The modern, flexible version of

the Gap-8 and 10-1 defenses

Gap-Air-Mirror
Defense for .
Youth Football
John T. Reed

www.johntreed.com
ii

Copyright 2000, 2009 John T. Reed

All rights reserved.
Published by John T. Reed
342 Bryan Drive
Alamo, CA 94507
925-820-7262
Manufactured in the United States of America

Other material by John T. Reed

Visit www.johntreed.com

About the author

John T. Reed has coached six high school football teams: four freshman, one junior varsity, and one varsity.
He also coached nine youth football teams. He coached at three different high schools. One had 1,000
students; one 1,500, and the other 2,500. All were in California and the divisions were 2A for two schools
and 4A, the largest, for the other.
Two of the teams on which Reed was a coach won their league championship-a result for which Reed
claims little or no credit. He notes their success here only as evidence that he has observed successful coaches
and teams up close. Reed is also a father of three sons, all of whom played football.
Reed is the author of seven other books on football coaching. He is a West Point graduate and a Harvard
MBA.

Thanks to ...
My sons, Daniel, Steven, and Mike for agreeing to my recommendation that they try football for a year
before deciding whether they wanted to play soccer or football. .. my wife for being a football widow to an
extent during coaches meetings, scouting trips, practice, and games... the San Ramon Bears for taking my
oldest son in after he was cut by another team and for giving me the opportunity to coach ... Pat Elliott ...
Steve Noon ... Jim Monroe for his expert advice... Kathryn Steele, Bears trainer, and Shannon Pablo, Mira-
monte trainer, for their counsel on injury prevention and treatment ... my fellow coaches for putting up
with my faults ... our cameramen without whose videotaping of games we coaches wouldn't know what the
heck happened out there ... my players, who also put up with my faults and foibles as we struggled together
through their early years as players and my early years as coach ... Miramonte High School coaches Richard
Blaisdell, Floyd Burnsed, Paul Yriberri, Vince Dell'Aquilla and Granada High School coaches Aaron Gin-
gery, Bob Turnbeaugh, Ken Nelson, Brad Morosoli, Hank Stephens, T.J. Thomas, John Glover, and Doug
Pederson for their instruction and encouragement ... Roger Theder, NFL and college coach, for his advice
and encouragement ... Dana Bible, Stanford offensive coordinator for sharing his thoughts and experiences
with me ... Holly Newman, referee for reading the book and straightening me out on high school rules ... Ace
Cacchiotti of NFL Films for his generous assistance... NFL team public relations men: Bob Moore of the
Chiefs, Harvey Greene and Neal Gulkis of the Dolphins, Frank Ramos of the Jets, Greg Gladysiewski of the
Cardinals, Rich Dalrymple of the Cowboys, Lee Remmel of the Packers, Pat Hanlon of the Giants, Todd
Starowitz of the Eagles... John Aldrich, Erv Hatzenbuhler, Ken Keuffel, and Ed Racely for consulting with
me and helping me design my single-wing offense... Hugh Wyatt for helping me design my double-wing
offense... Bruce Burroughs for helping me become a flag coach ... Barry Terranova for hiring me as clock-
management columnist for American Football Coach magazine and a member of the American Football
Quarterly University "faculty" ... Dan Johnson, Jim Ahern, Dr. John Ward, Casey Lewis, Stephen Ragsdale
for their help on the single wing
 Contents

1 Overview 1
2 Positions 5
3 Alignment 9
4 Responsibilities 21
5 Practice schedule 45
6 Preseason scrimmage 59
7 Pregame 61
8 During game 65
9 Troubleshooting 69
10 Grading video 73
Index 75

iii
 1 Overview
This book tells
gap-air-mirror how to install
(GAM) defense and
for operate the
youth foot-
ball. It does not tell why the GAM is the best youth
defense. I explained that at my Web site and in my
other books. Here are a few testimonials:
[In 2008], our peewee team won the
national championship 15-12. I wanted
to thank you on behalf of the Raritan Bay
Cougars, my son, and more importantly me
for all the help and guidance you provided us.
Without this defense and all the help you pro-
vided [by emails during the season] we would
have never gotten this far and definitely not
beaten the last team we played.
- Erik Fetterman
TOdate we are 19-0 and we take nothing
for granted. I have studied and read Gap-
Air-Mirror Defense at least 100 times.
- Charles Zimmerman
Thisyear I put in the singlewing and the
GAM defense... We scored 283 points in 10
games, the defense only allowed 25 points
in those games.
- Jeff Bateman
The name gap-air-mirror is my own invention. The
defense is not. Roughly speaking, the gap-air-mirror
is the venerable gap-8 defense or a form of the 10-1
defense made famous by Kent State in the '70s and
by the winningest coach in Texas: G. Moore of Celina
High School.
I stopped using the gap-8 and 10-1 terminology
because I saw it was confusing youth coaches. They
would adopt one or the other of the two defenses,
then always line up with either eight or ten men on
the line of scrimmage. That's incorrect against many
offensive formations.
The terminology "gap-8" arose in olden days when
offenses were almost always in a double-tight-end
formation with a full-house (four backs) backfield.
Nowadays, even at the youth-football level, offenses
almost all use multiple formations including many
with three or fewer backs in the backfield.
To accommodate the multiple formations, I came
up with the gap-air-mirror terminology when I
started doing youth-coaching clinics in April of2000.
The gap-air-mirror name enables youth coaches and
players to better understand how they should line up
against any offensive formation.
Best high-school team
My local paper had an article about the De La Salle
High School defense. De La Salle is usually ranked
number one in California and often in the nation.
They are currently at 120 and counting of a national-
record win streak.
The article quoted coach Herc Pardi, the last coach
to beat De La Salle. "They basically put eight men
near the line of scrimmage and dare you to pass."
That is similar to what the GAM does.
The book The Undefeated about Oklahoma's win
streak said, "[Bear] Bryant ... knew how to attack
Wilkinson's team better than anyone else. Bryant
would set nine men within three yards of the line of
scrimmage and dare the[m] to pass."
Although I would not describe it as "daring you
to pass." Rather I would say that we fear your run
more than your pass, so our defense is biased in favor
of stopping the run.
1
2 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
Also, please note that if De La Salle High School
and Bear Bryant were doing this, it's not just some
crackpot idea of Jack Reed's.
Gap
The word "gap" refers to the four down linemen-
two guards and two tackles. They generally line up in
the A and B gaps. The A gaps are the ones on either
side of the middle offensive lineman, whether or not
that lineman is the ball snapper.
By designating the gaps on either side of middle
man as the A gaps, rather than on either side of the
snapper, you automatically line up correctly against
unbalanced lines. An unbalanced line is one in which
the snapper is not the middle man.
By rule, there are always at least seven men on
the offensive line. Most teams have the middle man
snap the ball most of the time. Some teams deviate
from that pattern. My offenses, for example, almost
always use unbalanced lines. The unbalance can be
extreme. For example, in the lonesome polecat of-
fense, the tight end snaps the ball. But the four GAM
linemen always align on the middle man no matter
how extreme the unbalance. The middle linebacker
and all down linemen should yell "Unbalanced!"
whenever they see it.
Air
The word "air" refers to the two contain men because
they line up on air outside the tight end, wing, or
weak tackle. In the case of a tight end who takes a
so-called "nasty split," the contain man might line up
inside or outside of the tight end, depending upon
his judgment regarding the size of the "nasty split"
and the quickness of the tight end and contain man.
"On air" means there is no one in front of you.
Mirror
The word "mirror" refers to the pre-snap alignment
and movement and the post-snap movement (on pass
plays) of the remaining five defenders. The offense has
six eligible receivers, however, one of them is almost
always the passer, so no one needs to cover him, at
least until he gives the ball to someone else. Here is
the GAM defense lined up against the most common
youth-football offensive formation-the pro set 1.
o
o
o o
o 000000
c E TGGTB E c
B
M
Note that in this case the GAM is neither a gap-8 nor
a 10-1 against this most common offensive forma-
tion. Rather, it is a 9-1-1.
It would be unsound to put the linebacker who
is behind the line on the line because he has man-
to-man pass coverage on one of the backs in the 1.
He must be able to move sideways if the back moves
sideways.
If the linebacker were up on the line in a 10-1
alignment, he would lose his ability to move side-
ways. Although if the offense is having success off-
tackle, it may be best to put the linebacker in the C
gap. You can't stop everything. So you stop the plays
the opponent does best even if it weakens you at a
location where they are not attacking successfully.
On the other hand, it would also be du.mb to
move the other linebacker off the line of scrimmage
to make a gap-8 (8-2-1). He is covering the tight end
man-to-man and it helps him to get right up in the
tight end's face and not let the tight end easily leave
the line of scrimmage.
I will show you how to line up against other for-
mations later in the book.
o
o o
o -.D
c B c
B
M
mirror
Personnel
I will tell you what kind of boy you need at each
position and how to figure out who goes where. I
will also tell you where to put your minimum-play
players and how to substitute during the game.
Practice schedules
I have found that coaches want extreme detail in
how-to books on coaching. Accordingly, I will give
you a detailed defensive practice schedule.
 Overview

I will also give you drills to teach the players how
to do their jobs.
Scrimmages and games
I will also give you detailed instructions on what to
do at your preseason scrimmages and games, includ-
ing pre~game, timeouts, and halftime.
Video
You must video some of your practices and all of your
games. Then you must study the tapes to see how
your players are performing their ,jobs. Grade each
player on as many plays as you have time to grade.
Troubleshooting
I will tell you how to troubleshoot your defense.
That is, how to diagnose the causes of failures and
fix them.
Inexperienced or incompetent coaches tend to
want to throw out the whole defense whenever the
opponent scores or even gets a first down. That's
like junking your car and buying a new one of a dif-
ferent make every time a warning light appears on
your dash board. Stay cool. Wait until you see the
video to diagnose the problem, then correct it. Don't
panic and blame the defense every time something
goes wrong.
running the 10-1 defense. In the video tape he did
for Bob Rexrode, he says they use what he calls the
"10-1 Loop" to stop the option.
The basic problem with the option is you need a
defender for the dive back, quarterback, and pitch
back on each side of the center. That's six guys who
cannot be in man pass coverage.
Also, there are two gaps the dive back an go
through: A and B. So you really need four guys to
cover the dive, not two. That only leaves three for
pass defense.
You can't cover five guys in man with three. So
you have to switch to zone pass defense. The 5-4-2
and 6-2-3 assign linebackers dual responsibilities to
stop both the run and the pass.
In theory, that gives them enough guys to stop
the option and its accompanying pass plays, but
dual responsibilities are easier said than done. The
GAM tries to minimize the number of dual respon-
sibilities.
The GAM is also possibly weak against the out
pass depending upon the quality of your pass de-
fender. But that is one of the hardest passes for a
youth quarterback to complete. All defenses are weak
against something. The trick is to put your defensive
weaknesses where opposing offenses are weak.

Stopping the triple option

Former college and pro coach Homer Smith says it is
unsound to try to stop an option team with a defense
that rushes six and has everyone else in man pass
coverage. Bill Yeoman, father of the veer option of-
fense, told me it is unsound to try to stop the option
in man pass coverage period. Makes sense. I never
faced a competent option offense in youth football.
Smith says that the way to stop the option is with
the Oklahoma 5-4-2 defense. That was invented by
Bud Wilkinson to stop his own triple-option offense,
the split T, which many colleges imitated after he
set the still-standing record for the most consecu-
tive wins.
Other coaches, like Scarborough and Warren, the
authors of the book Option Football, also advocate
the wide-tackle 6 (6-2-3) with zone pass defense as
an option defense. Since youth football is highly
run-oriented, the 6-2-3 probably makes more sense
than the Oklahoma 5-4-2. These defenses are quite
different from the gap-air-mirror.
Celina (Texas) High School coach G. Moore is
the winningest coach in that state and is famous for
4 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
 2 Positions
In in general,
the GAM youdefense:
should have the following positions
• Left tackle
• Left guard
• Right guard
• Right tackle
• Wide-side cornerback
• Wide-side outside linebacker
• Wide-side defensive end
• Short-side cornerback
• Short-side outside linebacker
• Short-side defensive end
• Middle linebacker
When to make position
assignments
Assign defensive positions on the third day of no-pads
practice. Explain to the kids that these are tentative
assignments, that you continually make changes
throughout the season, albeit fewer with each pass-
ing week. Tell them to do their best at their assigned
position, but not to get discouraged if they are moved
to a different one. Explain that it is impossible to tell
so early who goes where, but, on the other hand, the
team needs to get on with the business of learning
their assignments and practicing the defense.
Position assignments are a chicken-or-egg, itera-
tive process. You try a depth chart, see it's not right
in every respect, then modify it. That one will also
probably prove less than optimal as the days go by
and additional evaluations become available. So you
change it again. I generally find that I make lots of
changes in the early weeks; some changes almost
every week; but, come playoffs, I make few, if any,
additional changes.
Flip-flopping
Flip flopping means having one or more defenders
line up on the right sometimes and on the left oth-
ers. I flip flop according to the hash position of the
ball.
The more common flip flop is by strength of
formation. Most coaches designate the side with a
tight end as the strong side. Others designate the side
with the most receivers as the strong side.
In youth football, the main defensive problem is
stopping the sweep to the wide side of the field. Ac-
cordingly, I put my best end, corner, and linebacker
on the wide side and my second-best on the short
side. On the short side, they have help from the
boundary or sideline.
Flip flopping according to offensive formation
strength makes sense at the high-school level where
the tight end is a big guy and the 'off-tackle play is the
main threat. But it does not make sense at the youth
level because weight limits keep the tight ends from
getting very big and most youth teams are generally
not very good at running the off-tackle play.
I do not flip flop my interior down linemen
because there appears to be no difference between
the left and right A and B gaps in terms of offensive
activity.
Order of selection
Make position assignments according to an order of
selection. The order of selection is simply a sequence
or priority list. It lists the most important position
first, then the second most important, and so forth.
You assign the most important position first, then as-
sign the second-most important to the best candidate
among those who are left, and so on.
Note you do NOT assign the position to the best
5
6 Gap-Air-Mirror
athlete available. Rather, you assign it to the player
who best fits the description of the ideal candidate for
that position. For example, the wide-side defensive
end is generally the most important position, but he
does not need to be a great athlete.
Indeed, I have found it to be a bad idea to put
great athletes at that position. What you want there
is the most obedient kid on the team. Great athletes
are in the habit of doing their own thing, a disastrous
habit at defensive end on a youth team.
GAM order of selection
Here is the order of selection for the GAM de-
fense.
1. Wide-side defensive end
2. Middle linebacker
3. Wide-side corner back
4. Wide-side outside linebacker
5. Short-side defensive end
6. Short-side cornerback
7. Short-side outside linebacker
8-11. Down linemen
Game plan could be different
Note that this order of selection is based on the
generic biggest offensive threat in youth football:
the wide-side sweep. However, it is possible that
you could come up against a team that was equally
strong on both the wide and short sides. In· that
case, it would be wise to put one or two of your best
corners, ends, and outside linebackers on each side.
I did that in 1990.
You might even come up against a team that was
strongest running to the short side. I have never
seen such a team, but a coach who read this book
and knew that you were relying on it would be wise
to game plan his strength against your short side to
take advantage of your weakness there. In that case,
you would want to reverse your players and have the
wide-side trio play the short side and vice versa.
Depth chart
You need a defensive depth chart. That is, a list of
MiddleRight
linebacker
guard Wide
Left tackle Left
Wide
Right backer
who is first string, who is second string, and who
third string. You do not need 22 guys to have a second
string or 33 to have a third string. The second and
third strings are the guys who replace the first-string
guy if and when he is hurt. The entire first string will
not get hurt simultaneously.
Note that the second string is NOT a list of eleven
Defense for Youth Football
guys, none of whom is on the first string list. You
absolutely do NOT want to staff the most important
position-wide-side end-with the twelfth-best
defender on your team. The second-string wide end
should be the second most obedient guy on the de-
fense, hopefully a guy who is trained and experienced
in playing end, wherever he is on first string.
Training and experience
You are better off with a second-string guy who
knows the position than one who merely has the
athletic and personality characteristics of the ideal
player at that position. This is especially true at the
non-down-line positions.
Most likely, the best second-string wide end will
be the short-side end. So if the wide end got hurt,
the short end would move to wide end and another
player who had been designated second-string short
end would move to that position. Depending upon
your personnel, you might have a domino effect in
your first string as a result of one injury.
Don't overdo it though. Remember that experi-
ence and training matters at most positions. After
the first two or three positions in the order of selec-
tion, you are probably better off with a true second
stringer who is not on first string anywhere, but who
is trained in the position. Shifting yet another first
stringer to a less familiar position domino style may
weaken your overall defense too much. It's better to
be weak at one point than at several points.
In the case of the bottom eight or nine positions in
the order of selection, the second-string guys should
probably be players who are not on first string at any
position but who are trained and experienced at the
position.
Sample depth chart
Here is a sample depth chart using jersey numbers
to identify the players. This one is for a team with
25 players. Yours should be posted at your team
Web site.
2nd string
70
Wide corner
56
58
77647133
65
76
6080 24
tackle
end
isguard
 Positions
Short backer
Short end
Short corner
Note that, as described above, a number of the sec-
ond-string guys at important positions are first-string
guys from other positions. They're in bold.
Type of kid: defensive end
The ends should be the most obedient kids on the
team. They need not be big because they are lined up
on air. They need not be veterans because the job is
simple and there are few reads to be made.
The main thing the ends must do is contain the
sweep, bootleg, and passer. He also needs to trail
through the backfield on sweeps away to defend
the reverse. They need not even be good tacklers, as
long as they deny the sweeper the quick escape to
the outside that he seeks.
As stated earlier, the wide end should generally
be the best end. The short end should probably also
be the second-string wide end.
Kids who do their own thing are a serious prob-
lem for the defense in general and they are especially
catastrophic at defensive end. Yale's Larry Kelley won
the second Heisman Trophy in 1936, but he was so
famous for doing his own thing that Princeton put
in a play called the "Cousin Kelley Special." It went
for a touchdown because he was far out of position
trying to be the hero. There is such a kid on many
youth teams.
Type of kid: middle linebacker
I originally called this position the safety. Everybody
"knows" you have to have a safety.
Actually, everyone but Will Bronson. He was my
safety in 1992. Only I told him to play wherever he
wanted and he played about three yards behind the
line of scrimmage. So I figured I'd better rename the
position to middle linebacker.
Bronson led the team in assists and was second in
tackles. The previous year I told Tramaine Webb to
play eight yards behind the line of scrimmage. He
would literally pace it off between plays. He hardly
had any stats that year (one great interception run-
back).
The middle linebacker is your best defender, not
necessarily your best athlete. In fact, often not your
best athlete. This is the kid who is always around the
ball as evidenced by having the best tackle and assist
stats on the team. Often, you put him at another
7
position and he exceeds the middle linebacker in
tackles and assists. When that happens, put this kid
at middle linebacker.
This kid can probably be the least disciplined on
the defense, although I hasten to add that I say that
in a relative sense. There is no place at all on the
defense for an undisciplined cowboy who thinks the
team exists solely for him to try to be the number
one hero on every play.
The middle linebacker is the only zone defender,
so it would be nice if he could catch passes.
Defensive field captain
I generally make the middle linebacker the defensive
field captain because of his strategic vantage point.
But if he is not football smart enough to do that
correctly, I will appoint another player. His duties
as field captain include:
• calling the wide side of the field when the ball is
confusingly near the middle
• accepting or declining penalties
• making sure we have the eleven defenders for
each play
• calling timeouts
• making sure the defense is lined up properly for
the offense in question
Type of kid: cornerbacks
You can probably just put the best tacklers who
have not already been assigned to another position at
cornerback. When I say best, I do not mean prettiest
technique. Rather, I mean that they have the most
tackles and assists.
For reasons I do not fully understand, rookies
rarely succeed at this position. You need veterans if
you have them. But I would not use a veteran with
lousy tackling stats in place of a rookie with signifi-
cantly better tackling stats.
If you have lots of good tacklers, the fastest should
go at cornerback. If there is a difference in quality
between your two cornerbacks, which is usually the
case, put the best one on the wide side generally.
Type of kid: outside linebacker
The outside linebacker is the same as the cornerback,
only bigger. He usually lines up right on the inside
shoulder of the tight end and has to fight the tight
end, who is usually himself a bigger kid. Get a big
kid who is one of the top ten or so at in number of
tackles and assists.
8 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
As with cornerbacks, linebackers generally need
to be veterans, not rookies. Put your best outside
linebacker on the wide side generally.
Type of kid: down linemen
Your down linemen must be medium or heavy
weight. Lightweight kids cannot succeed at defensive
down lineman no matter how good their technique
unless the offense has line splits of 12 inches or more.
You can put rookies and even minimum-play play-
ers at these positions. These kids must be disciplined
to stay low in their initial charge.
Top athletes are generally wasted at these posi-
tions because they almost always end up in a shoving
match in a pile at the line of scrimmage. The only
exception would be if the offense had wide line
splits.
A line split is the distance between the foot of one
lineman and the near foot of the adjacent lineman.
Four to six inches are typical in youth football. My
teams and others use zero line splits.
Some inept rookie youth coaches use line splits of
ten inches or more because that's the way they did
it in high school or college. The GAM defense kills
those teams.
Best tacklers
If you have lots of candidates for your down line,
you want first, players who will always charge low
and second, players who make the most tackles and
assists. Count tackles and assists in all scrimmages
and games and try to get the most productive tacklers
on the defense, but do not put a good tackler on the
defensive line ifhe ever stands up at the snap instead
of charging low.
Observe whether the player is standing up in
drills, scrimmages, and games. Every single instance
of standing up must be punished immediately.
While the previous lineman is being punished, his
backup should be in the scrimmage. Eventually, the
guy who will always charge low will be getting the
most playing time in practice and in games.
It is crucial that your four defensive down linemen
stay low and clog their gaps first. Tackling is second-
ary for down linemen.
Minimum-play players
Lightweight minimum-play players should not
be on defense at all. They should be on offense
at flanker or wide receiver. However, because of
mindless youth team politics, you may have some
lightweight minimum-play players crammed down
your throat because the offensive coordinator doesn't
want them and he is either also the head coach or the
head coach is not the offensive coordinator, but does
not have the guts to do the right thing.
I put the tiny minimum-play-player who was
forced on me one year at all the non-line positions.
On one play, he would go in at right cornerback.
Then he would come out on the next play. Four
plays later he would go in at left linebacker for one
play. And so on. I was trying to hide him from the
offense.
On one play, a Manteca player blocked him 25
yards downfield-literally. The referee penalized
them for unnecessary roughness.
That story has a happy ending though. The fol-
lowing year, after he had grown a little, he became
the 1 in my 10-1 defense. That was Will Bronson,
the kid who led the team in assists and was second
in tackles in 1992 at middle linebacker.
If I had the '91 season to do over, I would have
played Will only at cornerback and middle lineback-
er. He was too small to play outside linebacker.
Rules for using minimum-
play players
• Never have more than one minimum-play player
on the field at the same time when the game is
still in doubt if you can avoid it.
• Never leave a minimum-play player at the same
position for more than one play if you can avoid
it. I generally put them in for one play, then
brought them out for three plays.
• Do not substitute a succession of minimum-play
players to the same position. My defense would
have a minimum-play kid at right tackle for one
play. Next playa different minimum-play player
would be at left guard. Next play another would
be at right guard. Next play another would be at
left tackle. Then the cycle would repeat. I did not
want to have a weak spot that the offense could
find then come back and attack. If they happened
to run at a minimum-play lineman and succeed,
when they tried to go back, the first-string guy
would be there.
Summarizing
You want disciplined kids who will take care of
their gap every single play at down linemen and
ends. Rookies will do fine. Little guys will do fine
at end only. Discipline beats athletic ability. Every
year I have former youth sports stars on my bench
in games. They won't do what they're told.
You want your best tacklers at the other posi-
tions. Almost invariably, they need to be veterans if
you have them.
 3 Alignment

During Unbalanced line

to linethe
uppreseason,
against allteach your defenders
the offensive how
formations
they might see. During the regular season, focus
on the formations of the upcoming opponent and
o C B A ABC 0
only review how to line up against other formations
briefly so that you cover each formation at least once
a month. You need to review all formations, even
o 000000
LT LG RG RT
though scouting does not indicate that the upcom-
ing opponent uses a particular formation because
they may surprise you and you do not want to rely The letters on the top are the names of the gaps. The
on two- or three-month-old memories of preseason letters on the bottom represent the correct align-
alignment training. ment of the left tackle, left guard, and so forth. Note
that the defenders use the middle man of the seven
Down linemen linemen as their reference point, not the ball (rep-
The normal alignment rules for the gap defenders are resented by the square offensive player). This would
simple. They line up as follows: even be true for more extreme unbalance, including
the end snapping the ball. There are more diagrams
• Left tackle-left B gap later in the chapter.
• Left guard-left A gap
• Right guard-right A gap Stance
• Right tackle-right B gap The down linemen are in a four-point stance. That
means their hands and feet are on the ground. Kids
Here are diagrams against both a balanced and an will screw this stance up if you do not correct them
unbalanced line. and make them do it right.
In the correct stance, the back is Hat or the butt
Balanced line
is slighdy higher than the shoulders. The head
is up. The hands form a teepee with the fingers.
o c A ABC 0 The weight is on the fingertips, not the knuckles or

o 00000 palms.
Track sprinters put their weight on their fingertips
because it gives the fastest start. Only middle-aged
LG RG RT men who played football back in the '60s or '70s
think you put your knuckles on the ground.

9
10 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

Feet Put the players in this stance then walk along cor-
The toes are under the back edge of the butt. The recting their misplaced body parts. Leave them in
hands are about three inches in front of the helmet. the stance for a while. At the beginning of the sea-
The feet are shoulder-pad-width apart with the son, they will quickly fatigue because the pertinent
heels off the ground. The ball of one foot is even muscles are not used to this. Keep putting them into
with the instep of the other, in other words, the the stance and correcting them until they can hold
feet are slightly staggered. the stance correctly for the needed tie.
The common error is for the player ro put his One common mistake is to take a stance as if you
feet behind his butt almost in a pushup position. were defecating in the woods or a baseball catcher
Then, on the snap, they walk their feet toward their giving signs to the pitcher. The toes are not under
hands before they stand up. That, of course, is in- the butt. They are too far forward.
rolerable.
Celina, Texas coach G. Moore has the outside foot
back because his linemen are almost always down
Incorrect
blocked (offensive lineman to their outside blocks (pooping in the woods)
inward) and he therefore wants his defensive line-
men to take their first step with their outside foot
somewhat roward the incoming down block to offset
its force. In youth football, you do not know how
the offensive line will block. So I do not care which
foot my players put back. Let them choose the one
they are most comfortable with.

Not three-point stance

There are good photos of this on page 181 of Tom
Bass's Play Football the NFL ~y. That book only
shows the four-point stance for offensive blockers.
For defense, they use only a three-point stance.
That is a bad idea for youth football. It is very hard Another common mistake is to extend the legs farther
to get youth players to stay low. The four-point stance back as if one were going to do pushups. Again, the
is a big help in accomplishing that goal. If you let toes are not under the butt.
them us a three-point stance, they will be far more
likely to stand up. Incorrect
Here is my stick-figure drawing of the correct (pushup)
four-point stance.

Correct

Waiting stance
Prior to the offensive center taking hold of the ball,
the defensive down linemen should be on the knees
waiting. I once wasted a timeout because one of
my down linemen stood up in his waiting stance. I
 Alignment 11

thought we only had three down linemen on the field player in question.
because I only saw three on their knees.
split end weak takle tight end
The rest of the defense must be in a formation as
if they are facing a double-tight end, full-house T of-
fensive formation while the offense is in the huddle. J 000000 ./
~

That way the captain and coach can quickly tell which
E E
position is missing or overstocked, if any.
The defensive linemen must get off their knees
up into their complete four-point stance as soon as
the center takes hold of the ball because the center
Wi~O
can snap the ball without warning within one second
of everyone on the offense getting set.
Do not allow your defenders to use the quar-
000000
tii end wearkle
o
E E
terback's cadence to determine when they will get
ready. If you do, they will be vulnerable to the silent
or first-sound snap. I saw one of my sister teams

c(\j I
wing tight end weak takle split end
lose a playoff game because of a quick snap that the
defensive line was not ready for. --'0/0000 o \ nasty split

Ends
E E? or E?
Ends line up one yard outside a tight end (end who
is within a yard of the offensive tackle) or weak tackle
(tackle on the weak side of the formation, that is, THE DEFENSIVE ENDS MUST NOT GET
the one with a split end rather than a tight end) and BLOCKED IN! The wide-side end must get to the
two yards outside of a wing (back who is about one sweep spot untouched. This is the key to stopping
yard behind and one yard outside of a tight end or the youth sweep. I show a sweep spot on both sides
weak tackle.) in this diagram, but only the wide-side end goes to
the sweep spot. The short-side end stays at the line of
Wing motion scrimmage and slides unless it's a drop-back pass.
If the wing goes in motion-which happens on
sweep sweep
almost every play in some offenses like the double spot spot
wing-the end needs to shift inward to reflect the
fact that there is no longer a wing on his side.

/\/\0
000000 .• E
'Sweep spot'
The wide-side defensive end should box if the op-
ponent has an effective sweep play. Boxing means
he sprints to the "sweep spot" and faces inward. The
boxing end must get to the sweep spot (depth of
offensive backs in front of defensive end's starting
point) untouched. In the event of a "nasty" split (two
to four yards), they should use their judgment as
to whether to line up inside or outside the offensive
o 000000
E E
Depth of sweep spot varies
according to configuration
of the offensive backfield
The sweep is almost always run by the deepest back in
the offensive backfield. Different offensive backfield
configurations have different deepest -back depths. At
the extremes, you have the no back-where the deep-
est backis the quarterback-and the I-where the
deepest back may be as much as seven yards deep.
The boxing defensive end initially sprints to the
depth of the deepest back in the offensive backfield's
pre-snap formation alignment. Here are some dif-
12 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

ferent diagrams showing how the sweep spot varies

according to the offensive formation. Read the ball
deepest depth of the
carrier while
sprinting to the sweep spot
One-back offense The diagrams I just gave you relate to the pre-snap

sweep o alignment of the offense. However, when the ball

is snapped, the depth of the deepest offensive back

spot
0000 sometimes changes. The boxing defensive end must
keep his eyes open as he sprints to the sweep spot
to see if the depth of the deepest offensive player is
changing, which, in turn, changes the sweep spot
for that play.
In virtually all cases, this would cause the sweep
E spot to become more shallow as the play devel-
oped. Here's an example diagram of what I call the
off-off-tackle play. It is not an off-tackle play per se,
because the off-tackle play goes through the C gap.
Double wing This play is going through the D gap, which is the
sweep gap.
sweep
spot Off-off-tackle play from I

pre-snap
sweep spot

E
post-snap o
sweep
I formation

o
sweep spot

E
.0 000
spot
o
o My main point in this discussion of pre- and post-
snap identification of the sweep spot is that the
boxing defensive end must not overpenetrate and

E
0000 thereby take himself out of the play. Of course, he
also must not underpenetrate,
the sweep to get outside.
which would allow

Another way to think about it is that there is an

imaginary line perpendicular to the line of scrim-
mage in front of the boxing defensive end. The box-
ing defensive end must not allow the ball carrier to
cross that line.
 Alignment 13

Boxing-defensive-end line ness, you can put the ends in a four-point sprinter's
stance. In that stance, their feet are greatly staggered

o just like a track sprinter. This would be a good way

to line up if the end chose to go inside a nasty split.
Give him that discretion.

o Mirror defenders
Middle linebacker-Split the center of gravity of

o the offensive formation if there are one or more

backs in the backfield other than the quarterback.
Splitting the center of gravity means keeping 5 1/2

E
0000 offensive players on each side of you. Against a no-
back (quarterback only) offensive formation, align
on the line of scrimmage on the middle non-tight
end quick receiver.
Later, I will show you diagrams of how to line
up against various offensive formations. You can see
the middle linebacker splitting the center of gravity
in most of those diagrams and aligning on his man
To emphasize this, get a can of white spray paint and versus the no-back formations.
paint this line on the field. Then run a competitive
drill in which various offensive backfield configura- Quick-receiver alignment
tions try to cross that line at various points while A quick receiver is one who is lined up on the line
the boxing defensive end tries to stop them. of scrimmage or just off the line of scrimmage with
no offensive lineman in front of him. Backs in the
'Moyer Move' backfield are not quick receivers. Tight ends, split
I told my defensive ends to make sure they were out- ends, slots, and flanker are quick receivers. In the
side tight offensive players who might block them. diagram below, the ineligible receivers are black, the
Often, we would be up against an offense whose quick receivers are marked "Q," and the backs who
coach told their offensive ends or wings the same are not quick receivers are marked "B."
thing regarding getting outside my defensive ends.
So you would see a sort of leapfrog game going ®
on. My defensive end would move out. Then the ,
offensive end or wing would move out. Then my
defensive end would move out further. And so on. @ ® @
One of my ten-year-old players named Matt
Moyer pointed out that the offensive man eventually
@ ••••• @
has to come set by rule. So our guys would move out, If the man you are supposed to cover is a quick re-
then, when the offensive player moved out, our guy ceiver, you always line up so as to prevent him from
would move back in. We would go out and in until releasing (going out for a pass) inside. The following
the offensive player had to stop moving because of rules accomplish that.
the rule requiring them to be set. Sometimes the of-
fensive would be penalized for illegal procedure. We • Ifhe is on the line of scrimmage (tight end or
named this the "Moyer Move" in honor of Matt. You split end), line up right in his face on his inside
need to practice the "Moyer Move" so your defensive shoulder. This is called a "bump-and-run" align-
ends are not discombobulated by the refusal of the ment. Focus your eyes on his belt buckle. Hold
offensive players to stand still. your hands up in front of your chest palms
toward the receiver. Ignore the snap. Concentrate
Ends stance on your man. Don't move until he moves.
Ends are in a two-point stance (standing up) with • If he is off the line of scrimmage out wide (flank-
their inside foot forward. To achieve extra quick- er or slot), line up on the line of scrimmage at a
14 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
45-degree angle to his inside. You want to take
away the slant route. This is sometimes called a
"walkaway" alignment.
• If he is off the line of scrimmage, but tight (wing
or tight slot), line up directly in front of him.
You still need to prevent him from releasing
inside, but his own teammate (tight end or weak
tackle) is in his way for that. You may want to
back off the line of scrimmage about a yard so
you do not get tangled up with the tight end or
your linebacker who is covering him if the tight
end and wing cross paths to throw you off.
Below, I will give you diagrams showing how the
GAM lines up against various offensive formations.
You can see these three quick-receiver alignment rules
in action in those diagrams.
Middle-linebacker stance
The middle linebacker is almost never in bump-and-
run alignment so he just lines up in a comfortable
stance.
Outside linebackers
The basic concept for this position is mirror your
man. He may be in a number of different places.
1. Is there a tight end on your side? If so, align on
him according to the above quick-receiver rules.
2. If there is no tight end on your side, ascertain
whether there are two quick receivers on your
side. If so, take the innermost quick receiver.
3. If there is only one wide receiver on your side,
check to see if there are more than two quick
receivers on the other side. If so, take the sec-
ond innermost quick receiver on that side, not
counting the middle linebacker's man if quads.
4. If you are not needed for any of the above situa-
tions, your man is in the offensive backfield. If
he is directly behind the ball, align over (a yard
off the line of scrimmage) the ball. On the rare
occasion when you see a full-house I (four backs
in a line behind the center), align in or over the
C gap on your normal side. If it turns out to be
a pass play, take the first back who comes out
on your side. If your man is on one side or the
other of the backfield, line up in or over the C
gap on the side where your man is aligned. Do
not line up over the A or B gap even if your
man is aligned there because we already have
defenders in those gaps.
Basically, the outside backer has the tight end if
there is one. If there are two receivers on his side
and neither is a tight end, he has the innermost one.
Generally, the outside linebackers work inside out to
select a man. Again, these alignments will be made
clear in the diagrams later in the chapter.
Cornerbacks
Cornerbacks generally work outside-in to select their
man, that is, they have the widest receiver on their
side unless he is a tight end.
1. Is there a non-tight end quick receiver on your
side? If so, align on or inside the widest receiver
according to the above quick-receiver rules.
2. If there is no non-tight end quick receiver on
your side, check to see if there are more than
two quick receivers on the other side. If so,
take the second widest quick receiver on that
side.
3. If you are not needed for any of the above situ-
ations, your man is in the offensive backfield.
If he is directly behind the ball, align over (a
yard off the line of scrimmage) the ball. On the
rare occasion when you see a full-house I (four
backs in a line behind the center or a power 1),
align in or over the C gap on your normal side.
If the play turns out to be a pass, take the first
back who comes out on your side. If your man
is on one side or the other of the backfield, line
up in or over the C gap on the side where your
man is aligned. Do not line up over the A or B
gap even if your man is aligned there because we
. already have defenders in those gaps.
Numbering system
In the second edition of my book Coaching Youth
Football, I advocated a numbering system for de-
termining who your man was. The cornerbacks and
linebackers were numbered from 1 to 5. They then
counted the eligible receivers from the left. 1 covered
1. 2 covered 2. And so forth.
The system described above is generally better
than the numbering system because it more often
gets big on big-linebackers on tight ends- and
fast on fast-cornerbacks on wide receivers. It also
keeps the middle linebacker on the center of gravity
of the offensiveformation against all formations other
than no-back sets.
However, if your players become confused by
unusual offensive formations or frequent changes in
 Alignment 15

offensive formations, your defense may be better off
using a numbering system.
I think you should teach a numbering system as a
back up and review it periodically so you can call for
it rather than waste a timeout if your mirror defend-
ers are confused.
Middle takes middle
The middle linebacker's man is the middle back in
the backfield-the one least likely to go out for a pass
if there is more than one in the middle. Against a
no-back offense, he takes the middle eligible receiver.
There are always five (not counting the quarterback),
so there is always a middle one. This keeps the middle
linebacker in the middle of the field and in zone as
much as possible. That is desirable because he is your
best defender and you want the same guy carrying
out the zone coverage as much as possible so you
do not have to teach and practice it with multiple
defenders.
Motion and shifts
If your man goes in motion, go with him. If your
man shifts, shift with him. Do not worry about
who is a tight end or the numbering system when
it comes to the positions after a shift. There is not
enough time.
The offense only has to stay set for one second
before they snap after a shift. Who your man is will
be determined by the initial alignment before the
shift.
If the opponent shift in a predictable manner and
does so more than they do not shift, it would make
sense to line up as if they had already done the shift
in question, then you will have optimal alignment
after the shift.
Motion
00

Stacks
Offensive players sometimes stack. That is, they oc ~O o
B E
line up one behind the other. This is most common
directly behind the ball in the I formation. But it
~E~ TOGOC G T 00
M
is sometimes done at wide receiver or tight end as
well. The numbering system rule for stacks is that the
front-most receiver gets the lowest number. Remember that the defender has to maintain inside
position on his man as that man motions across the
o formation. In the above diagram, the outside line-
o backer maintains position to the right of his slot back
initially. But after the slot back gets to the other side
CD 0 of the center, the outside linebacker would stay to
the left of him.
E
QOODOOO
4 T G G T 5 E
2 Alignment diagrams
3 The lines show which corner or outside backer has
which eligible receiver. M represents the middle
linebacker's man in either system.
Disadvantage of the
numbering system
The disadvantage of the numbering system is some-
times puts big on fast or fast on big. That is called
a personnel mismatch. The numbering system also
sometimes takes the middle linebacker away from the
middle of the field when the offense is in a one-back
set, thereby weakening the defense.
Put in both systems and use the one that seems
best each week.
 T
1
OODOC\
16
E

Slot I
\fODO~
o 0 D~O
T

ight power I
\1 I ~1
\

0(E 1 jo
T
?E (E
G@ GTE
~ ;
@\ ® 00800M(E
M~ M \
0
00000
rE\
G G T
TripsGap-Air-Mirror
with split end
Cf M
M T
E Trips
G
Defense
G
Veer

8 00 0
T
(E WingT for@Youth Football
@
M
 Alignment 17

Quads Double wing

@
q\: ®\~ q\ETGGT
00800
E
00000
101
~TGGT~ E
Quads with split end

\\\ E
00000
0T G GTE
M

Double slot
Shotgun ®
(M has man coverage on whichever
back does not end up with the ball)
00 q 00000
\01E T G GTE

C(~ T
E
00000 G G T
E
1 Ace
M

I
®
Polecat
o \ E~TGGT
00000
0 (E
M
@

E~
00000 T G G T
Trips & twins
M

\\ E
00000
0 T G GTE

Single wing
(M has back who does not receive snap)
Double-tight full-house I
@or o
@ o
@
o
00000
ED T G G T
T
000
G G T ~ E

M M
 18 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

Stacked receivers
E 1
00000T G G T
o
1 B E
3 2 2 3
Position 1 shows the mirror defender on the line of
scrimmage in the C gap. In this position, he could
~E be in a four-point stance ifhe expects an inside run.
Or he could be in a three-point stance if he is not
M sure whether they will run inside or go outside with a
run or pass. Or he could even line up in a two-point
stance ifhe wants to disguise whether he is dropping
E-formation back into zone coverage or blitzing.
One of the most common errors by my readers is
@T M always putting their C-gap defender in position 2,
~E even though they are getting killed off-tackle. If you

'0 0 0 0 cp
are getting beat repeatedly anywhere, reinforce that
hole. This book gives seven ways to reinforce the
off-tackle hole. Pick the one that weakens you in
the place least likely to be attacked by the opponent
in question.
Position 2 shows the mirror defender lined up
about one yard back off the line. This would be
Offset I appropriate if the offense were equally successful
attacking the off-tackle hole and sweeping and

I
throwing swing passes. At position 2, he would al-
ways be in a two-point stance. The swing pass is less
likely to be successful at the youth level.

G 000
T Ii E
Note that when receivers are stacked, the defenders
line up on different levels, not both on the line of
scrimmage. That is to diminish the possibility of
their colliding with each other when trying to cover
their man. Deepest receiver is covered by deepest
defender.
Alignment of a mirror
defender whose man is in
the offensive backfield
There is not one right alignment for a mirror defend-
er whose man is lined up in the offensive backfield.
Rather where he should line up is a function of the
offensive alignment as well as the scouting report
and how the game is going. There are three places
this mirror defender can align. There are even three
stances he can use in one spot. Here's a diagram.
Position 3 is for when the offense is having success
with the sweep, but less so the off-tackle play.
I would give the mirror defenders discretion to
line up in either the 1, 2, or 3 positions whenever
their man is in the backfield, but I would take that
discretion away if they did not make good decisions.
In that case, I would make a defensive call from the
sideline-either 1,2 or 3.
Shotgun
The shotgun offensive formation is a special case.
The gap-air-mirror per se is not appropriate for the
shotgun. We must go to a modified gap-air-mirror
against the shotgun. In the modified gap-air-mirror,
the guards align nose up on the offensive tackles and
the defensive tackles align on air in the defensive
end's normal positions. The ends stack behind the
tackles. See the diagram on the previous page.
This shotgun defense formation facilitates stunts
that enable fast penetration to get pressure on the
passer. I will explain the stunts in the responsibili-
ties chapter .
. Note how we generally keep the M in the middle
 Alignment 19

on all formations other than no back. When a it pants in a panic.

person's man is part of a two-back I, we put the
defender covering him in a sort of defensive 1.With
G arT go down on
the full-house I, we align the outside linebackers or hands and knees
cornerbacks whose men are in the I over the C gaps end tap own butt
because we do not know which back in the I is going
corner tap elbow
to which side. In the case of a three-back I, the C-gap
outside
defender simply takes the first back who comes out linebacker pat self on back
on his side. That's why the full-house-I diagram has
the lines from the corners stopping in space rather
than connecting to a particular offensive player. Hand'signals
If! have missed a formation, tell me what it is and I got a better idea. Teach the field captain a set of
I will add to the book. signalswhich mean, "We are missing a ."where
___ is a down lineman, end, corner, or outside
Field captain linebacker. For example, the captain could drop to his
Who gets everyone lined up where they belong before hands and knees back away from the line of scrim-
each play? The field captain. So when you coach it, mage to say, "I am short one down lineman," to the
work through him. For example, if you see in prac- coaches on the sideline. He could "moon" the coaches
tice that the wide cornerback is lined up in the wrong pointing at his butt to say, "I need an end." He could
place, don't speak to the wide corner. Instead, say to put one hand on his hip and point to the elbow of
the field captain, typically the middle linebacker, ''Are that arm with his other hand to say,"I need a corner."
you happy with this alignment? What about your And he could pat himself on the back repeatedly to
wide corner? Is he where you want him?" say, "I need an outside linebacker."
The field captain designates the wide side when the Practice this by scripting deliberately remov-
ball is near the middle of the field. The sequence is: ing one of each of the various defensive positions
during practice so the field captain can react and
1. Previous play ends signal for a sub.
2. Field captain designates the wide side for the
next play by yelling "Wide Left!" or "Wide 'Spy' system
right!" If a particular offensive opponent often achieves and
3. Corners, ends, and outside linebackers move to exploits physical mismatches, switch to a "spy" or
their assigned side. shadow system. In a spy system, you assign certain
4. Defense gets into its waiting positions. The defenders to cover certain offensive players by jersey
waiting formation is the double-tight full- number instead of by where the offensive player lines
house T formation shown above. Players must up. Best athlete against best athlete; second best
get into position-down linemen on their against second best; and so forth.
knees-and stay there so coaches can see at a The spy system makes the most sense in leagues
glance that we have the right number of players that have a wide disparity between players on one
on the field and the right jersey numbers. team-often the case in intramural leagues that only
5. Field captain counts players and makes sure have a few good athletes on each team. The spy system
substitutes, if any, are where they belong. might be the best defensive alignment system of all.
6. Players see the actual offensive formation and It is great at achieving strength against strength. But
adjust to it. it can lead to confusion when substitutes come in.
Of course, the substitute is likely to be a lesser athlete,
Missing-position signals but he still has to be covered by somebody.
What should your field captain do if he is missing a
man? Most flail around. The message the coaches get Putting in defensive alignment
is that something is terribly wrong out on the field, Buy a ream of 140# white index card stock from a
but they don't know what. If they have a timeout, local paper store. Draw one large diagram of an of-
they waste it to find out what the heck is wrong. If fensive formation on each of about a dozen cards-
they don't have a timeout, the whole defense just wets however many you need to cover all the formations
20 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

you might see during yout season. Number all the
backs other than the quarterback from 1 to five.
Name eleven players or parents or coaches or
chairs or whatever to a scout offensive team. Tell five
of them that they each have one of the numbered
positions. Have the scout team coach straddle the ball
while the scout offense gathers around him.
He shows them one of the formation cards. The
scout team then lines up in the various formations
shown above in the diagrams and any others you may
see. Then have your first and second team defense line
up against them. Use the six-step sequence complete
with hash marks and a coach "referee" placing a ball
after each formation.
Make sure you script hash positions, motion and
shifts to check your defense against those. Each week
during the season, review how to line up against the
upcoming opponent's formations, motions, and
shifts. Also, review how to line up against every
possible offensive alignment at least once a month.
Remember to make all corrections through the field
captain.
position equally. I would let them decide among
themselves what the rotation pattern would be and
substitute themselves. They generally preferred two
on and two off to one on and one off.
The guys who shared generally knew what they
were doing, but the minimum-play players usually
needed help. So you need to incorporate your normal
substitution pattern into your practice of lining up
against the various formations. That way your field
captain can-get used to making sure the defensive
linemen are lined up correctly. I also wrote the posi-
tion of each player on the back of his hand. In my
games, you would often see my captain examining
the hand of a newly arrived substitute to see where
to put him.

- Double-tight power I
- Pro-set I
- Double-tight full-house T
- Double-tight wishbone
-Veer

-Wing T
-Slot I
-Trips
- Trips with split end
-Quads
- Quads with split end
-Shotgun
-Polecat
- Single wing
- Double wing
- Double slot
-Ace
- Trips & twins
- Double-tight full-house I
- Stacked receivers
- E-formation
-Offset I

repeat

Substitutions
Part of the problem of aligning correctly is substitutes.
I generally only substituted minimum-play players
into the defensive line. Less often, I would conclude
that two players who were at the same position were
so close in performance that they should share the
 4 Responsi bi Iities
Thedefenders
previous
linechapter
up. Nowtold you
I am where
going GAM
to tell you
what they do when the ball is snapped.
Down linemen
Each lineman is responsible for the gap in which he
lines up. On the snap, he must charge low through
that gap. Did I say LOW? I mean it.
In my experience, the down linemen have to keep
their hands on the ground-bear crawl-for the first
two steps. About every other year, I had a kid who I
could just let go. One was an eight-year old named
Kevin Simon. As I am writing this, I am watching
him play football on T\Z He is the starting middle
linebacker and starting fullback for De La Salle High
School, which was ranked number one in the nation
before the 2000 season.
After the 2000 season, Kevin was named San
Francisco Bay Area High School Football Player of
the Year.On average, national recruiting servicessaid
he was the seventh best player in the universe. He
got a full scholarship to Tennessee. Maybe I wasn't
such a great coach that year after all.
My son Dan once blocked Kevin in the open
field in practice when they were on the 11-12 team.
The hit was so fierce, in both directions, that their
coaches came up to me after practice that night and
said, "Did you see your son's hit!?" When I said no,
they asked if! heard it. I had been on a nearby field.
Apparently they thought they were going to need two
ambulances, but both players walked away. Dan later
became a tailback at Columbia. Kevin was running
full speed when he was blocked, but had not seen
Dan coming.
For years, it was known as "The Hit" in San
Ramon Bears coach conversations. At the time,
we had no idea both would end up playing college
football.
Another such player was Scott Pearson. Last I
heard, Pearson switched to water polo.
Both Pearson and Simon were rookies, but they
tore through the line so powerfully they did not need
the advantage of being the low man. If you have such
a kid, turn him loose. But about 90% of your down
linemen will have to use the bear crawl technique or
they will be blocked out.
They should stay on their hands and feet, not their
hands and knees. They should only go to their knees
if they are losing the battle to hold the gap.
Drills
When players are reluctant to use the right tech-
nique-which most definitely is the case with the
low line charge-you must drill them. As in drill
it into them.
The main drill I used for this is the one-against-
two drill. It is described in detail in my Coaching
Youth Football book. It's very simple. You put two
linemen down to portray the roles of offensive line-
men. They have an eight-inch split. The defensive
lineman lines up in that gap. Another player plays
the role of center.
The drill starts with a snap. A coach calls hard
counts to try to get the defensive lineman to jump
offside. Very simply, the defensive lineman must
charge low into the gap and hold his ground. If he
stands up at all, he will be pushed back or sideways
out of the gap. Sometimes I use a can of spray paint
to mark a rectangle on the grass representing the gap.
The defensive lineman is told to explode into that
rectangle and hold that ground.
21
22 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

crawls. Third offense: 30 two-step bear crawls. And

8-inch gap so forth.
I repeat. The players absolutely do not want to
Coach charge low. But you must insist that they do or the
defense will not work. Set the standard, then bear
down on the players until they meet it. This is the
most unpleasant task in this defense because of the
enormous resistance to correct technique by the play-

D ers. But no compromise can be permitted.

Parents and other coaches will protest. One ex-
cuse is "We're 'not getting any pass pressure up the
middle." Neither are the Pittsburg Steelers. Standing
DL sure as hell won't get you pressure up the middle.

Pass rush
This is a competitive drill. That means the two offen- After those first two clog-the-gap steps, the down
sivelinemen (not the center) try to push the defensive linemen just go to the ball. If the ball carrier shows
lineman back or sideways out of the rectangle. The pass, the down linemen should tackle him arm high
defensive lineman tries to get into the rectangle and to interfere with his throw. If they can see his eyes as
hold his ground. The cardinal sin is for the defensive they rush, they should hold their arms high fingers
lineman to rock back on his heels on the snap. The spread to obstruct the vision of the passer and force
vast majority will commit this cardinal sin every time him to throw on a high trajectory.
for weeks until you drill it out of them. They must not jump up in the air when the pass-
Make sure, for safety reasons, that they always ers seems to be throwing until they are sure the ball
keep their heads up when they execute this tech- has left the passer's hand. If they do leave their feet,
nique. the passer can pump fake them up into the air and
You need to do this ten minutes a night every easily run around them.
night all season starting with the first day of pads.
Double-team block
Bear crawl If a defensive lineman is double-teamed, he must get
You can also drill the whole line simultaneously to his hands and knees and try to split the seam be-
against air. Line them up as if there was an invisible tween the two blockers. He can twist his upper body
offense in front of them. Move a ball to start the so his shoulders are perpendicular to the ground to
drill. Get a ball on a stick so you don't have to keep try to get through the seam between the two blockers.
bending over. Oust poke a stick into a Nerfball. Don't But he must not be moved.
buy a football on a stick from an athletic company.) Double-team blocks are expected to move the
Yell hard counts as you go. When the ball moves, blockee. Just holding your position screws up the
the linemen all scramble forward for two steps on play because they expect the area where you were to
all fours and stop. be vacated.
Then you do it again and again and again and so
forth. You could go fifty yards down the field. Or Trap block
100. Whatever it takes to convince the down line- When they hear about my defense, many high school
men that this is what they will do every time the and higher level coaches immediately say they will
ball is snapped. run trap plays against it. So would 1.I love trap plays.
But I rarely saw them in youth football.
Remedial bear crawl Furthermore, I do not believe the Xs and Os alone
During scrimmage, keep a close eye on your down determine whether a trap block will succeed. The
linemen. If you ever see one stand up, remove him response of the trap blockee is more important.
from the scrimmage and have him do the bear-crawl You can train your defensive linemen to recognize a
drill alone off to the side. First offense: five two- trap-blocking scheme and move to defeat it. Here's
step bear crawls. Second offense: ten two-step bear a typical trap block against a defensive tackle.
 Responsibilities
o Give them a lot of reps
The right defensive tackle is being trap blocked. The
play is going just inside him. Obviously, to stop the
play, he needs to step to his inside and get in the way
of the ball carrier. The problem is that normally, by
the time he figures out the play is going to his inside,
the trap blocker-the right offensive guard in this
case-slams into him and knocks him outward.
To prevent that, the defensive tackle must recog-
nize the trap block sooner. He does that by notic-
ing that when the ball was snapped, the guys who
normally blocked him-the offensive left guard or
left tackle-ignored him. Furthermore, the offensive
man to his inside-the left guard-blocked down
(inward) on his defensive teammate to the inside-
the defensive right guard.
When the opponent to your inside blocks to your
inside-and the opponent to your outside ignores
you, it means the ball is coming right through
where you are currendy standing and that another
offensive player-typically a guard from the other
side of the center-is on his way to trap block you
outward.
Defeating the trap block
One technique for defeating this block is to step hard
to your inside, keeping your shoulders parallel to the
line of scrimmage. You get low and brace yourself
for the trap block with your outside foot. The result
should be a pile of people in the hole through which
the ball carrier is trying to go. As he tries to find
room to run somewhere else, he gets tackled by you
or your teammates.
Another technique is to face the trap blocker and
hit his near shoulder with your outside shoulder.
In the diagram above, the defensive tackle would be
a left face and take the trap blocker on with his right
shoulder. As a result of the collision, he would likely
end up facing the oncoming ball carrier right in the
hole. The defensive lineman must stop penetrating
as soon as he recognizes a trap block. Bear crawling
23
helps avoid overpenetrating.
The winningest high-school football coach in Texas
history is Gordon Wood. He said that you can stop
any play if you see it often enough. The key to stop-
ping the trap play is to just walk through and explain
it to your players, then have your scout offense run
it over and over until the defensive players learn to
recognize it and react correctly to it.
My 1996 high-school freshman team specialized
in the trap play. But we ran it so many times in prac-
tice that our scout defense got too good at reading,
recognizing, and stopping it. I had to stop running
it in practice because our lack of success there was
harming my players' confidence in the plays. But we
still ran it in games with great success.
Pursuit angles
If the ball carrier escapes outside the contain man,
the down linemen must take appropriate wide-
pursuit angles and pursue the ball carrier outside
in. The details of the wide-pursuit angles are in my
Coaching Youth Football book. Wide pursuit angles
are generic to all defenses, not unique to the gap-
air-mirror defense.
If the ball carrier throws a pass, all defenders im-
mediately sprint straight to the ball.
Ends
Ends generally have the same responsibilities-
contain, contain rush, and trail-but the wide-side
end and short-side end usually use very different
techniques to carry out their responsibilities. The
wide-side end usually boxes. The short-side end
usually slides.
However, both ends must know both techniques.
When the ball is more than five yards from either
hash, both ends should box. When the offense has
no sweep or is ineffective at running it, and they are
effective off-tackle, both ends should slide.
wide-side end usually boxes
short-side end usually slides
ball in middle both ends box
offense can't sweep both ends slide
Box technique
On the snap, the boxing end must get to the sweep
spot instantly. To do that, he must be untouched. I
24 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

know that most high-school and higher-level defen-
sive ends are supposed to whack the tight end on the
way in. I was one of them in high school.
Forget that at the youth level. Read my lips.
Untouched.
I read Dennis Creehan's book The Wing- Tfrom A
to Z· the Base Plan. He is an offensive coach. He said
the following in that book.
A lot ofplaces I go, people ask me, "What
do you do when that defensive end is really
penetrating upfield?" The answer is, "U7e
do n 't run th e sweep. "
more advanced version of this drill, have the deepest
offensive back change depths after the snap to see if
the boxing defensive end pays attention and avoids
overpenetrating.
I recently watched a video of our 1992 semifinal
playoff game against the Fairfield Falcons. They broke
a number of long runs on sweeps. In each case, the
reason was my end only went part way to the sweep
spot then stopped. The sweeping ball carrier then
ran though the sweep spot untouched and got to
the sideline ..

I was glad to see an offensivecoach saying you cannot

sweep against a penetrating defensive end. Precisely.
That's why it is so important for the wide-side de-
fensive end to penetrate to the sweep spot in youth
football, where the sweep is the main threat.

Sweep spot against skelly

Line up your ends against a skeleton (called "skelly"
for short) offensive backfield of various configura-
tions-no-back, one-back, two back, full-house. On
ball movement, they sprint to the sweep spot for that
offensive backfield configuration and face inward in a
good football position. A good football position just
means they are bent a little at the anJde, knee, and
waist. It's a sort of universal athletic ready position.
Also called a "Z in your knee" after the z shape in
the foot, calf, and thigh.
This is an extremely simple drill. Its purpose is
mainly to make crystal clear exactly what you want
the ends to do on the snap.
sweep sweep
spot sp'ot
Taking on blockers
Sometimes, after the end gets to the sweep spot, he
sees one or more lead blockers coming at him. The
temptation is to backpedal to stay on your feet. No
way!When faced with lead blockers, the end must get
down and grab grass at the sweep spot. That is, get
down in a four-point stance and hold your ground.
Make sure he keeps his head up. The ball carrier must
be forced to detour around the sweep spot.

You can drill the ends against skelly offensive back-

field alone or in conjunction with the defensive down
linemen. Note that against a no-back offense, the
sweep spot is only about a yard past the line of scrim-
mage, because the only sweeper is the quarterback.
The boxing end must always keep his eyes open
and not penetrate deeper than the football. For a If the ball carrier is forced to cut up field or to belly
 Responsibilities 25

back deeper to get around the sweep spot, the end's he sprints toward the sweep spot.
teammates should have no trouble tackling the
sweeper. But if the sweeper gets through the sweep boxing technique
spot untouched, he is probably gone, unless you have
defensive backs as fast as the sweeper. Go
To drill taking on blockers at the sweep spot,
simply run a sweep with or two lead blockers at a
particular end. Walk through it once or twice. Then
0000
jog through it. Then go full speed. slide technique Read

The slide:'technique end stays where he is on the snap

and reads the offensive player to his inside. If it is an
off-tackle play, as indicated by the offensive man to
his inside blocking toward the inside, the defensive
end squeezes the hole by stepping to his inside and
keeping his outside arm and leg free in case the ball
cartier bounces out.

Slide-technique end reads off-tackle play

1~~O D
Run this drill toward both sides. Since the ends flip If the tight end or wing tries to reach or hook block
, flop, give each a chance to do it from the right and the defensive end (block from the outside in: see
the left sides. Run both the one- and two-blocker diagram below), that means it's a sweep. The defen-
variations. sive end keeps the blocker at arms length and slides
This is a competitive drill. The end's job is to get along the line of scrimmage staying just outside the
to the sweep spot and hold his ground. The offense's would-be blocker and the ball carrier. This is some-
job is to enable the ball carrier to run through the times called stringing out the play.
sweep spot. It is NOT the end's job to tackle the ball
carrier, only to deny him passage through the sweep Slide-technique end reads sweep play
spot. The tackle will be made by the end's teammates
in game conditions.

Slide technique
The short-side end usually slides because the off-
tackle play is a bigger danger on that side than the
sweep when the ball is on or near the hash. When
an opponent either chooses never to sweep, or can-
not sweep effectively when they try, both of your
defensive ends should slide.
Below is a diagram illustrating the two defensive-
end techniques. The word "read" refers to the slide
technique. The slide-technique end reads the first
offensiveman to his inside to tell which direction he
should move. In contrast, the boxing end explodes
on the snap and only reads the depth of the ball as
~
y-UOOD E
Better on the short side
The slide technique is better than boxing on the
short side when the ball is on the hash mark. High-
school hash marks are just 17.78 yards from the
sideline. Each player takes up about a yard width
counting youth line splits.
So if the short side were the tight-end side, the
defensive end would be lined up about 4 1/2 yards
from the ball (one yard for each of the three and a
26 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
half players-center, guard, tackle, tight end-and
another yard for the defensive end to line up on air).
That leavesjust 17.78 - 4.5 = 13.28 yards outside the
defensive end. Even less if the tight end takes any
kind of a nasty split.
If there were a wing and a tight end on the short
side, it would reduce the distance to the sideline by
another three yards to 10.28 yards. So the question
is, can the defensive end slide sufficiently fast along
the line of scrimmage to prevent the ball carrier from
getting outside him when there is only 10 to 13 yards
outside the defensive end. I think most can.
~I
ra
~I
0000 0
I
I
13 yards
E
10 yards
I direct like this:
Furthermore, I suspect a competent opposing of-
fensive coordinator is far more likely to call for an
off-tackle play than a sweep into the boundary or
short side of the field. In all, the slide technique is
the preferred defensive-end technique on the short
side of the field because, there, the off-tackle play is
the greater threat.
If the ball is in the middle of the field, you may
need to box both defensive ends. You should prob-
ably teach the short-side end both techniques and
let him use his own judgment as to which to use as
the ball moves from the hash to the middle of the
field.
When I played defensive end at age 25 on the "Su-
per Bowl"-winning Headquarters Company tackle
football team at Fort Monmouth in 1971, I always
boxed. Once, on about our 15 yard line, the ball was
on the right hash from our defensive perspective. I
was right end and boxed and they ran off-tackle to
my side-for a touchdown.
After I boxed, I turned aroun4 to see how far I
was from the sideline. It was right behind me-about
three strides for an adult. By boxing, I was almost
duplicating the sideline. Dumb.
The slide technique may also be best for your
team on the wide side and on the short side when
the ball is not on the hash mark. That would occur
when you are getting hurt off-tackle, but not by
the sweep. Slow teams generally are not good at the
sweep and may not even have it in their play book.
It is dumb to box against a team that never sweeps
or never sweeps effectively. My 1997 double-wing
offense had no sweep, although we did have a bootleg
and a waggle pass.
Middle of the field
If the ball is in the middle of the field, box both
defensive ericls.
In 1991, I boxed both ends against Vacaville.
They eliminated us from the playoffs and won the
state championship. I later asked their secret. "We
never run outside the tight ends." In other words, I
was boxing to stop the sweep of a team that had no
sweep. Dumb.
Drop-back pass
In the event of a drop-back pass, the slide-technique
defensive end must contain rush, same as a boxing
end, although he will get a later start. Also, it is more
'"
Slide-technique reads
When using the slide technique, the defensive end
reads the widest offensive player just to his inside-
the tight end, wing, or weak tackle.
The defensive end's reaction to the attempt to
block him in should be to put his hands on the
shoulder pads of the would-be blocker and hold him
at arms length away from his body. He must also
fight to maintain outside position on the would-be
blocker and on the would-be sweeper. The play must
either be turned back in-where the defensive end
has 10 teammates to make the tackle-or strung out
so the sweeper keeps running sideways in his own
backfield until he runs out of field without ever hav-
ing turned upfield.
When the ball is on the hash, the wide side of
the field has about 30 yards between the wide-side
 Responsibilities 27

defensive end and the sideline. It is difficult to execute Cross-blocked off-tackle play
the slide technique for that distance against the top
athlete on the offensive team. If you conclude that
you need to use the slide technique because you
cannot find any other way to stop the wide-side off-
tackle play, you may need to put a better athlete
at wide-side defensive end than you need with the
boxing technique.
E
pO
T

Blocking progression Trap block

The defensive end who is using the slide technique The third candidate in the blocking progression is
has to read and shed blockers. This read is a progres- the guard coming out on a trap block. Again, the
sion. He first worries about the guy who is closest to slide-technique defensive end must get low, widen
him-the tight end, weak tackle, or wing. his stance, meet the block with his inside shoulder,
An off-tackle play where the tight end, weak and jam the blocker back into the hole while keeping
tackle, or wing blocks out on the defensive end is his outside arm and leg free.
called a base block. That is, the offensive man sim-
ply blocks the nearest defender away from the hole Trap-blocked off-tackle play
one-on-one. In that case, the defensive end simply
fights the block and tries to shove the blocker back
into the hole.
The slide-technique end does not use the fight
through the helmet technique that interior line-
men who line up nose up on an offensive player use E
when they are being blocked in a particular direc-
tion. The slide technique defensive end must keep
his outside arm and leg free to deal with a possible
bounce out. Kick-out block
Finally, they could block the defensive end with
Base-blocked off-tackle play a kick-out block by a fullback. Again, the slide-

pooo
technique defensive end must meet the block with
his inside shoulder and jam the blocker back into the
hole while keeping his outside arm and leg free.

E Kick-out-blocked off-tackle play

Cross block
The next candidate to block the slide-technique
defensive end out is the tackle. The offense may be
running the off-tackle play using a cross block or
fold block. The slide-technique defensive end must
get low, widen his stance, meet the block with his
inside shoulder, and jam the blocker back into the
hole while keeping his outside arm and leg free.

With the other off-tackle blocks, the slide-technique

28 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

When crack block is reorganized, corner

defensive end can merely step hard into the blocker yells, "Switch!" and takes over contain.
and brace himself with his outside leg. But with the
kick-out block by the fullback, the slide-technique
defensive end must attack the fullback to match his
momentum. Specifically,he must attack the outside
c
o 00T GDOC'O GT 0 BE 0)-.
jersey number of the fullback to make a mess in the
B Our corner back goes with
tailback's intended path. Again, the slide-technique M flanker during motion.
defensive end must keep his outside arm and leg Defensive end covers flanker
free. if he goes out for a pass.

There are other ways to stop the off-tackle play.

Regard the slide technique on the wide side as a last When this happens, the defensive end cannot con-
resort for stopping the off-tackle play in youth foot- tain. Since the wide-side sweep is generally the tough-
ball because of the extreme threat of the wide-side est play in youth football to stop, it is imperative that
sweep by most good youth offensive teams. we immediately replace the defensive end as far as
contain is concerned. The only person available to
Slide-technique drill do this is the mirror defender whose man crack-back
To teach this, have the coach stand behind the de- blocked on the defensive end. So the two defenders
fensive end. Across the line of scrimmage, put a tight must yell to each other, "Switch! Switch!"
end, tackle, guard, fullback, and quarterback. They The mirror defender then becomes the contain
can be other defensive ends and such for drill pur- man and the defensive end then has man-to-man
poses. Have the offensive players run the following: pass coverage on the offensive player who cracked
on him.
• sweep Obviously, this needs to be practiced. Use a
• off tackle (base block) skeleton crew of defensive end and one of the mir-
• off tackle (cross block) ror defenders. The offense will need a deep wing
• off tackle (trap block) or motion man and a trash can or other marker to
• off tackle (kick-out block) show the defensive end where to line up. Have the
• pass deep wing or motion man get outside position on
• bootleg the defensive end, yell, "Switch!" then have the two
players switch responsibilities.
Signal which play you want the offense to run with
a silent hand signal from behind. The defensive Trail
end practices reading the blocks and carrying out When the play goes away from him, the end becomes
his responsibilities, namely, containing the sweep, the trail man. That is, he trails the ball carrier through
squeezing the off-tackle play, and contain rushing the backfield. This is in case the offense is running
a passer. a reverse play.
He should not do this at breakneck speed. Rather
Switch in case of crack back he should have his eyeswide open for any indication
As noted in the previous chapter, we go to consider- of a reverse.
able effort to make sure there is no one outside our Reverses can employ outside or inside hand-offs.
defensive end when we line up. However, it is really An outside handoff has the ball carrier handing off
impossible to ensure that no one is ever outside the away from the line of scrimmage; an inside hand-off,
defensive end. A deep wingback can get outside toward the line of scrimmage. The trail man must
position on the end after the play starts. So can a defend both so he needs to be under control and
man in motion. have his eyes open.
 Responsibilities 29

Outside hand-off reverse quarterback bootlegs out to the offense'sleft. All three
should be tackled. Usually, players want to be sure
the guy coming at them really has the ball so they
won't look foolish.
..- Forget that. Look foolish. The teams that run this
"0 play usually work hard on their faking. By the time
000000
T G G T B E
you figure out who has the ball, it's too late.
B
M 'SearclJ the quarterback'
The defensive end on the bootleg side must do what
some coaches call "Search the quarterback." That is,
Inside hand-off reverse they grab him and make sure he does not have the
ball before they go anywhere else. The sweep-side de-
fensive end needs to just tackle the sweeper whether
or not he has the ball. The rules say you can tackle
"0 a guy who is pretending to have the ball. And the
o C
00000
TGGTB CE
dive back needs to be tackled regardless of whether
he has the ball.
B
My Alma Mater, Army, beat Navy in 1992 be-
M cause they failed to search our quarterback on two
bootleg plays.
Walk through it, jog through it, then run through it, Practice stopping this play either with no ball or
all with just the ball carriers and trailing end. Show with three balls. All three possible ball carriers need
him both the inside and outside hand-offs. But this to be tackled.
is best practiced during scrimmage so the element of
surprise can be employed against the trail man. Waggle pass
In my experience, trail men refuse to believe they The bootleg also comes up without the dive fake
need to do this until they get burned for a touch- in the waggle pass, one of the best youth or high-
down. Make sure that happens in scrimmage. school passing plays. Actually, I see it a lot in NFL
and college games, too. In one recent NFL game, I
Bootleg could hear the defensive players screaming "Waggle!
Many offensive schemes have three-play groups. The Waggle!" as they recognized it.
typical one would feature a dive, sweep, and bootleg. In the waggle play, the offensive backfield flows
They either run or fake each of these three plays on to one side and the quarterback fakes a handoff to a
everyplay.Against such teams, one defensive end will back going that way, then he bootlegs out the other
have to defend the sweep and the other, the bootleg. way concealing the ball and looking to throw a shal-
Here's a diagram. low pass.

Dive-sweep-boodeg combo

oc

. In this variation, the fullback dives to the offense's

left, the wing sweeps to the offense's right, and the

~-------
30 Gap-Nr-Mirror Detense tor Youth t'OOtDall

80 Waggle from the book Delaware W7ng- T overcome their natural instinct to chase the faking
reverse ball carrier. Overcoming instincts takes a lot
of reps.
F

c ..
'0
$ oc C-00'0000
T G G T B
B
M
e-------Jfc

The defensiveend's job is to tackle both sweeping ball

carriers and ball carriers who pretend they are hand-
ing the ball off to a reversing player. You must cure
the playside defensive end and corner of any fear of
Once again, the defensive end on the bootleg side of embarrassment from tackling the original ball carrier
the play must "search" the quarterback to make sure on what turns out to be an actual reverse.
he does not have the ball. Just have your scout team The drill for this is obvious, but very necessary.
run this playa bunch of times and the ends will get it. Just have a ball carrier run toward the defensive end
Again, either use no balls or two balls to convey the in question extending the ball as if to hand it off to
message that you always tackle your guy. You never a reversing teammate, then keep it.
try to figure out who has the ball early.
When Benicia tried to run this against us in 1991 Contain rush
I think they lost about 15 yards per play. They had If the ball carrier shows pass, the ends must contain
no pulling guard to protect the quarterback. Theirs rush. That is, they rush and try to sack the passer, but
was a naked bootleg rather than a waggle per se. My in doing so, they must make sure they do not allow
backside defensive end was thoroughly prepared be- the passer to get outside. First priority is to keep
cause of our scout report and buried the quarterback the passer inside the tight end. Sacking the passer
every time they tried this. Very ugly. is second priority for the ends.
If the passer tries to run a sprint-out or roll-out
Fake reverse pass drop, the end must stop him and force him to
I have called the fake reverseplay the best-kept secret throw sooner than he intended. If the passer drops
in offensive football. We lost a game because of it straight back, the end must prevent him from
once. You need to teach your ends to play it correctly. scrambling outside.
Their instinct will be to play it incorrectly, which is
why it works so well.
The playside defensive end, that is, the end to-
ward which the play initially goes, needs to ignore
the reverse and tackle the original ball carrier.
Stopping the reverse, if it actually is a reverse play, is
somebody else's job.
Furthermore, at the moment the original ball
carrier passes the ostensible reverse ball carrier, the
reverse ball carrier is going backwards. Accordingly,
he is not an immediate threat. Indeed, we like it
D
when the offense goes backward. Let him go.
One of my readers lost a game because of this
play--even though he read this section and practiced As with the defensive down linemen, the ends should
against the play every week! You need to give your pass rush with their arms up and fingers spread if
ends and corners a lot of reps of stopping this play. they can see the passer's eyes. Also, as with the down
I would guess about 25 to 30 minimum. You must linemen, the contain men should not leave their feet
 Responsibilities 31

if the passers seems to be throwing until they are sure If hand-off

the ball has left the passer's hand. If the quarterback hands the ball off, the mirror
defender whose man received the hand-off now takes
Throwback pass the quarterback in man pass coverage. But the throw-
Normally, in a pass, the end's only responsibility is back pass is rare. You probably should not worry
contain rush the passer. But there is one situation much about it unless you see it in scouting.
where he covers a receiver.
If the offensive player who receives the snap Off-tackle play
quickly throws the ball out to the side, but still be- A number of my readers have commented that
hind the line of scrimmage, the player who received they had trouble stopping the off-tackle play to the
the snap and made the quick throw is now an eligible boxing-end. side when using my defense. I had a little
receiver.Furthermore, no defender is assigned to him trouble with it mysel£
because he was expected to be the passer if there was Step one should be to videotape your games and
a pass play. But now, because the ball is no longer in study the tape to see exactly why the off-tackle play
his hands, and it is still behind the line of scrimmage, is succeeding against you.
he must be covered. Do not act like the typical idiot youth coach and
trash the whole defense just because one play suc-
No reverse ceeded against it. Also, don't worry about it unless
Also, the reverse play is no longer a threat if the ball that play has succeeded repeatedly against you. An
has been passed out wide. So the backside end-that occasional success is most likely meaningless. Some-
is, the one away from where the pass was thrown-is body may have slipped or something.
off duty as far as trail responsibilities are concerned. Once you diagnose the problem, take the ap-
But he is available to cover the original passer. And propriate action. Below are a number of possible
that's what he must do to prevent the receiver from adjustments. Pick the one most likely to cure the
throwing back to the passer. particular problem you are having.

o Other ways to stop the off-

tackle play-personnel
00000;;;/-/-/ ~
EB TGG.:r-
/
BE
C C
Here are a number of other things you should do if
you are having trouble stopping the off-tackle play
/ M when boxing the wide-side defensive end.
/ The first thing to look at is personnel. I almost
/ never had trouble stopping the off-tackle play, even
/ though we were boxing the ends. Most of my readers
report little or no trouble.
So it may just be that the few teams who are hav-
At my Coaching Youth Football clinic in Saddle ing trouble have a weak player at wide-side outside
Brook, NJ in April of 2000, one of my attendees linebacker or cornerback or at the left or right tackle
said teaching his ends this play won him a playoff position when that player is on the wide side for the
game. The first time his opponent ran the play, the play in question.
end forgot his training. It gained 15 yards. In practice or even in a game, try putting your
The coach reminded the end of his throwback-pass best athlete at wide-side outside linebacker and see
responsibilities. The second time the opponent tried if the offense can still succeed running off tackle. If
to run it in the same game, the backside end covered they cannot, it may be you need to make that change
the quarterback, intercepted the pass, and ran it in permanent, or at least permanent for the rest of the
for the game-winning touchdown. game in question.
Accordingly, this should be taught to the defensive You don't let your team get killed at the off-tackle
ends in preseason and reviewed at least monthly hole or any other hole because of a stubborn resis-
during the season. Of course, it should be in the game tance to changing position assignments. Do what
plan for the week if a particular opponent shows this you have to do.
play when you scout.
32 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
The GAM-M defense
One obvious adjustment when the ball is on the hash
and the offense has just one running back other than
the quarterback is to put the middle linebacker at
the wide-side off-tackle area.
wide side short side
E
M a given play.This is especially true if the offense seems
That would make it hard for the middle linebacker
to cover the running back if he swings out to the
short side, but this adjustment is a sort of emergency
measure when you are getting beat off-tackle. Plug
the leak you have first and worry about the possible
other leak if and when it appears.
Aligning the middle linebacker over the C gap
enables your defensive end to resume boxing.
The GAM-T defense
Another obvious adjustment would be to have the
defensive tackle on the wide side move out one gap.
For this adjustment, you would leave the middle
linebacker in the middle and he would now watch
the wide-side B gap, which he can easily do without
getting too far away from his man if his man stays
in the offensive backfield.
E'
0000
B T G
M tactic necessary. But I include it here because you
This, too, enables the end to resume boxing.
B gap plays are rare
Obviously, this opens up the B gap, but that gap is
generally not a successful point of attack in youth
football. It could be, but I have rarely seen youth
teams attack that gap.
~---------_.-
Less obviously, it enables the offense to double-
team block the defensive guard. The fullback could
then kick out the defensive tackle. But again, the
typical youth coach is not smart enough to figure this
out and most youth teams have no such plays.
Stem
If the offense starts attacking both the Band C gaps
on the long side when you move the tackle to the C
gap, try having him stem. That is, he moves around
to the B or C gaps or head up on the offensive tackle
when the offense is getting ready to snap. This should
cause the offense to guess at where he will end up on
to be calling audibles based on where the defensive
tackle lines up.
OLB head up
Note that the outside linebacker moves to a head-up
alignment against the tight end. This is to make room
for the defensive tackle to get into the C gap. If the
offense audibles to a B-gap play as a result of your
tackle being in the C gap, have him line up nose up
on the offensive tackle and stem (jump quickly just
before snap) into either the C or B gaps.
The GAM two-gap defense
If you stopped the off-tackle play with the defensive
tackle moving to the C gap, and started to have
trouble at the adjacent B gap, you could try having
the defensive tackle become a two-gap player. This
takes a better-than-average lineman.
In that case, the defensive tackle would line up
head up on the offensive tackle in a three-point
stance. When the ball was snapped, the defensive
tackle would read the helmet of the offensive tackle,
then fight through the helmet. You need to drill
reading the helmet and fighting through it.
This is standard stuff at the high-school and higher
levels. Try to avoid such complexity and passivity
(reading) in youth football. I have never found this
might need it.
E OgOD
f B G
 Responsibilities
G. Moore's 10-1 defense
Celina, Texas high-school coach G. Moore is the
winningest active coach in Texas. He is famous for
his 10-1 defense. In his 10-1, he has players lined up
in the A, B, and C gaps. If you are having trouble
at the C gap, but not with swing passes, this is the
best way to stop the off-tackle play.
The GAM M on TE defense
Another possible solution would be to have the
middle linebacker cover the tight end if he goes out
for a pass. That would free the outside linebacker to
line up in the C gap and focus entirely on the off-
tackle play.
This is unsound in the sense that the middle line-
backer cannot cover his normal man any more. But
we are willing to take that risk because we are getting
hurt repeatedly at the off-tackle hole in the game in
which you do this. I would make this a sort of zone
blitz and drop a defensive lineman back to cover the
back the MLB would usually cover.
Ends crash, mirror defenders
contain-The GAM shotgun
Another unsound alternative is to crash the ends
diagonally into the off-tackle play path and have
the mirror defenders contain. But then the mirror
defender's' receivers are uncovered. This is similar to
the shotgun defense with the stunt on the side where
the opposing offense is running the off-tackle play.
Summary of off-tackle
adjustments
You need to game plan stopping the off-tackle play
against each opponent. That is, each week, you need
to scrutinize the upcoming opponent's offense and
decide how you are going to stop their off-tackle
play.
Below is a table to help you make that decision.
Youshould practice all week in the configuration you
choose for that opponent.
Has no sweep or is Slide both defensive ends
lousy at sweeping
Box wide-side end, #1 position
Can sweep and for mirror defender whose
run off-tackle
man is in offensive backfield
off-tackle,
Can sweepbut norun
and
B-gap plays or traps
Itackle to C-gap
Move wide side defensive
33
Has sweep, off- Box wide end, put C-gap defender
tackle, swing pass, in #2 position, put wide defensive
and B-gap plays tackle nose up on offensive tackle
Almost no OlB takes #1 position in C-gap
and ignores TE, MlB covers TE if
passing game
pass, helps with off-tackle if run
None of the Wide end crashes inside to stop
off-tackle, wide OlB and C contain
above working
and play zone pass defense
Shotgun defense
When the offense is in a shotgun, you need to modify
the gap-air-mirror defense. The shotgun eliminates
the threat of a quick-hitting running play. It makes
it more difficult to get pressure on the passer. Shot-
gun defense is more like punt block than a regular
defense for the linemen.
Norma,lly, in youth football, the main offensive
threat is the sweep. The shotgun, however, is not a
good sweep formation. At the very least, the sweep
is delayed by the snap floating through the air. The
main threat of the shotgun is the passer having a lot
of time to see who's open.
So to defend the shotgun, we have to get a de-
fender on the passer fast. We will do that from
two directions. We will have one defender come off
the corner straight at the passer as fast as he can go.
And we will have another loop to the inside shoulder
of the blocker who is closest to the guy coming off
the corner. One of the two should come through
untouched.
Left stunt
Here is the left stunt versus the shotgun. Down
linemen stances are different from the normal gap-
air-mirror. The tackles are in a four-point sprinter's
stance angled in.
In a sprinter's stance, you have your feet stag-
gered like the feet of a track sprinter in the starting
blocks. This is for maximum speed. It might help to
put the kid with the best five-yard-dash time at the
stunting tackle side.
Since the defensive guards are aligned head up
on the offensive guards, they switch to a three-point
stance instead of their usual four-point stance. This is
to enable them to move sideways faster. A four-point
stance is only for straight-ahead charges ..
In the left stunt, the four down linemen all go to
their left. The left tackle is the guy who comes off the
corner full speed at the recipient of the snap. The left
guard lines up head up on the offensive right guard
34 Gap-Air-Mirror lJetense tor roum roowau

(the offensive tackle on the defense's left) and loops
into the B gap. The right defensive guard loops to
the A gap. He is responsible for the draw play.
If the ball carrier is not the guy who received the
snap, he will have help from the middle linebacker.
And the right defensive tackle loops into the B
gap to his left. The defensive ends do their normal
boxing-a contain rush if the play is a pass, which is
normal out of this formation. Here is the left-stunt
shotgun defense.
He has no gap. He does have a man to cover in
pass defense, but, in most games, he can ignore his
man unless the offense lines up in a no-back forma-
tion, or unless the team in question tends to swing
the middle linebacker's man out of the backfield on
pass routes
In the absence of a no-back formation or passes to
a sole running back, the middle linebacker plays zone
pass defense. His zone is the entire field-or more
accurately, t.lJ.eportion of the field which is within
the youth passer's throwing range. Since each of the
receivers who does go out for a pass is covered by a
man-to-man defender, the middle linebacker usually
is the second line of defense on passes, too.

M
Double coverage
Essentially, we have double coverage on the receiver
to whom the pass is thrown. He is single covered by
Right stunt the defender assigned to him in man-to-man coverage
Here is the right stunt version. and he is also covered by the middle linebacker who
should break to where the passer is looking when
the passer takes his front hand off the ball. Given
the short range of the vast majority of youth passers,
the middle linebacker should be in the vicinity of
ground zero when the pass arrives.
M Don't coach him
I have coached three dozen teams from six-year olds
in baseball to high-school kids in football and volley-
Code ball, and semi-pro baseball players. One of the things
Whenever the offense is in shotgun, the middle line- I have learned in myoid age is that coaches should
backer should yell "Shotgun!" That tells the defense avoid coaching whenever possible. It's another way to
to get into this alignment. put the old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
He then yells a three-digit number. One of the Your middle linebacker is your best defensive
three digits designates whether the stunt goes left or player. He has great athletic ability, great instincts,
right. An odd number in that position means right and great motivation. Leave him alone. Let him turn
because right has an odd number ofletters. An even loose all those talents.
number in that position means left because left has
an even number ofletters. For example, if the second Wherever you want
digit was the live one, the middle linebacker saying, All I told my best middle linebacker, Will Bronson,
"Shotgun! 245!" would mean left stunt because 4 is was, "Line up wherever you want and do whatever
an even number. you want." That was not enough instruction. But it
If a team uses a lot of shotgun in a game, they was closer to the right amount than most coaches
might start picking up the stunt. In that case you do.
probably need to send one of the inside guys or
overload a side. In other words, do something dif- Where the action is
ferent. You want your middle linebacker to go to where
the action is, whether the play is a run or a pass. In
Middle linebacker theory, he cannot abandon his pass responsibilities
In general, the middle linebacker is a second line of until he is sure the play is not a pass.
defense. He mops up. Or at least that's the plan. When does that happen? When the ball crossesthe
 ---------------
Responsibilities
line of scrimmage. But, truth to tell, that's too late.
The middle linebacker has to figure out whether it's
a pass or run sooner than when the ball crosses the
line of scrimmage.
How do they do that? I'm not sure. In fact, I
probably don't want to know. It would scare me too
much to know how they are making that decision.
Scout report
Partly it comes from the scouting report. Partly it
comes from the defensive practice against the scout
team posing as the upcoming opponent during the
week before the game.
Read receiver
Partly it comes from experience during the game in
question. The linebacker learns to read the offensive
players to tell what kind of play they are running. This
may even occur at the subconscious level,and almost
certainly does occur at that level at least in part.
Partly it comes from the game situation-down,
distance, score, time remaining. Partly it comes
from your teammates and coaches yelling "Pass!"
whenever they see the ball carrier show pass. Partly
it comes from your teammates and coaches yelling
"Air!" when the ball leaves the passer's hand.
Find, not coach
Remember, you don't coach the middle linebacker,
you find him among your players and turn him loose.
Almost every word of instruction you speak to him
detracts from his performance-because he will start
thinking about what you told him at a time when he
needs to be operating on instinct.
Attention: Do not ask me how the
linebackers and cornerbacks tell if
it's a run or pass. I get a million calls
about that. I just explained it in the
paragraphs above this one. Reread
them. In short, the kids figure it out
for themselves and that's better and
faster than you tying their brains up
with rules.
No-back offense
Against a no-back offense, the middle linebacker
needs to line up on his man so as to prevent an in-
side release. He should let the receiver make the first
move, then hit him. If and when the receiver gets
loose, the middle linebacker must go with him and
coverhim. That was explained with diagrams like the
..
35
quads formation in the alignment chapter.
Receiver out of the backfield
If scouting or the course of the game indicates the
opponent likes to pass to the middle linebacker's man
out of the backfield, the middle linebacker must keep
an eye on that receiver. Such coverage need not be
as tight as covering receivers downfield, because the
guy usually catches the ball when he is still in his
own backfield.
Prevent-inside-release drill
To practice preventing inside release, find a spot
on a lined football field where two lines intersect
perpendicular to each other. Possibilities include the
goal line-side line, end line-sideline yard line-side
line, hash mark-yard line. Let the defender stand on
the intersection of the two lines. The receiver stands
cater-corner to the forbidden zone.
After the coach has said "ready," the receiver initi-
ates the drill by starting whenever he feels like. This
is a competitive drill. The defender tries to keep the
receiver out of the forbidden zone. The receiver ties
to get into the forbidden zone.
End line
( D ) Receiver
Defender
Forbidden zone I~
0-
ro
~
ro
Both sides
Do this drill so the defenders get work on both their
left and right sides. This in-your-face alignment only
applies to tight ends and split ends. You should also
move the receiver back off the line to simulate the
walkaway alignment against Hanker and slot backs.
Middle linebackers are the one mirror position that
never gets to cover a tight end or split end.
36 Gap-Nr-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

( 0 ) Receiver Must emphasize in practice

Only about 4% of youth plays are passes in most
End line games. Consequently, youth defenders tend to
Defender abandon pass responsibilities. You cannot allow
that. One of the few problems my readers encoun-
tered in the 2001 season were a few passes going for
Forbidden zone I~ touchdowns.
a:
!!2.. Invariably, the problem is that the defender totally
::J
(l) ignored the receiver. Typically, a linebacker lines
up in the face of a tight end, then, at the snap, the
linebacker stands still at the line of scrimmage and
watches the backfield action while his man streaks
downfield for a pass. The middle linebacker, who is
Versus wing or tight slot supposed to be in zone pass coverage during most
And you need to do the drill versus a wing back. pass plays, also stands there mesmerized while receiv-
Remember, in the case of a wing or tight slot, the ers go downfield behind him.
defender must line up head up on the receiver be- The fault is the coach's. He probably told the
cause the tight end or weak tackle blocks the inside linebackers and corners that they needed to cover
release to an extent. To run that drill, put a trash can their man, but as more and more non-pass plays
or other obstacle where the tight end or weak tackle occurred, his defenders increasingly abandoned
would be. their pass-defense responsibilities. The coach either
failed to monitor that or noticed it, but had become
( Q ) Receiver complacent himselE
You must emphasize pass defense verbally. You
must also increase the number of times your scout
End line offense throws passes in practice to make sure the

o )Defender defenders remain adequately pass conscious. For

example, the incidence of passes in a youth game
is about 4% as I said, but the incidence of passes in
your practice scripts should be 20% to 40% of the
Forbidden zone I~ plays. The older your age group, the more pass plays
a.
m you should show in practice. This is like a dial that
:J you adjust. Keep increasing the number of passes you
m
show in practice until your players are adequately
pass conscious in games.

It won't work for long in your competitive drills,
but you are allowed to knock the receiver down.
However, in games against opponents who have never
encountered bump coverage and who have never
participated in this drill, you may have considerable
success knocking the receivers down to the ground.
I predict they and their coaches will scream for a
flag, figuring that if no one else is doing it, it must
be illegal. You might want to tell your bump mirror
defenders to strive to knock the opposing receivers
down at least at the beginning of a game.
3rd quarter
Many of these passes against my readers occur early
in the third quarter. They shut the opposing run
offense down in the first half, so at· half time, the
opposing offensive coordinator decides to try passing
in the second halE So you must tell your defenders
at half time of a game where you have stifled the
opponent to be even more vigilant for passes in the
second halE
Take away easiest passes first
It is standard for coaches to admonish pass defend-
ers to make stopping the big play their top priority.
"Don't let them get behind you" and all that. It is
probably smarter in youth football to take the op-
 Responsibilities
posite
" approach. "Don't let them get in front of
you.
For one thing, you generally have the middle
linebacker in zone coverage. A zone defender must
keep all receivers in front of him. In other words, he
has to be behind the deepest receiver. So let him
worry about the big play. Have your other mirror
defenders take away the highest-percentage passes-
the shorter passes.
Stop the line drives
As a general rule, the highest percentage passes are
the line drives. As I said, we are going to take away
the highest percentage pass of all, the slant, by fight-
ing with the receiver at the line of scrimmage and
not letting him release inside. Once he gets free, the
mirror defender is to position himself between the
passer and the receiver. In the NFL, this is often a
cardinal sin because the NFL quarterbacks can drop
a bomb over the receiver's shoulder when he is at a
dead run.
Youth passers almost never can do that. What
they can do is throw a line drive to a relatively close
receiver.
Take away the hook route by staying between the
receiver and the passer.
\ defend this
not this
Give up the streak because they probably cannot
protect the passer that long, cannot throw it accu-
rately, it has a long flight time if accurate and your
zone defender MLB should be there to intercept it.
Also, if you watch a bunch of youth games, you will
see that about 19 times out of20, medium and long
passes fall short and the receiver has to come back
for them.
If the middle linebacker is in man coverage on a
receiver, the other defenders have to defend the deep
pass first because they have no help back there. In that
37
case, the middle linebacker must ell "No help!" to the
other mirror defenders. Include this in your practice
for lining up against no-back offensive formations.
Under the out
If the receiver runs an out route, take away the out
by running underneath (closer to the passer) the re-
ceiver. Worry less about the out and up for the same
reasons you worry less about the streak.
defend this
not this
Take away the slant, but worry less about the slant
corner or post corner.
D
not this
These are not the only routes but they should be
enough to give you the general idea. Look at the
various passing routes you see in your league and
take away the shortest, easiest ones.
'Cover curl, tackle flat'
One philosophy of pass coverage that makes logical
sense is "Cover curl, tackle flat." "Cover curl" means,
if a receiver is in the curl zone-five to fifteen yards
in front of the offensive line-stay close to him to
prevent him from catching a pass or to tackle him
38 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth .l<ootball

immediately if he does make a catch. ecute in spite of how easy they appear to be. It is
"TackleHat" means if the opponent throws a pass hard just to complete the pass. By attacking through
to the flat-the area to either side of the formation your man, you should see the screen pass developing
around or behind the line of scrimmage-let him before it is too late. If scouting shows the opponent
catch the ball, then go tackle him. You can take this in question has a screen, you must have your scout
attitude because the receiver has typically gained team show it in practice and make sure your mirror
few, if any, yards at the time he makes such a catch. defenders check for a screen before they attack the
Completion of a flat pass, per se, does not hurt you. passer.
Only yards after the such a catch can hurt you. You
have extra time to get to him. Plus, you simply do Man cov~rage
not have enough guys to prevent completion of every Man pass coverage takes some getting used to. After
pass to the flat. you have practiced preventing the inside release,
practice covering the man as he runs his route. At
Aggressive against pass first, do this without a ball. Just set a time limit of five
to running back seconds. Have the receiver run every different type of
I would hope and expect that my middle linebacker route that the middle linebacker might see.
would be very aggressive about attacking a receiver
coming out of the backfield. Passes to the flat are Strip
prime candidates for interception touchdown After that, teach the middle linebacker that just be-
runbacks. cause the receiver catches the ball does not mean the
I would push that idea to my middle linebacker in play is over. Have him stand next to a standing-still
the practice sessions the week before a game against receiver. Toss the ball to the receiver. The defender
such an opponent. I would show him the play in deliberately lets the receiver catch the ball, but then
question a bunch of times via the scout team. But, immediately strips the ball either stealing it or knock-
as stated above, I would generally let the middle ing it to the ground.
linebacker rely on his instincts. The junior varsity high-school team that I coached
won the league championship on this play.Actually, a
Attack running back defender intercepted our pass on their one-yard line.
in backfield Then our receiver snatched the ball out the defender's
If your man is a running back and he stays in the hands and stepped into the end rone.
backfield after the snap, attack into the backfield.
You are near useless standing around the line of Fight for the ball
scrimmage. Little or nothing happens there in a Stand the defender next to a receiver and throw a
pass play. ball to both. Vary the trajectory from high lob to
You should either drop back into zone pass cov- low line drive. Both players fight for the ball. This is
erage, which we do not want anyone other than the a competitive drill.
middle linebacker to do, or you should attack the Watch carefully for infractions. The defenders
passer-as long as your man does not go out for must learn to do this legally only. They need to learn
a pass. Attack through your man to keep an eye on to intercept the ball at its highest point or to get closer
him for as long as possible. In most cases in youth to the passer than the other guy. Don't stand there and
football, the backs do not go out for passes. You wait for it to come down. If you do, the opponent
should spot the exceptions in scouting. can easily step in front of you or jump above you and
catch it instead of you catching it.
Screen pass My son's2005 high school freshmfUlteam stopped
The most common exception is probably the screen a three-season win streak by their arch rivals with
pass, which is a bit of a joke in youth football. The this drill.
screen pass is a complement to deep drop-back
passes. Since youth-football teams cannot credibly Tip drill
claim to have five- or seven-step drop passes, whom Once or twice a season, you should do a tip drill
are they kidding when the run a screen? for both receivers and mirror defenders. The coach
Also, screen passes are devilishly difficult to ex- simply tosses a light pass to a man about five or ten
 Responsibilities 39

yards away. That man bats it upward and a player
behind him catches it. I generally have found that
I have to use a coach as the batter. At higher levels,
you use a player to bat the ball, but as with so many
things in youth football, the kids are just too dumb
to figure it out without wasting a bunch of practice
time teaching them what you mean by batting the
ball up.
..c.
u
•..
ttl
U
various routes near a passer who lobs various tosses
to the receiver. The defender tries to intercept or bat
down the pass based on his reading of the receiver's
eyes and hands.
Have other players yell "Pass!" and "Air! to simu-
late game conditions and help the defender tell when
the ball will arrive. Because the passer is artificially
close to the receiver to make the drill more efficient,
the team should yell, "Air!" on command of the
coach, nOt when the ball leaves the passer's hand .
The passer will then wait a beat after they say "Air!"
before he throws to simulate normal flight time of
.the ball.

Some players are

better at man
Some players are better at man coverage than others.
The purpose of the tip drill is simple: to get the no- A player who isweak at man coveragehad better work
tion that a tipped ball is too hard to catch out of the hard on his bump technique to delay the receiver's
players' head. release. A coach whose players are not so hot at man
coverage had better work on improving his pass rush
Catching up to four man and bump techniques.
after you lose him Man coverage is most likely to be successful if
If your man gets away from you, you must catch you assign defenders according to the spy or shadow
back up to him. This is easier than it sounds in youth technique. That is, assign defenders to cover an of-
football because most passes are under-thrown. The fensive player by jersey number instead of position so
temptation is to look for the ball. No way! you can have your best athlete covering the offense's
The ball cannot score a touchdown. Only the best athlete, your second best on their second best
receiver can. Catch back up to the receiver. You only and so on.
look for the ball when the team yells "Air!" and you
see your guy widen his eyes and reach out with his If it is broke, fix it
hands. Earlier, I said I try to avoid coaching. Ifit ain't broke,
Drill this by deliberately separating the defender don't fix it. However, sometimes, it is broken. If a
from his man then have the receiver continue to run player is consistently making some mistake, like back-
a route and have the defender catch up to the receiver pedaling leaning backwards, you need to straighten
without looking for the ball. In this drill, you should him out. (You keep your shoulders over your toes
use a ball because you want to create the temptation when you backpedal so you can change direction
to look at it. quickly.) But you and your players are better off if
they can figure stuff out for themselves.
Watch the receiver's
eyes and hands Wide pursuit
The defender needs to learn how to tell when the If the ball carrier breaks outside of contain, the three
ball is coming to his man by the behavior of the linebackers are all inside-out pursuers. That means,
receiver. He should be able to tell the ball is coming they must stay three steps behind (inside) the sweeper
to someone by his teammates yelling "Air!" as he moves sideways to prevent him from cutting
He can tell if it is coming to his man by watch- back "against the grain" as the announcers say.
ing the receiver's eyes and hands. The eyes will get In contrast, the linemen and corners are outside-
wider and the hands will reach out. At that point, in players. That means they must take angles so
the defender needs to get his hands out in the same they can get outside the ball carrier if he escapes
place and turn to see the ball. contain.
To drill this, have the receiver and defender jog
40 Gap-Air-Mirror Uetense ror lOum rUULUdll
Pass pursuit
On a pass play, as soon as the ball leaves the passer's
hand, all eleven defenders go full speed to the ball.
You should also practice what to do when you inter-
cept the ball. Players and coaches should yell "Oski!"
when one of their team intercepts a pass. Oski is the
name of the Cal mascot.
Upon hearing the word "Oski!" the defenders who
did not intercept the ball must immediately try to
help him by blocking.
If you do not practice the Oski drill, they will
simply watch the ball carrier when an interception
occurs. Give the defense a few offensive players or
dummies representing offensive players to block.
Deliberately throw a interception.
Upon hearing the word "Air!" all eleven defend-
ers sprint to the ball. When the ball is intercepted,
everyone yells "Oski!" and tries to legally block an
offensive player who might be able to tackle the ball
carrier. Be careful to avoid clipping. The kids love
the Oski drill.
The wide-play pursuit, pass-pursuit, Oski, and
gang tackling drills should be run weekly.
Interception drill
Be sure to give your mirror defenders practice catch-
ing passes, especially passes thrown right at them.
Pass defenders tend to think their job is just to bat
down passes, not catch them. Wrong! They should
catch them whenever possible. You must instill that
in them. A ball in the air is their ball. The receiver
has no right of way.
The no-hope chase
Super fast guy from the other team breaks into the
clear. No one on your team is fast enough to catch
him. Nothing you can do, right? Wrong!
You can draw a clip. How do you do that? Have
all your defenders chase frantically-as fast as they
can run-· after the guy, making sure they run close
to members of the offensive team in the process.
Sound dumb? Guess what? It works. I have found
that the more frantically you run by the member of
the offensive team, the greater the probability he will
clip you. If, on the other hand, you just jog lackadai-
sically past him, he will not clip you.
Chalk this. Then drill it. Station a ball carrier
about fifteen yards down field from a line of scrim-
mage. Scatter defenders around the way they would
be late in a long play. Scatter offensive players around
similarly.
On the command "Full speed!Full speed!" the ball
carrier takes off for the end zone and each of your
defenders tears after him as fast as he can go making
sure to run near a member of the offensive team. The
kids think this is very clever and get a kick out of the
acting involved.
Be sure to use the phrase "Full speed!" or another
code word or phrase to get the kids to automatically
take off when they hear that word or phrase.
Don't get stupid and yell, "Draw a clip!" or some
such. We don't want the opponent to know what we
are doing. Remember, he may have read this book.
This seemingly idiotic behavior-tearing after a
guy you have no hope of catching-will win games
for you. I kid you not.
Switch if paths cross
One of the standard ways to attack man pass coverage
is to run a pick play. That's illegal, so coaches run
quasi pick plays. The basic ingredient is to have two
receivers cross paths.
The hope is that the defenders will collide and
lose their man. One antidote to that is to have the
defenders switch men when they see receivers about
to cross paths. They yell, "Cross!" since I already used
"Switch!" for the crack-back block reaction.
Outside linebackers
Outside linebackers basically prevent inside release
by their man and cover him if and when he escapes
as the middle linebacker does when his man is a
quick receiver.The main difference is that the outside
linebackers often have a tight end as their man and
the middle linebacker never does. As with the middle
linebacker, the outside linebackers must learn when
to forget the pass and go to the ball. As with the
middle linebacker, this is a subtle art which should
be learned by study of the scouting report, practice
against a scout team, and so forth.
The outside linebackers need to do the same man
pass coverage drills as the middle linebacker.
Playing as traditional
linebackers
If their man is lined up in the backfield in a three-man
I formation, the outside linebacker lines up in the
middle of the field and goes whichever way his man
goes. But he must check for a counter first before he
leaves. Since he is an inside-out pursuer, he is in no
hurry to chase a ball carrier toward the outside.
Practice this by having the scout team run coun-
 Responsibilities 41

ters and non-counters. When they run a counter,
watch the outside linebacker lined up over the 1.
If he flows too fast, have the play run again after
reminding him of his responsibility to check for the
counter first. Walk through both the counter and the
non-counter to show him what each looks like and
to teach him what to do.
Use scrimmage as the venue for teaching this be-
cause the element of surprise must be present, plus
they must learn to read through the commotion
and confusion of an 11-against-11 game situation.
Here's a counter play to illustrate the danger of the
linebacker flying out to the side too fast.
gap. If he aligns over the C gap, which would be
wise if the offense is swinging backs out of the
backfield on passes or succeeding with counter or
misdirection plays, he must play like a traditional
linebacker. That is, he will mirror flow on his side,
but stay put and check for counters when flow goes
away from his side.
o
Same-side flow: mirror it

This was called 41 inside trap when I coached at

Granada High School. The quarterback fakes a pitch
o
to the tailback who pretends to catch the ball and
sweeps to his right. The fullback takes one jab step to o
the outside then comes back to receive the handoff
and run through the one hole.
There is a trap block on the outside of the hole.
00000 0
The linebacker needs to stop this play, but he will
not be able to do so if he flies out toward his left to
a---+
try to stop the apparent sweep. You must teach him Same-side flow: mirror it
that other people are worrying about the sweep.
His first duty is to look for the counter and move
to stop it.
When he sees movement to one side or the other,
he must stay put and refocus his eyes on the side to
which the flow is going to see if there is anyone there
coming back the other way.
Only after making sure there is not can he do his
inside-out pursuit. You could even require a backer
in this position to make his first step opposite of
o o
flow to make sure he checks counter first. This is
B
very counter-intuitive. That is, it goes against all
your instincts. The kid really wants to fly out with
the initial flow. You must train that out of him. This Flow away: stay put and
takes many reps look for counter by back

C-gap linebackers
When the outside linebacker's or cornerback's man You can drill this with a skeleton crew: outside
is not part of a three-back I, but is in the backfield, linebacker or cornerback, quarterback, and running
that mirror defender will align in or over the C backs. As usual, walk through each type of flow
42 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
first and show the backer or corner exactly what he
is supposed to do.
Then have the coach stand behind the backer or
corner and silently signal to the offense which of the
three types of flow to run. The coach then watches
the linebacker's or corner's feet to make sure he takes
no false steps and does not even lean the wrong way
on flow away.You need to run this drill a lot to make
sure the linebacker or corner does not follow his
instincts on flow away.
Keys
Traditional linebackers have keys. There are eleven
guys on the offense. Whom should the linebacker
watch? The natural reaction is to watch the ball. In
youth football, that's probably the right key most of
the time.
The other players linebackers key on at times are
guards, triangles (near running back, quarterback,
and the uncovered offensive lineman between the
linebacker and the near running back), near backs,
or blocking backs.
Keying on guards
In bygone years, it was common for guards to be
uncovered and for them to pull a lot. A pulling
guard usually leads you to the point of attack. This
is especially useful if the backs are engaging in fakes
or misdirection.
Pulling guards have no time for fakes or misdi-
rection. So they give a truer read than the sneaky
backs. Uncovered guards also give a pass read because
they are not allowed to go downfield on a pass play.
They fire out on running plays and stand up on pass
plays.
But in youth football, pulling guards are rarely
used. So you should only teach your mirror defend-
ers who are playing as traditional linebackers to key
on guards if scouting indicates your upcoming op-
ponent is big on pulling their guards.
Keying on a triangle
Keying on a triangle is generally not a good idea in
youth football because of the lack of pulling guards
as well as the complexity of keying on three differ-
ent players.
Keying on the near
running back
Keying on the near running back is probably a good
idea in youth football. Most teams have misdirection
plays. By learning not to move on flow away by the
near back, your linebackers or corners can stop the
counter or misdirection play.
Keying on a blocking back
Against single-wing teams, you can often get a lot
of mileage out of keying on the blocking back. He
will lead you to the point of attack most of the time.
But be aware that competent single-wing coaches will
put some wrong-way plays into their play books to
take advantage of teams that key on their blocking
backs.
Cornerbacks
Cornerbacks have the same responsibilities as out-
side linebackers, except that they pursue wide plays
outside in instead of inside out. The main other
difference between corners and outside linebackers
is that they take the widest quick receivers while the
linebackers take the innermost quick receivers.
Blitz?
You may have noticed no mention of blitzing or red
dogging in this chapter. I generally did not blitz. A
blitz or red dog is usually an anti-pass tactic. We did
not see much passing and did not want to discourage
what little we saw. The only time I blitzed was when
I knew that a passer was going to set up outside the
tackles to pass.
When I scouted Elk Grove in 1992, I noticed that
whenever they lined up in slot right, the quarterback
rolled out to behind the slot and set up to throw a
pass. So I told my middle linebacker to blitz to the
spot where we knew the quarterback was going to set
up as soon as they snapped the ball in that formation.
In the actual game, he forgot. By the time I reminded
him, Elk Grove had stopped running that play.
Shotgun stunt is blitz
My shotgun defense stunt is a sort of blitz. But in
general, blitzes do not make sense in youth football,
especially in the gap-air mirror defense. The idea
behind the blitz is that you are rushing an additional
defender above the normal number or rushing a
defender from an unexpected position.
Nowhere to blitz
Because the normal line splits in youth football are
four to six inches, there is really nowhere to go if you
try to blitz between the tight ends. My offenses used
zero line splits and teams who tried to blitz against
 Responsibilities 43

us might as well have been running into a brick wall. players doing something they never do in a game-
They just disappeared into the pile. like carioca.
Whenever my high-school defense blitzed, we Some coaches would argue that players need
automatically put our defensive backs into cover one, to be agile, therefore they should do agility drills.
the same man coverage with one guy in zone that I My response is it helps for players to be agile, but
advocate in the gap-air-mirror. Going to man cover- I suspect there is no data proving that agility drills
age when you blitz is standard procedure in football. make players more agile. Furthermore, agility drills
In the gap-air-mirror, we are already in that "send six are time-consuming. I guarantee you that players
and put the others in man" mode. must learn their assignments and get over their fear
Some readers might think that running a fifty of hitting, etc. You do not have time to do both the
defense-with five men on the front line instead of stuff you know your players need and the stuff that
six-and blitzing a linebacker would be the same as maybe has an indirect benefit.
my defense, but more confusing because the blitzer
could be any of three linebackers.
The problem with that is the narrow line splits of
the typical youth offense and the fact that a blitzer
would be coming in high and therefore would not
be the winner in a low-man-wins collision.
I get the impression that coaches think how much
blitzing your team does is a measure of your man-
hood and they do not want to be found wanting in
that category. If a coach must use a "manly" defense,
I would argue that sending six rushers on every play
is at least as "manly" as the occasional blitz.

Generic drills
Note that although I have a bunch of drills in this
chapter, they are all closely related to the actual game
responsibilities of the position in question. I hate
generic drills like the carioca, running ropes, the
linebacker wave drill, the Oklahoma drill, hitting
sleds, and so forth.
I think coaches do these drills because they give
the appearance of efficient, coordinated work. They
are mildly impressive as choreography, but they are
a waste of time when it comes to becoming a better
football team. They are merely the ancient "religious"
rituals of football coaching. I say "religious" because
religion is something people accept on pure faith
with no hard evidence they work.

.Just rehearse
The key word is "rehearsal." A youth coach is like a
school play director. You do not have time to waste
on activities that are only distantly and indirectly
related to what your players need to do in the next
game. Rehearse the upcoming game.
Rehearse it in full-dress, II-on-II scrimmage and
also broken down into smaller and smaller pieces.
But always keep to the principle of rehearsing the
game. Never do football-looking stuff that has the
44 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
 5 Practice schedule

3 days per week

6th game
Rules vary
erated fromwere
under league to league.
pretty common Thesoones
I willI op-
use 3 days per week
those here. If your league has different rules regard-
7th game
ing how much you can practice, you'll have to make
3 days per week
appropriate modifications to this schedule.
Many say you should tailor your offense to the 8th game

specific talents of your players each year. Makes 3 days per week
sense but impossible below high school varsity level 9th game
because it takes years to figure out what talent each 3 days per week
player has. 10th game
Playoffs-4 days per week
Different phases of season 1st playoff game
The youth football season typically has a number of
Playoffs-4 days per week
phases. Ours were:
2nd playoff game
Hand out and fit equipment Playoffs-4 days per week
3rd playoff game
No pads conditioning week-5 days
Turn in equipment
Pads-4 days per week
Pads-4 days per week
Jamborees (preseason
scrimmage with other teams)
Evaluation versus repetition
Pads-4 days per week
You need to do two main things in practice: 1.
Jamborees
evaluate your players to seewho goes where and who
School starts-Regular season gets how much playing time and 2. practice your
practice-3 days per week
responsibilities to get ready for your games. You do
1st game the most evaluation in the beginning. The amount
3 days per week of evaluation declines geometrically as the season
2nd game progresses. Here's a graph.
3 days per week
3rd game
3 days per week
4th game
3 days per week
5th game

45
46 Gap-Air-Mirror Detense tor roUtll rUULUdll
100
Q)
E
.,p
Q)
u Practice
·u
III
-o
a.
#-
Evaluation
o 30 minutes per day. The remaining ten minutes is
start end
of season of season
Late-blooming rookies
You must always be alert for late-blooming rookies.
Every season, some kids who were lousy for the first
month or two of the preseason suddenly figure it out.
In an instant, they become excellent players.
That happens every year and the· coaches who
overlook that improvement should be damned to the
hottest reaches of Hell. These late-blooming rookies
are really good, often better than your first-string guy
at that position. Youmust constantly keep looking for
them throughout the season. Keep counting tackles
and assists in practice scrimmages and in games.
Tackles per ten plays
Make sure you count not just tackles and assists, but
tackles and assists per every ten plays. Minimum-
play players obviously don't get in the game as often
as starters, so they cannot compete on absolute
numbers of tackles.
In 1992, I had a player named Anthony Lomondo.
He was a typical rookie who seemed to figure it out
after a couple of months. I thought he was doing a
pretty good job on defense, but I couldn't justify mov-
ing him up to first string because the first stringers
had many more tackles than Anthony. Then a light
bulb went on in my head, not unlike the bulbs that
go on in rookies' heads. I realized that Anthony had
not had as many opportunities as the starters.
So I sat down and did a rough estimate of the
number of plays each player had on defense in games
and scrimmages. When I redid the numbers based
on tackles and assists per ten plays, 10 and behold,
rookie minimum-play player Anthony Lomondo was
the best tackler on the team! I instantly promoted
him to first-string defense and he did a great job for
the rest of the season.
Practice-time allocation
In a two-hour daily practice, defense should get 40
minutes. So should offense. This assumes a sequen-
tial practice schedule. In theory, you could practice
offense and defense simultaneously, but that takes
more playing and coaching talent than the vast ma-
jority of youth teams have. Special teams should get
for stretching which was mandatory in our league.
The rest of this chapter will tell you what to do with
your 40 mimites each day.
Safety
Your first order of business after the welcoming
speech is to make sure the players know that they
must keep their heads up when they hit for safety.
Explain the correct tackling position for side and
front tackling. Put each kid in the proper position
against a ball carrier on the first or second day of no-
pads practice. See my book Coaching Youth Football
for the correct tackling positions.
Obtain and show them a video on head safety
before first contact. Do the same with a second video
on the same subject half way through the season. This
is recommended by medical authorities. Failure to
do it will be evidence against you in court if there is
an injury and you get sued.
Combine
After safety, the first order of business is evaluating.
Do this like the NFL combine. That is, just test the
players in various football skills like running speed,
ability to catch the football.
Experience
Ask each player what his prior playing experience is.
Cover not only football, but also baseball, basketball,
and soccer. Many, if not most, of your players are
rookies. But playing experience in other sports gives
you an idea as to how athletic they are.
Water
Note that there are no water breaks in the practice
schedules below. That's not because water is not
important. It is crucial to avoid heatstroke which
kills several football players each year. However, it is
not necessary to stop practice for everyone to get a
drink of water.
Players can drink while a coach is talking to them.
They can also get a drink while standing in line wait-
ing for their turn in a drill. Make sure their water is
 Practice schedule 47

nearby at all times and repeatedly encourage them
to drink more than they think they need.
Countdown kitchen timer
Have around your neck a countdown kitchen timer.
Set it for the length of the period in question-
typically five or ten minutes. When the bell goes off,
switch to the next period. No "One mores." Stay
on schedule.
- 3 alley defenses-2 minutes
So on a team with 25 players, these tests would take 6
minutes per player x 25 = 150 minutes for the team.
Do not do these tests straight through the first day.
Rather, use them to break up more boring periods.
Test in five-minute periods. Have ten such periods
per day for the first three days of no-pad practice-
three per day allocated to defense.

Won't get it all the

• Keep head up
first time through • Demonstrate side-tackle position
Players frequently will not get what you are teaching • Have each player assume correct
the first time through. Don't worry about it. You will side-tackle position against partner-
freeze until coach OKs position
be reviewing everything through scrimmages and
such as the season goes along .
• Correct fumble-recovery technique (end
Day 1 no pads up on your side in the fetal position
with the ball against your belly button
and both arms over the ball. Your
• Introduce defensive staff head is up to prevent neck injury.)
• Demonstrate
• Briefly describe GAM defense
• How positions are assigned • Each player recovers loose ball
• How depth chart is determined
• Keep your head up when you tackle
• No horseplay
• No penalties
• Optional protective equipment

'10-yard dash
• 20-yard dash
• Receiving (Coach pass to
avoid wasted reps) Day 2 no pads
• Two-hand touch in 15-yard wide alley
• Encroachment
Put a ball carrier against a two-hand touch tackler • Unsportsmanlike conduct
in a 15-yard-wide, 20-yard-Iong alley. Keep track of • Talking to opponent
• Celebration
which defenders succeed in stopping the ball carrier. • Spiking the ball
Run multiple rounds. • Fake snap count
If you only run one round, some good defenders • Touching official's flag
• Personal foul
will fail because they have the bad luck of drawing the • Late hit
best ball carriers on the team. Conversely, some poor • Fighting
defenders will succeed in the first round because they • Unnecessary roughness
• Face mask
had the good luck to draw the weakest ball carrier
• Spearing
opponents. Never let any pair of players go against • Roughing the passer
each other more than once.
The time it takes to run these evaluations should
be shared with the offense and special teams because
they are interested in the same tests. The times these
tests take per player are about:

-IO-yard dash-l minute

- 20-yard dash-l minute
-10 pass catch attempts-2 minutes
48 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
• Fumble pick up and run
• Demonstrate
• Each player picks up loose
ball and runs with it
Day 3 .no pads
• Yell during game
• "Pass!" (opposing player
showing pass)
• "Air!" (ball has left passer's hand)
• "Oski!" (interception)
• "Ba1ll" (fumble)
• Tackling technique
• Keep head up
• Demonstrate passer-tackling
'If can see passer's eyes, raise hands
• Do not leave feet unless sure
pass has left passer's hand
• Have each player walk through
tackling passer's throwing arm
• Try to pump fake rusher off feet
Day 4 no pads
• Offensive behaviors that tell
what play is coming:
• Special substitutions
• Star player moving to unusual position
• a-line splits, hand pressure
• Eyes (where offensive players look
when they hear the play, come
to the line, await the snap)
• To whom OB speaks
: Play-name length (watch how long it
takes OB to call play in huddle-pass
plays usually have longer play names)
• Wide-receiver splits (close to sideline
usually means inward route; tight
usually means outward route)
• Running-back (look at hole, wipe
hands on pants if carrying, put
head up in stance when carrying
ball, pout when not carrying ball)
• OB late to step under center may
mean snap on touch or first sound
'If find tip-off, communicate
in code to teammates; do
not divulge to opponent
• Code word for coaches to remind
defensive players to watch for tip-
offs-I used "Augen!" (pronounced
"Owl-gen") which is German for eyes.
You need a different word because
of this book mentioning "Augen,"
(There is a more detailed discussion of tip-offs, which
are generic to all defenses, in my books Coaching
Youth Football and in Coaching Freshman and Junior
varsity High School Football.) On 10/8/01, I saw a
midget game in which the offensive coordinator's son
made the sign of the cross coming out of the huddle
on a play when he was the ball carrier. Later, he came
out of the huddle slapping himself in the helmet with
both hands as if trying to psyche himself Guess who
got the ball again?
• Align against scout offenses
• Double tight, full-house T
• Power I
• Pro set I
• Split backs
Buy a pack of 8.5 x 11 card stock (called "index"
in paper section) at Office Depot or similar store.
Diagram each offensive formation on a card with
black felt-tipped pen. Number the players on each
diagram from 1 to 11. Three-hole punch them and
put them into a clear overlay binder labeled "Of-
fensive formations."
When you practice lining up against them, desig-
 Practice schedule 49

nate eleven off-duty players as the scout team. Assign #1

Station I to dealdefensive
Show with nastyends
splithow
including Moyer Move
numbers 1 through 11 to them then tell those players
to line up where their corresponding number is on
the formation card. Later in the season, shuffle the #~o n
Stat' I with
Showunbalanced lines-4-2,
down linemen how to deal
5-1, lonesome polecat
cards each month to review how to line up against Show mirror defenders how
the various formations.
#3
Station receivers
I to who arequick
line up against on or
off the line of scrimmage
Work
middlethrough the
Iine6acker • Align against scout offenses
• Lonesome polecat
When correcting the defensive alignment, work • Double-tight, full-house I
through the middle linebackers. That is, tell the • Stacked wide receivers
middle linebacker what's wrong and have him cor- • Trips and twins
rect it, not you. Station Bear crawl defensive
Give your captain a sequence to check like: #1 line charge
Station Ends and mirror defenders
1. Count players #2 practice man coverage

2. Make sure down linemen are in the correct gaps
3. Makes sure any tight ends have linebackers in
their faces
4. Make sure all other quick receivers are covered
5. Make sure mirror defenders whose men are in
the offensive backfield are where they belong
Defensive down linemen wait on their knees be-
tween plays. Other defenders stand in their posi-
tions waiting for offense to come to the line. This is
extremely important for fixing personnel problems.
By making everyone stand at their positions, the
middle linebacker and coaches can tell immediately
who is missing or who is extra. If players just mill
around, the captain cannot tell fast enough who is
missing or who needs to get off the field.
Coach stands behind defense, points at an offensive
scout-team player and indicates which direction he
should go in motion. Player then goes in motion on
his own initiative.
• Align against scout offenses
• Double slot
• Double wing
•Ace
• Single wing unbalanced
Run substitutes onto and off the field between each
formation. Deliberately have 10 or 12 men on the
field at times to test if middle linebacker is counting
and his ability to correct wrong number of men.
Align against various shifts
Show scout team two formation cards: one for the
original formation and one for the formation card to
which they are to shift on the command "Shift!"
ri.~ij
•• ii·[~iIIliiJII__ .l_iWj\\t
Day 5 no pads
~,. ,.
Flip-flopping according to hash position
of ball-Move ball to various hash
positions: left, right, and middle-middle
linebacker designates wide side
"Do your job" drill against air.
Players must get up into their four-point stances as
soon as the center touches the ball. Always start this
drill with a coach giving a hard count and players
moving on ball movement. Move the ball on first
sound more than any other count.
Initial charge by defensive linemen including
ends. Down linemen bear crawl forward two steps.
Wide-side ends sprint to sweep spot and face inward.
Short-side end and mirror defenders hold still.
After initial charge, all players freeze. Three dum-
mies are standing in the offensive backfield. Coach
suddenly points at one and yells, "Gang!" At that
moment, all eleven defenders sprint to the dummy
and gang tackle it.
During no-pads week, just touch the dummy. In
actual games, the coaches and players should also yell
"Gang!" once a tackle is begun. By yelling "Gang!"
in practice, you condition the players mentally to
respond to it automatically in games. Use whistle to
teach no late hits.
50 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense tor YOUthrOOWall

Walk through stopping sweep play to each
side from each hash "Plan A" (sweeper
is contained, then gang tackled-See
Coaching Youth Football or Coaching
Youth Football Defense for details)
Align against shotgun
Shotgun stunt left
Teach the numbering system
for assigning mirror defenders
to eligible receivers
Shotgun stunt right
Station Form front-tackling drill (One
#1 perfect rep for each player.)
Station One-against-two
#2 defensive-line drill
Pass-play pursuit angles full
speed Oski walk through
The Oski drill is pass pursuit, only ending with at
interception. The non-interceptors must seek out
someone to block legally after the interception.
Defense against waggle pass walk
through, no ball, then run through with
ball, probably need coach quarterback

Day 6 pads Use coaches as scout-

Different alignments of C-gap
defender whose man is in
offensive backfield. Demonstrate
difficulty of covering man
on swing pass from position
1 and 4-point stance
Do-your-job drill
Form side tackling drill (Every
player gets at least one
perfect rep from each side.)
One-against-two
. defensive-line drill
Wide-play pursuit angles walk through
("Plan B" See Coaching YOLIthFootball
or Coaching Youth Football Defense)
Defense against drop-back
pass walk through, no ball
s~~on Defeating trap block
Walk through switch play
versus crack-back block
against defensive end
Walk through defensive
ends versus sweep
with lead blockers
Wide-play pursuit angles
drill at full speed ("Plan B")
Walk through stopping reverse and fake
reverse plays Use no ball or two balls
Day 7 pads
rj!WtP!~f.WiPI""D-e-fe-n-s-e
-ag-a-in-s-t
-a-th-r-ee---pl-a-y-c-om-bo-----.I
Many teams run a play in which they either run or
fake a sweep, dive, and boodeg on the same play,
giving the ball to one of the three. Walk through the
defense of this play. Use no ball or three balls.
team ball handlers
Kid scout teams are usually awful at ball handling like
the quarterback-center exchange, passing, pitches,
hand-offs, and so forth. They also do not understand
standard terminology like reverse. Accordingly, you
generally need to have a coach play the role in ques-
tion.
You can correct the C-Q B exchange by having
the QB hold the ball before the snap and the center
snapping an invisible ball. I attended a University
of California practice once and even they were do-
ing that. If you try to have scout-team kids handle
the ball, much time will be wasted with fumbles
and misunderstandings as to what the player was
supposed to do.
Scrimmage
We found the following to be extremely effective.
So much so that I would never again coach a team
without doing it. The first morning we were allowed
to be in pads, we ran a scripted 80-play scrimmage.
Each kid got at least one ten-play period in a defen-
siveposition and each got at least one ten-play period
in an offensive position.
Both offense and defense operated off scout team
type 8 1/2 x 11 cards which had a diagram of the
defense or of the offensive play to be run. We ran the
plays sideways on the game field. That is, the offense
had its backs to the press box and ran away from it.
On top of the press box, we had a video camera.
Every ten plays, we would change all 22 personnel.
The substitutions were all scripted in advance as were
the plays and hash positions.
When. the 80-play scrimmage was over, we imme-
diately took the whole team into an air-conditioned
classroom and went over the scrimmage film we had
just taken with them in classic coach style.
 Practice schedule
Johnson, we lose two yards on this play
because you did not block your man. Who
?"
was your man.
He doesn't know. We reproduce the play diagram he
was shown before the play at the scrimmage on the
white board.
Johnson, I ask you again, who is your
man?"
He points to him.
"Run the play again. "
We freeze the frame and ask Johnson to point out
himself on the video screen and the man whom he
is supposed to block. Then we un-pause it and the
whole team sees Johnson either doing nothing or
blocking the wrong guy.
"Everybody but you did what they were
supposed to, Johnson. But you not doing
what you were supposed to was enough to
destroy the play. Next time we show you a
play diagram, will you being doing what
you're supposed to do?"
"Yes, coach!"
On a defensive play failure:
"Brown, this sweep goesaround your end
for an eight-yard gain. Who is supposed to
stop the sweep?"
"Me, coach."
"Why didn't you?"
"No excuse, coach."
'1 agree, but tell us ,what the reason
was. Where were you supposed to go when
the ball was snapped?"
"Uh, the sweep spot?"
"Did you?"
Shrugs.
51
"Run the play again. Freeze it. Brown,
come up here please. Point out which player
you are and point out the sweep spotyou were
supposed to go. "
He does so.
"Let it run. Brown, you stopped after
two steps. 10u did NOT go to the sweep
Itlry.?"
spot. TVJ:'h
"It looked like they were running
up the middle."
"How many teammates do you have on
the field?"
"Ten."
':And all but three of them are closer to
the middle than you, right?"
"Yes,coach."
"Did anyone on this coaching staff
tell you to tackle ball carriers going up the
middle?"
"In gang tadding, coach."
"What do we call that drill?"
"The d o-your-JO
. b drill . "
"Whats your job?"
"Get to the sweep spot."
':And if the ball carrier does not come
there, then what do you do?"
"Pursue, coach."
"Bingo! First you get to the sweep spot,
then you check for sweep coming at your or
going away. If neither of those is happening,
then and only then do you pursue the ball
carrier. Because you did NOT do your job,
the enemy got eight yards around your end.
Do NOT ever do that again!"
52 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

Station
#1 I Form side-tackling drill
This exercise brings it all together for the players.
Until you do this, they see all the drills and such as Station One-against-two
#2 defensive-line drill
disconnected make work that has no relation to play-
ing football. When you run the scrimmage, film it, Station Competitive prevent-
inside release drill for
and show why each play succeeded or fail, you can #1
corners and linebackers
see the light bulbs going on.
Station linemen do-your-job drill (initial
#2 charge, freeze, then gang tackle)
"Oh, that's why coach said to always do
Station Pass rush live scrimmage
A or never do B. I get it now. " defensive line versus
#1
blockers and kid OB
This is the first live scrimmage. Whenever you do live
scrimmage, you need to do two things: count tackles Remind players to rush with hands high if they can
and assists and give remedial drills to players who see the passer's eyes, ends contain rush, all tackle
use incorrect tackling technique or down linemen throwing arm
~.. of passer first.
who stand up instead of charging low. Tell the down Linebackers and corners walk
linemen, "If you stand up, you'll sit down-on the through man coverage of the
bench." various types of pass route

Keep track of tackles and assists with a printed
roster. J ust mar k "T" or "A" next to th e name 0f t h e
player in question. After each play, we had our kids
hold both arms out wide if they got the tackle and
hold one arm over their head if they got an assist.
A player who stands up in the line must be re-
moved from scrimmage to do successivelymore reps
of two-step bear crawls every time he stands up. A
player who uses incorrect tackling technique must
be taken out of scrimmage to do five correct tackles
against a stand-up dummy or popsicle (one-man)
sled.
• Stopping the off·tackle play walk through
• base blocking
• cross blocking
•trap block
• kick-out block by fullback
Station Walk through defensive
#1 ends slide technique
Bear crawl charge by
defensive down linemen
Prevent-inside-release
drill walk through by
linebackers and corners
. Station
Stop off-tackle play by moving middle
linebacker to wide-side off-tackle
hole, walk through then full-speed
scrimmage (GAM-M defense)
Middle linebacker practices
reading passer's eyes
and breaking to where OB
is looking when OB takes
his front hand off the ball
• Second man to arrive at ball carrier
tries to take ball away (not knock
it to the ground, just steal it)
As a result of this drill, we stole
a number of balls including three
in one game against Napa .
• Defenders come from various
angles to poke or swat at ball
carried by jogging ball carrier who
allows defenders succeed
Draw a clip "full speed!" drill
Station Corners and linebackers do
#1 fight-for-the-pass drill
Day 9 pads
Tip drill for middle
#1 linebackers and corners
Station
#2 Do-your-job drill for D line

You may have noticed that I have the D line doing the
same drill repeatedly while the backers and corners
Day 8 pads
. learn new stuff. That's because the D line generally
Stop off-tackle play by moving defensive consists of weak athletes who must have very narrow
tackle to C gap (GAM-T defense) responsibilities and many, many reps to drill the cor-
Run full-speed scrimmage in which scout rect technique into them.
team uses base blocking, cross blocking,
trap blocking, and kick-out blocking.
 Practice schedule 53

Station
#1 Form side-tackling drill
are hardest to stop or especially dangerous:
Station One-against-two
#2 defensive-line drill
• pitch sweep
Station Catching up to your • fake dive hand-off sweep
#1 man after you lose him • reverse
for mirror defenders
• fake reverse
linemen strip-the-ball drill
Station 20:00 Full-speed wide-
• running-back pass
#2 pursuit drill "Plan B" Do walk
• blast
through review if necessary • counter
Mirror defenders practice • deep pass
Station yelling "Cross!" and changing
#1 men on the fly when receivers
routes cross paths
Scout coach
Station Immediately after the previous play ends, the scout-
#2 Linemen do-your-job drill team coach should straddle the ball and hold the
Mirror defenders practice binder over his head showing the next play. The
playing traditional linebacker players gather round him in a sugar huddle and get
their assignments. As with the formations book, the
#1
Station in case
lover theofCtwo-back
gap or inI.middle
Mirror
same-side flow. Stay put and
players are assigned a number from 1 to 11 and those
check for counter on flow away. numbers are used on the play diagrams so the players
Station Line practice pass rush can see where they line up and what they do without
#2 against kid QB and blockers having to learn the whole offense of the opposing
Review alignment against various team being depicted. You should run this segment at
offensive formations using motion a three-plays-per-minute tempo. That's fast.
or shift or both on every play

Remember to work through middle linebackers Coaching on the run

and send in subs between each formation. Also test Do this by coaching on the run. In coaching on the
middle linebackers with 10 men and 12 men. run, there are several rules which all coaches must
abide by.

• Only the coach in charge of the period, in this

Day 10 pads case, the defensive coordinator, may talk out
Teach mirror defenders loud
Station how to key on ball, guards, • Any other coach who wishes to speak may speak
#1 triangle, near back, or blocking
back (for when they align in
only to one player at a time and then only at a
traditional linebacker spot) whisper
Station • The tempo will be determined only by the coach
#2 Do-your-job drill by linemen
in charge of the period, in this case, the defensive
Station coordinator. That is, when the defensive coordi-
#1 Form front-tackling drill
nator is ready for the next play, it will be run im-
Station One-against-two mediately regardless of whether any other coach
#2 defensive-line drill
is finished saying what he wants to say.
Walk-through scrimmage against • Players may not speak at all.
various formations and plays

Too many people talking

Scout play book
Previously, I had you make a loose-leaf binder of
formations. Now you need to set that one aside and
make a scout-team binder. This was has diagrams that
show both a formation and a play out of that forma-
tion-one play per 8.5-x-ll sheet. In preseason, the
book should emphasize the generic youth plays that
In a typical youth practice, the teams run at a
1I4-play-per-minute tempo. That's because players
chatter excitedly after each play causing coaches to
have to take time to quiet them down. Then every
coach on the staff makes a speech to the entire team
about the last play. Forget that nonsense. Operate
at a three-plays-per-minute tempo by coaching on
54 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
the run.
Countdown
Get everybody moving when you are ready for the
next play by doing a countdown from five or three
or some such. That is, you say loudly "Five! Four!
Three! Two! One!" You don't even need to explain
it. The kids instantly recognize that you are telling
them you want the play going in the next that many
seconds.
As always, do not let kids who are inept at ball
handling or ignorant of football terminology slow up
the practice. Use coaches as scout-team players at QB
or other positions requiring some action that players
are slow to learn. If you have trouble with the snap,
put the ball in the hands of the QB in advance and
snap an invisible bal1.
If an offensive play succeeds against your defense,
stop and run it over at a walk-through pace. Identify
the problem and fix it right now. If you see an error
like a down lineman standing up or a poor tackling
technique, remove the offender for remedial drills.
Do it right or do it over. Keep track of tackles and
assists.
Substitutions
You need to practice substituting during scrimmages.
If you have more than 22 players, send in subs from
the sideline. If you have only 22, tell the kids to take
turns on their own initiative. Give starters two reps
on defense for every one they take on scout-team
offense. Stagger the substitutions so that you do not
have all second-string defenders on defense at the
same time. In other words, line the first- and second-
string defenses up facing each other in two straight
lines. Remind the second string that they get one rep
on defense for every three plays. Then go down the
line and point at the second-string guy and saying,
"First play, second play, third play, first play,... " and
so forth. Here's a diagram.
1st-string defense: 00000000000
2nd-string defense: 00000000000
Position: we WL WE LT LG M RT RG
You can vary the sequence. Sometimes I had players
who shared a position equally. In that case, they each
took two plays on and two plays off.
When a defender is on scout-team offense, he
should play the offensive position he normally goes
against when he is on defense. That is, defensive line-
men should play offensive linemen. Linebackers and
corners should play receiver or running back.
What if you have fewer
than 22 players?
Having less than 22 was the situation I had most
of the time. We would designate one side as the live
side-for example, the offense's right. I would put
all eleven first-string guys on defense and as many
guys as I had left on the offense. Then I would put
the five first-string defenders on the defensive right
and move however many offensive guys who were on
the offense's right on the defensive right.
That would put our best players against our best
players on the right side of the offense and our weaker
players against our weaker players on the left side
of the offense. That's important because running
first team defense against second-string offense can
give you a misleading picture of how well you are
doing.
If we had, say, 18 players, we would be going 9
against 9 and running only to the right. HaJf way
through the practice we would switch sides and put
our best on the other side and run only plays to that
side.
For some plays, like counters, reverses, waggle,
and so forth, when you have less than 22 players,
you need to remove whatever players are not key to
stopping the play in question. That kind of eliminates
the element of surprise. But having fewer than 22
players is not good and it really cannot be corrected.
Some coaches refer to this as a "half-line dril1."
Game situation
All scrimmages should have a game situation. That
is, use the chains, down marker, and have a quarter,
dock, and score situation.
You should have a clock-management assistant or
parent always indicating whether you are currently
in a hurry-up or slowdown mode. You should almost
always be in one or the other. The widespread no-
tion that you only manage the clock near the end of
a half is wrong. If you do not know why, read the
SE SL se book Football Clock Management. I am the author
of that book.
The clock assistant indicates whether you are in a
hurry-up or slowdown with his arm. When it points
up, you are in a hurry-up; down, slowdown. In a
hurry-up, the defense tries to knock ball carriers out
of bounds. In a slowdown, the defense tries to keep
 Practice schedule 55

ball carriers in bounds. If you want a timeout, you need to continue to evaluate players and correct the
call it as soon as the previous play ends when you are depth-chart mistakes we made in the initial position
in a hurry-up; just before the other team is ready to and string assignments.
snap in a slowdown.
Regular practices
Referee I'll call the practices you do after the put-ins are
You need to have at least one coach play the role of complete regular practices. Typically, you can start
referee. I usually did it, complete with yellow flag. regular practices in mid August.
When a penalty flag is thrown against the offense, We practiced Tuesday, Wednesday, and'TIlUrs-
the defensive captain should be given his options day.
and either accept or reject the penalty as indicated
by the situation. Daily
If no actual penalties occur, script throwing the • form tackling
flag against an offensive infraction that did not hap- • one-against-two drill for D-line
pen to give the defensive captains practice making • scrimmage against scout offense
penalty decisions. In general, they should look to the • do-your-job drill
sideline to see what to do. But they should know how • substitutions
to do it on their own because sometimes the coaches • penalty decisions
are dealing with something on the sideline and miss
the penalty decision . . Weeldy
Use these guidelines to make penalty decisions: • wide pursuit
• pass pursuit
• Generally, you do not want to take points scored ·Oski
by your team off the scoreboard, although there • motion by each receiver
are exceptions to that rule. • fix incorrect # of players
• Generally, you want possession of the ball if that • C-gap 1, 2, and 3 positions
is one of the choices. • shotgun stunts
• Otherwise, accept the penalty if it gives the of- • lead blockers on sweep
fense worse field position than the play. • reverse
• fake reverse
I could write a book on football-penalty decisions. • switch men when receivers cross paths
It's far more complex than people think. • prevent inside release
• strip the ball
Pick up fumbles • fight for ball
As a general rule, you should pick up fumbles and • scout report on upcoming opponent
run with them, not fallon them. Of course, you • draw-a-dip drill
don't want to try to pick one up if doing so will en- • man coverage of deep pass route
able the other team to recover it. It's a judgment call. • zone coverage by middle linebacker of deep pass
When you see a player fallon a ball that he should route
have picked up and ran with, immediately give him
five reps of picking up the ball and running with it. Monthly
Stop practice to do this so the other players will learn • throwback pass to QB
the lesson, too. • numbering system for alignment of mirror de'-
fenders
• unbalanced line
• Moyer Move
Put-ins complete • shift
.At this point, we have put in the entire defense. • trap block A-gap play
That is, we have taught the players all the aspects of • trap block B-gap play
the GAM defense. Now we need to get better at it, • trap block C-gap play
making sure they know every aspect cold. We also • crack-back switch
56 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth football

Prevent-inside-release drill
• three-play combo
• waggle Do-your-job drill
• slide technique
• cross block off tackle
• kick-out block off tackle
• swing pass to back out of backfield

Can't prepare for everything Thursd_a_y _

Note that there are a number of other plays I could
have scheduled for monthly review-like the hook
and ladder, fumblerooski, tight ends who deliberately
fall down then go out for a pass, double reverses,
Statue of Liberty, and so forth. I deliberately left them
out because you can only coach so much.
Certainly, if you see such plays in scouting you
must prepare for them. If a particular trick play is
common in your league, you should probably review
it at least monthly.
It is true that a trick play may work against you
if you do not see it in scouting, but the opponent
uses the play in your game. You may want to remove
from my list a trick play that is never used in your Integrate into scout-
league to make room for one that is. But if you teach team play book
your players to watch for every conceivable play, The scout-team play book contains primarily the
they will become too tentative and will be unable to formations and plays of the upcoming opponent.
stop any play.
Tuesday
Comments about the previous game
Scout report on the upcoming opponent
St~~on I Form side tackling
S~on I One-against-two D-line drill
St~~on I Do-your-job drill
St~~on I Fight-for-the-ball drill
Scrimmage against scout offense
Wednesday -------------
Wide-pursuit drill "Plan B" at full speed
Station Form front tackling
#1 and ball stripping
St~on One-against-two D-line drill
Pass-pursuit, OSki, and draw-
a-clip drills at full speed
S~~on I Form side tackling
One-against-two D-Iine drill
Do-your-job drill
"Cross!" drill
That's why it's called the scout team-because its play
book is the scout report. But we need to review at
least monthly how to line up against all formations
and how to defend all the difficult plays, whether
the formation or play in question shows up in that
week's scout report or not.
Accordingly, you need to make cards for all the
various formations and for the difficult-to-defend
plays listed above in the weekly and monthly lists.
Be sure to put in both a left and right version of the
plays that go between the tight ends and a wide-side
and short-side version of each of the wide plays.
Get the unusual formations that are not in the
scout report for the week from the preseason forma-
tion book you previously put together and now pUt
them into the scout-team play book. Also, draw up
combination formation-play diagrams for each of
the difficult-to-defend plays listed in the weekly and
monthly lists above.
On the first of every month, shuffle the unusual
formation and difficult-to-defend play diagrams and
use one fourth of the stack each week.
If you follow this schedule, your youth team will
be better prepared than the vast majority of high.
school freshman and junior varsity teams and many
if not most, varsity high-school teams. This is a vel'J
 Practice schedule 57

thorough practice schedule-at least within the cannot all take their first step toward the play they
context of this extremely simple defense. know is coming. For the run through, I will focus
my eyeson one of the key defenders for that play and
Do it right or do it over tell my assistants to focus on the others.
I have watched many a coach run scrimmage where Usually, this fixes the problem. If it is a personnel
a play was screwed up. When practicing defense, that weakness, we have to change the depth chart. What-
would be an offensive play that succeeded, that is, ever. We will get it right one way or another.
gained four yards or more.
What did these coaches do? Nothing. Maybe Conditioning
they yelled at the players to play harder or "Show Earlier in this chapter I said you must run your
me something!" scrimmages at a three-plays-per-minute tempo. That,
sports fans, is your conditioning. Note that I do NOT
Stop and fix it have any gassers or running the stadium steps or
You can't do that. If a play succeeds against your any of that nonsense in this practice schedule. Kids
defense, you have to stop and diagnose what went hate that stuff. They will loaf and thereby nullify its
wrong, then fix it. Because I have kids substitut- supposed benefits.
ing themselves on their own initiative, I first yell, You want to see conditioning? Watch the players
"Hold it! Same play! Same people!" That stops the in a three-plays-per-minute scrimmage. They will
self-substituting and tells everyone not to look for be huffing and puffing and leaning on their hands
the next play. on their knees between plays. Sweat will be pouring
Rather, I want the previous play run again. Once off their faces.
they get lined up, I ask, "Where did that play go?" They will not loaf. They are playing football.
The scout coach will point to the hole or the ball car- That's what they signed up to do. No one signs up
rier will walk through where he went. That tells me for football to run gassers.
which defender should have stopped the play. With the three-play-per-minute approach, they
I then turn to him or them and ask, "Where were are being conditioned, but they do not realize it. They
you?" If! get shoulder shrugs, I start asking the adja- think they are playing football. They're doing that,
cent offensive players whom they blocked and what too, but in a way that gets them highly conditioned
success they had. as well as teaching them how to play.
In this example, the problem was not tackling
technique. If I had seen a missed tackle, that young Sadistic rituals
man would have been sent out of scrimmage to A great many football coaches feel compelled to
practice his tackling five times. Gimme five. torture players with sadistic grass drills and running
The problem either is that a player did not know and calisthenics. They had to do it when they played,
his assignment or he decided not to do it. I need to is one of their arguments.
ferret out which it was and who did it. Too bad. Coaches at the high school, college, and
pro levels no longer do grass drills or calisthenics.
'Ready, step' Too many of them still run their players. But some
We then do a "Ready step" walk through of the play. of the better coaches, like Kentucky's Hal Mumme
That is, we walk it through stopping after every step. use football drills to condition.
I put everyone in their stance and yell, "Ready Step!" This is youth football. The kids do not have to be
Everyplayer on the offense and some defensive play- here. You have given them no scholarship-no free-
erstake one step and freeze. We check for erroneous agent signing bonus. I love it when some youth coach
movement. tells me twenty times how we have to make it fun for
Then I again say,"Ready Step!" Everybody takes a the kids, then runs their little butts offwith his gassers
second step. Again we check every defender to make at the end of each of his practices. Some fun.
sure he is doing exactly what he is supposed to be Every year, kids drop out of football. They ain't
doing. I keep saying "Ready Step!" until the play is dropping out because you had them run too many
. complete or I find out what I am looking for. plays in practices. But many of them are dropping
Then we run it full speed. I tell the defenders to out because they cannot stand th~ thought of another
actlike they do not know what's coming. That is, they three or four months of gassers and grass drills. Con-
58 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

dition with a rapid-tempo practice. Bury football's stop themselves. Bull!

sadistic conditioning rituals. Punish such players with whatever it takes to get
them to knock that off. I once saw a laid-back, easy-
Hitting going, varsity high-school coach terminate practice
At the start of this chapter, some of you may have right in the middle of it because the defense kept
been upset at the lack of hitting. Later, I had the play- knocking offensive players down in thud period to
ers doing 15 or 20 minutes a night oflive scrimmage. show how tough they were. When they hurt a starter,
That probably satisfied the macho men. the coach had had enough.
But now I am going to rub the macho men the
wrong way again. After about two months of hit-
ting, the vast majority of your rookies should have
come out of their shells and become football players.
They have "gotten religion." They stopped thinking
about what the other guy was going to do to them
and started thinking about what they were going to
do to him.
At that point, around October 1st in a league that
starts practice on August 1st, you should stop live
scrimmages. You probably have one or two rook-
ies who still are not over their fear of hitting. They
may never get over it. You can't let that tail wag the
dog.

Too slow, too many injuries

Live scrimmages are bad because each play takes
longer due to the need to unpile. They also cause in-
juries which can rob your team of one or more of its
most valuable players. Even when there is no specific
injury, live scrimmage wears the players down.

Thud
What they do at the higher levels nowadays is thud
scrimmage. In thud scrimmage, the interior line is
live because they are hitting each other from a close
range and there is less time wasted and injuries in
that sort of hitting are rare. All other hitting is thud.
That is, the tackler sort of tags the ball carrier with
his shoulder. The ball carrier is not taken to the
ground.

Walk throughs
You also do more walk throughs to make sure ev-
eryone's execution of their jobs is perfect. You can
probably increase the number of plays per minute to
four in thud scrimmage.
Defenders who can't
stop themselves
Beware of overly aggressivebehavior. Many defenders
secretly decide to go live.in thud scrimmage claiming
they are just so tough and aggressivethat they cannot
 6 Preseason scrimmage

Try your shotgun stunts even if the offense never

Mostscrimmage
youth teams
gamesplay
withone or teams.
other more preseason
In a pre-
season scrimmage, there are typically a half dozen or
so teams gathered at one field. They play controlled
scrimmages with no special teams. Often there are
four teams on the field at the same time with two
offenses going away from midfield against two dif-
ferent defenses.
'Not showing anything'
A great many youth coaches "don't show anything"
at these preseason scrimmages. That is, they conceal
their scheme to preserve the element of surprise. This
is a mistake.
For one thing, opposing coaches will laugh at the
GAM and think it will be easy to attack with runs
up the middle and passes. You want opponents to
think that.
More importantly, youth coaches barely have one
thing that they can do competently. Showing A in
preseason scrimmage and B in games requires you
to spend time on A-time which you do not have.
Also, using the GAM in scrimmage builds player,
coach, and parent confidence in it.
gets into a shotgun. Test as much of your system as
possible.
Resolve controversies
Sports writers are always talking about quarterback
controversies. On the typical youth football team,
you have several such controversies because so little
is known about each player. Preseason scrimmage is a
super chance to resolve those controversies by giving
each of the players vying for a particular position an
equal share of the reps in the scrimmages.
Video
You must video your preseason scrimmages for two
reasons:
• To study the performance of your team
• To record the offenses and defenses of your op-
ponents who are participating in the scrimmage
In the leagues I was in, you could not use tape to
scout, but you could video scout your own games
and scrimmages.

Test your defense Scout

You need to use your real defense at the preseason It is not enough just to be at the same scrimmage as
scrimmages so you can test it for weaknesses. You a bunch of your opponents. You must assign parents
will lose the element of surprise at your first game or coaches who have been trained to sit in the stands
anyway so forget not showing anything at preseason and record in writing the offenses and defenses of
scrimmage. your upcoming opponents.
Your most important task at preseason scrim- They're making the scout-team play book for the
mage is to find what weaknesses you have in your week before you play that opponent. Accordingly,
defense. they should bring a loose-leaf binder full of blank
Try your different techniques like boxing and scouting cards. These are pictured in my books
sliding at end and different positions at the C gap. Coaching Youth Football and Coaching Youth Football

59
60 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

Defense. It's simply a blank form with a center, guards,

and tackles shown plus a line for entering the game
situation for the play-down, distance, etc.

One play per card

Your scouts put one play per card using a pencil to
note the positions and jersey numbers of the eligible
receivers as well as the play itself Keep them in order
in the binder when you create them and afterward so
you can study the play-calling sequence tendencies.
After you do it in pencil at the scrimmage, go over
the pencil marks in felt-tipped pen to make them
more legible and clean up the diagrams.
Because such preseason scrimmages can be as
much as a four-ring circus, you need at least four
scouts working simultaneously. By four-ring circus,
I mean there could be as many as four of your future
opponents playing offense and defense simultaneous-
ly on the field when your team has an off period.

Coaches on the field

You can generally have one or more coaches on the
field for the scrimmage. Take advantage of that. We
used to stand on the sidelines because it was like we
would need to do in real games. We wanted to prac-
tice sending in subs from the sideline and practice
communicating with our players from the sidelines.
We wanted our players to get used to taking care of
themselves on the field like they would have to do
in the actual game.
Those are all worthwhile goals. The problem is
you can see an awful lot when you are out on the
field that is invisible from the sidelines and in the
even in the video.
 7 Pregame
Your
hour players should
and a half arrive
before gameattime.
the What
game should
site an
you as the defensive coach do during that time?
Flash cards
I made flash cards on 5 x 8-inch index cards. On one
side was a formation of that day's opponent. On the
other was the play or plays they were likely to run
out of that formation.
Some cards showed an initial movement of a key
player that telegraphed that a particular play was
coming-like a flanker turning and facing inward
indicating that a reverse was coming.
Position on hand
I also visited with each member of the defense and
wrote his position on the back of his hand with
a felt-tipped pen. I showed him the substitution
schedule so he could see what his first play was and
the sequence which would send him on to and off
of the field.
One mother demanded to know if I had made
sure the ink in the felt-tipped pens was non-toxic. I
ignored her. I got the idea from my sons' swim team.
They did that for every kid at every meet. Also, kids
have been playing with felt-tipped pens for years. As
far as I know, none have died from getting the ink
on their skin.
Self talk
I gaveeach player a bit of self talk. That is, something
to keep telling himself throughout the game. If a
particular kid had a tendency not to wrap up when
he tackled, I would remind him to tell himsel£ "Wrap
up! Wrap up!" If a linebacker tended to fly out too
soon on initial flow, I would have him tell himsel£
"Check for counter! Check for counter!"
Get ready to hit
In the physical pre-game warm-ups, you must get
your players ready to hit. That means, you have to
hit a little. You don't want to hit too much because
it is tiring and can cause injury. On the other hand,
hitting is not a normal behavior. You have to get
into it. So shortly before kickoff, have your players
do some hitting.
Six-point hitting drill
One of the best things is probably the six-point hit-
ting drill. Have pairs of players face each other in six-
point stances. Their shoulders should almost touch
the other's guy's shoulder. In a six-point stance, your
hands, knees, and toes are on the ground.
On the command "ready," the players cock back
so their behinds touch their heels. On "Hit," they
explode forward smashing one shoulder against their
partner's corresponding shoulder. Hit three times
with each shoulder.
This is quick and easy. It will not tire the players
out much and it is hard to get an injury from this
drill. But you must get your players mentally into
hitting before the game itself.
Walk throughs
You should review how to line up against each of
the opponent's formations, shifts, and motions. If
you have time, you should also review how to line
up against other formations which this particular
team has not shown in scouting but could use dur-
ing the game.
Walk through defending their most difficult plays.
Often, the opposing team is warming up right next
61
62 Gap-Air-Mirror Detense tor Youth t'oOtDall

to you. In that case, you may want to screen their petent and sometimes use pre-game administration
view a line of players and/or parents. Sometimes, to jerk the opponent around and shortchange the
you are practicing on a field behind a stadium and opponent on pregame warm-up time.
parents of the opponent are on top of the stadium You must not let that bother you. Expect it and
looking down at what you are doing. Many will act like nothing happened. In our early years, we
scurry to the coaches to tell them what they saw. used to raise hell with the opposing organization for
That is unethical, but few youth parents know the doing this to us.
ethical rules-or care. No one would stop them. They just laughed at
If you have a way of stopping one of their trick us delighted-that their ploy was having the desired
plays, you probably should not reveal it with oppos- effect. So we fipaHyfigured out we had to put up with
ing people observing. it and that our task was to prevent the players from
being affected by it or even knowing about it.
Going on ball movement Create a pre-game schedule with the most impor-
Have your defensive line get some pre-game practice tant stufflast. Then just start the schedule at whatever
ignoring hard counts and going only an ball move- point reflects the amount of time remaining.
ment.
Do not tire them out
Other drills Once, in 1990, when I was a miscellaneous assistant
Walk through the do-your-job drill to remind play- coach, we had to wait about three hours for an away
ers what you expect them to do. Walk through a pass game against Woodland. We were the last game of
rush against a drop-back pass. Walk through Plan A the day and their administration had screwed stuff
and Plan B for stopping a sweep. Jog through pass up all day making each game more behind schedule
pursuit and the Oski drill. than the previous one.
Rehearse one complete sequence of substituting.
On my teams, that was typically four plays. Extreme weather
Our anxious coaches tried to cram a bunch of prac-
Team yell tice into the unexpectedly long pre-game. It was an
You need to get your players adrenaline going. We extremely hot day. We did full-speed scrimmage for
did that with a couple of team yells just before they an hour or more out in the sun.
got introduced by the public address announcer then Fortunately, the opposing coaches were equally
one more just before kickoff. We insisted that all the dumb and did the same thing. By the time the game
players yell as loud as possible. This gets the heart started, both teams were beat. I commented during
pumping and puts them into the aggressive state of the game that the teams looked like they were wear-
mind that is required to play defense. ing hip boots regarding how sluggish they moved.
We finally barely won in overtime.
Vacaville playoff Before another game, it was cold and raining. Our
I believe we won the 1992 quarter-final payoff game head coach decided that we were going to ignore the
against the defending state champion Vacaville Bull- weather. Doesn't bother us. So we went out and got
dogs because we did this and they did not. soaking wet sitting in the wet grass stretching and
After half time, we did our usual team yell. Va- so forth. The coaches figured the wet and cold was
caville was extremely quiet and businesslike. We got all in our players minds.
a good return on the opening kickoff of the second
half then scored in two or three plays. It turned out Opponent stayed inside
to be the only score of the game. Meanwhile, our opponents kept their team indoors,
After that, the game itself got the Bulldogs' adrena- stretching on the locker room floor. By game time,
line running, too. But by then it was too late. our kids had been cold and wet for 45 minutes or
so. The opponent came out warm, dry, and rested.
Most important things last They won a game where we were three touchdown
Schedule your most important pre-game things for favorites.
last because the amount of time you get varies from In hot weather, do not tire out or dehydrate your
game to game. Youth administrators are often incom- team in pre-game warm-ups. Keep them in the shade
 Pregame 63

and well watered. In cold or wet weather, keep your

players as warm and as dry as you can for as long as
possible.
Change clothes-like socks and underwear-at
halftime to the extent that you can. Ask permission,
in advance of the actual game, to wear practice pants
for the second half if you only have one set of game
pants.

Not all in the mind

The notion that bad weather isjust a mental problem
is nonsense. You must do everything you can to shel-
ter your players from extreme weather and its adverse
effects on your team. Worrying that the other team
will think you're wimps if you stay inside until the
last minute is also nonsense. They may think that, but
the scoreboard has the final say on that subject.

Light prep, not full practice

Pregame is just for clearing out the cob webs, loosen-
ing the muscles, and mentally getting ready to play
tackle football.
bE! uap-.t\lr-1VIIITUl .L.IC:::.U:::ll.3~ .LVI. u.
.J..Vl..U .. ..L '-''-'''---... .•.
 8 During game

Coaching a football
more difficult than team
peopleduring a game
who have not is far
done -, --
Wide left tt'~t\ I
point-of-attack I
success chart
it realize. There are dozens of players to control on ,~ -I.
the field and on the sideline. TheD game clock and
play clock move inexorably forward constantly hur-
I H~

rying you.
In this regard, youth football is quite the same as
NFL football. An NFL clock is the same as a youth
clock. 25 seconds is 25 seconds. And so on.
Every time the ball is snapped, 22 players and
four referees snap into jumbled, confusing action.
Furthermore, they are on average about 27 yards
away-sometimes as much as 55 yards away.
You must resist jumping to conclusions about
why offensive plays are succeeding during a game.
I
It is very hard to tell what is going wrong until you
study the video tape. NFL and college coaches often
wisely refuse to comment on a game until they see
the video.
However, the difficulty of figuring out what is
going on does not change the fact that you need to
try your best to make intelligent adjustments during
the game.

Point-of-attack success chart The use of the chart is simple. Your helper simply
One device that I found crucial is a point-of-attack draws a line showing where the point of attack was
successchart. That is a simple diagram of an offensive and how many yards the play gained or lost. In the
formation with yard markings showing five-yard case 0 f a pass, put, "p''' "I" or "I" nt at the spot were
h
increments. Because we flip flop the ends, corners, the pass went. In the above example, nine plays
and outside backers, we need to have two forms--on occurred when the hash position was such that the
opposite sides of the same card. One is for when the middle linebacker would yell "Wide left!"
ball is on the left hash from the defense's perspec- Two dives gained about one or two yards. A wide-
tive; the other, when it's on the right hash. Here's side off-tackle play gained three yards. A wide-side
an example. sweep gained four yards. Another gained two and a
third lost three. A short side off-tackle play lost two
yards. A short-side sweep gained two. A slant pass

65
66 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

was completed for a gain of six and two deeper passes myself when I played. But they apparently hear
went incomplete. subconsciously.
Hopefully, the opponent will never have any suc- Whenever we have a long run, including on an
cess (gain four yards or more on a play) during the interception, I yell "No clipping! No clipping!" False-
game and the chart will so indicate. But it is more start penalties by the offense are often followed by
likely that the opponent will have some success. You offside penalties on the defense on the very next play.
need to quickly diagnose and correct the weakness To prevent that, I start yelling, "No offside! Watch
they are exploiting. All subsequent plays start at the the ball!" whenever the opponent gets a false-start
line of scrimmage. penalty. Both the "No clipping" and "No offside"
One of my assistants started the line for the second yells seem to work.
play at a particular hole on the end of the vertical
line showing the yards gained by the first play at that No yelling
hole. The chard was thus rendered useless. I coached at the San Ramon Valley T-Birds one
season-more accurately one half season. I resigned
Vallejo game when my superiors interfered with my coaching.
In a 1992 game against Vallejo, our point-of-attack (They ordered me to install a power-I formation and
success chart showed that our opponent was gaining a set of plays for it.)
more than three yards on some plays up the middle. They have a team policy that coaches may not
That never happens against the GAM defense. yell out to the players during a game. They think it
So we watched the middle and discovered that looks bad. That is one of the nuttiest policies I ever
some new, athletic players we had put at down line- heard o£ The yelling of "Pass! "Ball!" and so forth is
men were standing up on every play. We instantly standard practice at all levels of football.
replaced them with more mediocre athletes, but The T-Birds were run by a group of arrogant
kids whom we knew would not stand up. End of coaches who almost refused to speak to the parents
problem. a number of years ago. They were thrown out in a
In a 1993 game against Benicia, I recognized palace coup. The new regime went too far in the
that they were exploiting an off-tackle weakness but other direction.
I could not figure out a way to fix it. We barely lost We also need to communicate to players to tell
he game. Now, I would go through the various off- them to get off the field or cover a wideout they did
tackle adjustments listed earlier in this book and in not see.
my Coaching Youth Football book. Once, when coaching freshman high-school foot-
ball against John Madden's two sons, I snuck a wide
Yelling during the play receiver out in a punt formation. Their defenders
Earlier, I said your sideline should yell "Pass!" ''Air!'' did not see him.
"Ball!" and "Oski!" to help the defense. I also said I guarantee you the Madden boys were not in
you should yell "Gang!" once a tackle is begun to compliance with the T-Bird policy at that moment.
remind them to gang tackle. After trying in vain to get their kids to cover the
During games when my defense was on the field, wideout, they had to burn a timeout to keep us from
I would position myself about ten yards behind the running our fake~punt play pass to that receiver.
offense on the sideline so I could see their play clearly.
Around my neck was a small plastic megaphone I Timeout
bought at an Army game. As the snap occurred, I What do you do when a timeout is called? First, I yell
would hold it up to my mouth and yell out what "Water!" (There's that unseemly yelling again.)
the play was. I usually grab the point-of-attack successchart as I
During drills, we also yell words and phrases like run onto the field. (Some youth coaches make a show
"Full speed!" and "Sweep!"Youshould yell these same of striding out slowly, I guess to show everyone that
words and phrases out to the players during a game they are cool, calm, and collected. Since the timeouts
when you see that particular play developing. Some only last 60 seconds, that slow, confident striding
coaches have told me players cannot hear anything ends up being a meaningless exercise. I run onto the
during a play. I agree that players are highly focused field so I have a little time with the kids to talk.)
during a game. I recall being in a kind of silent zone
 Uuringgame
Show the chart
I show the players the point-of-attack success chart
either to compliment them on the great job they are
doing or to point out a weak area where players need
to buck up their play.
If there is a dock consideration, like needing to
strip the ball or keep ball carriers inbounds, I will
point that out.
Ask your players
• Is anyone hurt?
• Tired?
• Is offense doing anything we did not expect?
• Tell them about any unexpected things coaches
have noticed.
• Should we make any adjustments?
• Has anyone spotted any tip-offs?
• Point out any situation tendencies pertinent to
the current game situation.
• Remind them to go on ball movement, not ca-
dence.
These items or key words reminding you of them
should be on a card that you carry with you when
you go onto the field for a timeout.
When to call timeout
The optimum time to call timeout is when you are
on defense and the opposing team is in a slowdown.
Call such hurry-up timeouts as soon as the previous
play ends.
Avoid calling timeout when you are ahead. Avoid
calling timeout until the last five minutes of the half
If you are ahead, call timeout, but wait until the last
second to do it. On defense, that means just before
the offense is ready to snap.
For more details on when you call timeouts and
why, see my book Football Clock Management.
When the offense or special
teams are on the field
Meet with your defense, or as many of them are left
on the sideline, when your offense or special teams
are on the field. Go over the same things as in a tim-
eout, only in more detail. Compliment good work
and correct poor technique or alignment.
Refrain from diagnosing subtle
points during the game
There is a strong temptation to blame the kids for
not trying or not being tough or some such in games
67
when things are not going well. Don't do that.
You really cannot tell why problems are occurring
until you study the video-other than problems
revealed by the point -of-attack successchart or some-
thing you specifically saw with your own eyes.
Criticizing players for general failures of character
and such are usually incorrect and never helpful. The
kids start thinking they are busting their butts and
you're still criticizing them for lack of effort. They
will then cut back to the effort you unfairly accused
them of
If you see a particular problem, fix it. But if you
cannot figure out what's going wrong, try observing
a particular defender on each play to see if you can
spot the problem, If you still cannot spot it, keep
your mouth shut until you see the video.
Adjustment schedule
If you are having a problem at one or two specific
points of attack during the game, you need to make
an adjustment to fix it. But during the game is too
late to start thinking about it.
Make up an adjustment schedule the night be-
fore the game. It should provide both for personnel
changes and Xs and Os changes.
Depth chart for personnel
Normally, your depth chart should be the personnel
change indicator. In other words, you start with your
first-string guy. But if he is getting beat, go to your
second-string guy. However, the night before the
game you should think about whether that is what
you want for this particular game.
Xs and Os changes
List each offensive play type and the adjustment(s)
you will make if that play systematically beats you
in the upcoming game.
Note the word systematically. Do not make
changes just because the offense has one successful
play. But if the offense succeeds with the same play
two or three times in the same game, you may want
to change your alignment or technique.
Make sure guard staying low
Make sure tackle staying low
68 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

1. Put mirror defender in C • Anybody tired?

gap in 4-point stance • Are they doing anything we did not expect?
2. Have tackle become two-gap • Anybody spot any tip-offs?
defender lined up on offensive tackle
3. Move tackle to C gap
• Minimum-play player status
4. Middle linebacker takes tight • Show point-of-attack success chart and comment
end, outside linebacker who would • Remind of keys, if any, and scout-report tenden-
normally take tight end takes C gap cies
5. Move middle linebacker
to problem C gap • Remind them of the current game situation and
6. Slide technique the proper dock-management approach to that
7. Ends crash, mirror situation
defenders contain
8. Combine 1 and 6 • If you have stifled the offense in the first half,
1. Box both ends warn your defenders that there will probably
2. Slide both ends more passes in the second half
3. Ends and wide mirror
defenders switch jobs
4. Put C-gap mirror defender
in position 3 (stacked behind
end) and box end
Run shotgun stunt even though
offense is not in shotgun formation
Have mirror defenders stay
on deep side of receivers
Keep one backside mirror defender
home against sweep (in addition to
normal trailman: the defensive end)
Have defender who is being
trapped not penetrate-just
stay at his initial position

Stunt somebody between

the tight ends
1. Have backside linebacker
step opposite to the direction of
initial offensive backfield flow
2. Change mirror defender's
key if indicated

Halftime
Youth football halftimes usually last as long as the
periods-ten minutes. At higher levels, where all or
nearly all the players platoon (only play offense or
defense), the appropriate breakdown of halftime is
three minutes for bathroom and water, two minutes
for each of the three coordinators and one minute
for a psyche-up yell and getting ready to run through
the large banner held up by the cheerleaders.
So what do you do with yout three minutes?
About the same as in a timeout, only you have a
little more time.

• Adjustments for second half

• Anybody hurt?
 9 Troubleshooting
Nowadays, computer
manuals have a chapterand other
in the back equipment
on trouble-
shooting. If you have this problem, try this solution.
It's a good idea for football books, too.
Problem diagnosis in general
Coaches tend to panic when things don't go right.
Readers of my books have a particular problem in
this regard. My defense-the gap-air-mirror-does
not look like what the fathers and other coaches are
used to. Because the vast majority of people are craven
conformists, this disturbs them profoundly.
Men whose only knowledge of football coaching
stems from their high-school days of playing one or
two positions in a system the name of which they
are not sure of are quick to declare the GAM defense
worthless. "If they break through the middle, they're
gone," and "It's vulnerable to the pass."
If the defensive coordinator or head coach insists
on trying the GAM, the critics lie in wait and pounce
on every failure as evidence that they were right. As I
said earlier, this is like junking your car and buying a
different make because a warning light went on.
Causes of defensive failures
Defenses give up successful plays (four or more yard
gain) for four reasons:
• Poor fundamentals
• Poor scheme
• Poor discipline
• Poor personnel
Fundamentals are things like alignment, tackling
technique, low line charge, pursuit angles, and so
forth. No defensive scheme will succeed if you do
not have those things, including mine. The vast
majority of youth football defenses have lousy fun-
damentals.
Scheme
This book is about a particular defensive scheme-
the gap-air-mirror defense. A scheme is Xs and as.
The scheme's role in a defense is to deliver one or
more defenders to the offense's point of attack.
A scheme failswhen it does not deliver a defender
to the point of attack. But the scheme should not be
blamed when a defender has been delivered to the
point of attack-but misses his tackle.
Sometimes, a blast play will work against the gap-
air-mirror. But how could that be? A blast play goes
through one of the A gaps. Does the GAM defense
deliver a defender to each A gap? No question.
So a successful blast play against the GAM defense
is not the GAM's fault. Rather it is the fault of the
particular defender at the point of attack. Actually, in
that case, I can tell you exactly what went wrong just
from hearing the point of attack. He stood up.
Discipline
If that defender was trained properly regarding
what he was supposed to do, the success of the play
resulted not from using the GAM defense. Rather it
resulted from failure on the coach's part'to adequately
discipline the player in question to do what he was
told to do.
Video analysis
After a scrimmage or game where the defense had
some failures (4-yard or more gains), scrutinize the
video to see what wrong.
First, run the tape to see what play the offense ran.
69
70 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football
Then think about which defenders are supposed to
stop that particular play in the GAM. Now rerun
the tape looking at those defenders. Focus on one.
See what he did. Rerun the tape. Focus on a second
defender. See what he did. And so on.
About half the time, you will find that the de-
fender used poor technique. The scheme put him
in a position to stop the play, but he did not tackle
or charge low or whatever as instructed and drilled.
Consequently, the play succeeded even though he
was where he needed to be to stop it.
About 40% of the failures, you will find that the
player did not even try to do what he was supposed
to do. An end might go part way to the sweep spot-
only to see a sweeping ball carrier go flying through
the sweep spot to the outside. An outside linebacker
might totally ignore his man, letting him release in-
side to catch a slant pass. A backside end might see
the play going the other way and take an immediate
angle to cut the apparent sweeper off downfield-
only to learn that the play was a reverse.
Second-string end
forgets to contain
In 1991, I put a second-string end in a playoff game
when the first-string end got hurt. The second-string
end had been first-string end earlier in the season, but
more recently, he had been playing cornerback.
Cornerbacks cover a man on pass plays. Ends
contain rush. When the quarterback rolled out to
his side to pass, the end should have contain rushed
him. Instead, he dropped back. Since he had no
man, he just dropped back into empty space. With
no rush, the quarterback had all day and threw a
touchdown pass.
A sideline critic would see that and say, "See. I
told you this defense was no good against the pass!"
Should we throw the GAM in the trash because of the
touchdown pass in this instance? Absolutely not.
Not in the GAM
Matter of fact, the GAM did not fail in that case
because we were not in the GAM. We were supposed
to be. But the GAM has a contain rushing end on
each side. If there was no contain-rushing end on the
play side, the defense was NOT the GAM.
The defense you need to get rid of because of
the roll-out touchdown pass is the one that looks
like the GAM in every respect except that it has no
contain rush on one side. I do not know what that
defense is called-maybe the "GAM where wide end
forgets to contain rush" or the GAMWWEFTCR
for short-but it's unsound and I would agree that
it should not be used.
Systemic failure to deliver a
defender to the point of attack
You junk the defensive scheme only when it appears
to be causing a systemic failure to deliver a defender
to the point of attack-and then only when the
alternative scheme is better.
A systemic failure is one which occurs repeatedly
at a particular point of attack no matter whom you
put in the key position or how well you train and
discipline them.
If a disciplined defender who has adequate athletic
ability to do the job in question and is executing
his job as instructed cannot stop a particular play
through his area of responsibility, it is the scheme's
fault.
Let me give you an example of a play where the
GAM would probably fail systemically. Remember
in the beginning of the book, I said a 6-man rush
combined with man pass coverage-which iswhat we
have with the GAM-is unsound against the triple
option. Let's diagram a triple-option play in which
the playside receivers run clearing routes.
oc
1
Not point
the enoughof guys
atfackat
The playside corner and outside linebacker have to
go with their men. The playside tackle has to take
the dive back. The boxing ends take themselves to
the pitch back. The middle linebacker has zone pass
coverage so he has to cover the deep pass to the deep
receivers.
The only defenders available to stop the play are
the guards, backside tackle, and· backside outside
linebacker. The guards and tackles are not really
available because they are tangled up in the line.
 Itoubleshooting 71

The outside backer is free if not blocked by the weak coaching staff. Large coaching staffs where at least
tackle, but he has a long way to go and is behind the some coaches are not stabbing the head coach or
play the whole way. No one is available to take the coordinators in the back are rare. If the coaching staff
QB ifhe keeps. is you and your brother or father or some such, you
do not have to worry about that stuff:
Slide technique
You could tell the ends to use the slide technique and Fix it
take the quarterback in case of an option. But that Once you have identified the reason a play succeeded
just forces the pitch to the pitch back and there is against your defense, take the appropriate action to
no one to take him. The backside outside linebacker fix it. lhat means replacing the kid who did not do
cannot get all the way over to the right in time to his job, disciplining him to do his job, and/or giving
tackle a pitch back. him additional practice to make sure he knows what
With the recommended solution, the Oklahoma his job is and how he is supposed to do it.
5-4-2, the nose and defensive tackles take the dive They are just kids, and him not knowing what
along with the inside linebackers if the linemen get his job is is probably your fault for not giving him
double-teamed. The ends take the quarterback and enough reps in practice. But sometimes it is the kid's
the play side cornerback takes the pitch back. The fault. One way or another, you have to get the job
playside safety rotates over to cover the playside done. Do whatever it takes to prevent the problem
third of the field zone for a pass. The backside safety from happening again.
rotates over to the middle of the field to cover that Harsh discipline should only come into play when
zone. And the backside corner rotates back to take it is clear that the other kids on the team have had
the backside third of the field zone. The two inside enough reps to get their jobs. If one kid keeps doing it
linebackers each have half the shallow zones. wrong week after week when almost everyone else has
figured it out, either the kid in question has decided
Zone pass coverage that he, not you, is the coach, or he is mentally or
This is a poor youth defensive scheme in general be- physically incapable or unwilling of doing that job.
cause of its reliance on zone pass defense which kids Kids deciding they are the boss is mainly at the
cannot execute. It also allows double-team blocks, teenage level. But wherever it happens, it must not be
traps, and all that. But at least it is sound against tolerated. And you certainly do not trash any defense
the triple-option play. It delivers the necessary de- because one recalcitrant kid is sabotaging it.
fenders to the point of attack against that particular
offensive play. Probable cause by play
Anyway, that is an example of a systemic weakness Step one in troubleshooting a football. defense is to
in the GAM scheme. However, if you do not face a ask, "What play succeeded?" Then you identify who
triple-option team, which is likely the case, you do is supposed to stop that play and study the video to
not need to worry about that particular weakness. see why they did not. The following is intended to
help you during the game when you do not have the
Don't let critics blame benefit of the video. It should also speed your video
GAM for every failure evaluation after the game.
What I am warning you to guard against is critics who Here are the various points of attack or types of
would have you believe that each and every failure is offensiveplays and the probable Xs and Os reason for
the scheme's fault. Indeed, if you have coaches with a failure to stop that play. Of course, poor tackling
kids on the team, they may even bad mouth the GAM technique is the cause about half the time, but that
so much at home that their son will deliberately has nothing to do with the defensive scheme. Wrong
sabotage it. Those are not GAM failures, but failure person at the key position is another non-Xs-and-Os
of the head coach to hire a proper staff. reason for defensive failure.
By the way, I have an article at my Web site
about the proper size youth staff: one coach, maybe - defender stood up
two. You have enough to worry about getting ready - defender was trapped
for the opposing teams. You should not also have -defender is too light to
play the position
to worry about being stabbed in the back by your
72 Gap-Air-Mirror Defense for Youth Football

• no defender at point of attack • mirror defender not taking

• defender stood up away underneath trajectory
• defender was trapped • zone defender (middle linebacker)
• mirror defenders not diagnosing not taking away deep trajectory
running play soon enough
• boxing end • defender not fighting for ball
• defender not reading
• end not getting to sweep spot
receiver's eyes
• end concluding play was not a
sweep because of early fake
• not keeping eyes on receiver
• end backpedaling in face
instead of looking at passer
of lead blockers
·two mirror defenders not switching
• incorrect pursuit angles
men when receivers cross paths
• mirror defender and end not
• personnel mismatch
switching jobs in response to
crack-back block on end • no contain rush
• defender overpenetrates
• defender not reading trap blocking • down linemen staying in
scheme and stepping to inside bear crawl too long
·down linemen not keeping heads
• backside end not trailing
up and eyes on ball carrier
• playside mirror defender not
• not getting pressure on the passer
tackling original ball carrier
• not plugging receivers at
• mirror defender playing as the line of scrimmage
traditional linebacker flowing • not covering receivers
too fast in response to initial on pass routes
flow of offensive backfield • middle linebacker not
• keying on wrong player playing zone correctly
bootleg bootleg-side end not
searching quarterback • poor pass pursuit
• bootleg-side end not
searching quarterback
• poor Oski blocking
• mirror defender
abandoning his man
• middle linebacker flowing
too quickly on initial flow
of offensive backfield

• backside end not taking

quarterback in man coverage
after wide pass
• mirror defender whose man
received wide pass not
rushing new passer
• mirror defender whose
man received pitch or
handoff not switching man
coverage to quarterback
• down linemen staying in
bear crawl too long
• mirror defenders not
preventing inside release
• mirror defender not taking
away line-drive pass
• mirror defender not taking
away line-drive pass
• mirror defender not
standing up at snap
• mirror defender not
covering his man
 10 Grading video

Be sure to grade the subs

YOU should and
preseason gradeofvideo
your of your after
games practices in the
the season If you grade three or four plays, you will be getting a
starts. This is very time-consuming, so you can representative sample of your starters' performances.
only grade some plays, not all. Also, a sample gives However, just three or four plays will completely miss
about as good a picture as grading all would. Each many of your minimum-play players and half-time
individual player tends to make the same mistake players.
over and over. So you must also make a point of grading at least
one play for each of your players who gets into the
Key plays game.
Since you can only grade a few plays, choose the
most important ones. That is, big failures for your Count tackles and
defense that day. Correcting those mistakes is the assists for every play
main thing you have to do the following week. So Remember that I said to count tackles and assists
you might as well get the most detailed information in both practices and games. You can try to do this
on those plays. during the game on the sidelines. But that requires
In a typical game against a tough opponent, you a person who does only that when the defense is on
might give up a sweep touchdown, a reverse touch- the field. Also, they will miss some tacklers that can
down, and a halfback pass touchdown. So grade be seen on video. Since there is no great need for this
those three plays. statistic during the game, the video is probably the
best source for this information.
Different types of plays You need to watch every defensive play at least
If you grade only three or four plays, make sure they once to get this statistic. But it goes much faster than
are different types of plays. For example, a good typi- grading all eleven players on a play.
cal combination would be:
Total picture
-sweep Watch each defensive play to get the tackles-and-
- off-tackle assists numbers. Record them on a roster. Also note
- drop-back pass the number of plays each player was in. You can usu-
-reverse ally estimate that based on the way you substitute.
You do not need to see each player going in and
Do not bother with plays like dives or blast plays. coming out on the video.
Those plays go nowhere against the GAM defense as Watch three or four different types of the most
long as your down linemen stay down. ditficult-to-top plays grading every player on the
field. That will require you to watch each of those
three or four plays about twelve or thirteen times.
Once to see what the play was, then again to focus

73
74 Gap-AU-Muror uerenst: lUI lUUUIIVV'V(LU

on each individual defender. Watch practice, not games

Finally, you must focus on the second-string guys One father of a minimum-play player chewed us out
on enough plays to give each of them at least one after a game-demanding to know how his son was
play grade. ever going to learn or get a chance to show what he
could do ifhe only played six plays a game. We urged
Grading system him to attend a practice and assured him that his son
This will be time-consuming enough without making got plenty of opportunities to learn and show what
the grading system complicated. I suggest a + 1 for he could do in practice.
doing the job correctly and a -1 for not doing your He came to the next practice and stood there for
job correctly. I really see no need to find shadings two hours w~\tching. Afterward, he approached us,
like A, B, C. There is another grading system in my apologized, aDd said, "You're right. He's not ready."
Coaching Freshman and Junior varsity High School At your parents meeting, you should urge parents
Football book. of second-stringers to attend practices rather than
The way football works is that you either do your games. Often, they bring friends and relatives on
job or not. If you do your job correctly, the offensive Saturday and are embarrassed when their child does
play should fail. If you do not, it will usually succeed. not get in much.
Great plays are rare. They should be recognized and Have them bring their lawn chairs and grand-
complimented, but that usually happens on the spot parents to practice. There they will see the most
at the game from not only the coaches, but also the minimum of minimum-play players get his fill of
teammates and crowd, and even sometimes from playing time on scout team and in drills.
the opponent. Tell the parents that they are welcome at games,
As defensive coach, you are like an auto mechanic. but that they should not expect to see a second-
You just want the various parts to work. You do not stringer in the game much unless it's a blowout.
need them to do great.
Atmy son's college, they end up with a percentage Conclusion
for the final grade. I believe they grade every player on With this book, I am attempting to raise the art of
every play. Of course, they have a full-time coaching writing football-coaching books to a new level. Un-
staff of about 12. like most football-coaching book authors, I talk to
I do not know how they .grade each play but my readers on a daily basis. What they have told me
probably they have a check list for what the player they want over and over is more detail.
is supposed to do on each play and grade each aspect Accordingly, this is one of the most detailed books
+ 1 or -1. The composite percentage score would be about a scheme everwritten. I suspect I may hear that
what percent of the time the player got a + 1 in all it is still not detailed enough. If that's the case, tell
his various opportunities to do his job or not do it me and I will make it even more detailed.
during the game.
In my approach, you should end up with at least
two scores: Best wishes,

• percentage performance of job for the game John T. Reed

• number of tackles and assists for every ten plays
participated in 342 Bryan Drive
Alamo, CA 94507
These scores should be posted on your team Web site 925-820-7262
showing stats for each game as well as for the season. johnreed@johntreed.com
Such a posting is a good motivator. Stats are also good . www.johntreed.com/coaching.html
for settling arguments about position assignments
and playing time. Another good way to do that is
to encourage the parents of second-string players to
attend practice rather than games.

Symbols
10-1 defense 1,2,3,8,33
10-1 Loop 3
41 inside trap 41
A blocking progression 27
ace ii, 17, 49
adjustment schedule 67
against air 22, 24, 49
A gap 2, 9, 34, 55, 67, 69
agility drill 43
air 1,2,3,7,18,22,23,26,
42, 43, 49, 69
Air! 35,39,40,48,66
alignment 2,9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18,
19,20,32,34,35,49,53,55,
67,69
Army 29,66
assists 7. 8, 46, 52, 54,73,74
athletes 6, 7. 8,19,27,31,39,52,66
audibles 32
Augen 48
B clearing route 70
backpedaling 24, 39, 72
balanced line 9
ball movement 24, 49, 62, 67
ball-stripping 52, 53, 55, 67
base blocking 27. 28, 52
Bass,Tom 10
Index
bat down 39, 40
bear crawl 21,22,49,52,72
Benicia 30, 66
B gap 2, 5, 9, 14, 32, 33, 34, 55, 67,
71
big on big 14
big on fast 15
blast 53, 69, 73
blitz 18, 33, 42, 43
bootleg 7, 26, 28, 29, 30, 50, 72
boxing 11, 12, 13,23,24,25,26, 27,
31,32,33,34,59,68,70,72
Bronson, Will 7, 8, 34
Bryant, Bear 1
bump 13,14,36,39
33,40, bump-and-run 13, 14
c crack back 28
cadence 11, 67
calisthenics 57
captain 7,11,19,20,49,55
carioca 43
catching up to your man 39, 53
Celina High School 1,3,10,33
C gap 2,12,14,18,19,32,33,41,
50, 52, 53, 55, 59, 68, 72
clipping 40, 52, 55, 56, 66
clock-management ii, 54, 67. 68
Coaching Freshman and Junior Varsity
High School Football 48,74
coaching on the run 53
coaching staff 71,74
Coaching Youth Football 14,21,23,
31,46,48,50,59,66
Coaching Youth Football clinic 31
cold 55,62,63
combine 46
competitive drill 13, 22, 25, 35, 38
conditioning 45, 57, 58
contain 2,7. 23, 26, 28, 30, 31, 33,
34, 39, 52, 68, 70, 72
contain men 2, 23, 28, 30
contain rush 23,26, 30, 31, 34, 52,
70,72
controlled scrimmage 59
cornerbacks 5,6, 7, 8, 14, 19,31,35,
41,42,70,71
countdown 47, 54
counter 40, 41, 42, 53, 54, 61, 68
counting tackles and assists 46, 52, 73
Cousin Kdley Special 7
Cover curl, tackle Bat 37
cover one 43
crack-back block 28, 40, 50, 72
crack-back switch 55
crash 33,68
Creehan, Dennis 24
Cross! 40, 53, 56
cross block 27, 28, 52, 56
D
daily 46, 55, 74
deepest back 11
deep pass 37,53,55,70
deep wing 28
deep wingback 28
defecating in the woods 10
75
II) uap-/\.lr-lYllrrOr .LJt:n::w;t:lUl lUUlll l"UUlUdll

defensive end 5,6,7,11,12,13,18, fake-punt play pass 66 grass drills 57

24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31, fake reverse 30, 50,53, 55, 68, 72
32,50,68 fast on big 15
defensive field captain 7 fast on fast 14
De La Salle High School 1,2,21 field captain 7, 19, 20 H
Delaware Wing- T 30 fifty defense 43
depth chart 5, 6, 47, 55, 57, 67 fight for the ball 38, 55 halfback pass 73
D gap 12,68 fight-for-the-ball drill 56 half-line drill 54
discipline 7,8,69,70,71 fight-for-the-pass drill 52 halftime 3,63,68
dive 3,29,50,53,70,71,73 first-sound snap 11 hand-offs 28,29,31,50,53
dive-sweep-bootleg combo 29 flanker 8, 13, 35, 61 hand signals 19
domino effect 6 flash cards 61 hard count 21,22,49,62
double coverage 34 flip-flopping 5, 25, 49, 65 Harvard University ii
double reverse 56 Football Clock Management 54, 67 hash 5, 20, 23, 25, 26, 32, 35, 49, 50,
double slot 17, 49 forbidden zone 35 65
double-team block 22,32,71 formations 1,2,9,13,14,15,19,20, hash position 5, 49, 65
double-tight-end formation 1 37, 48, 49, 53, 56, 61 heatstroke 46
double-tight full-house I 17 form front tackling 50, 53, 56 Heisman Trophy 7
double-tight full-house T 16 form side tackling 50, 52, 53, 56 hitting 33, 43, 58, 61
double-tight power I 16 form tackling 55 hook 25, 37, 72
double-tight wishbone 16 Fort Monmouth 26 hook and ladder 56
double wing 11,12,17,49 four-point sprinter's stance 13, 33 hook pass 72
down linemen 2,5,8,9,10,11,19, four-point stance 9, 10, 11, 18, 24, horseplay 47
21, 22, 23, 24, 30, 33, 49, 52, 33,47 hot weather 62
66, 72, 73 front-tackle 47 hurry-up 54, 55, 67
do-your"job drill 49,50,51,52,53, full-house 1,11,14,16, 17, 19,24,
55,56, 62 48,49
draw-a-clip drill 40, 52, 55, 56
draw play 34
drills 3,8,21,36, 40, 43, 52, 54, 56,
full-house I 14,17,19,49
Full speed! 40, 66 I
fumble pick up and run 48
57, 62, 66, 74 fumble-recovery technique 47 I formation 11,12,15,40,66
drop-back pass 11, 26, 38, 50, 62, 72, fumblerooski 56 illegal procedure 13
73 fundamentals 69 in bounds 55, 67
injuries ii, 6, 46, 47, 58, 61
inside hand-offs 28, 29
inside out 14, 42
E G inside-out pursuer 39, 40
inside release 35, 36, 38, 40, 52, 55,
E formation 18 game plan 6, 31, 33 72
element of surprise 29,41,54,59 game situation 35, 41, 54, 60, 67, 68 interception 7, 37, 38, 39, 40, 48, 50,
Elk Grove 42 GAM-M 32, 33, 52 66,72
evaluation 45,55, 71 GAM-T 32,52 interception drill 40
experience 6, 21, 29, 35, 46 GAMWWEFTCR 70 intramural league 19
extreme weather 62 Gang! 49,66 invisible ball 50, 54
gang tackle 40,49,51,52,66
gap 2
gap-8 1,2
F gap defender 9 J
gassers 57
Fairfield Falcons 24 generic drills 43 Jamboree 45
fake 22,29,30,41,42,48,50,53,55, grading system 74
66,72 Granada High School ii, 41
 lllaex 77

MoyerMove 13,49,55 pass pursuit 40,50, 55, 56, 62, 72

K Mumme, Hal 57 pass rush 22, 30, 39, 52, 53, 62
Pearson, Scott 21
Kelley, Larry 7 penalties 7, 47, 55, 66
Kent State 1 personal foul 47
Kentucky 57 N personnel 2,6, 15,31,49,57,67,69,
Keying on a blocking back 42 72
Keying on a triangle 42 Napa 52 pick play 40
Keying on guards 42 nasty split 2, 11, 13, 26, 49 pick up fumble 55
keys 11,23,42,43,53,54,57,61,67, Navy 29 pitch back 3,70,71
68,70,71,72 near running back 42 pitches 50
kick-out block 27, 28, 52, 56 Nerf 22 PlanA 50,62
kitchen timer 47 no-back 11, 13, 14, 15, 19, 24, 34, Plan B 50, 53, 56, 62
35,37 play-calling sequence 60
No help! 37 Play Football the NFL Way 10
no-hope chase 40 play-name length 48
L no-pads 5, 45, 46, 49 point-of-attack success chart 65, 66,
numbering system 14, 15,50,55 67,68
late-blooming rookies 46 Polecat 17
lead blocker 24, 25, 50, 55, 72 politics 8
left stunt 33, 34 position assignment 5,31, 48, 74
lightweight 8 o possession 55
line drive 37 post corner 37
line splits 8, 25, 42, 43, 48 offensive formations 1,2,5,11,12, post pass 72
live scrimmage 52, 58 13,14,18,19,48,65 Power I 14, 16, 48, 66
Lomondo, Anthony 46 off-off-tackle play 12 practice schedule 2, 46, 57
lonesome polecat 2, 49 offset I 18 preseason 3,9,31,45,46, 53, 56, 59,
loop 33,34 off-tackle play 2,5,12,18,23,25, 60,73
low line charge 21, 69 26,27,28,31,32,33,52,65, preseason scrimmage 45, 59
66,73 pre-snap formation 11
Oklahoma 1 prevent inside release 35,40,52,55,
Oklahoma 5-4-2 3, 71 56
M Oklahoma drill 43 Princeton 7
one-against-two drill 21,50,52,53, Pro-set I 2, 16, 48
Madden, John 66 55,56 psyche-up yell 68
man coverage 2,3,28,31,34,37,38, one-back offense 12 pulling guard 42
39, 40, 43, 49, 52, 55, 70,72 optional protective equipment 47 pump fake 22, 48
man-to-man defender 34 order of selection 5, 6 punt block 33
man-to-man pass coverage 2, 28 Oski 40, 48, 50, 55, 56, 62, 66, 72 pursuit angles 23, 50, 69, 72
megaphone 66 out of bounds 54 pushup position 10
middle-linebacker stance 14 out pass 3, 30, 72 put-ins complete 55
minimum-play player 2, 8, 20, 46, 68, out route 37
73,74 outside handoff 28, 29
mirror 2 outside in 14, 23, 25, 39, 42
mirror defender 13,18,28,31,33,37, Q
41,49,53,68,72
misdirection 41, 42, 72 quads formation 17, 35
missing-position signals 19 p quads with split end 17
monthly 31, 55, 56 quarterback-center exchange 50
Moore, G. ii, 1,3,10,33 Pardi, Herc 1 quick receiver 13, 14, 40, 42, 49
motion 11,15,20,28,49,53,55 parents meeting 74 quick snap 11
Moyer, Matt 13 passing 5, 29, 33, 36, 37, 42, 50
IV
'-.:Ja.P-.1111.-.LY.1..I..I.J.VL ~,",.L'-".L.LoJ"'" .L'-'.L .&.'-'_ •...•..•..•..
__ .... _

shadow 19,39
R shift 11,15,20,49,53,55,61 T
short-side end 5, 6, 11, 23, 25, 26,
rapid-tempo practice 58 32,65 tackling technique 47, 48, 52, 54, 57,
reads 7, 25, 26 shotgun 17,18,33,34,42,50,55,59, 69,71
Ready, step 57 68,72 talk out loud 53
ready to hit 61 shotgun defense 33 team Web site 6, 74
receiver out of the backfield 35 shotgun stunt 42, 50, 55, 59, 68 team yell 62
receivers cross paths 40,55 sign of the cross 48 technique 7,8,21,22,23,25,26, 27,
receiver's eyes and hands 39 Simon, Kevin 21 28, 39, 47, 48, 52, 54, 56, 57,
red dog 42 single wing 17, 49 59,67,68,69,70,71
referee ii, 8,20,55 situation tendencies 67 tempo 53, 57, 58
regular season 9 six-point hitting drill 61 Texas 1,3,10,23,33
rehearsal 43 six-point stance 61 three-back I 19, 41
remedial bear crawl 22 slant 14,37,65,70,72 three-play combo 50, 56
remedial drills 52, 54 slant corner 37 three-play group 29
repetition 45 sleds 43,52 three-plays-per-minute tempo 53, 57
reverse 6, 7,28,29,30,31,50,53,55, slide 11,23,25,26,28,33,59,68,71 three-point stance 10, 18, 32, 33
61,68,70,72,73 slot 13, 14, 15, 17, 35, 36, 42, 49 throwback pass 31,55,72
Rexrode, Bob 3 slot! 16 thud 58
right stunt 34 slowdown 54,55,67 tight end 2,5, 7, 11, 13, 14, 15,24,
roll-out 30, 70 Smith, Homer 3 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 35,
rookies 7,8,21,46, 58 snapper 2 36,40,68
running ropes 43 split end 11,13,16,17,35 tight slot 14, 36
running the stadium steps 57 splitT 3 timeouts 7,10,15,19,55,66,67,68
sprint-out 30 tip drill 38, 52
spy 19,39 tip-offs 48, 67, 68

s stack 15, 18, 56

stacked receivers 18
staff 6,47,53,71,74
traditional linebacker 40, 41, 42, 53,
72
trail 7, 23, 28, 29, 31
sack 30 standing up 8 training 6, 9, 31
Saddle Brook, NJ 31 Statue of Liberty 56 trap 22,23,27,28,33,41,50,52,55,
safety 7,22, 46, 71 stem 32 68,71,72
same-side flow 53 streak 1,37,38 trap block 22, 23, 27, 28, 41, 50, 52,
sample depth chart 6 strength of formation 5 55
San Ramon ValleyT-Birds 66 stringing out the play 25 trick play 56, 62
scout coach 53, 57 strip the ball 38, 52, 53, 55, 56, 67 triple option 3,70,71
scouting ii, 9, 18,31,35,38,40,42, substitutions 2,8, 19,20,48,49,50, trips 16, 17, 49
53, 56, 59, 61 54, 55, 57, 62, 73 trips with split end 16
scout play book 53, 56, 59 sugar huddle 53 troubleshooting 3,69,71
scout report 18, 30, 35, 40, 55, 56 sweep 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 18, 23, 24, 25, two-back I 19,53
scout-report tendencies 68 26,28,29,33,41,49,50,51, two-gap defensive tackle 32, 68
scout team 20, 30, 35, 38, 40, 49, 50, 53, 55, 62, 65, 66, 68, 70, 72, two-point stance 13,18
52,56, 74 73
scramble 22, 72 sweep spot 11, 12, 23, 24, 25, 49, 51,
screen pass 38, 62 70,72
scrimmage 3, 8, 29, 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, sweep with lead blocker 50 u
50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, swing pass 18, 33, 50, 56, 72
59,60,62 switch 3, 19, 28, 33, 40, 47, 50, 54, unbalanced line 2, 9, 49, 55
search the quarterback 29,30,72 55,68 uncovered 33, 42
self talk 61 systemic failure 70 Undefeated, The 1
seven-step drop 38 University of California 50
 Inaex 79

unnecessary roughness 8 Woodland 62

unsportsmanlike conduct 47 wrong-way play 42

v y
Vacaville Bulldogs 26, 62 Yale 7
Vallejo 66 Yeoman, Bill 3
varsity ii, 38, 45, 56, 58
veer 16
veterans 7, 8
video 3,24, 46, 50, 59, 60, 65, 67, 69, z
71,73
Z in your knee 24
rone coverage 3,7, 15, 18,33,34,35,
36, 37, 38, 40, 43, 55, 66, 70,
w 71,72

waggle 26, 29, 30, 50, 54, 56, 72

waiting positions 10, 19
walkaway 14,35
walk through 23, 25, 29, 41, 48, 50,
52,53,54,57,58,61,62
water 46, 63, 66, 68
wave drill 43
weak tackle 2,11,14,26, 27,36,71
weather 62, 63
Webb, Tramaine 7
weekly 40, 55, 56
weight limits 5
West Point ii
wet weather 63
whisper 53
wide end 6, 7, 33, 70
wide line splits 8
wide pursuit 23, 39, 50, 55
wide-pursuit drill "Plan B" 53, 56
wide-receiver splits 48
wide side 5,7,8,19,26, 28, 31, 32,
33,49
wide-side end 6, 11,23,24,26, 27,
31,33
wide-side off-tackle play 27,32,52, 65
wide-side sweep 6, 28, 65
Wilkinson, Bud 1, 3
wing ii, 2, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17,25,26,
27,28,29,36, 42, 49
wing motion 11
wingT 16
Wing- T from A to Z: the Base Plan 24
Wood, Gordon 23