lew7hokiefan

Hey MVP,

I coach 10-12 yr olds, and we use a 1-3-1 Defense. The "1" is in the front about 3-4 yrds back, "3" are along the rush line 7yrds deep, and the other "1" is 4-5yrds behind them. The front 1 is really aggressive stopping the run or covering the center. The 3 shade over a little (if in trips) and cover accordingly. With the deep guy either rushing in or watching the deep ball.

I am a big fan of rushing and do most of the time. But we played the #1 team twice this past season, 1st time we lost by 14 and the 2nd time we lost buy 3 pts. We rushed a lot the first time and hardly any the 2nd. They were a pass heavy team who had a really good QB and could evade the rush really well buying himself some time. Just something to think about. Good Luck!

I would definitely have my best player at QB.  I like the shotgun formation with the RB beside him for the quick handoff-RB-QB option run or pass.  Do you only have 5 players on the team, if so that sucks!  Far as Defense, since you don't have a lot of athletes your probably will have to run a zone.  With the slow ones up front, maybe a 2-3. Or maybe a 1-3-1, that I just wrote about on the defense message board. Good Luck!!

We play in the 7-8 5-man league. QB can't run. We play a base 2-3 defense with the middle guy in the back rushing every time. So far this has not been a problem as we have not faced any really good teams this season and have won handily. But in the future I can see there being a problem. The better teams have their fastest guy play running back so the qb pitches the ball immediately to him every play, and he will have the option to run or throw which he will be able to do easily. So the 2 guys up front have to stay home and can't drop back into coverage too much. If in that scenario a wideout does a post pattern across the middle and deep, how do we cover that? Should we switch up the defense? Right now I have the cb's watching th qb's eyes making sure they follow the receiver he's looking at.

I like the 2-3 because I feel you get really good coverage but since we send a rusher ever time, it's more like a 2-1-2.

Any suggestions?

I used that D couple of years back in the same age group. What I would do is find there fastest man or 2 and put my fastest 2 guys on them. man on man and let everyone else play zone. If you don't think their best person is getting the ball next put 1 of your guys that were covering him and have him rush.
It worked really well and shut their best guy down.

I Coach 9-12 year olds I liked the Zone Because we are able to see the play develope in front of us we had our second game this season my Defense ran 4 diffrent Zones and it worked because and they didnt get a first down. It's alot easier to stay in a area then with a man we played a team today that played man because we ran reverses double passes and Ran Rob's QB Switch play like 3 times and it scored everytime because no one is on the QB. That's the Trouble with man but with Zone my kids can Watch the QB and Break on the ball and also watch the play develope in front of them

Thanks,
My DC likes the man on man, but I would prefer Zone. We lost pretty bad today.  I would even prefer a half zone half man D.  We'll see what happens.

Thanks everyone.