Mr. O'Conner is somewhat ill-informed, both on the mechanics of coaching youth football and on the reality of my relationship with Jack Reed. Since he is one of the authors, I am unsurprised that Mr. O'Conner leapt to defend his material when his errors were pointed out to him. Unfortunately, he is still wrong. The stances shown in the book are incorrect no matter what level you are playing at. The player's backside is too low in the three point stance shown on page 66. In fact, the player looks like he's sitting on his haunches with one hand on the ground.
The picture of 'press technique' shown on page 127 is also wildly inaccurate. The pressing player is standing almost straight up, and any receiver would clear the line easily against the ungainly bail technique being shown.
With all due respect to those august coaches with 80 years of coaching experience between them, how much of that experience was gained coaching players of ages seven to seventeen? I am comfortable in agreeing with Mr. O'Conner's statement; yes, I DO know more about coaching youth football than he does. I have done it. He, judging by this book, has not. I will defer to his experience at coaching in the NFL, but not when coaching players from high school on down. NFL players range in age from 20 to 41 and generally have experience measured in decades. Youth football players range in age from eight to eighteen, and may have experience measured in days or even hours when you see them as a coach. You cannot expect them to be able to execute NFL-style tactics and techniques.
Youth football coaches, and even high school coaches simply do not have the hours to practice that college and NFL coaches do. Youth practice planning is about TIME MANAGEMENT, and must be RESULTS ORIENTED. This means that you need to maximize your efforts where they will do the most good for your team.
When a former NFL coach recommends, and here I quote directly from page 31 "...by working MANY HOURS with a receiver a quarterback can learn to anticipate how the receiver gets open against certain types of coverages..." it is obvious that these two authors have never coached at the youth level.
Youth coaches don't have "many hours" to spend on their passing game, even if passing was an effective way to move the ball at that level, which it is not. Typically a youth coach has his players for five to seven hours a week, and also typically completes 20-40% of his passes. Mr. O'Conners and Mr. Flores are recommending that youth coaches waste "many hours" of practice working on a part of the game with a 20-40% success rate!
Playing in the NFL is a JOB, and coaches have 45+ hours a week to work with their players on pass patterns and reading defenses. Youth football, and this cannot be stressed enough, is NOT THE NFL! Five to seven hours a week is not the same as 45 or more.
Frankly, while Mr. O'Conner might not like this review, the bottom line is that the information I received from Jack Reed's books was infinitely more practical than the airy speculation of a coach more used to adults than children. I recommended Reed's books in my previous review for one reason: Reed's material works, probably because, unlike the authors of THIS book, Jack Reed has been on a youth football field a time or two, and has seen what does and does not succeed at that level.
I have the utmost respect for Mr. O'Conners and Mr. Flores when it comes to coaching football in the NFL. For the youth level, however, their information is simply not accurate.
Good Luck.
