Working With Special Rules Mullahs in Youth Football.

In youth football many of the leagues rules seem to be very fluid. Special rules are put in place one year and are out the next. These special rules are often developed to hinder or help specific organizations within the league that have the political power to put them in place. I’m not speaking about rules like minimum play rules which help coaches get all the kids into games for a set number of football plays. I’m speaking of rules designed to water down the effectiveness and efficiency of certain teams systems.

In the leagues my team plays, football rules change slightly from year to year based on the decisions of the ruling Board. In the previous youth football league my teams played in, all the teams voted on the rules changes each year. Regardless of the ruling body or structure, we all have to deal with rule changes from year to year. Part of coaching youth football well involves adapting and making adjustments. Part of the youth football game are yearly rule changes. It doesn’t do your team, coaches or parents any good to lament about woulda, coulda, shouldas when it comes to rule changes. Adapt and overcome, heck embrace the challenge, unfortunately it’s part of the wonderful world of youth football.

If you run the Single Wing offense, you may have already run into some of these special rules being put in to hinder your success. Many youth football Board members are made up of coaches in the league and quite frankly many of them don’t like seeing their teams get clobbered each week by physically inferior teams, its embarrassing to them. Heck that’s one reason we have a heck of a time getting teams to play us in extra games, they can’t use the excuse “they were bigger, faster, had more kids etc”. So the leadership often try to give themselves even greater advantages via additional “special rules”. » Read more: Penalizing Excellence in Youth Football