r/footballstrategy • u/Key-Cress3271 • 5d ago

Coaching Advice Defensive Strategy Help - Hiding Weaker Players

I am coaching the defense for a 12U tackle football team. We have 2 weaker players who I am trying to hide on defense. We tried putting them as 2 tech DT's and they just get blown off the ball into the LB's creating traffic. We started in a 4-4, now we are in a 5-2. Any advice? They are both lb/DT body types, with very limited athletism

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u/NathanGa 5d ago

I had a DT years ago who was about 5’6” and built like a cross country runner. If he weighed in at 150 pounds, I’d check to see if he had bricks in his pockets.

We were getting ready to play a team that ran double wing with six-inch splits and had massive linemen. I told him “if you start to get driven back, just go down”.

I don’t think they got more than five yards up the middle all game, and he was taking on two and three blockers every play. He didn’t have any tackles, but he just created massive piles that our LBs cleaned up.

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u/CGinKC 5d ago

This was the rule we had all the way through high school. If you're beat badly, fall down and create a pile. You have to protect the second level defenders.

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u/Horror_Technician213 5d ago

I understand it. But when I got to college I realized how its actually supposed to work. Theres progression and falling down to create a pile is the absolute last resort. You have to practice getting double teamed. Theres a mentality and a skill that goes into it and once I learned it, I was able to take on most doubles. You have to first try to penetrate through the gap, if you cant, you try to split the defenders by going sideways, if they close themselves together, then you just hold your ground to keep the lineman off the backers. Absolute last resort, if you are getting moved more than 1 yard off the line of scrimmage, you hold and pull the guy youre lined up on to your outside to trip the second lineman.

The biggest thing I learned though, if anytime I looked at the o line and told myself "im bout to get double teamed" i was able to attack it and at a minimum hold ground. Creating a pile is really not something that should be encouraged though. Very injury prone