What do you look for in a center?

[CoachSpencer82]

We play in a very tough conference in North Carolina, we face almost exclusively 3-4 teams with big strong kids at N.  What do you look for in your center, we were pretty young on the OL last year and got the center got whipped most nights, really disrupted most of what we tried to do offensively.

[BruinFB]

We think the Center has to be a sturdy kid who won't get driven back, you are right about playing odd front teams with good NTs, they'll mess everything up if you are weak at center.  

      Luckily, since Center does not require a lot of complex rules (mostly ON or AWAY)... I think you can get away with a kid who is physically tough, hopefully pretty heavy in his lower half, and can step while he snaps. 

     We've played with kids who were not that smart, couldn't move very well, couldn't pull, some guys who were short and heavy but were tough.... we've had a lot of different types, but on any of our good teams, the Center could hold his ground against the nose. 

[Wes Elrod]

2 hours ago, BruinFB said:

We think the Center has to be a sturdy kid who won't get driven back, you are right about playing odd front teams with good NTs, they'll mess everything up if you are weak at center.  

      Luckily, since Center does not require a lot of complex rules (mostly ON or AWAY)... I think you can get away with a kid who is physically tough, hopefully pretty heavy in his lower half, and can step while he snaps. 

     We've played with kids who were not that smart, couldn't move very well, couldn't pull, some guys who were short and heavy but were tough.... we've had a lot of different types, but on any of our good teams, the Center could hold his ground against the nose. 

I agree...............if he can just get stalemates with good NG's I think is a plus.

oce

[CoachDerz]

We put our best OL at Tackles to help us set an edge on the perimeter since so much of the offense is going outside we needed our best boys to take on those stud DE's.  We were downblocking playside and scooping offside all the time so we liked to look for a bit of speed at the centre position, his ability to evade the DL and get to the next level was imperative to our strategies. Sometimes that meant scooping a zero with our offside guard, in that situation the centre needs to avoid the zero or he will not get to the LBer.  When we had centres that were really fast we could pull them on screens to the SE's. When the need for size/strength took precedence over speed we relied on double teams to compensate. Another thing we did to cope with that problem was your old-school Lead Nose/Wham play where our offset FB would come down to smack the NG into submission. Can't do it all day long, but works when you need to. 

[CoachSpencer82]

Thanks, kind of confirmed what I was thinking, just get a stalemate.  That freshman center will be a sophomore this year, and is much stronger than the baby faced freshman he was a year ago.  I don't really need him to pull, most of our stuff is on/away like you said, but it would be nice if he could, just one more option we have.  I like the wham play, you would just have the C post the N and let the FB smoke him?

[CoachDerz]

For Wham we weren't sophisticated enough to tell our centre to leave the NG completely untouched, so the way we taught it was to "chip 'n' go,' punch the NG with the nearside arm as he runs to the LBer. You figure it's going to cost him a step in his progression off the line, but if you have speed at the centre spot, he should still be able to get to the LBer anyways. 

[CoachSpencer82]

8 hours ago, CoachDerz said:

For Wham we weren't sophisticated enough to tell our centre to leave the NG completely untouched, so the way we taught it was to "chip 'n' go,' punch the NG with the nearside arm as he runs to the LBer. You figure it's going to cost him a step in his progression off the line, but if you have speed at the centre spot, he should still be able to get to the LBer anyways. 

Makes sense to me, thanks.