Efectiveness of a pulling off-side guard

The effectiveness of pulling at the youth level is generally of reduced value. If you look at the playoff teams, few are pulling. About the only exception to this is the DW and the DC Wing T. The DW is successful at pulling backside guards playside due to the philosophy of the tight line spacing. He simply doesn't have very far to go to make his block. The DC Wing T is successful at pulling backside guards for three reasons. First, he can't miss the hole. It's big enough for the team bus to drive through. Second, the linebacker he has is backside, not playside. The backside linebacker must go over the top of the playside backer to get to the runner, and this is where we tell the pulling guard to look for him. So he's either going to take the safety or the backside linebacker, whichever one shows here first. Third, if he never sees his man and never blocks him, we don't care. The DC Wing T puts him on a wedge most of the time and, by being on it, he shields the runner from an inside tackler. I really don't know just how many times the pulling guard makes his block. But I know the effect it has on the other team. The first time we ran "Super 36 Toss" was in the playoffs and we had just run it for the fifth straight time in a row on the other team for 8 yards a pop. I hadn't noticed it but the other team was looking pretty lost on what to do about it and their coach saw it and called a time out (At that point I noticed just how dazed his players looked as I ran out to join my team.). I really didn't have anything to say to my guys, so we just stood around the ball and listened to their coach in his huddle 7 yards away. He wasn't looking at us and assumed we were huddling too and so was talking in his normal voice. Did he have a plan to stop what we were doing? No. Did he have any advice? No. He gave a pep talk. What was it? Here's what he said.

"Don't worry about it, guys. They're just running a whole of players through a huge hole."

I've run it every game since I heard him say that.