Wow - be prepared for a shock here - coming from a former college QB - but it's HARD to make a consistant living passing the ball at that age. 

If you want to throw 8-10 passes, you might live through it, but forget a 50-50 ratio. 

Even though your QB may have an arm, has he ever had to make the throws while kids are coming at him, and DB's are moving all over in the coverage area, and he has to find "the" open guy on the route?  I'm NOT against throwing the ball at any age, but even a chucker like me still runs 80% of the time.  A four-wide alignment at least allows you to run the QB read option and delay draw... and three wide allows you to even have an H-Back to supplement the blocking as needed...  and I run two wide quite a bit, just to pull a kid or two on defense totally away from my intended area...

You may find others who feel differently, but regardless of your spread alignent, focus on getting that ground game going early on!

Coach Magee

Sorry Coach but with little to no team speed i dont know if a spread offense is what you are looking for.  But if you are set on it id look into the DC Run and Shoot.

I'm a life long QB my brother is a QB basically we come from a throw the ball family.  I coach a pure passing spread in varsity.  My brother plays pro football in a spread.  I tried to install a passing spread in youth last year and by week 4 I had to get out of it.

We would line up in trips, teams would cover # 2 and # 3 with 1 defender, we'd go to throw spacing or seems, kid would either make a bad throw, drop it or what ever, anyways I realized that I could not consistently punish a D for not covering up a receiver, basically what the spread is designed to force a D to do, and there for I could not justify why I was running the spread when I could have that slot back walling off a DE onthe backside of a play.  We practices it every day, the quick uncovered throws, it was too inconsistent to me.

My advice from experience, if your gonna run spread at this level be ready for a few games early where your not moving the ball at all and have a consistent answer for teams who try thru alignment to cover 2 inside receivers with 1 man or send 7 vs your 6

Plus with avg linemen and passing the ball 70-80% of the time you better have some good backup QB's.

Never meant this to be a pass 1st offense just to spread out the D and allow some room to work.  Since I don't have the speed I thought maybe I would throw enough to keep 'em honest.  We threw 5 or 6 times a game last year and it worked pretty well but we had more protection.  I wasn't dead set on this and from what I'm hearing that's a good thing. 

I appreciate the feedback and good luck to all. 

From my experience running the spread in youth ball, the defense won't necessarily spread out with you.  They will keep the box stacked and wait to see if you can throw before they will defend it.  What worked best for me was the speed option.  I ran it with 5th graders and chances are you wont have a QB and multiple receivers who throw and catch.  We ran most of the time, as my thought was to spread out the defense.  Most of the time that we passed the receivers dropped the ball. 

Kids can learn the system but to make it work successfully (to win games) you have to have some skilled kids at multiple positions because you will have to throw the ball to make the defense honest.  You cant just overpower them running in the spread like you can with single wing, double wing, T and other running offenses.

I am OC for a 10-11 yo team with 25 kids (5th graders basically).  No cuts and 1st come 1st serve as far as who makes it.  15 play minimum that includes special teams.  I am looking to install a spread offense similar to what I have seen from Big Coconut in a previous post.  My lineman will be average at best but some big boys.  We don't have a lot of team speed but I think we will have a QB that can get the ball to receivers in the short passing game and a bruising FB with avg speed.  HC won't go for SW or DW but was instantly eager to see us in a spread.  Just wonderin if it can work at this level.  This is my 1st post so take it easy on me.

Coach

If you are still eager I can tell you what I have learned. It took me about three seasons to figure out how to run a spread at the smurf level without getting killed. That was about 20 years ago and have been running wide open stuff since then....and we typically win more than we lose.

Let me know.

Coach Mike

Coach Mike, any wisdom you can impart would be greatly appreciated.  My skill position kids are select baseball types.  Team speed is a problem but they do have athletic ability. 

ONLY AS A CHANGE OF PACE, NEVER AS MY BASE. We used it to run out of mostly and passed very rarely. Good luck and hope it works for you.

We went empty and motion a back almost every play giving my a wing and a back in the backfield.

Coach, here's something refreshing...IT CAN BE DONE.  BC's put together a tremendous system that IF you can do what you say you can do, can pay huge dividends.  There are about 5 plays that you have to have, but that seems pretty manageable no?  The reason many youth coaches fail in the Spread is that they try to run a HS style spread which is far too dependent of QB/Receiver.  BC has a very balanced very effective system and there is tons of video to support that it works.

Go for it.  Run it by the manual and you'll have success.

I am OC for a 10-11 yo team with 25 kids (5th graders basically).  No cuts and 1st come 1st serve as far as who makes it.  15 play minimum that includes special teams.  I am looking to install a spread offense similar to what I have seen from Big Coconut in a previous post.

Then just run BC's spread.  Why go "similar"?  Just run his.

My lineman will be average at best but some big boys.  We don't have a lot of team speed but I think we will have a QB that can get the ball to receivers in the short passing game and a bruising FB with avg speed.  HC won't go for SW or DW but was instantly eager to see us in a spread. 

Or run Jack Gregory's direct snap DW, it can be spread out with a nice passing game.  His book should be out shortly.  Is your HC "just" looking for WR's/Slots, or does he actually understand what the SW and DW are?

By "similar" what I meant was exactly the same with maybe some change in verbage.

Coach a simple 2 x 2 Spread melds very nicely with the DW. 

Yes you can run FB and QB ISO or Simple read plays from it as well as Jet Sweeps and Cowboy options.  Passing game can be mitigated to Hitches, Slants, Screens, and the infamous Wheel Routes. Yes you can run it and throw it and force the defense to spread out.

However, If I am the DC your going to have to prove you can indeed throw accurately enough to warrant me moving the Defense.  That means your going to have to complete something more than a couple of times that takes me out of  my comfort level.  In the youth games I've coached in that doesnt happen very often.

"15 play minimum that includes special teams."

--Yikes.

"We don't have a lot of team speed but I think we will have a QB that can get the ball to receivers in the short passing game and a bruising FB with avg speed."

--No speed and you want a short passing game?  Sounds like your willing to settle for gains under 5 yards?  Then why not just run the ball?  With a short gain game, all it takes is one incompletion to ruin a series.  Your QB had better be perfect.

--Dave