Double Wing T

Question
Dear Coach Louis,

In my conference we face a team that runs the Double Wing T very well. I was wondering, what defensive schemes or tricks are good for stopping this offence?

Thank you.

Answer
Dear Kevin:
The Double Wing Offense is nothing more than the old Single Wing Offense with a new variation. All the old plays from the Single Wing Offense are still there, but with a new twist.

When I first started coaching football, I ran the Wing-T Offense. The Wing-T, is a Single Wing Offense with a split-T backfield. It worked very well.

The weaknesses of the Single Wing Offense are that most coaches know that the Single Wing Offense is 80-90% run offense. So the defense stack the strong side (the side the wing man lines up on) to take away the power running game. This is why a lot of teams stopped running the Single Wing Offense. A few years later the Double Wing Offense was born.

The Double Wing Offense has all the advantages of the Single Wing. However, it keeps the defense from keying the wing man and stacking its players to that side. The Double Wing Offense forces the defense to keep a balance front.

One of the best books on the market today (that cover the topic of the Double Wing Offense) is;

"The Toss" by Jerry Vallotton

This book has everything you will need to run a powerhouse Double Wing team.

Here are some tips on how to handle the Double Wing Offense.

1. Do not chase, stay at home. The Double Wing Offense wants you to chase the football, they will get the defense running in one direction and come back, with the ball, the other way.

2. Play gap control. Everyone stays at home and makes great one on one tackling.

3. Key the guards. If the guard pulls inside (towards the center) have your man stay on his hip. If the guard pulls outside (away from the center), have the defender stay at home, looking for a trap play coming from the inside.

4. Quarterback is very important! Assign a man to the quarterback. The quarterback must be tackled on every play. The quarterback is the key. If he is being tackled on every play, he will not be able to drop back and pass or run with the ball.

You might get burned on a halfback pass, but the halfback is not the quarterback and he is not going to win the game for them.

5. You must keep on eyes on the wing-backs. They are used on counter plays up the middle and to the backside. Anytime that a wing-back is not blocking, and moves inside towards the center, it's a counter play. The defensive players must yell counter play, to let the center and back side of the defense know that the counter or reverse play is coming their way.



The Double-Wing Offense will do everything in their capability to make their power sweep work. They will use an unbalanced line. They will place the tailback in motion away from the play to get you to think they are not going to run their power sweep, but they will. They will place the tailback in motion to the play side to loosen up the contain man. When the defense sees the motion man, they start thinking swing-pass and loosen up. The offense will place a wide receiver to the wingback's side. The contain man will now have to be concern with the look-in pass or being block by the receiver.

The best advice I can give you to help stop the Double Wing Offense is, key the guards?block. Place a man head-up on the offensive center. By placing a man head-up on the offensive center, you force the offense to double team the nose guard. Tell your linebackers to read the double team block. If the right guard down blocks on the nose guard, the play is going to the right. If the left guard double teams the nose guard, the play is going to the left. It is that simple.

Let me know if there are any other questions I can help you with.

Your friend, Coach Louis