Oh...just thought of something else...

While running half line last night, I noticed my Center was struggling a bit with the Nose Tackle...so I decided to coach him up a little...

"So I noticed you are having a little trouble getting the NT blocked"

"Yeah, They are just so close to me"

"Well, that's part of the defense, its supposed to make the offense uncomfortable by crowding them. Is it working?"

Big Smile on his face "Yeah, it is".

For us, that is another important aspect of this defense, is the credit card alignment by the dline...

@lunchbox I coach 8 and under.

Your assumption about there being special rules was correct. We're not allowed to line up or stunt though the "A" Gap. Since I can't use a nose guard, I learned the Killer Bee last year. The tackles were in 2 tech's slanting through the B gap and the defensive ends in a 5 tech (but a 1/2 yard back), taking the "C" gap most of the time. As @32wedge pointed out above, it messed up a lot of schemes -- especially the defensive ends. During the second half of the season (we played everyone twice), we saw a lot of eight and nine man lines, attempting me to move my defensive ends out so they could off tackle. After talking with the KB guru's, I left them where they were.

The reason I asked this question about putting them in gaps is that my roster looks a lot different this year. In the past, I had at least two red stripes (kids over the weight limit), who usually played either defensive tackle or end. This year, I have a smaller -- but considerably younger and faster -- team. I'm pretty sure they could be through the gap before they even got touched. I was just trying to figure out whether I should just line them up there or have them line up regularly and shoot the gap. There are certainly strong arguments for both approaches!

@terrypjohnson

Last season we were playing Rookie Tackle...a USA Football initiative...and we could not cover the center or stunt or blitz into the A gaps either. We also started with the 2 techs slanting into the B, but discovered this was not going to work for us, as it would but us at a big disadvantage, lots of blockers (GCG) coming up the middle of our D, on our MIKE.

So, we changed the 2 techs jobs, tilted them at the Center (putting them in the G's path) and at the snap, attack the Center. We didn't cover the Center, we didn't get into the A, their target was the Center (ala KB) and we took three of their blockers away with two of our defenders. Not necessarily what I wanted to do, but the special rules kind of dictated that we had to do it...worked really well.

@terrypjohnson

you can put dt's in b, de's in c, and olbs 1x1 off EMLOS and have them set the edge on the way to the ball. Teams at your age group can't beat you running A gap. They simply can't move the ball downfield 5yds at a time without screwing up. They'll beat themselves trying. I wouldn't worry about blockers getting to your Mike, so what if they do?? If they are blocking 2nd level defenders, who's blocking the 1st level defenders?

@rpatric

Assuming you are dealing with something other than 7/8 year olds and you do not have a team full of "studs", and the other team doesn't have a back lined up close the QB so he can take the snap and hand it quickly to that back,  and that back isn't that teams best athlete, I would agree with you.

Oh, and as far as offensive efficiency...we went on drives of 12, 13, 14 and 15 plays last season with 8's...on a 70 yard field...there was only one time where we did not score at the end of those drives...that was on the 15 play drive, where we screwed it up on 4th and one, player went the wrong way 🙂

Spidermac kinda hit it on the head. These rules smh. You could have your dgs bear crawl to the Center i guess or stand up 2 players off the center like 3yds and have them rush the center. If ur quicker players shoot B and force it to the A then what?

Dont overthink it or try to fix things that arent broke. Alot of time base d while cover most things.

If i had to play with those rules id have max A gap splits and run up the middle all day.

Edit to add probaly should move this to the KB forum.

Posted by: @rpatric

@terrypjohnson

Teams at your age group can't beat you running A gap. They simply can't move the ball downfield 5yds at a time without screwing up. They'll beat themselves trying. I wouldn't worry about blockers getting to your Mike, so what if they do?? If they are blocking 2nd level defenders, who's blocking the 1st level defenders?

This is one of my early teams from a time before when I even knew what a 32 wedge was. It's 7 & 8 year olds on a 17 play drive that took a quarter and a half off the clock. Look how dorky I look out there with my laminated play call sheet with my bobble heads.

@spidermac if you have an offense at 8u that can consistently score on 11-15 play drives than that's a great accomplishment for you as a coach. Most coaches can't do that with 13 year olds, let alone 8 year olds. Even if the above average coach can get 2 such drives per game and score, thats only 12-16 points and i still get to play offense which is a whole other set of circumstances

@32wedge this drive and @gumby_in_co 's Beast Drive are forever etched in my mind! I can only imagine how frustrated the other defenses would be.

@32wedge

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just stating the obvious which is the longer a youth offense has the ball, the more likely they are to make mistakes with the ball.

You're not dorky Nathan. You're awesome!

The last time we coached Spring ball, Dave's "invisible offense" was at the heart of our "Amoeba" zero-front defense. We gave up 3 rushing TDs and 4 passing TDs in 9 games and ran the table. Only 1 team managed to score twice on us in the same game and that was the championship. The 4 passing TDs were flukes because many of our opponents were reduced to throwing Hail Mary's the entire 2nd half.

To me, "invisible offense" is similar to the mega splits mentality in that you have to go all in on it. We were hunter killers and RBs had very little chance.  However, on that defense, I probably had 7-8 guys who would have started in our opponents' backfields. We just didn't have any size, so we refused to play the BoB game.