Need some help positioning players
Background: we are 8/9 year old team. We have 21 kids. Very few natural lineman.
Here's what I'm working with:
1) Two kids look like they might be good at the reaper. Big and fast. Coincidentally they both had something that kept me from seeing them hit so far... so I'll get to see them both hit by mid week. All signs point to them being good at hitting though.
2) We've got 2 kids who are hard hitting bigger/faster studs. I say bigger, they're probably 85ish pounds, but they're full speed first day of pads type of kids.
3) We've got 2 kids who are smaller and faster. They're both pretty tough, and they're not afraid to hit. They're both in the top 5 faster kids. They're also both my QBs
I assume the above six will be the best as far as my backfield goes.
For the stack here's what I'm working with
One kid who is small and quick. He stands out as someone who naturally makes some sacks in the backfield during touch football, definitely not shying away when we put on pads.
One kid who is big and fast, but his hitting was less impressive.
Two kids who seem to really like hitting. They're average size and average speed. They do seem to want to hit... although their personalities are a bit strange. They "liked" the dummy side of the splatter drill for example.
Then we get to the big kids. We've got two kids who will win any sumo you put him in, but I doubt he'll win on speed. We've got two bigger kids who look like they're less aggressive.
Finally we've got about 3 kids who are on the smaller side who haven't really stood out, but they could probably fill a spot in a MPP stack.
My defensive positioning usually had more to do with speed. If they were fast and could cover more ground, then they were placed outside. If they were slower, they were placed inside. There were always exceptions to the rule, as sometimes a fast player would play inside simply because he showed so much ability there.
Positioning (for my starters) was never about whether they liked to hit. That wasn’t an issue for my starting 11.
—Dave
"The Greater the Teacher, the More Powerful the Player."
The Mission Statement: "I want to show any young man that he is far tougher than he thinks, that he can accomplish more than what he dreamed and that his work ethic will take him wherever he wants to go."
#BattleReady newhope
Agree with Dave that the better the player, the further outside in the stacks. For me that means (in order of worst to best):
NT
MS
DT
DT
OS
OS
You may get away with putting 2 MPPs in the middle stack, especially if you go 40 front and put them in gaps. You won't get away with it for long, though.
Forget about speed, size, likes to hit, etc. Get film on them doing the job, or not doing the job and rank them according to whether or not they do the job and/or how well they do the job.
Lots of kids like to hit in drills. Lots like to hit going against teammates. You learn a lot about players when the bullets start flying.
When in doot . . . glass and oot.
Once you figure out your spurs and your safety the rest is up to preference I feel. I only ran this once with a team that didn't really have a lot of maturity or talent. They were slippery tho.
My defensive end types were the backers in the outside stacks. Tackle types played the 4 tech. My scrapper played nose and the mike was a smaller faster kid (tried to hide him). Worked well against teams, even the better ones. But at the end of the day, you just have to make those tackles
I can explain it to you, I can't understand if for you.
I've been thinking about buying a video camera...
Until then, use your phone at practice. I coached the 33 stack many seasons. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to get 6 kids through 6 different gaps within a few seconds of each other. Everybody seems to have their own plan.
When in doot . . . glass and oot.
Latest Post: 2023 7th Grade Outlaws Our newest member: Johnnymop13 Recent Posts Unread Posts
