r/footballstrategy

I coach highschool, but my son starts Pop Warner this year and he’s 7, and he’s a small 7. I want to protect him the best I can, but also don’t want him weighed down. Don’t have any experience with kids this small playing. For you youth coaches what do you prefer? We almost exclusively use Riddell on the HS team I coach.

*FOR CONTEXT* I am currently positioned at D end & Offensive guard. Im am relatively short to be a D end to be fair but im Jv so what dose it matter, I was literally unaware of what guard and D end did until today, That is how new I am. I am really enjoying End right now and I want to take the spot of kid who is just as bad at me but taller. I am a good sized guard and im relatively fast for my size and im also competing to start at guard.

1. As a guard as far as im aware I will be pulling for most plays or double teaming nose guard/ D tackles, My question is what is the overall goal of my position? Like When im going through the line should I be rushing the Mike? And what should I do when I pull?

2. For D end Im aware your just supposed to mess up the offensive play as much as possible and try to get the person with the ball. But, I literally don’t know how to get through the O line ( I know there are techniques but I don’t know what they’re called.

*NOTE*

It is early in the spring-ball season and I need to show my coaches i’m willing but spring-ball is essentially a refresher for the freshman that played last year so I HAVE to keep up and get my knowledge up and we are moving way to fast for me to ask some dumbass question like how do I hit or how do I get past O line.

What techniques, coaching points and drills do you use with your high schoolers to beat submarining/crabbing/cutting defensive line?

Son recently discouraged by lack of playing time from new position coach. He has played football for 3 years in same program. 8th graders practice with the high school. He is heading to the 11th grade now.

He is a second string linebacker. Got playing time last season because starter got hurt. Was excited last season to finally play.

From my perspective, you shouldn’t quit because of lack of results. Since he wants to keep playing lacrosse and rugby. I encouraged him to keep playing football to stay in year round shape.

He has decent physicals. 6 feet 200 pounds. Bench 250 and squat near 400. He goes to a large public school with a deep talent pool though.

I am in high school and have always been watching football, especially UGA. I have watched film studies and listened to podcasts but I want to learn the tendencies coaches usually have in most situations, but a lot of times I don’t understand what they’re talking about. I know a lot more about strategy than other kids my age, so I want deeper knowledge. Any tips?

I am 18 years old and I play in the lowest tier of senior football in Sweden. I played the group stage in our district tournament which takes place before the season starts. During that time my team was still recruiting players to the team and now we have better players in my position and I have not played any games this season so far (although I missed 3 games due to injury). My coach told me that it is going to be hard for me to get any game time and that he would go to a u19 team or another senior team if he were in my position. My team will most likely reach the promotion playoffs.

I don't know if I should leave the team and go to a u19 team where I would get more game time, or if I should stay and adapt to the senior intensity, but only through our training sessions. I am currently overweight but I have lost a couple of KGs and I am planning on losing more. My biggest problem right now is that I dont have the endurance to play for a long time and my quality drops off quite quickly. Losing weight would allow me to output my quality for a longer time. I have been going to the gym for a couple years so I habe muscle to keep up, it is just that I am not lean and I can't run long.

So what should I do?

Quick teaching post for parents and youth coaches. The single most common pre-snap miss I see at the youth level isn't C2 vs. C3 — it's C3 vs. trips, where the rotation tell only shows up against a 3x1 set.

Hierarchy I drill:

  ▎ 1. Safety depth (primary). One high safety → C1 or C3. Two high at 12+ → C2 or C4. This is the first read; nothing else matters until you've stacked it.

  ▎ 2. CB leverage (confirming). Soft outside leverage on the #1 receiver → zone behind it. Press with no help over the top → man or C3 sky.

  ▎ 3. Rotation strength (confirming, trips-only). In a 3x1 set, watch the single-high safety's pre-snap alignment. Cheating to the trips side = C3 sky/cloud rotation. Aligned to the middle of the field = the kid is about to get beat on a vertical from the #3 receiver, because nobody's accounting for him.

Reason 2x2-only drilling fails: tell #3 never appears. The kid lines up against trips for the first time in a real game and folds.

Happy to dig into any specific look in the comments — alignment, depth, leverage. If folks want, I can pull diagrams.

i know your supposed to keep your eyes on the recievers hips, but how do you do that the right way like on double moves, when do you look up?

Facing a team that does a lot of bunch and diamond formations and basic crossers at LOS. whats best defense to stop this? 4-1 and just take away the cross about 2-3 yds off of line? 1 safety? team exclusively just does crossers and speed outs and hits in stride near the LOS

any advice would be appreciated

RPOs are the bane of me. I mean all you can teach is assignment football and even then, offenses are finding ways to at least get 3-4 yard on you. Do yall have any tips on stopping them?

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I’m just wondering is it common for all dlinemen to let the olinemen know when the ball is gone, I used to tell them when the ball was gone when I played but is it normal?

I'm curious how you coaches teach quarters run fits, especially vs 12/21 personnel. It seems to me that if you follow the montage, "your coverage takes you to your fit", and your coverage is a TE that attaches to the core of the formation and creates an additional gap, you have to enter the primary run fit. That means if the defense is in quarters and the offense comes out in a 2 TE formation, both safeties have will enter the fit if their key tells them to react to run action / play action, effectively creating a cover 0 situation. Am I missing something?

Hello, I am a student coach at my high school (junior) and would like to continue to coach at the next level. I have contacted a lot of college coaches (DI-DIII) and have gotten emails back from certain coaches with information about student coaching at their schools. The 2 biggest unanswered questions that I have are the following:

How do I actually apply to be a student assistant

I have been told that coaches are always looking for help, does that mean that I’ll be on the staff no matter where I go? If not what’re the chances of me getting on a staff (yes, I understand likelihoods would vary based on level and so would my responsibilities)

https://www.youtube.com/live/QNQtcqGYgtk?si=ez6_z5jx8ITpePVQ&t=794

In this video one of the speakers said essentially "we were able to get to so much weakside zone and power because of their two high safeties." "In the nfl you see weak-side zone and power cropping back up because of two high"

I understand the concept of the numbers advantage you get with two high safeties. However, I don't understand why he specifically said weak-side zone and power. My initial thought was they were going against an over front defense which those are concepts that attack the natural gaps in that front, but I don't understand why 2 high makes those plays (specifically power) more advantageous to run.

For instance if they were more of a single high team would you change run concepts against and over front? Or is he just saying because they were in two high they could run more (and those just so happen to be natural concepts vs their front).