Here at footballplaybooks.info we receive quite a few email questions regarding coaching youth football. We are going to start posting the questions here and our responses for all of our readers to enjoy and learn form. Below is the question we received.
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 decide to use zone blocking make sure you have the offensive coordinator and running backs coach on board. The running backs coach will need to teach the backs how to run when the offensive line is zone blocking. There will be many more opportunities for cut back runs so if you teach the backs the proper running style, you can expect some large runs.
