Which Basic Blocking Skills Should I Teach to 10-11 Year Old Youth Football Players?
We receive quite a few email questions regarding all different aspects of coaching youth football. Below is a recent question we received regarding blocking schemes at the youth football level. We are toying with the idea of zone blocking, and I know enough to be dangerous. My job is coaching the line. I like the idea of double-teaming on the playside. How do we teach the kids to know who slides off to get the backer? What happens on the back side of the play? Is the center left to fend for himself in the case of a 5-3 and a nose man? Should I bag this and go back to a man blocking scheme? Our answer is 100% to implement zone blocking. Man blocking is important and needs to be taught properly to the kids, but zone blocking gives you better angles and sets up double team blocks automatically. The other advantage to zone blocking is you can teach your lineman to start with a double team block and have one of the lineman peel off to get a closing defender, usually a linebacker. If you dec
