6, its got 5 men in rush and 5 in coverage with a "free backer" used to creat stunts and unblocked "hit squad" players at the point of attack). Another great choice is the "GAM" or gap/air/mirror which our 46 Gambler borrows from at times.

Go for the throat, teach man to man press coverage with 1 or 0 free safties and come after the offense, break up the run game completely and destroy the qbs confidence with a rabid dog approach to defense. I have dvds, manual and clinic footage available should you decide you are intrigued. if you just want a free power point to explore teh defense some email me and ill send it to you. im a big believer in the 46 Gambler (as are the many guys that come to the WAR ROOM to discuss it every day)...

www.coachcalande.com will take you to the war room

coachcalande@comcast.net is my email and ill send you the free power point of the Gambler. You will love it, but i warn you, its a coaching defense...you must commit and coach it as i instruct. -Steve

Coach Calande,

I agree with your "aggressive" defense. I'm a 2nd year defensive coach for 8 and 9 year olds and we started installing the 4-4 defense towards the end of the year last year not necessarrily out of desire but simply because we didn't have the "meat" to run a 5-3 type defense. We had a bunch of mid-sized kids that were quick and not very aggressive. The 4-4 is basically a 6-2 type defense but I like having those OLB's just shade the outside of the man on the end of the O-line. To keep things easier for the kids (when I started talking about gap responsibilities and stunts I always got the deer in the headlights look), I would have my 4 down linemen line up in the gaps (a and b gaps). From watching this, the olinemen would be confused if he had a defender over each of his shoulders. And we all know that confusion on the offense leads to big plays by the defense. Then, I would have all 4 of my LB's pick a side that they wanted to shoot and tap the downlinemen's hip to whichever side they were gonna shoot (so the d-lineman would know which way to go). This kinda gave my kids some responsibility and accountability to make their own plays. So we would basically blitz up the middle every play and the only way the offense would make a play is if there was a breakdown in coverage. But that's gonna happen with an aggressive defense and we made more plays for negative yardage then they had positive. My CB's have alot of responsibility in not letting anything get outside of them. My CB's are normally my best open field tacklers and have to stay honest to their side of the field. I've thought about maybe teaching some stunts and various alignments from the 4-4 but I don't want the kids thinking too much when they need to concentrate on attacking the ball. Should I just keep things as elementary as possible or should I start trying to implement various stunts and blitz packages? Most of the offenses we see run the Wing-T or the veer. What do you suggest is the best way to go about stopping those offenses and keeping them on their toes?

[Coach Calande 0]

What would you all suggest is the best defense to run in Youth football, 8-10 yr olds. 4-4, 5-3,

Without a doubt you need to avoid MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL SYNDROME thinking that you need multiple zone coverages and multiple fronts. You arent playing against lil Joe Montana and Lil Jerry Rice. My suggestion based on helping thousands of coaches with attacking man to man defense is to begin research on the 46 Gambler defense (46 is not a 4-6, its got 5 men in rush and 5 in coverage with a "free backer" used to creat stunts and unblocked "hit squad" players at the point of attack). Another great choice is the "GAM" or gap/air/mirror which our 46 Gambler borrows from at times.

Go for the throat, teach man to man press coverage with 1 or 0 free safties and come after the offense, break up the run game completely and destroy the qbs confidence with a rabid dog approach to defense. I have dvds, manual and clinic footage available should you decide you are intrigued. if you just want a free power point to explore teh defense some email me and ill send it to you. im a big believer in the 46 Gambler (as are the many guys that come to the WAR ROOM to discuss it every day)...

www.coachcalande.com will take you to the war room

coachcalande@comcast.net is my email and ill send you the free power point of the Gambler. You will love it, but i warn you, its a coaching defense...you must commit and coach it as i instruct. -Steve

Coach Calande,

I agree with your "aggressive" defense. I'm a 2nd year defensive coach for 8 and 9 year olds and we started installing the 4-4 defense towards the end of the year last year not necessarrily out of desire but simply because we didn't have the "meat" to run a 5-3 type defense. We had a bunch of mid-sized kids that were quick and not very aggressive. The 4-4 is basically a 6-2 type defense but I like having those OLB's just shade the outside of the man on the end of the O-line. To keep things easier for the kids (when I started talking about gap responsibilities and stunts I always got the deer in the headlights look), I would have my 4 down linemen line up in the gaps (a and b gaps). From watching this, the olinemen would be confused if he had a defender over each of his shoulders. And we all know that confusion on the offense leads to big plays by the defense. Then, I would have all 4 of my LB's pick a side that they wanted to shoot and tap the downlinemen's hip to whichever side they were gonna shoot (so the d-lineman would know which way to go). This kinda gave my kids some responsibility and accountability to make their own plays. So we would basically blitz up the middle every play and the only way the offense would make a play is if there was a breakdown in coverage. But that's gonna happen with an aggressive defense and we made more plays for negative yardage then they had positive. My CB's have alot of responsibility in not letting anything get outside of them. My CB's are normally my best open field tacklers and have to stay honest to their side of the field. I've thought about maybe teaching some stunts and various alignments from the 4-4 but I don't want the kids thinking too much when they need to concentrate on attacking the ball. Should I just keep things as elementary as possible or should I start trying to implement various stunts and blitz packages? Most of the offenses we see run the Wing-T or the veer. What do you suggest is the best way to go about stopping those offenses and keeping them on their toes?

I am fortunate to have done very well against the wing-t by making them throw. our Gambler is 13-1 in our county against the wing-t...and its probably because i respect it so much. when i teach defense to my boys we always walk thru against wing-t plays. my feeling is that if we can defend the wing-t belly, buck and power series we can stop any other I formation or T formation or wishbone. we work on option and spread attacks later when my kids are sound against most teams bread and butter. Anyhow, if you are playing a 44 as you called it with men in the a and b gaps that means the c gaps are largely undefended? when we coached the 44 we ran it as a stack defense stacking our mlbers behind the dts who lined up head up on the guards, our des lined up head up on the te or in a shade on the tackle. the olbers would line up head up on a wing or split the difference if there was a split end (so they could defend the flat/slant) or they would stack behind the de if there was no flank threat. we gave each "unit" (dlineman and his stacked backer) a number and simply called out the number of the unit we wanted to stunt...super simple...ie "13" would mean units one and three would perform x stunts...the dline would slant to the gap opposite the direction the lber chose to blitz (same thing, just tap the hip)...the lbers tapped hip even when the unit stunt was off so the offense had not a clue. we played one coverage all year ...3 deep, 4 under zone. only later did we switch to the 46 Gambler defense and a pure man attack. why? the wing-t teams would run unbalanced sets on us and give our balanced defense fits.

www.coachcalande.com

[mlbryant 0]

With 8-10 year olds, what is the most dangerous play you may face? I believe it is the sweep. The 4-4's has good pass protection, but I don't feel as confident with it against the sweep. I face a couple of teams that ran the 4-4 and I lit them up with the sweep. Do you anticipate a lot of passing?

As for the 5-3, I don't like odd man fronts on defense. I like to try and neutralize the line of scrimmage with as few men as I can spare. I hate going up against teams that ran a 6-2. With an even man front, the down linemen are playing the gaps on the offensive line. The two interior linemen have "A" gap responsibilities, the twon tackles have "B" or "C" gap responsibilities. The defensive ends have containment. I strengthen my outside (sweep) support with the 6 by running what I cal a 6-1, but is really close to a 6-3.

In my 6, the 4 down linemen and 2 defensive ends play typical 6, though we often will stunt the four down linemen left, right, gap, or to the center, (e.g. Left //// -- Right \\\\ -- Gap |||| -- Center \\//). The corners play out side the ends (3-5 yards and 3-5 yards deep). The Mike linebacker, if the downlinemen do their job, really isn't blocked or at the least by a back out of the back field. That leaves my two safeties who play 1-2 yards deeper than Mike, and a shade outside of the defensive tackles.

Teams can't run inside tackles, there are too many bodies. Outside, I have a DE, CB, a Saftey, and my Mike ( he is a very fast and sound tackler.

The real key players are the CB (they must turn the play in if it gets outside the DE, the DE must turn the play in, and the safeties. Mike, CBs, and Safeties are my best tacklers.

We, IMHO, had the best defense in our league (6-7 year olds) going 354 points for and only 84 against in a 10-0 season. I am coaching the 7-8 year olds and this will be our primary D, though our safeties and CBs will have to learn a bit about coverage.

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