Grand Prairie Senior Raider Playbook Edition 2003 Contents – Chapter 1 - The philosophy of the system (page 2) Chapter 2 – Terms Chapter 3 – Formations and motion Chapter 4 – Calling the System Chapter 5 – The Base Package and Adjustments Chapter 6 – The Line (blocking schemes and coaching techniques) Chapter 7 – The Backs (schemes and coaching techniques) Chapter 8 – Support Plays Chapter 9 – Passing Game Chapter 10 – Coaching the Passing Game Chapter 11 – Coaching the System Chapter 12 – Adjusting the System for Younger Kids (6 and 7 year olds) Chapter 13 – Philosophy, Leadership, Aggressiveness, and Mental Toughness Chapter 14 – Using the Stack I and I formation with the DW concept. (Next update) Chapter 1 – The Philosophy of the System Our double-wing system is a little different from the classic Wyatt or Markham systems. I have worked on tailoring this offense for kids and feel that the system itself is pretty easy for kids to not only understand but to execute as well. I have also found that the double-wing is easily adaptable to any type of youth league whether it is weight restricted or backfield/line restricted. This year I have taken lessons learned from the last five seasons running the system, watching the younger age group coaches, and listening to other coaches that run the system and tried to correlate this into one effective system that any of our coaches could apply to their team and have success with it. Our main emphasis is always on the fundamentals first; stance, breakdown stance, explosion, blocking, handing the ball off (or tossing), running with the ball, faking, passing, and catching. All of these are important for an offense to be successful and has to be reinforced at each practice. Some Key Points to our System: 1) We want to run the ball using power and deception. We do this with three base plays out of various formations to take advantage of what the defense is showing us. We excel in these three plays as they allow us to branch out to other plays that feed off of the base system. 2) We will use misdirection, play action passing, and a perimeter passing game to attack defenses that over pursue or over defend our base offense. 3) Keep our system simple and try to paint a mental picture for our players to follow as we teach each formation, play, and scheme to them. The Base Offense: 1) To tailor our offense for young players we base it on three core plays from which we derive our complete offensive playbook, the Wedge, the Super Power/Power, and Counter. We utilize numerous variances from these core plays to counter the defensive reaction. 2) At the youth level it is very important that you have a play that you can always go to that will sustain the drive. When a coach first starts installing this offensive system the first play to master is the wedge as it will get you through the lean times while the team learns the nuances of the other two plays. As they master the other two plays and become more proficient with this system their dependence on the wedge decrease but not be eliminated. The Wedge provides you with the ability to settle your offense and drive down the field as they gain confidence in themselves if something goes wrong or you need to calm the team down. 3) Wedge is a simple teamwork play that is a portion of our power offense. It is based on the old single wing wedge. In our system we always have the center be the focus of the wedge unless we are in one particular formation and then it goes to the play side guard. Either way this play is about your line working as one unit driving one or two guys off the ball as the running back gets in behind the wedge. There are many ways to run this play and we have several variations that we use. 4) The Superpower or power is the other portion of our power running game. Where the wedge is power in the middle the Super Power and Power are power plays at the edge of the offense or the classic off tackle hole. We have several ways to adapt this play to the defense that is being run at us; this allows us to run our base offense even while the defense adjusts to stop it. 5) The counter play is our main misdirection play against the defense when they start to over react to the super power/power. We have other misdirection plays but this play is the heart of our misdirection and it allows us to attack a defense that is looking to stop or super power/power with over pursuit from the backside. 6) The double wing uses all of these approaches to good effect to create an offense that couples power, misdirection, and good play-action passing game into one system that creates as much confusion in the defensive backfield as possible. The play action pass must be off actions the defense will see a lot and you are going to be successful at. So we use actions off the wedge, super power/power, and counter to force the defense to defend run as we pass. This reduces the pressure on the passer and receiver and allows us the cushion we need to succeed at completing the passes we throw. 7) The key to this offense is to know what the defense is doing and then attack it with the understanding of what will work against it. Offensive Goal for Success: Our league uses 8-minute quarters and a running clock after you are 30 points ahead of your opponent. This means that you don’t have a lot of time for multiple series. The truth be told on average we have 2.5 series per quarter which means we have a total of 10 series all together before the game is over. I have used entire quarter to drive the ball down the field on numerous occasions and I have also scored on the first play as well. The key to a good offense is having a consistent drive that eats up the clock and scores. With that in mind we strive to score 14 points a half. That takes into consideration two touchdowns and one two- point conversion per half since we never go for a 1-point PAT. If you can do that with 8- minute quarters you will win the majority of the time. That means by the end of the game you are going to have 28 points and most youth offenses are not able to put 28 points on the board against average defenses much less a well prepared defenses with a ball control offense. The normal starting point for most youth offenses is on their 45-yard line, which means you have 55 yards to drive the ball for a touchdown. In these cases we try to have a series of six to twelve plays down the field before we score. That means we have to average 4.68 yards to 9.16 yards to get down the field and score from 55 yards out. Now that sounds impossible but if you look at this in small steps and realize you need to gain ten yards in four downs then your task is much simpler. This is a four down offense and unless we are on our 15 yard line our less or on our 30 yard line our less in a close game near the end then we will go for it on fourth down. So all we have to do is average 2.5 yards a down to move the first down markers forward unless we fall under one of the two situations above and then it is 3.333 yards a down since you are operating with only three downs. We strive to gain four yards a play with our power running game and look to gain even more yards with our misdirection, play-action, and perimeter passing game. As long as we achieve the four yards a play we can easily move the ball down the field against our opponent. With that being said penalties will kill this or any offense. Just one five-yard penalty is the bane of any offense as it takes you from that 2.5 ypd to 3.75 ypd. So you must reduce and eliminate all offensive penalties in order to have a successful offense. Tactics of the Double Wing To reiterate once more the primary focus of our philosophy is three base plays; the wedge, super power, and counter. These plays form the nucleus of our offense and we must be able to attack any team any where on the field with these three plays. The wedge and the power form the power attack while the counter is the misdirection attack of our base offense. Note: It is essential that teams get good at the base offense first. Younger teams and teams new to the double wing should invest the time at getting good at the wedge as it will give them a simple power play while they refine the super power and counter. When deciding how to first attack a defense look at two places; the middle of the defense for the wedge and the defensive ends for the super power. The linebackers and defensive backfield is the key to the counters; if they over pursue to the super power and over load on the wedge than they can be attacked with misdirection.