Rules of the Game- Case Studies Archives:

What Can You Do Prior to the Snap on Youth Football Plays? Many youth football coaches don’t really know the leeway their centers are allowed before the snap. Unfortunately sometimes the referees don’t seem to know either. I will never forget a Division Championship game we had a few years back. Before the game started [...]

Playing to the Whistle “Play to the whistle” is the mantra of many youth football coaches, including yours truly. We want our players to effort and finish off plays, a concept many players struggle to grasp. We teach and reinforce that standard by making all of our drills a bit longer than the typical youth [...]

Most youth football leagues use the base NFHS High School rules as their base rule book and then amend those rules with a handful of special league rules such as weight limits, minimum play rules and special teams accommodations. In all but Texas and Massachusetts, the NFHS base rules apply. This year the NFHS made [...]

                     The Hideout Play in Youth Football   The Hideout Play is an old standard “trick” play that seems to get dusted off the back shelf and recycled every few years. Sometimes called the “2 out and 1 in” or “sleeper” play, the common name is “hideout”. The goal of the play is to get [...]

Face Tackling   Had a question come to me via e-mail this week from a first year youth coach: Is face tackling legal in youth football?   The current NFHS Rule book defines Face Tackling under NFHS 2-20-1.b (Illegal Helmet Contact) as, “Face Tackling is an act by a defensive player who initiates contact with [...]

How Much Contact is Allowed?   The amount of contact defensive backs area allowed to have varies in the the NFL, NCAA and NFHS (High School) rule books. Hence many youth coaches make mistakes when instructing their youth defensive backs on how to play. These mistakes are magnified when we see youth coaches playing press [...]

Horse-collar Tackle  Now Illegal in Youth Football Most youth football leagues use the High School rules that are in effect in their respective states. Most youth football leagues may have a few “exception” rules that differ from the High School rules like: minimum play rules, special teams exceptions or even in some cases scoring or [...]

A coach recently e-mailed me in response to my article on the illegal shift used by teams to purposely draw the defense offside. He told me of a somewhat similar experience he had in a game in 2008 where the defense was purposely trying to get the offense to jump offside by yelling out the [...]

                                                                                   Offensive Face Mask Penalty in Youth Football Can an offensive player be legally flagged for facemasking in Youth Football?  Last season on one of the youth football teams I coached, I had a 10 year old running back that loved to use the stiff arm. He wasn’t very fast or powerful, but he [...]

  Trick Play Backfires in Big Time College Football Many youth football coaches are “football junkies”. We like watching pro or college football. Sometimes we even see things that we think we can use for our own youth football teams. Often times this is how youth coaches come up with trick plays.   College Bowl [...]