I can already feel some youth coaches getting ready to throw their coffee at me.
Trust me, I get it. Youth football coaches work incredibly hard. They spend countless hours teaching kids the game, organizing practices, dealing with parents, and trying to keep young athletes excited about football. Most youth coaches are doing amazing work, and every high school coach owes them a debt of gratitude for introducing kids to our sport.
But I’m going to say something that every JV coach reading this has seen a thousand times.
Somewhere along the way, we’ve created an epidemic. Young players have become convinced that every run should end on the perimeter. Every. Single. Run.
Inside zone? Bounce it.
Power? Bounce it.
Counter? Bounce it.
Quarterback draw? Bounce it.
Kneel down? Well, give them enough room and they’d probably try to bounce that too.
And honestly, it’s not hard to understand why. At the youth level, the biggest, fastest athlete on the field can often get away with simply outrunning everyone.
Miss the hole? No problem.
Ignore the blocking? No problem.
Run fifteen yards toward the sideline? No problem.
Because most of the time, they’re simply a better athlete than everybody else on the field. And let’s be honest with ourselves for a second. Cornerbacks at youth football are often terrible tacklers. Not because they’re bad kids. Not because they’re poorly coached. They’re just young.
Many times the best athlete on the defense is playing linebacker somewhere in the middle of the action. The corner ends up being a kid who is still learning how to tackle in space.
So what happens? A young running back learns a dangerous lesson. “If I just keep running wider, eventually nobody can catch me.”
The problem is that lesson stops working when they get to JV football.
The Great Athletic Equalizer
One of the biggest transitions players experience moving from youth football to JV football is realizing everybody is starting to catch up physically.
That kid who dominated because he was bigger? Everybody else grew.
That kid who dominated because he was faster? The gap got smaller.
That kid who could simply outrun pursuit angles? Now he’s facing linebackers who can actually run.
At the JV level, players begin growing into their bodies. Strength starts to matter. Leverage starts to matter. Technique starts to matter.
And suddenly that magical race to the sideline isn’t producing the same results. Instead of turning a missed hole into a 60-yard touchdown, it becomes a 4-yard loss. Instead of outrunning a cornerback, now there’s a safety filling downhill. Instead of making one player miss, now there are three defenders waiting outside. The field gets smaller. The game gets faster. And players who never learned how to run through a defense suddenly find themselves struggling.
Running Through Defenses Instead of Around Them
That’s why one of our biggest jobs at the JV level is teaching runners how to find seams, not space. There’s a difference.
Young players often look for grass. Good running backs look for structure. The best runners understand how defensive fits create opportunities. They understand leverage. They understand angles. They understand where defenders are supposed to be. Most importantly, they understand that the goal is not to avoid defenders forever.
The goal is to get north and south as quickly as possible. One of the simplest rules we teach on perimeter runs is: “Climb outside until a defender crosses your face, then get vertical.”
That’s it. Simple. Easy to remember. Easy to coach. Easy to execute.
The running back is attacking the perimeter with intent, but he’s not racing to the sideline. He’s climbing outside with his eyes up. The second a defender crosses his face and forces a decision, he plants his foot and gets upfield. Now he’s attacking a seam. Now he’s forcing defenders to tackle him. Now he’s gaining meaningful yards.
Most importantly, he’s learning how football is actually played at higher levels.
Geometry Is Your Friend
I tell our running backs all the time that football is secretly a geometry class. They usually hate hearing that. But it’s true.
One of the most important lessons young runners need to learn is this: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
Yet every weekend, JV coaches watch players turn a 4-yard gain into a 15-yard journey. The hole opens. The running back sees daylight. Then instead of taking the vertical lane, he starts drifting. Then drifting more. Then drifting even more. Before you know it, he’s run fifteen yards sideways and gained two yards downfield.
Meanwhile, every defender on the field is thanking him for making their pursuit angles easier.
Defenses love sideways football. Defenses hate downhill football.
A runner moving north and south forces defenders to make tackles. A runner moving east and west gives defenders time to recover.
Teaching this concept requires constant reinforcement. Film study helps. Practice drills help. But mostly it requires repetition.
Young runners need to repeatedly see how much more successful they become when they trust the hole and attack vertically.
Creating Downhill Running Backs
One of the biggest challenges for JV coaches is teaching physicality without encouraging recklessness. We don’t want kids lowering their heads. We don’t want kids seeking unnecessary contact. But we do want them comfortable running through football.
There’s a difference.
Good downhill runners understand that contact is part of the game. They don’t fear it. They don’t seek it. They simply accept it.
One way we encourage this is by celebrating decisive runs. Not just long runs. Decisive runs.
A 5-yard run where a back hits the hole immediately and gets vertical often receives more praise from our staff than a 20-yard run that involved three unnecessary bounces.
Why? Because one is sustainable. One is repeatable. One is preparing the player for Varsity football. The other may simply be the result of superior athleticism.
At the JV level, we’re trying to build habits.
Helping Them Through Scheme
The responsibility doesn’t fall entirely on the players. As offensive coaches, we can help too.
One of the best ways to cure perimeter addiction is to make defenses defend the perimeter honestly.
Quick screens.
Rocket tosses.
Swing passes.
Bubble screens.
Jet motion.
All of those things force defenders to widen. They force corners to respect space. They force linebackers to hesitate. Once defenses start expanding, opportunities begin appearing inside.
Now your off-tackle runs become more effective.
Now your counters become more dangerous.
Now your quarterback draws hit faster.
Now your Power scheme has cleaner angles.
This is one of the reasons system football matters so much. We’re not calling perimeter plays because we want to live there. We’re calling perimeter plays because they create opportunities elsewhere.
The perimeter becomes a tool. Not the destination.
Teaching Vision
When we talk about running backs at the JV level, most coaches immediately think about speed. I think about vision. Vision is what separates good runners from great runners. The best runningbacks I’ve ever coached had better vision than speed any day of the week.
A fast player can outrun mistakes. A great runner prevents mistakes from happening in the first place. They see leverage. They see pursuit. They see cutback lanes.
Most importantly, they trust what they see. That trust only comes through reps. Hundreds of reps. Thousands of reps. Watching film. Walking through concepts. Understanding defensive structure.
The more football a young runner sees, the better decisions he begins making. Eventually, the game slows down. And when that happens, the endless race to the sideline starts disappearing.
Development First
Like almost everything we do at the JV level, this ultimately comes back to development.
Can a talented athlete occasionally score by bouncing everything outside? Absolutely.
Will that habit help him become a successful Varsity player? Probably not.
At some point, every running back reaches a level where defenders are just as athletic as they are. When that day comes, technique matters. Vision matters. Discipline matters. Decision-making matters.
That’s why the JV level is so important. This is where we break bad habits before they become permanent. This is where we teach runners how defenses actually work. This is where we teach them to trust blocking schemes. This is where we teach them to attack seams instead of chasing grass.
Because eventually, Friday nights aren’t won by the guy who can run the farthest sideways. They’re won by the player who understands where the defense is vulnerable and gets there as quickly as possible. And usually, that’s not on the sideline. It’s through the heart of the defense.
Teach it. Rep it. Build it.
That’s the JV Way.
