Coaching Youth Football
by John T. Reed
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Book Summary Information
Author: John T. ReedEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1997-09
ISBN: 0939224402
Number of pages: 251
Publisher: Jt Reed Pub
Book Reviews of Coaching Youth Football
Book Review: Rare data and brilliant ideas but some questionable argument
Summary: 4 Stars
This is one of the definitive youth football books; if you coach youth football you MUST get a copy and read it. However, you must also read other books to keep balance, because Coach Reed is a Single Wing offense and Gap-8 and Man-to-Man defense iconoclast.
I was completely enamored upon first reading of this book; now after extensive reading in other football books (over 50 and counting), a season of experience, and much reflection and study, I'm not so sure. The book is a worthy contribution to football literature. It is one of the few youth football books worth owning. So as a youth coach you MUST obtain and read this book, however if you use only it expect some trouble. Here are examples.
On p 83 in his Chapter on Defense, Coach Reed "proves" (*see footnote below) that the number of football rushers at various levels of football is fitted by the parabolic equation
[1] N = P^2,
where N is the number of rushers and P is the probability of a pass. Then he uses this equation to confidently state that 10 year old level football should use a 9 man rush, which is a ostensibly a lead-in to buy his other books on "Coaching Youth Football Defense" and "Gap Air Mirror" defense which recommend the Gap-8 or 10-1 or variations. Coach Reed arrives at Equation 1 using unsound argument. (Review "Fallacies" by CL Hamblin, "Logic" by Copi, etc.) Briefly summarized his derivation goes as follows. Youth football uses 5-3 defense, high school uses 4-4, college uses 4-3, and NFL uses 3-4, therefore if you correlate that to probability of pass rate at the stated levels, Equation 1 results. What is fallacious is that he then uses the probability at the precise age of 10 to predict (exactly?) 9 pass rushers. However, wasn't the 5-3 data point used as the "youth" defense to produce the original equation? The youth data point encompasses the age range from 8 to 13, but his equation is used to extrapolate to the very precise age bracket of 10 years old. Effectively what is done here (ANOVA - statistical analysis of variance, see for example "Statistics for Experimenters" by Box, Hunter, and Hunter) is to weight the number of pash rushers in the youth age bracket between age 8 and 13 with higher levels' number of pass rushers. However, thoughout Reed's book his main premise is that youth football is inherently different than older levels of football. Further, I've watched many football games at College and High School levels and they just as often use the 5-2 Oklahoma than the 4-3 because of the frequent presence of the option offense. And, many NFL teams use a 4-3. So, Coach Reed's data AND argument are suspect. (I've spent quite a bit of time on this since this equation is a big foundation for his argument to use a Gap Air Mirror defense -- with 8 or 10 on the line of scrimmage -- in youth football.) Finally, many of the championship teams use the 5-2. I'm sure Coach Reed would say that is because they have better talent, but that says the defense selected isn't as important as the talent obtained. Finally, it my personal observation that the Gap Air Mirror (Gap-8 and 10-1) is less effective against outside runs, which Coach Reed repeatedly says is the most threatening play in youth football.
Another example is on p 102 where he says the Single Wing is the best shut down by the Gap-8 (again a plug for his GAM defense book). But Homer Smith's book "Football Coach's Complete Offensive Playbook", which has one of the best reviews of the history of how offense and defense formations evolved to defeat each other during the first half of the 20 th century, says that a review of the American Football Coaches Assocation Meetings manuals reveal that coaches of that era "screwed a defense [a 6-2] down tight on the Single Wing ...". Who do we believe? AFCA and Homer or John?
Another example is that he says (including himself) not to try and create your own defense. "How can we expect to top people like Buddy Ryan and Vince Lombardi?" However throughout this book he extols his Gap Air Mirror, which he himself created. Is this a contradiction?
And another. Both Bud Wilkinson's "Offensive Football" and Homer Smith's op. cit., say the problem with the Single Wing -- why few use it today -- compared to indirect snap (i.e., QB under center) is that the ball is in the air during snap for a duration enough to give the defensive line time to control their blocker so by the time the ball is received by a back, the defense has the advantage. This won't show up against a poor quality team, but a talented, well coached team will use it. Also, keying on the BB vs that offense usually reaps rewards.
I could cite numerous others, but I'd rather let my competition flounder on ...
Reading the book feels like talking with an opinionated, crotchety, seasoned coach reminscing about the good ol' days as his son's youth football coach; a venue that has its good and bad points. The book could stand a good dose of Strunk & White's dictum "Omit needless words!" One great thing about this book is its extensive list of football references.
Finally, my last point regards Coach Reed's comment on p 153, "... people who know a little about football assume that there is something wrong or obsolete about them [direct snap offenses]. Nope. They are just out of fashion. To me, that's a selling point." My observation (and this includes Coach Reed's teams) are that Single Wing teams come close to winning the conference championship, but never quite beat an equal or better talented team, competently coached, running a conventional offense. How many National Pop Warner Champions ran the Single Wing? I'm sure there are exceptions around the nation, but a team that knows how to defend a Single Wing can shut it down easier than more modern offenses. If that wasn't so, we'd see the Single Wing still in play at higher levels, which have "competent coaching" as Coach Reed repeatedly points out. After reading dozens of texts on offense, I've come away with the firm conviction that it isn't so much the backfield formation that is important as the ability of the offensive line to effectively block certain "play idioms" regardless of how the backs reach the hole. (An idiom in this case is a family of plays similarly related -- like Power Sweep, Triple Option, etc.)a
-------------------------------
* He even appends to the end of the argument the latin moniker QED -- it is proved -- as if this is a deductive derivation* like those in geometry, math, and logic texts! In fact, it is an inductive derivation governed by the laws of empirical science and statistics.
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