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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


How To Pick A Winning Offense

by: David Marco
AFM Youth Coaching Expert
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One of the most difficult decisions a coach has to make is what offense they will run. For a new coach this task could seem daunting if not impossible. Other youth coaches will watch a football game on television and say “Wow, I love Florida’s Spread Option offense! That scheme is unstoppable and I will be too!” Here is the dirty secret to that offense. It runs a lot better with you have Tim Tebow at QB and the rest of the superb athletes that the University of Florida has. Unless Tebow has a little brother and he is going to be on your team you may not have the same level of success as Urban Meyer. The purpose of this column is to help a youth coach (truly any coach) select the offensive system that they wish to learn, implement and run.


Committing to a Scheme
In some careers being a “jack-of-all-trades, master of none” is acceptable. Not when it comes to running an offensive attack. If you are ever going to become a great offensive coach you must commit yourself to a particular offensive approach and become an expert at it.


Some youth coaches have bought into using multiple formations and trying to give defenses “different looks” as opposed to series-based offense. They see these NFL teams line up in all these wild formations and they think that would be effective at the youth level. The problem is that these formations need to have very clear and precise blocking rules that are well beyond the capabilities of a youth coach that holds a full-time job along with his coaching responsibilities. The typical NFL team has around 30 full-time coaches that all have a wealth of experience, training and knowledge.

Personally I am a very big fan of series-based football. When my team lines up in our base set we can effectively run off-tackle, up the middle, inside, sweep, trap, counter, pass, bunch pass to either side and have one of four players run or pass the ball at any time. That is a lot for a defense to handle. In a future column I will discuss formation-based and series-based football in-depth.


Selecting a System to Help You Advance in Coaching
Maybe you have a goal to coach at a higher level (e.g. youth to high school, high school to college, etc.). Perhaps you feel that if you ran a certain offense it will endear you at the higher level. Personally I am uninterested in writing about how a particular offensive scheme could get you a position at a higher level. I believe our goal as a youth coach, or any coach, should be to put our players in the best position possible to be successful. In addition, it takes hundreds to thousands of hours to truly understand an offense system inside and out. Do you want to spend this time on a system that you truly don’t like or believe in? The vast majority of people that get promoted (hired at a higher level) do so because a coach or administrator at that level likes and believes in them. The number one way to achieve this is through success on the field. Coaches that have repeatable success even if their talent is not top-shelf will always be in demand and at every level. Look at Paul Johnson the former head coach at Navy and current head coach at Georgia Tech. He runs a Triple Option FlexBone attack (his terminology, not mine). When you see this scheme it doesn’t look like anything else in Division I college football. The linemen have huge splits, there are two wingbacks that are always going in motion for the triple option and they rarely throw the ball. This scheme would look odd to some (not as odd at my Double Wing) but its success cannot be denied. His teams have led the NCAA Division I-A/FBS football in rushing yards three of the last four years. Two at Navy and one at Georgia Tech in his first year! I bet Coach Johnson would never have reached his lofty coaching level with an offense de jour approach.


Understand Your League/Level
I have had many people tell me how much they miss “old school”, “smash-mouth” football when teams ran the ball 70% of the time. The Chicago Bears ran the T-Formation, the Packers had the Lombardi Sweep and the fullback was a feature position. I tell these people that you can still see this brand of football. Just come to a youth game. It is like being transported 30 – 40 years into the past. Most, if not all, youth leagues are dominated by the run; although, it is possible for a youth coach to be successful passing it is very rare to see a good youth passing team.

Also understand the specific rules of your league. In some leagues (not mine) they don’t let you blitz the A gap. This rule certainly will help out your pass blocking, especially if you use shotgun.

In my league if you run in the extra point it is worth 1 point. If you pass or kick the extra point it is worth 2 points. This rule is important. As a Double Wing coach I think “pass” is a 4 letter word (I know “rush” is too) so I accordingly ran the ball over 93% of the time last year. On the other hand, I threw the ball on extra points over 52% of the time as mathematically it just makes sense. If I complete 50% of my extra point passes, I would need to have 100% success running in the extra points to equal my passing points total.


Understand Yourself
In Bob Reade’s wonderful book “Coaching Football Successfully” he talked a great deal about the psychology of coaching. He talked about how you need to truly look at yourself and understand the type of person that you are. Are you risk averse or do like to let the dice role? For example, I see coaches that have a one score lead and the ball with a couple of minutes left in the game. Personally for me I would never put up a pass or run any play that I didn’t think we knew inside and out, had minimal risk and had 100% confidence in. I know many other coaches that think that since it is an obvious running situation now is the time to pass. If you like risk then you should look at offenses like the Run & Shoot, A-11, Single Back Spread, Shotgun Spread, Spread Option and Wishbone Triple Option. If you are risk averse then the Wing-T, Single Wing, Double Wing, Crunch or Wishbone (no triple option) schemes could be the correct choice for you.

Very few will be able to answer the next question honestly. You need to identify what is your style or more specifically: how important is style to you? Some coaches want to win in a particular way: With Style. They want to be able to emulate some NFL or college coach, run double reverse passes, hook and lateral plays and tons of shifts. I watched one coach be up 2 scores early in the 4th quarter throw a bomb on 2nd and 6. He completed the pass for a touchdown. He definitely won with style that day.


Other coaches (I fall into this category) don’t mind winning ugly. These guys never get bored running the same play 8 times in a row. The last two semi-final playoff games I have coached were pretty close games. In both games when my teams were in the 4th quarter we went on 14 and 18 play drives respectively. Obviously we got a lot of first downs on 4 plays with 3 – 4 yards per play. Maybe it looked ugly to some but it looked like Michelangelo painting to me. We gobbled up the clock and kept our defense off the field. Once I had an announcer refer to my offense as “Army ran another wedge.” The funniest part of this was that it was my OWN home announcer.


It’s Not as Simple as Running vs. Passing
Most youth coaches do not realize that there are different categories for running and passing. Let’s suppose you want to have an offense that focuses on running the ball. When you analyze various schemes you need to realize that they can emphasize speed, power or deception. Most attacks can emphasis two of these three but I have not seen one that based on the scheme and not the players, can emphasize all three. For example, the Double Wing and the Wishbone Option schemes both emphasis power and deception while the I-Formation utilizes speed and power and Spread Option is speed and deception.

Passing schemes also have different approaches. Some are short, ball-control attacks (e.g. West Coast, Run & Shoot, etc.). Others emphasize long, downfield passing as was popularized by Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders. Selecting the right approach for you will depend on the types of athletes that you believe you will get and how you are as a coach.


Find Educational Materials and a Mentor
Once you’ve selected an offensive approach you need to gather all of the teaching articles, books and videos that you can. Then you must study them inside and out. In addition, you should attend any clinic that you can that focuses on your offensive scheme. You will learn as much from the students (fellow coaches living with and using that scheme) as you will from the instructor.


Along with the educational materials you need to find a mentor that can help you navigate through your offensive development. I was fortunate enough to have Coach Hugh Wyatt (Head Coach, North Beach High School, www.CoachWyatt.com) and Bill Lawlor (Offensive Coordinator at Crystal Lake Central High School). Hugh and his materials helped me understand my offense, its core plays, proven uses and intricacies. Bill (formerly was a highly successful coach in my league for years) taught me how to adapt it to the youth level and specifically to my league. I wouldn’t be writing this column without their invaluable aid over the years.

Once you find your mentor(s) make should to spend your time asking questions and limit your “insight” into how to improve the approach. If you have great mentors and the system is proven then in your first year run it “as is”. This will give you a great base of knowledge and put you well on your path to being a top-end offensive coach. Believe me you can do it. When I started youth coaching I had a much stronger coaching background in defense then in offense. In fact, my early teams reflected my knowledge of defense and my lack of knowledge on offense. Now most people talk about my offensive scheme than my defensive scheme! If I could do it, so can you.

Good luck and may the referees be with you.


Coach David Marco – Biography
Coach David Marco is entering his 6th year of youth coaching and his 4th as a Head Coach for the Hinsdale Falcons of the Bill George Youth Football League (www.BGYFL.org). BGYFL is one of the largest and most competitive leagues in northern Illinois. As a head coach, his teams have earned 2 Super Bowl Runner-Up trophies and 1 Super Bowl Championship trophy. In his last 2 years his teams have been the Super Bowl runner-up at the 100 Gold (11 year old) and 80 Gold levels (9 year old). These teams previously had been perennial sub .500 teams that had never won a playoff game. Over the last two years Coach Marco’s teams have recorded 13 shutouts in 21 games. Offensively they have averaged 15.0 and 27.5 points per game in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Coach Marco utilizes the Double Wing on offensive and the 5 – 3 Flex on defense. He may be reached at CoachDMarco@gmail.com






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