As a pee soccer veteran for over 25 years, I’ve seen it all and for the last six years the latest craze has been the single-wing offense.
The original single wing concept was used by Glen Pop Warner in the 1950s and was known for using a direct snap without a quarterback. A direct click is more like a mini gun click.
The center takes the ball and fits it directly into either back, depending on the wing formation you are using, there may be two or three backs available to catch the center. This direct click passes or eliminates the need for the traditional quarterback-center swap.
The direct snap also eliminates the delay in the pass, as the back catches the ball directly and simply starts running. This makes the start of a work very fast.
The direct snap attracts many new coaches, especially if you are teaching very young players, as it is much safer than the traditional snap between QB and center. What makes it safer is the concept that if the ball is snapped badly, the backs are right in front of the ball to pick it up or land on it.
When instructing younger children, the snap is a crucial part of the sport that most teams overlook. Forget the usual issues including rain, wrong hand placement by the quarterback, the quarterback throwing too early, and the center breaking it badly, ruining the center, but younger new kids struggle with the time and it takes to execute a play.
There are minimal plays for a loss of yardage when installing the direct pitch, in fact for an entire season a couple of years ago, my team didn’t have a play that lost a single yard.
Deception is another benefit of using the direct snap of a wing, especially if you use three backs behind the center. I use simple logic when deciding the distance to position my back from the center, which is the smaller the children are, the closer I bring them to the center. If I’m teaching first-year tackle players, I’ll have a 1-yard radius from the center! This makes it almost impossible for the opponent to see who has the ball.
In conclusion, the direct snap is a very effective and efficient way to start planning your offensive game if you are coaching a youth soccer team.