Here are the best offenses for youth football. With that said, the best offenses for youth football will be different per team. The offense you decide to run should be an offense that fits your personnel. It also needs to be an offense that you understand and can communicate to your players.
Here are questions you have to ask yourself when you are trying to figure out what offense to run with your team. How many capable running backs do we have? How many capable receivers do we have? Is our QB mobile? Does our offensive have size? Is our o-line athletic?
The Wing T Offense is one of the best offenses for youth football. It is utilized with great success on all age levels of football. We have been running the Wing T for the past 8 years and have been a top scoring offense in our league every season. The Wing T is great because it offers deception, power, and speed. The Wing T utilizes a TE / WB flank that will put the defense is alignment conflict.
This offense is great for youth football because it will give you a system of plays and a structured attack. You can also incorporate plays like Jet and Rocket Sweep out of the formation. There are a couple different Wing T formations that can be utilized. It’s a great offense that can be utilized on all age levels of football. This offense is definitely one of the best offenses for youth football.
Pros: Deceptive, system based, great for all age levels.
Cons: Need 2-3 running backs, have to be able to pull guards.
The Beast Formation (direct snap) is one of the best offenses for youth football. It will allow you to load up one side with blockers and direct snap to your best player. The Beast Formation will allow you to overwhelm, outflank, and outnumber the defense to the play-side. When you come out in the Beast Formation, you tell the offense that you are going to run the football down their throat and there isn’t anything they can do about it.
There are several different Beast Formations and it’s a formation that you can mess around with and make fit your team’s skillset. Here’s a look at the different Beast Formations. If you have a mobile QB you can run a lot of these same plays. This formation is part of the Single Wing family. In my opinion, this is the best formation out of the 8 best offenses for youth football.
Beast Formations / Single Wing Formations
Defense do one of two things. They will either over shift to the strength of the formation or they won’t shift at all.
Base Beast
Diesel (tackle-Over)
Beast Loaded
Beast Spread (tackle-over)
Pros: Easy to install, forces misalignment, counter game is nasty, and great for all age of levels of football.
Cons: Any passes will have to be done by the running back. This is a shotgun formation, so snaps need to be practice.
The Shotgun Split Back Formation is great for youth football because it will give you a very good element of deception (based on how the backfield is aligned). It’s a balanced formation that will allow you to attack the defense with counters that will complement the power running game. You can also put the QB under center and run just split backs. If you have a mobile QB the Shotgun Split Back Offense is fantastic. There are several different plays that will allow you to utilize your mobile QB.
This formation will give you structure and system of plays that all complement each other. It’s great for all age levels of football. You can also utilize several different formations. The two most common formations are double TE Split Back and a spread formation (one wing & WR or two WRs). Below are the formations.
Base Shotgun Split Back
This formation is great because it gives you a strong run threat to both sides. It also creates alignment conflict for the defense by giving them a run strength to one side and a pass strength to the other. There are several ways you can utilize the SE.
Double Shotgun Split Back
Going with double tight-ends will force the defense to defend both sides of the formation. You also can use the H back as another blocker or you can even split him out. There’s no shortage of options out of this formation. Our Shotgun Split Back Playbook is one of our best sellers and is one of our newest playbooks. Be sure to check it out.
Pros: System based scheme- all play completement each other. This is a great formation for Power and Counter. It’s also a great formation to utilize a mobile QB.
Cons: If you spread the field you do lose some inside run game blocking numbers/power. Shotgun snap can be an issue- need to practice the shotgun snap daily.
The Double Wing Offense is an offense that is designed to just outnumber the defense at the point of attack. It’s a ground and pound offense that is very difficult to stop. The wedge play out of the DW is almost impossible to stop. The Double Wing Formation is great because it features two tight-ends and two wing backs. This forces the defense to have to defend both sides of the formation. The splits are foot to foot which will shorten the distance for the pullers. This will allow you to get multiple blockers at the point of attack very quickly.
This offense is great for all age levels of football. It’s easy to install, but very difficult to defend. It features a great system of plays that all complement each other. It’s an offense that is known for the Power play, but the Counter and other deception plays hit big. You can utilize several different blocking schemes as well. It’s great for offensive lines of all sizes and ability.
Pros: Ground and pound offense. It is difficult to align to and it will get you multiple blockers at the point of attack. The Power, Counter, Wedge, and Power pass out of this formation are nasty!
Cons: It does compress the defense down, sometimes making it hard to run inside. Passing game is limited. Need linemen that can pull.
The 20 Personnel Formation features 2 running backs, no tight-ends, and 3 wide receivers. One back is the tail back and the other is a H-back / WB type player. This formation is great because it gives you a strong inside run threat, while also spreading the field. You can align several different ways with the two backs and three wide receivers. You will be able to get into multiple formations with personnel grouping. You can have the H line up to the twins side, turning the formation trips.
If you have a mobile QB, this formation is great. There are several different QB runs that can be implemented. This formation will also give you a strong counter / deception game. You can easily utilize several different motions and shifts.
Typically this formation has the QB in the shotgun, but you can easily run this from under center without changing anything. The Power and Counter play is a great 1-2 punch out of this formation. Out of the 8 best offenses for youth football this is one of our favorites.
Pros: Great system based offense. You can utilize a mobile QB. The Power and QB Counter play is a great 1-2 punch. This formation allows you to spread the field, while also giving you a strong run threat.
Cons: Edge pressure could be a problem on pass plays because of only having one H back. You don’t have many blockers if the defense decides to send multiple players.
The I-formation is a great offense that works on all age levels of football. It’s easy to install and it will allow you to utilize your best running back. This is a great offense if you don’t have a lot of skilled position players. You can utilize several different formations and alignments. You can go with double Tight-ends. You can spread the field with trips, or even put one receiver to each side. This offense is easy to execute and there are several great plays that will allow you to utilize your FB and TB.
The traditional I Formation is great because it spreads the field a little bit, while maintaining a strong inside run threat. You can also put the X and Z on the same side and create a twins look. Twins is a very difficult formation to align too.
Pros: Easy to install, works great on all levels of football. Several different formations and plays can be executed. This will allow you to multiple, while keeping things simple for your players. Great play action passing concepts.
Cons: There’s isn’t any over the top deception plays. You really only feature 2 backs so teams can really lock in on them. Play-action passing is great- but you will struggle with the straight drop back passing game.
We’ve been using the Trips Nub Formation for the last two seasons with great success. This formation presents the defense with a heavy passing threat to the one side and a run strength to the tight-end side. This will create alignment conflict for the defense. So many times defenses will not align properly to the formation. This formation is great if you have a mobile QB. There are several different passing concepts that can be utilized to the trips receiver side.
There are also a lot of perimeter screen options to the trips side as well. You can easily utilize motions and or bunch the receivers up in a compressed bunch look. The zone run game is great out of this formation. You can also have the Y split out as a receiver and come out on a true 3×1 look.
Pros: Creates alignment conflict for the defense. It’s a very difficult formation to align to. Gives you a strong passing threat to one side and a strong run threat to the other. Multiple pass and run concepts can be utilized out of this formation.
Cons: Shotgun snap needs to be practiced. There could be edge pressure if the defense decides to blitz a defender off of the trips side edge. Blocking to a two man surface if difficult (guard / tackle).
The Double Tight-end Wishbone Formation is one of the best offenses for youth football. The Wishbone Offense is great because it features two Tight-ends, one to each side and 3 backfield players. This is a balanced formation that will force the defense to defend both sides of the formation.
When you have three running backs in the backfield you will easily outnumber the defense at the point of attack on blast / lead and power plays. When you have three backfield players the defense is tasked with having to defend all three. There are endless deception / counter play opportunities out of this formation as well.
Pros: Simple offense to install. Great for all age levels of football. Balanced formation- makes defense have to defend both sides. Very strong Power and Deception running game. Great play-action passes.
Cons: Need 3 backs. Limited passing concepts. Need two good Tight-ends.
Conclusion
If you have a couple good skilled position players then you might want to think about utilizing more of a spread formation or a formation that utilizes a 3 back backfield like the Wing T or Double Wing. If you are weak upfront or don’t have a lot of skilled position players utilizing the Beast / Direct Snap formation might be a good idea. There are some offenses that will work on the youth level, regardless of skillset. The Wing T, Double Wing, Beast / Direct Snap, and Single Wing are all offenses that will work well for you- regardless of skillset.
I believe that it is more important to run an offense that you understand and can coach, than selecting an offense around your personnel entirely. You can run any formation you want but if you don’t understand the formation / offense then you won’t be able to communicated to your kids.
In addition, I think all theses formations are great for all skillsets and ages of youth football. I would say that selecting the right blocking scheme is more important than anything. The best blocking scheme for youth football is the down blocking scheme.
Down blocking is great because it gives your blockers excellent blocking angles and the defensive linemen won’t even seem them coming (because their head is turned in watching the football). Whatever formation / offense you choose to run with your youth football team I recommend utilizing down blocking.
We hope you enjoyed this article about the 8 best offenses for youth football. They are not in order of 1 to 8th best. The best offense for youth football is one that you can teach and one that matches your team’s skillset and one you can clearly communicate to your players.
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