How Many Plays Is Enuff/too Much?

[zachintosh66 0]

Hey all-

First year head coach. Ive coached before just not at the 3rd/4th grade level. As im putting together our playbook im wondering how many plays should the ave 8-10 yr old be able to process. Any help would be great thanx all!

-Z

[jqmoney 3]

I use anywhere from 10-12 plays but i would start of with like 4 or 5 so that way they get it down and the timing is good then you can add more as you go along i'm working on mine to with 5 running plays and 5 passing plays

[zachintosh66 0]

good looking out

[coachjd 2]

It's not the number of plays that causes issues. It's the number of formations and complexity of the offense that get kids confused. By keeping the number of formations to a minimal and the complexity of the play down, you'll be able to teach more plays while increasing your competitiveness on the field. Ages 8-10 are plenty old enough to comprehend learning multiple plays. I coached 6-7 year olds this year. We started with 15-20 plays and ended with 30 different plays that had multiple options per play. We were able to utilize this playbook by using only using a couple different formations and keeping the plays simple. The kids were able to learn their position and quickly gain understanding of their role in the play. I recommend using a flag football playbook that is easy to teach and learn so you can easily teach the kids plays and they can easily understand.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you have too few plays, you may perfect the play, but the defense will easily pick up your plays and you'll have a hard time moving the ball.

Trust your players and yourself and you be may surprised at the outcome.

Coach JD

[flagrocks 1]

Keep your "formations" to a minimum. Before they get old enough to really spread a field with deep throws, I would use just 1 or 2 formations. You can run dozens of plays out of 1 formation. I really like a 1 back or split back for the younger kids; you can run through the same motion - fake or give at each point and end with a QB pass or run. i.e. fake/give dive; fake/give counter; QB roll out pass/run. What works about the option plays; is that the kids learn to run their position and the defense never knows which one will get the ball, so they freeze. If you get 5 yards on the dive, keep running it. When they close in to stop it, you fake/fake/roll out and burn them; when they cheat to that side, BAM fake dive then hand off on counter, QB continues on fake rollout/pass. Make sure the kids SELL the fakes and the QB always runs out his fakes/rollout even when he doesn't have the ball. You would be suprised how many kids run after the motion of the fakes. If your QB is not allowed to run; you will have to pass more and use more reverses.

[zachintosh66 0]

update:

I ended up using a Double wing/Single wing and Power I Playbook.

We ran about 16 plays including a couple audibles, no huddle and a few automatic reads... i was really impressed with how much knowledge the kids could soak up. Being my first year we also were behind the eight ball a little b/c we only had 4 4th graders on a team of 18 players... and only 3 of those kids played last season. Despite all that we still had a winning record and even got to play at the local university. I cant wait till next years stuff to get underway!