What is the Best Offense to Run in Youth Football

The Single Wing Offense has had unparalleled success across the country from Alaska to Florida. There is still a small group of very successful High School coaches still running the Single Wing from Florida to California. In 2006 alone, three Single Wing teams played in the Virginia High School State Finals, with two winning Titles. Even a number of college teams today run Single Wing plays and formations, like Florida, Boise State, West Virginia, Utah, Missouri, Texas, Nevada, Texas A&M and Arkansas to name a few. In today’s lingo many call it a multiple shotgun offense, but it’s still the Single Wing.

We think the Single Wing Offense makes sense for a variety of reasons:

- Many youth teams never adjust to the unbalanced formation.

- Most teams give us numbers advantages before the play even starts.

- The snap is much safer, if we fumble the snap we have more room to recover.

- The ability to snap to 3 different backs is incredibly deceptive.

- The spin series is the most deceptive and least seen series in football.

- The defenses are not used to seeing this offense.

- Scout teams have a hard time emulating this offense.

- It’s easy to pass out of with the offset fullback and tailback.

- Fewer handoffs that often cause fumbles.

- No pitch sweeps required to get outside, hence no pitches on the ground.

- Ball control means less time for your defense on the field.

- Excellent "cult" support system.

- Overwhelm your opponent at the point of attack.

- No requirement to have a stud quarterback or big feature back.

- All the kids get involved in the offense, it’s team football at its finest.

- It’s fun for the kids and the coaches.

- It doesn’t require lots of big linemen.

- It’s flexible.

- It maximizes the talent you do have.

- It has unmatched power.

- No quarterback under the center for our pulling linemen to run into.

- Easy to put anyone in to carry the ball during blowouts.

Selling the Single Wing

For the uninformed, there may be a bit of a selling job required to buy into the Single Wing concept. We were sold on it by viewing film of several very average skilled and sized teams just crush every opponent they faced. Watching Eric Strutz and his State Line Comets or a Todd Bross team score on every possession with average kids sold us on the offense. There is plenty of this type of film available through us or other sources. The records of the youth and High School teams that run Single Wing speak for themselves, it’s not just the Screaming Eagles that are doing well with this system. Nearly every youth team we know that is using this offense has done very well with it. The teams that have combined this great offense with a sound practice methodology and a solid defense, have done great.

To get your coaches to buy in, give them DVDs and videos of great youth Single wing teams in action. Ask them to form their own decision for themselves, as they say pictures are worth a thousand words. Ask them why your past teams haven’t won championships? If the answer is you don’t have the kids or the kids didn’t want it bad enough, how is that going to change? Are you just going to wait until a Barry Sanders-like kid or a Joe Montana suddenly drops in on your doorstep? Every year that was my excuse, we just need a QB, we need bigger kids, our kids aren’t motivated, the kids aren’t very bright, I just need one big Tailback, every year it was a different excuse. The real answers are that very good youth coaches across the country win every year regardless of talent levels.

My only regret is that we did not do this from the start, I am 100% confident those 4-6 and
2-8 teams could have been championship teams or at least 8-2, or 9-1 teams. Even if we didn’t win a championship, the kids would have learned more and had more fun with this system. I even thought about how my "I" formation QB would have made a great Wing, my Wing would have been a great Blocking Back, my Tailback would still be at Tailback and my Fullback would have been unstoppable as a wedge runner and spinning Fullback.

Clinics

You may want to consider putting together a coaches clinic of your own and rep the plays and drills with your coaches. Share your enthusiasm and confidence in this system, it’s contagious. Just watch a Steve Calande Clinic DVD and tell me the coaches in attendance are not ready to take on the world on with his offense. Our first year running this system went much easier than we anticipated. We have no restrictions on practice time in our city league so I took a small group of six returning players and experimented with the plays one month before practice started. We met one day per week for four weeks, which really helped to prepare me for the first day of practice. We had most of the glitches worked out and now we had a group of kids trained so our other kids would have someone they could copy. I wish I would have had a DVD or clinic video, but we just had four pages of scribbled notes and a season of game film to work from. Prior to the season starting, we had a two-hour whiteboard clinic for the coaches and we watched some tape of Eric Strutz’s State Line Comets youth team. On defense, we had a complete package that consisted of 4 pages of notes and our special teams were just one page. You guys have it all, the benefit of the combined experience of my aggregated 70 teams playing over the last five years (over 800 games) and the leveraged knowledge of over 100 of my coaches. You also get the leveraged knowledge of the fine group of very successful coaches from all over the country that have helped me with the material.

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