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lots of useful information, sorry for posting to an old thread but been searching for info about defense and i found a lot here. i was wondering if someone's still here (the reason i wrote specifically here) with whom i could talk about? thanks!

I'm in the same boat. Spread out offense. Quick slants, ins and outs. Gap killers. It's all in execution of plays. Timing and repetition. It's funny I can preach it but much harder to make reality. It's something I think I will improve when I can keep these kids together for some length of time.   

New to conversation/ coaching. When you ask them to sit in the holes in the zone, are they running a route and are you giving them that play? I got a qb who should be my wr or rb for his speed. Good qb, always on the move. Need to settle him down and throw without scrambling as much. Quicker routes and simpler reads I think.  Great topic. Please reply. 

Hi, all Coaching a team in the 6-7 age group, and we're about to face a team we scrimmaged with before the season started. They run a 4-1 defense exclusively, with 4 defenders right at the line spread out and one safety deep. I remember when we scrimmaged them, they stuffed our runs very effectively, and it was difficult to score on them without a little luck.  Looking for some advice on plays that might work well against this defense at this age level. Obviously the strategic approach would be to throw some deeper passes with multiple receivers and exploit the fact that they only have one safety. My problem there is, I have a QB with a good arm, but only one kid who's capable of catching long passes with any consistency. I'm going to try to work out some longer plays with those two, but wondering if there are any other approaches I can take to try to exploit this defense with my running game.  I'm actually thinking of some sort of read/option play, where my QB will roll to the right until he's beside a player he can potentially hand the ball to. In the meantime, he'll be scanning the field to see if a receiver breaks open. At my signal, he'll either throw it or then make the hand off. My hope here is that the defenders (this team doesn't seem to blitz) will be confused and some will drop back to cover, opening up more running lanes than would be available if we just took the snap and handed off immediately.  Anyway, that's one thought. Curious of any other ideas.  Thanks!

Thanks, great advice. Since my original post, we've gotten toward the end of the season and are doing well. Currently 4-1-1 with one game left before our playoffs. It's definitely more run-oriented, but we have been abusing teams with that center drag play all year. It works almost every time. Last week, we won by a point, and we must've run that play every time we needed something big.    Flag pulling is definitely a constant work in progress. Seems like almost all the TDs are just kids getting to the sidelines and sprinting downfield. We work on flag pulling in practice for about 70-80 percent of the practice time, but it still requires coaching patience at this age, lol.    Anyway, been a fun season, and my best reward is when I can see the kids really enjoying themselves and feeling good about themselves after they've learned something and improved their skills.