How do you stop rub routes in 7v7 flag football?
In 7v7 flag football you stop rub routes by playing a matching zone underneath, which is the first format with enough defenders to do it properly. Five underneath players can pass receivers between them as they cross, so nobody ever follows anybody into traffic and the concept has nothing to work on. Switching in man coverage still works, but with five eligible receivers there are more crossing combinations than a young defense can call.
Nobody is standing here. Your DB is the closest defender to this spot and he is 9 yards away from it when the ball arrives. That is not a beaten defender, it is an empty one, and no amount of effort closes that gap after the throw.
Why the sweep keeps working in 7v7
Five eligible receivers means more crossing combinations than you can name
At five a side there is really one crossing pattern to defend. With five receivers there are several, and they can come from either side at two depths, which is past the point where a switch rule per combination is teachable. That is what pushes this format toward zone rather than communication.
Five underneath defenders can hand receivers off without anybody moving far
A matching zone is not really a zone, it is a rule that you cover whoever enters your area and release whoever leaves it. With five players across the band the handoffs are short and nobody has to travel through the crossing point, which is where all the damage happens.
Your two deep defenders make going under safe
At 5v5 taking the inside path on a crosser means conceding everything over the top. Here you have two players behind everything, so an underneath defender can commit inside without that being the end of the play. It is the first size where the aggressive answer is not also the dangerous one.
Your defenders keep running into each other and it is not their fault
Two receivers cross, two defenders follow them, and the defenders collide while the receivers do not. That is the concept working exactly as designed. It is legal in almost every rulebook, and telling your players to try harder is asking them to solve geometry with effort.
Switch, do not chase
The answer is for the two defenders to trade receivers at the crossing point rather than both fighting through it. Whoever comes out on your side is yours. It is one sentence, it needs no vocabulary, and it converts the whole concept into two ordinary matchups.
Zone defeats it without anybody having to communicate
A defender responsible for a patch of grass never follows a receiver into traffic, so there is nothing to collide with. That is why the simplest answer to a rub-heavy team at youth level is often to stop playing man rather than to get better at playing it.
The same concept, covered
Same offense, same alignment, same defenders. One man's landmark is the whole difference.
- What happenedOpen7v7: the defense plays it wrong and the receiver is uncovered.
Your DB goes where the play tells him to go rather than where the ball is going. By the time he reads it the throw is already gone.
- The fixCovered7v7: the same defender takes the receiver's landing spot instead.
He takes the spot the concept is throwing to, and gets there before the ball. Nothing about his speed changed.
Cover the spot, not the man. At this age a defender who chases a receiver arrives behind him every time. A defender who stands on the spot the play is throwing to makes the quarterback find somewhere else, which is usually nowhere.
Three answers, and what each one costs
Matching zone underneath
Where it excelsNobody chases, nobody collides, and every receiver is picked up by whoever he runs toward. It asks less of individual defenders than any other answer and it never needs a call.
Exposed · the middle underneathThe handoff points between defenders are real seams, and a receiver who stops exactly on one is open. A team that has scouted it will run routes that finish between two of your five.
Man with a switch rule
Where it excelsTighter than zone and it takes away the sitting routes that beat a matching defense. Against a team whose receivers are better than your defenders, it puts your best on their best.
Exposed · the combinationThe switch is a swap and a good coach chooses which of your defenders ends up on his best player. With five receivers there are enough combinations to find the one that breaks your rule.
Press the crossers at the line
Where it excelsTwo receivers who do not arrive at the crossing point together cannot rub anybody. Disrupting the timing removes the concept before it starts rather than defending it after.
Exposed · deepA missed press on a crossing route is a receiver running free across the whole field with his defender behind him, and your two deep players are both a long way from that.
Matching zone underneath, and press only the inside receivers
Let five underneath defenders hand receivers off and stop asking anybody to fight through traffic. If they find the seams between your players, add a press on the inside receivers only, because those are the ones who start the crossings and they are the safest to jam with two defenders behind everything.
What a good offense does about it
They sit a receiver on your handoff point
That is the cost of a matching zone and it is a coaching point rather than a scheme change. Tell the two defenders either side of a seam that a receiver who stops belongs to whoever is nearest, and have them say his colour out loud.
They cross three receivers instead of two
A three-man crossing pattern is designed to break a switch rule, which is another reason to be in zone. If you are in man when you see it, everybody goes under and nobody follows anybody across the formation.
When this is the wrong fix
When your players cannot switch cleanly
A switch that half happens is worse than no switch: both defenders take the same receiver and the other is uncovered completely. If it is not practised to the point of being boring, play zone instead and come back to it next season.
When switching is what they want
A good coach runs a rub to force a switch and then puts his best receiver on the defender he knows will end up on him. If the same mismatch keeps appearing after a crossing route, they are ahead of you and the answer is zone rather than a better switch.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the football playmaker, collect them in the flag football playbook builder, and print football play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw it for your own team
Open the designer at 7v7, put your defenders where this page says, and print it so everybody shows up on Saturday knowing the same thing.
Open the free play designerRelated questions
How do you stop rub routes in 7v7 flag football?
Why is switching harder in 7v7 than 5v5?
Can you press crossing routes?
Related guides
Coach Ray Carroll
Coaches 5v5 flag football from kindergarten through 7th grade in San Mateo and San Carlos, California, and built RC Football to design, teach and print the plays his own teams run.