Clark

Some where in my old files I have a playbook back from the 1930's. It was a coaching manual my father had, sometime in the 90's an old friend had rebound for me & made himself a copy. It had the Single Wing & Notre Dame Box offenses, & something else. All direct snap no under center. The blocking rules were very simple, almost a count system, with lots of double teams.

Steve

I think that many youth coaches make the mistake of only having 1 blocking rule or scheme. That's the area that is usually lacking in bad teams. When that happens it becomes super easy to defend. It's the same with having 1 protection, again it becomes easy to defeat. Then the coaches can say well we didn't block, not we were out coached.

Joe

Steve

I hear you! Even with all that it still comes down to how you teach it. Yes, GDB is still block the first man inside. What I have found frustrating is coaches locking into blocking the man assigned when everything changes on the snap. The oldest rule in football is simple if a man crosses your face hit him. We use a Pork or Bacon call for which backer we will combo to, but our guys understand if a man crosses their face hit him. I think more coaches have to think things out to really get concepts down.

This is why I prefer to talk in scheme's not plays. The backfield action almost becomes window dressing, granted important window dressing, but the scheme is really what matters. We see so much movement from fronts today, it becomes a huge part of the offense to adapt our blocking. No one just sits & plays Defense, & good teams have different answers. Youth Coaches need to take the same approach & be flexible enough to see what is really going on.

Joe

I am still amazed with the amount of info available, free youth clinics(THANK YOU VERY MUCH, GLAZIER!!!), film, books, videos, websites that coaches still do not teach blocking schemes and just have the linemen block the guy in front of him. I still hear on a regular basis the dreaded "Block Somebody". I have heard that when it was more about a lack of effort but almost always it is a lack of scheme and as soon as the guy in front moves away the blocking breaks down.

Its not much different than when a coach says "we run the shotgun offense"...

 I think for Steve's system it is more difficult due to rules changing depending on who the "at" man is. When a team just runs one rule you can take away their base play. A Cisar sw team is trying to run 16 power. If you know how to attack GOD blocking you can mess with that play. Well coached Cisar sw teams(or any well coached team)can adjust and will have another scheme. Even in Dave's earliest stuff he had a SAB call.

We always install SAB.

I am not sure I agree when Clark says "if we know your rule" we can "mess with you." Well how do you know what rule we will use on a given play?  Those of us who use the good god system (or at least would use it) only use good god for powers, counters and traps.  We use other rules for sweeps, wedge, iso, g/dog, sprint or jet....etc...Not sure if I agree with you on this Clark unless you know the play before hand.  Can you explain more?

Originally, that's what I did.  I knew the blocking rule beforehand.  It was all I've ever seen out of SW and DW teams besides wedge - same rule every down.  Having a blocking rule at the youth level is actually an exception.  I have faced countless "Hit somebody" offenses.  But virtually  ALL SW and DW teams having blocking rules (though many with short cuts). 

But those that did have rules were all blocking GOD.

So that was the first rule I learned to screw with.  Sadly, it wasn't until about 2009 (I began coaching in 1991) that I actually realized that you could screw with blocking rules (Which, again, tells how few opponents I faced with blocking rules or tells you how long it took for me to notice that they even had them     ). 

But when I did finally make this discovery, just as I found that "hit somebody" was the norm for the majority, one blocking rule was also the norm for the few teams that did have rules (And, as I mentioned, they were all blocking GOD).

There are reasons for this.  First, it's twice as hard to teach two blocking rules as it is to teach one.  Second, teaching a second rule is usually unnecessary.  In the case of the latter, every single team I've seen with a consistent rule, made it to their playoffs.  All of them.  They all got there because every defense they faced had "boxing" DE's.  So here comes "off tackle" and teams with blocking rules are specializing in "off tackle".  So they won.

Until they'd meet me and then I'd knock them off.  Without exception, they ALL did EXACTLY as Cisar described in the post above mine.  They were running the same stuff in game eight as in game 1.  Nothing had changed.  Since they were getting their 30-40 points a game, why bother?  In fact they would have gone on to win the league trophy if they hadn't faced me because nobody else on their schedule was picking up on it either.

So I beat every GOD team I faced and I bragged about.  Bring 'em on! 

I don't do that anymore.  It wasn't that a GOD team beat me.  It was while I was doodling around and discovered I could beat my own GOL rules just as soundly that I realized it wasn't just GOD that can be beat.  They can all be beat.

That was half your question.  The other half was what do I do when I face a team that runs more than one blocking rule?  And the answer to that was that I invented Killer Bee.  Most base blocking rules involve four things:

The Rule:   This involves some sort of block down (SAB, TKO, GOD, GDB) with a kick out.

The Steps:  This could be a shoulder block or a hands block with the blocker executing a specific footwork (such as a 6" power step followed by a contact (drive) step.

The Line Spacing:    The line splits are designed to work with the rule.

The recess:   The line is going to be recessed a specific distance off the line.

As soon as you understand this, you can design a defensive alignment that counters all four of the above coaching points.  And that's what I did with Killer Bee.   So let's you want to change the blocking rule on me.  That's not likely to work because, if the other three points don't change and I have them all countered, chances are your changing one thing doesn't overcome my stopping the other three too.  And, when you do change your blocking rule, it's probably still block down and kick out, none of which work against Killer Bee anyway. 

So that's the second half of the answer to your question.

Again, I have no comment on blocking rules.  I designed my UBSW with just one set of rules, that which seemed to work best for the maximum number of plays.  But I didn't fool myself into believing it couldn't be stopped.  And I didn't try and add other rules.  I put it together for four reasons.  First, SW is a beautiful offense.  It's only got one puller (not two like other offenses), requires little talent, and though it appears to be unbalanced, it really isn't, and it gives a different look to each side of the defense.  Second, it can be taught to 7's and this is a youth forum.  Third, most youth opponents don't know how to counter blocking rules so the odds are they'll work fine (As Cisar noted said coaches still win).  Fourth, because it's simple enough to be taught to 7's, it's also simple enough to teach 11's.  You can be running plays with my offense in 30 minutes.  So you can take a team that's been running a different offense of say 10-11's (or whatever) and install my offense in just one week, then go face a superior opponent that would normally beat you the next week (playoffs) and take out the top seeded team with the UNEXPECTED.  The unexpected can win a lot of games.  And this is simple to install UNEXPECTED.

"(As Steve noted, aren't GDB and GOD pretty much the same thing?)."

I know I don't consider gdb and god to be pretty much the same thing.  GDB is purely about a priority on the angle block, and the god block is about setting up the double team.