One Play Every Middle School Needs: The Toss Sweep

In my time coaching middle school football our offense predicated on three offensive plays - the fullback dive, the tailback off tackle play, and the toss sweep. The toss sweep play, quick toss for us, was a a simple sweep play. Seal the edge and bring as many lead blockers to the point of attack as possible.

We would run this play out of set or formation as long as there was a tight end on the field. Lets look at our "Blast Right" formation:

I have it drawn up against a 5-3 defense, which is something that we saw a lot of when we were in a double tight set. We see a lot of 4-4 in our league but when we would go double tight we could force teams to put one of their LBs on the line of scrimmage or even take one of their better athletes off the field in exchange for a defensive lineman. This is a plus to us because this play is a quick hitter and defensive lineman aren't usually a factor in the play.

The key to the play is sealing the edge. We do this by having our play side tight end hook block the defensive end. This is the hardest thing we ask our tight ends to do. If we have teams that play a loose 9 tech we will check to a tailback dive off tackle. In addition to the hook block by the tight end we have our Z receiver crack the OLB. We like to have physical receivers who look forward to ear-holing those OLBs. After awhile those OLBs are looking for the crack and are trying to not get hit, and if that is the case he has pretty much taken himself out of the play.

Next we pull our play side guard and tackle and lead with our fullback. That play side defensive tackle that goes unblocked has never been an issue for us. He will occasionally get in the way of the pulling guard in which case he just works to the second level. We send out backside OL and TE to the second and third level and tell them to go find someone to hit. The quarterback reverses out for the toss and then boots away.

 
This play doesn't always go to the house but it was a staple for us. It was a good first down play or second and long play. We add in a reverse and reverse pass off of it making it a very dangerous and versatile play. I believe that when teams scouted us this was the first play that they wanted to stop based on the defenses we started to see after having a lot of success with this play.