4-4? 5-3? Does It Really Matter?

What system do you run? Does it matter really? Honestly, it shouldn't matter which offense or defense you run because it's all about how you run it.

Many coaches are a single-system coach. They have and will only run one type of offense and one type of defense and won't change. Unless you are looking to try something new, or it's just not working for you, then stick with what works.

But what if you aren't sure what defense works, or you know that you will face a bevy of offenses on your schedule? Let's take a look at the standard youth defenses, the 4-4 and the 5-3.

The 5-3 is a perfect defense to face against a run-first, pound the box offense. As long as you have a tough nose guard, the 5-3 is the go-to shutdown run defense. You have the flexibility to shade your outside line backers outside of your ends for secondary run-support, or keep them inside the end to blitz the middle. A spread team that utilizes multiple receivers will often attempt to spread the defense out, then attack the middle where the single backer lies.

With four down linemen, the 4-4 gives you an opportunity to get another skill player on the field, compared to a fifth lineman. The 4-4 can be used to cover any offense, but allows better coverage against balanced pass/run, and spread teams, which grow more and more every day.

Both defenses require good pass coverage by your corners since you only have a single high safety. However, the 4-4 allows for flexing a linebacker into halves coverage, while you are more limited (based on on-the-field personnel) when running the 5-3.

The advantage has to go to the 4-4, simply because you can create more movement with it. Ultimately, you need to have a base defense that you can create different looks out of. That's why I like the 4-4. It allows you to drop a linebacker as a deep defender, and the ability to walk a backer up to the line to form your 5-3.

It all comes down to knowing your kids. If you only have 5-6 lineman or linemen who can't contain an edge, then the 5-3 isn't for you. On the flip-side, the 4-4 requires some additional athletes who can move in space.

I love the 4-4 because I can be multiple and give the offense fits. Think about your o-line having to figure out who they are blocking on a play when the defense keeps changing. If you have a banger at one of the inside backers, you can blitz him to give that 5-3 edge up from, while not sacrificing anything on the back end. Give different looks, but coach your kids up to keep the same assignments. Make it simple to make it multiple. Only change gap assignments with your inside defenders, and counter any gap-attacks by the offense with blitzes.

Whichever D you go with, make sure you rep it out, and that kids know their responsibilities. Create a defensive identity, stem from it to keep the offense guessing, and then go hard.

Essential "P"hilosphy

If you don't have one, then you need one. If you haven't thought it out, then it's something that you need to. Your coaching philosophy - it's what should guide you along your coaching career.

Whether you have one written out and saved away deep in a computer folder, or you have never given your personal philosophy a thought, let me help you shape it.

Coaching is a balancing act. Sometime we have to play the good guy and the bad guy. Both are necessary. Ultimately, however, you have to decide if you are the good guy or the bad guy in your coaching identity. A good guy can't be negative with his guys all of the time, while a bad guy can't be positive all of the time. You are what you are, and will you will be what you decide to be. The choice you make will determine your coaching course. 

I am a good guy. I don't try to hide that. I am a players first, hyper-positive coach, who will rarely yell, yet have found success. I pride myself in having great relationships with former players years after they leave my practice field. To me, this game is more than just a game. It's a life-lesson, and when I have kids who tell me they loved playing the game with me as their coach it makes every why-in-the-world-do-I-coach-football kind of day worth it. If a coach tells you they haven't had those days, they either are lying or have just started.

From that experience, I believe that there are three essentials that need to be added; three things that you need to be.

Be Positive. Be Proactive. Be Proud.

Be Positive.

Simple. Say positive things. Do positive things.

When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you take the stance that everything is wrong in the world except you, then, yeah, everything looks that way. We can't perpetually see things this way. It's bad for football. It's bad for your health. If all you do is tell a player what they are doing wrong, that's a self-esteem killer. While it may build you up, it breaks them down.

To be positive, you have to work to find good things sometimes. And that's great because it means you are looking, that you are analyzing. Football can be messy and ugly. It's easy to jump a kid because he missed a block. It's easy to make him feel like the worst football player ever. But can you make him feel like the best player ever. Can you take a negative, and build it into a positive. He may have missed the block, but he fires off the line. Then coach him up. Don't just jump bad habits or plays. See the positives, pull them out, and then correct the negatives. That's why we are in this, right? It's called coaching, not showing kids up.

Let kids know when they are doing well. It will save everyone grief down the road because they will be more receptive to what you are saying to them, and they won't develop some complex, constantly worrying if they are good enough. They are.

Be Proactive.

When calling a good football game, you have to be one play (if not more) ahead of the guy on the other sideline. Try taking this approach with your players like you do your practices. 

To prevent fumbles, you work on exchanges and ball-carrying drills. To prevent false starts, you rep plays out and constantly remind your guys. To prevent fatigue in the fourth quarter, you do wind sprints and run hills and do grass drills and run laps and more wind sprints and on and on and on. If you do it in practice, try it with your players.

This will be harder to do with players, but can be done. Do you love wasting practice time running the whole team because the locker room is a mess? No one does. This is an example of where we can be proactive. Make yourself present in the locker room. Let the kids see you in there. Other than covering your tail if something like a hazing incident occurs (which they do), you can get to know your kids - their personalities, sense of humor, even what they look like without a helmet on. By being proactive and settling clear guidelines which you and your staff oversee, you can keep small problems from becoming big distractions.

Be Proud.

Here is a redundant, philosophical phrase: I take pride in being proud.

I am proud of my kids. We put them through things physically that would take us days to recover from. We demand the best from them every time they are on the field. We expect them to sit through a film and grease-board session for 45 minutes when we know they can't sit through 20 minutes of geometry. Football players, and other athletes, have higher expectations than students who don't participate in sports. We monitor their grades more closely, keep tabs on their in-school behavior, keep them out late on school nights and expect them to do all we ask with marginal error and ultimate success.

So when a kid hangs in there and doesn't walk away from the game, I am proud of him. Uber proud.

Too many times I have seen kids endure all of the blood, sweat, and tears and excel on the gridiron to look up and see that their parents aren't there to see them. How many of us can identify with having to take our best players home after practice because no one bothered to pick them up. I have been there and walked that. It's disappointing as a coach. It must be crushing as a player.

That's why I am proud of my kids. If they mess up, they're still trying, still fighting. I will be there for them during the wins. I will be there for them during the losses. We preach team; sometimes we preach that football is family. Family doesn't quit, doesn't abandon. Family doesn't feel ashamed; neither do I. I am proud of all of my boys. I am their number one fan. Sometimes, we are their only fan.

So while I can't make do things like creating a new offense that would spread like wildfire in the prep ranks, I can pass on some advice and some things that have helped me grow as a coach. 

If this helps, which I hope it does, let me know. 

Young coaches just starting out, write out a philosophy regarding the way you coach/want to coach. It will open your eyes to what you want to be. Even if you are the most seasoned of coaches, take a moment and evaluate your philosophy. After all, every good coach steals a play from another coach along the way.

Second Chances

There is one thing for certain in football – someone is going to make a mistake.

Fumbles. Picks. Holding calls. Missed tackles. Dropped passes. They are all part of the game. Ultimately, though you can make all the calls, signals and shifts you want, the kids are the ones executing and mistakes are going to happen.

As a coach, one thing that you need to be prepared for is how you are going to handle that mistake. Are you going to lose your cool? Fly off the handle? Berate a 12-to-15-year-old for throwing the ball inside, when he knows to throw it deep outside?

Keeping an even composure on the football field is a fine art. Especially when your defense gives up a first down with an offsides call. But how can we teach this game if we are blowing a gasket? The answer? Practice.

Yes, coaches need practice, too. Alongside all of the calls, signals, and shifts you are making, coaches need to be practicing down and distance situations, substitutions and injuries. But coaches must practice even more on talking and relating to players.

Players are going to mess up. If you don’t think so, then get ready because it’s inevitable. How we handle those flips and flops are going to determine our success, or failure, as a coach.

To gain some perspective, let’s rewind the tape to when we are living out our glory days on the field. How did we feel when we made a mistake and coach tears into us? I don’t recall thanking a coach for using choice expletives to describe and chide my fault.

Players know when they have made costly mistakes. You can read it in their body language. The head goes down, they slump and you can see it in their eyes.

It is in this moment of disappointment that we can help build young men or break them.

Don’t get me wrong, I have yelled at my share of players. I have also learned from doing that. Sometimes it was warranted. Sometimes, though, it was extreme. Results, however, are often unimproved by beating my man-chest toward a teenager.

Use this moment to teach a young man that although it may have hurt the team, that redemption is one play away.

My first year as a head coach running the spread offense, my quarterback threw five interceptions in a game. I wasn’t upset. I couldn’t be. We were outmanned in a game, no question. But I wanted my young quarterback to learn. I could have put in a backup, or changed our game plan, but I didn’t. I wanted him to get better for the next game, the next year. Five picks later he was a better player for it. Ask him, and he will tell you the same.

You see, I wasn’t throwing in the towel; I was giving him a chance to learn and an opportunity to understand that I believed in him, that I thought he could do it.

So many times, we are quick to toss players to the sideline. Yes, do this, so you can coach them. But don’t quarantine a kid to the sideline thinking it’s going to make him better. Coach him for a few plays. Let him see things from your perspective, literally, as you walk him through plays as you watch. Then, give the kid a green light to make a play. That’s why he was out there in the first place, wasn’t it?

Obviously, there is a fine line you must walk between coaching a kid up, and giving away a game. It’s give and take we must learn. No one wants to lose, but I never want a boy to walk away from the game because his coach forgot he was coaching and teaching kids.

Give them a second chance – a chance to make up for a mistake. No one wants to make up for it more than them. Let them know that you believe in them. If every player who made a mistake wasn’t given a second chance, this world would be without football, Peyton included.

Give them a second chance.

After all, someone gave you one.

The Screen-Option Pass

The spread offense, especially the no huddle, has taken the football world captive. A football enthusiast is less likely to find power running offenses than the pass-happy spread.

However, the spread attack does have it's place in a power-based offense, especially the screen-option pass.

In calling it the screen-option pass, I am combining the bubble screen, with the option for the QB to give it to the RB or pass based on the number of defenders in the box.

In a typical power running offense, such as the double wing, defenses can and will load up the box to stuff the power run game. By adding the screen-option from a spread look, the offense forces the defense to adjust, while still enabling the same style of run game. It's a simple adjustment splitting tight ends and wings out. The QB can remain under center, while the fullback would need to be adjusted deeper, or run counter action, which I prefer, to allow for power/pulling guards taking on the middle backer.

If six defenders are in the box, run it. More than that, pass it. That's the option aspect. It's a pre-snap read by QB giving him the choice.

When throwing the pass, the action for the QB is to reverse out, fake handoff and throw the ball to the wing. The pass is made to the same side as the fullback is running to, putting pressure on outside backers. Backside split outs block, as well as back-side tackle. Play-side tight end cracks to outside backer, springing the wing for one on one.

This simple play doesn't alienate run-first offenses, it just creates an easy wrinkle for the defense to account for. In youth and junior football, a quick, play-action pass can be a quick-hit touchdown.