chiefs67

I realize this is late in coming, but I just saw this post, and in fact posted something similar not too long ago. I'm not a "long time" coach, as I've only done this for 2 years now, but I've learned a lot in that time and am always trying to get better. I've had two winning seasons and two losing seasons so far. One thing I've definitely learned is to simplify, and it sounds like that's something you struggle with, too. I did the same thing: came up with all these "great" plays sure to work, and it was just too much. I found myself changing plays every week looking for that "perfect formula." But really, the simpler the better, as in most younger leagues, it's the fundamentals that make the difference, not the play designs. I still have a few more intricate plays I run here and there, but I'd suggest concentrating far more on the fundamentals than the plays themselves. The coach that consistently wins I've noticed is the one who doesn't have the most well-designed plays, but whose kids have the best fundamentals. Teach flag pulling over and over. Teach defenders how to guard the sidelines, as most big plays happen there. Get every kid in a "football stance" before every play, not just standing around. Teach them to attack and dictate the play, not let things come to them and be dictated to. Teach snaps and handoff fundamentals. Teach them to stay in their zones on defense. These things are FAR more important than a play design. Most importantly, stay positive. Don't let the kids see you doubting them or yourself. Find positives in every loss without teaching the kids to accept losing. Come up with short-term goals that will keep them motivated, like prizes for the most flag pulls in a game or a game ball for the best effort in a game. Anyway, I know this is late in coming, but hope things have improved for you since you posted.

Well, no replies, but thought I'd add an update in case any other relatively new coach goes through this down the road. In short, we won our first game today, a huge relief, and seeing how happy the kids were made it really special. What I think helped us get there was just staying the course. As I said in the above post, the losing was really wearing on me, but I never let the kids see that. I preached "we are not giving up until the absolute end of the season" from the beginning. I made sure I told each of them every week what they did well, not just what mistakes they made. I started a little "game within a game" where the kid with the most flag pulls every week (or a big play that changed the game) would get a gift certificate, and they took to that really well. I also told them every week that no one was going to feel sorry for us and give us a mercy win; if we wanted it badly enough, we had to go out and take it. They've been trying hard all season, but they really stepped it up this game and made it happen against a good team. I also really simplified things this week and cut back on the amount of plays we ran, something I always struggle with and am finally figuring out. Less is more in these younger age groups, that's for sure. I really only have about 20 plays in my playbook, but I cut that almost in half this week. I worked hard trying to keep the best plays we had, throw out the ones we didn't use much anyway and design a couple new ones. One of those worked beautifully for a TD, and I even had the ref tell me, "very well designed play" right after. So in short, if you're struggling, the cliche's apply: don't give up and don't stop working. Keep at it and don't let the kids see anything but confidence and determination, even if you don't feel it yourself. They are watching, and this was a great lesson for them in how to handle tough times. I'd also like to thank myself for replying to myself, lol.

I may be talking in an empty room here, but at least the venting will be helpful. I've learned a lot from this site over the last two years I've coached flag football, so thanks for that. It's a fantastic archive. Maybe this post can add to that. Going through a bit of a struggle at the moment that I was hoping I could get some feedback and advice on getting out of. Brief background. This is my fourth season coaching flag, 5v5, NFL flag rules. I coached the 8-9 division the first two seasons with my older son playing, then coached the 6-7 division with my youngest, and I'm currently back in the 8-9 division for my oldest's last season before moving up (if he decides to). My first season I went 4-3 and lost in the playoffs. Second season I went 2-5 and won in the first round of the playoffs then lost in the semis. Third season with the younger kids, I went 4-2-1 and lost in the playoffs to the team that won the championship. So, while I haven't won a championship and am still learning as a coach, I've generally had good, solid seasons, and I've always gotten good comments from parents regarding my coaching methods and how I treat the kids. Currently, however ... my team is 0-5 with two games left in the regular season. Here's the main problem that I unfortunately realized too late. I drafted way too young and way too inexperienced. I think my head was still in the 6-7 coaching division and I forgot the drastic difference between a kid who's just turned 8 and a kid about to turn 10. I have four players who are fresh out of the 6-7 division. One dominated for me last season, and he's really struggling now against the bigger kids. I have 2 nine-year-olds, but neither has ever played flag before, so they are also very inexperienced. I only have two kids who have ever played in the 8-9 division before. One is my son, who's a strong player and is our QB. The other was the top pick in the draft and is probably the best player all-around in the league. He gives us a chance every week, but he can't do it all by himself, nor would I ask him to. Nothing I can do about it now, and I wouldn't trade this group for anything, as they're all great kids, but I see now that I've put them all in a tough spot by putting a team together that's so inexperienced, and I feel really bad about it. That said, we've been in most of our games. Most of them we've lost by less than a TD. I've gotten comments from coaches after games saying, "Can't believe you guys are winless, you played so hard," so that helps, but ... it's really starting to wear on me not being able to provide these kids with one victory, and everyone's getting tired of the "we can learn from this" speech after every game. Plus, it definitely hurts my pride, to be honest. I never wanted to be "that coach" who went winless. I'm not the only one, though. There are 2 or 3 others also trying to find a win. But that doesn't make it much easier. Seems like the other teams we play every week are usually bigger and older than our kids. But like I said, we've been VERY close in 3 of our 5 losses. One play going our way and I probably wouldn't be writing this. I'm just curious if any other coaches out there have experienced this kind of a tough season before where you're facing down a winless seasons and could offer any advice on getting through it and helping the kids deal with it in the best way possible. I feel good about how I behave in front of the kids. Win or lose, I always point out something good that each of them did and I hold my frustration in check. I always make it clear that we will never give up or get dejected and that I'm proud of each of them and how hard they fight every week. But I know the losing is wearing on them, and that in turn is wearing on me (and yeah, I know we adults probably take it a lot more seriously when all is said and done, lol). The parents have generally been good and supportive, but I'm starting to get the, "Hey, coach, why not try this play" kind of comments from a couple of the dads, and that gets old real fast. Anyway, again, I know we're just going to have to keep fighting through it, and we will, but I'm just looking for any helpful anecdotes, advice or commiseration from anyone out there who may have gone through a season like this. I know it's a longshot, as I haven't seen a new post on this board in ages, but ... any responses will be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi, all Coaching a team in the 6-7 age group, and we're about to face a team we scrimmaged with before the season started. They run a 4-1 defense exclusively, with 4 defenders right at the line spread out and one safety deep. I remember when we scrimmaged them, they stuffed our runs very effectively, and it was difficult to score on them without a little luck. Looking for some advice on plays that might work well against this defense at this age level. Obviously the strategic approach would be to throw some deeper passes with multiple receivers and exploit the fact that they only have one safety. My problem there is, I have a QB with a good arm, but only one kid who's capable of catching long passes with any consistency. I'm going to try to work out some longer plays with those two, but wondering if there are any other approaches I can take to try to exploit this defense with my running game. I'm actually thinking of some sort of read/option play, where my QB will roll to the right until he's beside a player he can potentially hand the ball to. In the meantime, he'll be scanning the field to see if a receiver breaks open. At my signal, he'll either throw it or then make the hand off. My hope here is that the defenders (this team doesn't seem to blitz) will be confused and some will drop back to cover, opening up more running lanes than would be available if we just took the snap and handed off immediately. Anyway, that's one thought. Curious of any other ideas. Thanks!

Thanks, great advice. Since my original post, we've gotten toward the end of the season and are doing well. Currently 4-1-1 with one game left before our playoffs. It's definitely more run-oriented, but we have been abusing teams with that center drag play all year. It works almost every time. Last week, we won by a point, and we must've run that play every time we needed something big. Flag pulling is definitely a constant work in progress. Seems like almost all the TDs are just kids getting to the sidelines and sprinting downfield. We work on flag pulling in practice for about 70-80 percent of the practice time, but it still requires coaching patience at this age, lol. Anyway, been a fun season, and my best reward is when I can see the kids really enjoying themselves and feeling good about themselves after they've learned something and improved their skills.

Not sure how active this forum is these days, but I've gotten a lot of great advice from these pages, so thanks for that to all who've contributed. I coached in our 8-9 division for the past two seasons, and now my 7-year-old son is interested in playing, so I'm about to coach in the 6-7 age group. It's a 5-on-5 league, QB can't run, defense can blitz from 7 yards back, etc. I'm looking for some advice on how to handle this younger group of kids. I know variety is the key to keeping them focused in practice, and I also want to really simplify the playbook for games, but would love to get some specific examples in those areas from anyone who's had experience coaching this age group: any drills that work well for them (sharks and minnows is already down) in practice, any playbooks specifically geared toward that age group, etc. I'll be searching for some more info on the site archives as I await any responses. Thanks in advance!