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From: To: Ike Groff Subject: Fwd: Winning Youth Football- Newsletter Tips- Beating the Aggressive Blitzing Team and More Tips Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 13:32:07 +0000 Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: From: Dave Cisar Date: November 20, 2013, 6:28:49 AM EST To: Subject: Winning Youth Football- Newsletter Tips- Beating the Aggressive Blitzing Team and More Tips Reply-To: Winning Youth Football Dear Ike, How well is your season going? Or if you are in your planning stages, how are your progressing with your plans? Do you struggle with teams that stack the line of scrimmage and bring pressure from all sides? There are a few simple guidelines you can use to compete against aggressive teams like this in this issue. Keep in mind your season is going to go a lot smoother if your parents are happy and your team is doing well. Nothing drains the joy of coaching faster than a bunch of crazy parents snipping at your every move. Included in this issue are a few ideas and tools that will help you keep them at bay and at the same time giving your players an edge. Another great way to improve your team is through the use of film. But once you have film, how do you analyze it? Some simple tips below. EFTA00379282 Beating the Team That Blitzes Every 0.8 First of all let me start off by saying 95% of the people that e-mail me say they are in a very competitive league. The problem is there is no way 95% of us are playing in competitive leagues and many have no frame of reference outside of their league. Most teams don't play outside competition, play in outside tournaments or go out of town to play, how would they know if they are truely playing in a competitive league or not? That's why I always try and schedule at least 2 out of league games against teams from 2 different leagues as well as play in out of town tournaments if the parents agree to raise the money. Don't fret because someone says or you think you are playing in a competitive league, it really doesn't matter if your youth football league is "competitive" of not, competition is relative. My teams have played in leagues where teams from our league have won National Unlimited Select National Titles ( Top Gun Division) in Daytona, Florida, considered by most to be one of THE most competitve tournament in the Country. This league has produced players like Dave Rimington (Outland), Ahman Green (NFL), Eric Crouch (Heilman) and countless others. We have won plenty of out of town tournaments ourselves at several age groups and always fare well against outside competition. So in a nutshell, yes the Single Wing no Splits system works in competitive leagues in the age group you coach and against the tactics you mentioned. In the above example just because all the teams in this youth football league utilize an unsound but aggressive defensive tactic does not mean they are somehow well coached or "competitive". Competitive may be the descriptive word used to describe the mental nature of these coaching staffs but to be "competitive" there has to be competence. In my mind the opposite would be true, if all the defenses in this league are the same and they all use the same unsound tactic every play. Those defenses and this youth football league seem to be very predictable and would be quite simple to beat with any reasonable amount of competent coaching. You often see this in youth football tournaments, beasts from XYZ league who have manhandled everyone in their league but who get creamed in the out state tournaments. They play in leagues where there is little "out of the box" thinking and many of the teams are intimidated by unsound but aggressive tactics. You would be quite surprised at how many blowouts there are at these things when these bully teams face a well coached team or one that is not intimidated by such tactics. Crushing the Blitzing team By not defending the entire field and massing all defenders in tight and coming every down, there are not levels of defensive pressure. A simple wedge play is usually quite effective against teams like this, even when they have 10 men on the line of scrimmage. Once the initial line of defense is breached it is usually a huge gain Tight splits negate defensive presssure like this and many plays end up looking like a scene from the movie "The 300." Use the defenses aggression against them by using "no plays" to mess their blitz timing off while getting a few free five yard penalties. At the Pop Warner National Championships in 2010 I saw Port St Lucie Florida get another team to jump 6 times at the Midget level. Other plays that work well are trap plays, screens, tight end dump passes ( off of an off-tackle fake), quick hitch passes, quick rub passes, bubble screens, rocket/tunnel screens and straight ahead off-tackle runs. What doesn't work are straight sweeps, deep reverses and deep drop back passes. Running right at these types of defenses is almost always effective, north south works, east west will not. Motioning or formationing against teams like this often give you lots of numbers advantages and either takes the defense out of the all-out blitzes or gives you wide open hitch, flat or screen plays. We've even been able to Jet Sweep a number of these type teams. There is no need to play action teams like this either, that would be a waste of time and manpower. I enjoy playing youth football teams like this that come in with a lot of bravado, war paint and jumping up and down antics. They get very frustrated when they don't get a bunch of negative yardage plays right off the bat or intimidate the offense. Obviously not a fan of this backyard tactic, it works against only the poorest and least prepared youth football teams out there. You never see this type of defense at the big tournaments, those teams almost always get bounced early. EFTA00379283 What is required of your team to defeat this tactic is confidence in your execution based on perfecting a base set of complementary plays in practice and running everything north and south. That means you have to practice against it when your scout team goes against your first team offense, you might even want to put 12.13 defenders on the field when you do that to add effect. A truly well coached team would have a field day with these types of defenses. You can effectively do it even without a big or dominating offensive line in youth football if you take the right approach. Teaching Perseverance to Your Players Perseverance is something your players are going to need for the season and in life. Kids need to know that everyone struggles and everyone thinks about quiting, but that successful people have setbacks but don't quit. This is the copy of an e-mail we sent to our players, feel free to send it to yours: clinic When I hear the word perseverance I think of Dan (Rudy) Ruettiger. He grew up in Joliet Illinois in a lower-middle class blue collar family, the third of fourteen children. Ever since he was a small boy, Rudy dreamed of going to college and playing football at Notre Dame. But he was small, his grades weren't good and his family had little money. Because of Dyslexia, a learning disability, Rudy struggled in school. When he was a Senior in High School he was j ust 5 foot 7 inches tall and weighed only 150 pounds. No one thought Rudy would ever make it to Notre Dame, let alone play football there. Rudy worked at a Boiler Factory after High School for 2 years, saving money to pursue his dream. His grades weren't good enough to get into Notre Dame, so he spent two years at Holy Cross Junior College. He suffered through three crushing rejections to transfer into Notre Dame, but was finally accepted as a student in 1974. He came close many times to giving up on his dream of going to Notre Dame and playing football, as he worked tirelessly to pay his own way through college and make good grades. Beating all odds, Rudy earned a place on the Notre Dame scout team, a grueling practice- squad position that helps the varsity team practice for games with almost no chance of playing in real games. Rudy's perseverance and hard work on the scout team caught the eyes of his coaches. In Rudy's senior year the coaches allowed him to suit up for the final game against Georgia Tech. Coach put him into the game as defensive end for the last two plays, on the final play of the game Rudy sacked the Quarterback and was carried off the field by his teammates. Rudy went on to be the first college graduate from his family. The perseverance Rudy learned on his football journey played a key role in his later success as a husband, father and in the business world. His story was immortalized in the movie "Rudy". Daniel Ruettiger's picture should in the dictionary next to the word perseverance. He had a dream and he did whatever he could to make that dream happen, no matter how big or how many obstacles were in his path. If you want to find out more: EFTA00379284 The real "Rudy Play": Improving Your Team in Mid Season Game film is by far the best tool to improve your team, but how do you use it? Watch the game through once without fast forwarding or reversing the game, don't bother taking any notes. Then watch the film through and edit the film for easier viewing. We use the product Pinnacle to edit our film, but I am not recommending that product, there have to be better ones out there. Many of us use film editing products these days, and many even come as part of computers we buy these days. Michigan city When you edit your film for the first time, make sure and don't cut too much out. You need to be able to see the formations as the players come out from the huddle. If you cut too much out, you can't see the offensive or defensive alignments before the plays start the play and you end up doing a lot of pause and start and stops, which in the end just takes longer. I usually do not make a cut until about 2 seconds before any player shifts or goes in motion. This helps you, your coaches and players to understand the alignment. In a non mercy rule game of 10 minute quarters, the game film should be about 15 minutes long. With the editing software we only add the a few tags, the offensive play and when we are on defense, our defensive scheme and stunt if we ran one. If it is just you editing the film and you are not using a service like Hudl, then you can do MUCH more. For some of us, you just copy the film and hand it out to your coaches at the next practice in DVD format. If that's all you can do, it is much better than nothing, but your guys won't get much out of it. It will be too long to watch and they won't spend the time to see how you played, with the exception of the big plays and the obvious glaring problems. Others like to do team film sessions. If you've ever done them you know it is a complete waste of time. It is tedious, the kids don't pay attention well and you have to remember when to stop the film to review what you came to talk about. Invariably, kids will be playing grab ass, throwing ice at each other and you will have forgotten half of what you wanted to talk about. With Hudl, you don't need any video editng software, Hudl provides you simple tools so you can draw lines over the film, insert text boxes and highlight players with the spot shadow tool. Hudl also allows your coaches and players to view the film over the inter-net, so no waiting until Monday to get the film to the coaches and kids. Forget about having to burn a pile of DVDs and lug them to practice. I love getting all the feedback of how your seasons are going, but tire of the few that send me e-mails with the following message: my 16 power didn't work, my wedge isn't working, I can't complete the 18 sweep pass etc. I can't help you if I don't know what went wrong with the play, without you telling me what went wrong, I can only guess. If you can't see EFTA00379285 on the run (most of us can't 100% of the time) what went wrong, you have to get film. When I was looking for someone to shoot our games, I put a free add out at the local University and got about 15 applicants. We pay very generously to insure high quality and on- time appearances, $50 per game. The parents gladly pony up to insure they have a nice keepsake video at the end of the season, it breaks down to about $20 per player. If you use Hudl parents can make their own DVDs. I do the initial edit to get it to about 15 minutes with the play and defensive tags in place. Then we upload it to Hudl. When the film is ready to view an e-mail goes out to all our coaches, telling them the film is ready to watch. They securely log in and then each coach has a job to look for and critique specific positions on offense and defense. They are able to add their own comments to the film. They can make the comments for all the coaches to see or for just the players or for both. Our players also get an e-mail when the film is ready to view. Our kids know they will be filmed and know film never lies. Without film you will be very surprised what a player and his parents see in a game and what actually happened in real life. There is no greater coaching tool or accountability program than game film. We always tell our kids to "put it on film." Holding call a player thought was unfair? Film never lies. Bobby thinks he's a better thrower than Billy, film never lies. Johnny thinks Cedric blew his coverage not him, film never lies. Bobby's dad thinks his son is tackling better than Simon, film never lies. Film that is commented on and used as a teaching tool is the most powerful tool we have when our kids are not at practice. In the Hudl tool you can also view who has watched the games or not. We have many players that watch it through 4-5 times every week. For more info on Hudl go here: It is just $225 for the entire season (you save $25 when you use the coupon code CISAR) for your entire team, coaches, players, grandmas/grandpas. It not only is a great coaching tool, but it creates a pile of goodwill with your parents. Follow Us on Twitter We are now on Twitter- No you won't hear updates on when cutting my lawn or playing with my kids. I give you tidbits of how our season is going, quick tips, youth football news and important updates from Winning Youth Football and Single Wing teams across the country. You can follow me on Twitter here: Remember to keep coming back to the blog as we update it with longer articles weekly at: Thanks again. Please remember to e-mail me at if you have any questions for me. I answer 50-100 e-mails every day, so don;t be shy. It is my goal to positively affect kids through you. Anything I can do to accomplish this is my honor to do. Sincerely, EFTA00379286 Dave Cisar Winning Youth Football Forward email ;2F This email was sent to Update Profile/Email Address Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribei" Privacy Policy. by Winning Youth Football 24540 South 38th Street Firth NE 68358 EFTA00379287