TheSullinator

Depends on the age group I'm with. Probably 12+ I'll keep most of the kids at the same position the whole time, and most of them don't have a problem with it. Younger than that and I usually find two kids who can play QB, and then have the rest of the kids rotate around at WR and RB. I usually assign those positions randomly in the huddle. I always let them know though that if they want to play a certain position than just let me know and I'll get them some time there. I'd always give a kid a chance to play QB if he asked me. In my experience with 6 and under kids I couldn't do anything but run the ball. With my league it's only once a week, 45 minute practice before the games, so it's hard to teach those kids much about throwing. It's basically rotating handoffs the entire game, with some occasional reverse plays. I think I could start introducing passing plays to 7 year olds, but I haven't had them alone so I never tried it. 8 and up though and I think most of my plays are fair game. 13+ if I get a good group of kids then I pretty much let them handle everything. I have wristcoaches with audibles that I give them, and they just run with it. Really depends on the group of kids.

A great no run zone/goal line play that I run is a bunch formation where I line the kids up really close together, and they all go a different direction. Someone always ends up wide open in all the confusion.

Hi, I'm coaching a 5v5 flag football team. Seven kids, all ranging from ages six to eight. So what I'm going to do, and I should've done this with my other teams, is just slowly incorporate more plays each week. I'm going to start with about 5 plays the first couple of weeks, and then adding in more plays as the season progresses. What I need to know from you is what you think the best five plays to start out with are. I don't want to do a lot of passing, because frankly I don't think they're going to be able to. But what passing plays we actually run will be short. Right now the two plays I plan on starting out with our a simple slants pass, and then a reverse handoff run. I'm not going to put simple handoffs into my playbook, because those are easy to work with. Not really a lot of teaching required there. I'm looking more for pass plays, and running plays that would require a little bit more in depth explanation, but yet fairly simple for that age group. Any ideas?

That was in the winter league. In any other season we usually play 5v5, but if we're short players then we go 4v4 with a center.

Yes only four downs. We lost our first game by a couple of scores. I did defense the first half, while the other coach did offense. Then in the second half we switched. I started out with three guys doing man on man, while having a safety in the back. That didn't seem to be working for me though, so switched it up and just had two zones in the front and two zones in the back. I didn't think that would work either, but for some reason we seemed to do fine with it. When I switched over to offense we didn't have a lot work. Now that I look back on it I should have ran it a lot more often instead of throwing the ball. I don't think the kids were doing the best job running their routes, so I have to work with them on that. Our QB was also taking a little too long again to throw the ball. The other team's bread and butter was throwing very quick passes off the line of scrimmage, and just like that they would get good yards. I tried the same on offense but it just didn't work. So next week I think I'm actually going to run more run plays than pass plays. We didn't have a lot of time to go over any players before the game (Those who know i9 Sports, it's just one day a week. 30-45 minute practices before games), so hopefully next week we can get into actually teaching some trick plays, and plays that I don't have enough time to explain just in the huddle.

Thanks for some of the tips. QB can't run in this league, and in fact there is no center. The play just starts when the QB picks up the ball. Basically what I did was rewrote all of my 5v5 players to make them 4v4 with no center, while also creating some new ones that I thought may work. There is also no blitzing either, but the QB only has 7 seconds to throw. I believe the referee will count, and if he holds on longer than 7 seconds then the play will be ruled dead and they either lose a down or they lose both a down and yards. From what the coach with me told me (He coached a season of this in the fall), the indoor field is really small. The field is 25 yards long, 18 yards wide. 5 yardzones, and a 5 yard no run zone before the goal line. I threw several different defensive set ups into my playbook. Three guys up front covering man, and a safety playing zone in the backfield. Two guys in the front and two guys in the backfield all playing zone. A safety playing zone, two corners playing man, and a fourth player up close watching the QB and being the primary run stop. Three guys in the middle, and one in the back playing zone. And two guys in the middle playing zone, one guy up front playing zone, and one safety in the back playing zone. I'm not sure which one is going to have to work the best, the first couple weeks will have to be experiments with me trying out all of them, but which one sounds the best to you guys for this type of play? They're only 10-12 years old, but I think they can handle zone. For when I want to run the ball and also do hurry up, I have a three running back formation. The QB in the front, and then three running backs line up side back side going horizontally. From left to right they're given numbers 1,2,3. I'll call who gets the ball from the side (By either patting my head, chest, or legs), and that's who will get the ball. I also have a couple plays set up for passing in this formation just to keep the defense on their toes. One of my favorite plays to run in the 5v5 season is the center sneak, a play where the QB and Center will stay down after the snap, and the QB just hands it right back to the center. It's a fun trick play that the kids love to run, but with no center this makes things difficult. I do have a shovel play where the QB would hand it to the HB and quickly turn around across the line of scrimmage, and the HB will roll out and shuffle it to the QB. I think this would be a good goal line play especially if the defense is running man on man. But like I said I'm going to have to see what works and what doesn't. I feel confident though because when my 5v5 had to play 4 on 4 we always played better, it seems like my plays worked better. But that's also with a field twice as wide. One big problem I've had with this age group is a lot of them can't throw very far, they can throw accurate, but just not far enough for whenever we want to get those deep bombs. So with the 25 yard field I think that completely eliminates that problem. So I'm feeling pretty confident about this season, but who knows with these different rules it could be an entirely new thing. I'll meet the whole team of five players tomorrow where we have our first week. It's not an official game, but more so a scrimmage to just get the kids acquainted and have some fun playing football. It'll be a good time to test the plays out and see what could work and what won't,

So I coach a 10-12 year old team under i9 Sports, and I am used to coaching outdoors 5v5 on a 50 yard field. I am coaching a Winter season, and due to the size of the indoor arena it is only 25 yards and 4v4. I have only a few 4v4 plays, and so what I'm asking for is some advice, coaching on this smaller field, and also maybe some play ideas that could work with 4v4. There is no center. The QB apparently just picks up the ball, and when he says hike the play starts. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you very much.