There are several defenses used in youth soccer today. Most youth coaches rely on what they played in high school or often what they are most comfortable coaching. What that means for most of us coaching youth soccer is that most of us will see a lot of looks of 5-3 or 5-2 with a monster, 6-2 or even 6-3 with no real safety. Today we even see a fair number of 4-4 guys that really play more like a 6-man front or even some 3-5 teams that like to blitz each play a lot to make it more of a 5 or 6-man front.
One look we saw early last season from various teams was a 6-3 look. While we won’t go into the details of each player’s lineup and techniques, what was unique about this defense was the play of its corners. The corners were lined up about 12 yards down and well outside our tight ends. They were playing deep middle zone, coverage 2. The two outside linebackers were on our tackles with the center defender right on the strong side of our center. The center back played to about 6 yards and the other two fullbacks to a depth of about 4 yards.
Obviously both teams were trying to fill out our strong side running game. We noticed that whenever linebackers read the run through backfield action, they filled out aggressively. When there was an immediate pass read, the center back fell into a deep middle third zone type read, just looking to slide any misses. Both teams had their stud playing the middle back position.
The responses of “Florida”
At first this defense seemed to give us some trouble, we weren’t getting our normal 7 yards out of the tackle. Instead, we had to put together near-perfect drives, settling for 3-4 yard gains each time. That all changed once we ran the 16 Pass, this post is aimed primarily at those who have the playbook and are running the system. For those of you who don’t run the system, this football play doesn’t look much different than the pass. Jumper Tim Tebow has thrown just as many times to University of Florida wide receivers in his past two seasons. It comes straight from the Urban Meyers playbook, but unlike many college football plays, this is one that youth football players can run. You may have seen Florida throw this one on TV, with the quarterback moving to the line of scrimmage and the takedown hole in the middle, drawing in defenders and then simply throwing the ball to the tight end.
tight end technique
The tight end can take his first normal blocking step down to give linebackers a run-blocking read, then step on a very short 6-7-yard seam pass route. Or if the linebackers are playing very aggressively, you don’t even need to take that blocking step down, you can run straight to the seam.
Linebackers can play aggressive on the run or fall behind for the pass, they can’t have both. Even at 7-9 years old, we completed 11 of these passes for touchdowns in 2008. If the defense decides to pull that corner closer and spy on their tight end, the corner is now a good candidate for a sweep play, or better yet, a Pass from the series “Mouse”. Your fullback on the move can now run freely down the sidelines while the corner runs the tight end, again with the same quarterback action drawing linebackers. Or he could use a similar approach with his strong wing tight end and non-moving winger. If they try to run the defensive end with the shallow receiver, those are easy yards at an outside position by their quarterback. In fact, while this is a very simple and safe pass to complete, you rarely have to complete those passes to get linebackers to start sitting down again.
Exploit weakness in youth soccer
Every defense has strengths and weaknesses. When you coach youth soccer, you have to find out where those cracks in love are and exploit them. The 16 pass is the perfect play to exploit this type of defense. A lot of youth soccer coaches don’t really like to throw the ball, I sympathize with you. I see too many youth soccer teams with 20% completion rates, throwing too many interceptions and taking sacks. But most of those passes are thrown on down passes and very few of them look like running plays. Less than 20% of these pass attempts are even in the high completion target zone of the 5-7 yard variety.
season implications
The facts are that you can crush weak teams and even teams that are better than you with the Sainted Six or even the Six and maybe some big diversion from the Mouse or Spinner series. But for those great teams that have really outplayed you, they have to respect the fact that you MAY be able to complete a great passing play on them. Again, that doesn’t mean you have to complete these passes, you just have to instill fear that you can.
cast by effect
Heck, I know a youth soccer coach who didn’t have a single player on his team who could catch the ball, despite this coach’s best efforts. But early in every game, sometimes on the first offensive play, he would have his quarterback throw the ball as far as he could over his fullback’s outside shoulder. The sole purpose of this play was to instill fear in defenders that this team MIGHT pass. This same coach never threw a second pass in any game that season.
Now, I’ve never had a team that was this weak on passing, but it illustrates a valid point. When you play against the best teams, you have to instill at least the fear of a finish. If you’ve got the players and your running game runs like a well-oiled machine, perfecting your base series game-action passing is a must. That’s why they’re in your playbook.
