The Trap Play — The Giant Killer of Youth Football Plays
The mistake many of us coaches make is we stop asking questions and also doing research once we get a so called answer to a question. Most of us a little bit of easy way out, especially if it validates our preconceived notions. I will be here to tell you there are hundreds if not thousands of very successful youth baseball teams all across America pulling and trapping all the way down to years 6. I personally coached an age 6–8 team and we torn and trapped very well. Not as well as Ross LeGrande, Ross is from Ohio and his age 7–8 team was the perfect looking trapping team I had ever seen. His team was the master of running the off-tackle and blocking back old trap. In many of the games I saw of his Championship teams, some people ran just 3 plays, the off-tackle, trap and kitchen counter and by golly the trap made up about 40% of their snaps.
Many of the guys that e-mail me tell me that the Blocking To come back trap out of the Single Wing Offense, what we call “31 Trap”, is among the most best if not the best football plays they run. Don Beds in Maryland averaged nearly 20 yards a carry for it last season for his age 8–10 kids. It is probably my all-time favorite football plays, yet many people think you have to have a bunch of Einsteins on your youth football team to run it. Which may be simply not true. I’ve seen film of hundreds of youth competitors pulling and trapping well as well as have personally coached quite a few different youth football teams that had zero problems to do so. Keep in mind, I’m the offensive line coach and I never experienced offensive line at any level and we probably practice less than you will.
The trap is a great football play for a whole variety of arguments. In our offense we like to double team block defensive takes up. We rarely have the size or athleticism on our offensive tier to move anyone very well one-on-one, so we like to use double workforce blocks and wedge blocks. Once that defensive tackle sets out getting moved backwards with double teams and wedge obstructions, he starts coming real hard, real fast and legitimate low, if he doesn’t we are going to steam roll him day long. Once he starts coming hard, we just let him come through free and BAMMO he gets clobbered by a pulling secure coming out of nowhere and it usually means a huge gain for us.
SO WHAT DOES THE Defensive Tackle DO NOW? Should he play it slow and become blown back by double team and wedge blocks throughout the day or should he charge in real low and swiftly and get blindsided by a pulling guard with a full head for steam, hmmmm, quandry. This has been a great tactic for us when we have fun with a team that has a very dominating defensive tackle that is enjoying our lunch, we trap him a few times and man my oh my man does he slow down, the brakes come on. Then when the guy slows down to “read” the play he gets steamrolled by just our double teams and wedge blocks, what’s the poor baby to do? He ends up playing tenative and our problem is decoded.
Think about it, last season was there a team you suffered that had a defensive lineman that was dominating your party? Wouldn’t it have been nice to have a series of football plays that may have neuturalized him? I get sick of youth football custom motor coaches saying ONE PLAYER beat them, good football coaches locate ways to stop one player.
Pulling is very simple to teach and is dealt with with 3 simple coaching points starting on page 218 belonging to the book. Dave Rimington the former Outland Trophy Winner and University or college Football Hall of Famer said we were teaching it just ideal, he wouldn’t change a thing. Our trap scheme is on page 167 of the book and can be run out of nearly every football engage in series you run. Don’t exclude the trap from what you may run at the youth level because you have never run it well before or have not taught kids how to trap block in the past. Often the trap is simple to teach and is a very dangerous football play. The exact trap works better the better the team you are playing is.
Unlike the very reverse the trap hits much quicker and can work against possibly even very fast teams. The reverse has little chance versus rather athletic teams that can run plays down. The trap sinks into quickly and gets the ball upfield much faster than any turn back plays, it is a low risk, high reward play.
Of course amongst the caveats is do not needlessly waste football practice time at a bunch of mindless drills, cals and conditioning. Teach the kids easy methods to play football well, how to block and pull perfectly, not be pushup or agility drill champions. The right football practice scheme and priorities along with the right football plays make facing leagues that trap well a real nightmare to play.
