Teaching Wedge Blocking for Youth Football
The Double and Single Wing offensive systems institute the Wedge Blocking strategy. This may appear different than every other scheme of blocking you will teach, but later on after you observe it succeed, you will apply this system into your recent offense. In the early going it will look foreign to coach and look unorthodoxied. It requires tremendous fortitude as you coach this system to the squad.
It will be a slow advancement, but as soon as it has been taught the right way, it will be a crushing artillery in your arsenal. Waste no time teaching this system and start teaching this as early as day one. Your team needs to understand how important the wedge series is to the team. You will be capable of gaining a large amount of yards, and even those vital short yardage downs.
This actually is not difficult to show, but make sure that it is taught right. All lineman have to press into the lineman adjacent to him and form an solid area, wedge or upside down V.
The goal is on the snap of the ball, all blockers need to move together and step straight forward and towards the inside together. If you are using zero line splits, it will be simple to seal shoulders with the player adjacent to them. The key is that all linemen move forward together in harmony. Once your line is as close together as they can get, they now need to move together as one. Under no circumstance can any player on defense be allowed to bust the wedge. After the wedge is in place, the squad must practice staying together as one , while moving at equal speed. The purpose of the wedge to remain as one and keeping defenders out for as long as conceivable.
The best way to introduce the wedge is for a coach to stand with a dummy over the right side guard and make the players step, seal, and complete the wedge. After this action is perfected, then have the group move as one and try to knock the coach back down the field. Every player needs to step together, as one as they remain in the wedge. I define perfection as being able to execute the play, or in this case the drill for 10 perfect repetitions.
Opponents will attempt many different techniques to try and break up your wedge. One of the more popular techniques is to dive down at your linemans knees. The best way to counter this move is to use high knees and step on their backs. When their backs start hurting, the defense will quit chopping your linemens legs. Another great counter move is to run one of the wedge fake plays. Fake plays can be extremely effective because the whole defense will be "selling out" in an attempt to stop the wedge. The speedy pass routes or delayed reverses work great. Both the Double Wing and Single Wing have complete wedge series. No matter what age or experience level you coach, the wedge will be one of your strongest.
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Jim Oddo has been coaching pee wee, flag, pop warner and youth football for over 23 years. He has attained an 80+% winning percentage. Read how to win with over 400 FREE tips and posts regarding every area of little guy football at: http://footballplaybooks.info. In addition to coaching tips, there are many different offensive and defensive playbooks all modified in Youth Football Playbooks.
