Overall rating: (3.0 of 5.0 possible)

Available through: www.amazon.com

I'm a little lost on where a guy who coaches in a league that requires everyone to run the 6-2-3 defense gets the idea that he can write a book on how to coach the game of football, but since I'm a guy who technically has only three years of coaching experience and I have my own web site, I probably shouldn't bring that up.

One of my coaching buddies is stuck in the same league as Coach Leiber, and the restrictions placed on the coaches there are numerous and obnoxious, including an asinine rule that not only must the defense be aligned in a 6-2-3 formation at all times, but the corners and safety cannot be closer than five yards to the line of scrimmage, and the linebackers cannot be moving forward at the snap. All defensive linemen must play with their left feet in buckets of cement not to weigh less than fifteen pounds, and all members of the defensive secondary must be blindfolded.

Okay, I made those last two up, but the league still places too many restrictions on the coaches, and these restrictions color the book Coach Leiber has given us.

Many of Coach Leiber's ideas are great ones. The book is organized into sections, almost like a notebook. This makes finding "Offensive Position Skills" as simple as locating the third tab from the front. Everything that Coach Leiber describes in the book comes from the F.A.S.T. approach to coaching, which he calls "Fun" "Attitude" "Skills" and "Teamwork". I'm not realy sure why he felt he needed an acronym for that, but it might help some newer coaches to remember that the sport is for the kids.

I got the impression that this book was written for the absolute lowest possible levels of youth football. The pictures that Coach Lieber chose to illustrate his specific skills are of players that seem almost absurdly young, and his approach to offensive and defensive football seems overly simplistic. He also only seems to have the most rudimentary grasp of the mechanics of football. For example, on page 8-6, he discusses defensive strategy and states,

"First check your league rules to determine what flexibility you have. Some organizations require strict rules on what type of alignment is permitted. This is done as a way to facilitate learning through simplicity and ensuring that teams are not significantly disadvantaged in their ability to compete. This is a philosophy I really support."

At the risk of sounding abrasive, I think Coach Leiber missed both the point and the bus on this one. Restrictive leagues do not advance learning, they hinder it. The kids in his league will learn to face only one defense: the 6-2-3 zone. As a result, they will never learn how to get open against man to man coverage. The quarterback will never learn how to read two deep safeties. The offensive linemen will probably never learn how to double team, since most offenses down block even fronts.

Moreover, these restrictive leagues actually ensure only that the teams are significantly disadvantaged in their ability to compete. It's simple logic: their coaches cannot select an offense or defense that gives his players the greatest opportunity to win. Instead, he has to run whatever system the league requires, and almost none of these leagues offer any type of information on the foolish systems that they require.

I firmly believe that Coach Leiber only likes this kind of restrictive league because he has never had the opportunity to coach in an open league.

Coach Leiber also made a foul-up I simply can't call anything but "boneheaded" on page 7-1 when he tells us that, "The offensive backs cannot line up on the line of scrimmage or the seven man rule will be violated." Those of us that actually know the rules know that the seven man requirement for the offense is a minimum. Some offenses, like the Markham/Vallotton version of the Double Wing actually have offensive sets with eight men on the line. There is no excuse for an author of a coaching book to screw up the damn rules!

Coach Leiber made another mistake on the same page when he advocated running the 6-2 "tight" and "Wide Tackle Six" (his quotes) against running teams. There's nothing wrong with these two defenses per se, but he then goes on to recommend installing the 5-2 "Oklahoma" for pass coverage because it uses two safeties.

Most competent coaches frown on the idea of adding two defenses with conflicting coverage and run stopping assignments. Using both an even and an odd front are bad enough, but also mixing a cover two and cover three zone with differing responsibilities is noting short of idiotic. In fact, the "Okie 5-4" was designed to combat the triple option out of the wishbone and veer split back sets. It is of only average effectiveness against the pass, and since there are more passing zones than there are cover men, you are in real trouble trying to run that system. You'd be better served by adding different types of coverages to your existing 6-2-3, such as a sky or rotating zone and keeping that extra lineman to provide a pass rush.

One thing I can't really fault is Coach Leiber's recommendations of personnel for the defense, although I would take them a step further and say that instead of just the top five performers, your eleven best players should be your defensive starters.

Coach Leiber gets himself in a little trouble when he starts talking about defensive ends. He does advocate boxing the ends at lower levels, which I also agree with, but he really botches the job of trying to describe the responsibilities of the defensive end at the higher levels of football. The end does not, as he puts it, "[M]ove laterally toward the sidelines to turn the running back inside" (8-7). The end attacks the upfield shoulder and hip of the ball carrier, forcing the running back to string out the play until help arrives, either in the form of the sideline or the outside linebacker arriving.

Coach Leiber is way off base when he describes this technique as originating because of the "...higher level requirements for the corners and safeties in pass defense coverage." This technique actually is in common usage because the off-tackle is the most successful running play in high school football. Generally an off tackle play requires a kick-out block on the defensive end. An end boxing might as well put a sign on his chest that says, "Fullback strike here for six points."

Coach Leiber's drills section is relatively well written. Honestly, I think it's the strength of the book, but I don't like his practice schedule, which seems to have been written by a child psychologist rather than a football coach. Generally coaches of decent caliber do not need to be reminded to "Have fun!" as a daily objective. The practice schedule covers most of the basics, so it's probably worth looking at briefly. In my opinion it moves somewhat slowly from basic technique work through learning the offensive and defensive systems, but coaches with longer preseason times may find that the scheduling is pretty close to what they have to deal with.

I wasn't greatly impressed with the playbook section. Coach Leiber discusses the T- formation, Wing-T, Slot-I, Pro-I, and Power-I, but not in a great deal of depth. Frankly, his plays seem to be a basic sample, and if they are his entire playbook, coaches that scout him must cream his team. Generally only one or two plays are shown from any given formation (except the T-Formation, which seems to be his primary set), and I don't think it would be tough to train a defense to key on his backfield formation to guess the point of attack. Additionally, the plays he shows don't set each other up very well. Misdirection is extremely limited, and even his power plays focus too much on one on one blocking. Other than the most simple of traps, Coach Leiber does not pull his linemen.

You'd be much better served with Hugh Wyatt's Dynamics of the Double Wing video tape series if you're looking for an offense, and defensively, of course, Jack Reed's Gap-Air-Mirror for Youth Football should be all the system you need to roll the opposition.

I just wasn't as pleased with this book as I thought I would be. On the surface, with it's tabs and topics like "Offensive and Defensive Strategies" it appears to be what the title implies: the youth coaches' field manual. Unfortunately, once you open the shrink wrap and get past the nifty spiral bound cover, you'll find sand instead of gold.

I give the book the following scores:

Readability: 3

Remember the old joke: 'Waiter: And how did you find your steak, sir? Customer: I just moved that piece of baked potato and there it was.'? Well, the end of the book came just like that. Not much wrap-up, and I was a little irritated that the end of the book wasn't a conclusion, written to remind you that coaching is for kids etc etc. In fact, the last page of the book is three tear-out order forms to get additional copies of the book! Call me weird, but I would have preferred to have some special teams stuff in the appendix rather than ads.

Usefulness: 3

Coach Leiber's drills are actually pretty good, but also pretty basic. I don't think it really takes fifteen minutes of drill time two days in a row to teach a kid the proper way to take a hand-off. Although I consider that to be an important fundamental, I teach it, and then rep it by practicing the heck out of my plays. I'd rather spend twenty minutes of that practice time he works on hand-offs covering my entire offense.

Practicality: 3

Unless you are running the specific system Coach Leiber uses, which I advise against, most of the stuff in this book will only be of limited use to you. For example, while he covers the basic alignments of several variations of the 6-2, his descriptions of other defensive systems are limited solely to the alignment, and responsibilities are not covered.

Overall score: 3.0

If you're coaching the youngest levels of football, like under eight, then I'd recommend this book. Higher level football teams should be challenged a little more than Coach Leiber suggests, and above all, do not try to run his defenses as he describes them without doing more research. You need more than an alignment to successfully attack an offense. For example, how does a defensive guard in the wide tackle six take on a double team block? What should the defensive tackle in the 5-4 do when the guard facing him crosses his face and goes after a linebacker? Coach Leiber doesn't give you the answers.

As a coach, you'll need them.

Good luck.

~D.