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hollad6636

Youth Football Passing Tree

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Last year as rookies we mostly had running game but now we as we are setting up for our second season I recently came up with a basic youth passing tree. We are a rookie team so I didn’t want a lot of routs in this, I think the normal passing tree is a little to complex for our guys, so this is what I came up and wanted to share with you guys.

This passing tree takes the numbering system and splits it in two, all even numbers and the 0 are routs that the receiver runs to his right hand side, the odd numbers are routs that the receiver runs to the his left hand side, the lower the pair of numbers the shorter the route. It’s a four digit numbering system one for each receiver, and a prefix letter that tells the TE where to align or if there is a HB side to the QB, the hole system runs from the shotgun.

youth basic passing tree.pdf

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I personally feel teaching the passing tree is the most fundamental thing to coach in flag football. I started teaching when I coached 5-6 year olds--and they were able to pick it up.

I never showed them the "tree" nor used numbers (think that can confuse them more) but taught them slant, post, out, etc. The past few seasons (8-9 year olds), we took it a step further and taught skinny posts, wheels, and I even had a few WRs run option routes.

I think this is a good thread, and encourage any new coach to teach routes regardless of age. At a bare minimum, it gives the players cognizant moves on the field---even if you are not passing much.

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I never showed them the "tree" nor used numbers (think that can confuse them more) but taught them slant, post, out, etc.

Last season we only had a couple of passing plays and gave them names like “mesh 1” for the play calling, this didn’t work for us since receivers where asking the Qb or myself what rout they had to run, even myself had a hard time learning the paths for each play, I realize that been our rookie year and only one month of practice wasn’t enough for the guys to fully learned the plays and we wher all new to a system.

So this year I wanted to try to solve that problem and came up with this scheme, It has worked in practice but wont really know until we use it in season, I’m aware its not the best thing but we are still on the process of finding and adequate play calling system. Any feedback is much welcome.

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Once you teach the routes, play calling becomes much easier in my opinion. Much depends on how much practice time you have. But when I was first teaching my player routes, we spent at least 15 minutes per practice (three times per week) doing nothing but running routes. By about the third week they had them down pact.

Then...when you call your plays, simply go around the horn and tell the route. i.e. "Joe-Slant, Daniel-Post, Jason-Deep Out..." etc. As long as they remember their routes from the time the huddle breaks until the snap of the ball, the play will unfold just as your drew it up.

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Good stuff. It's encouraging to see coachs teach the passing tree as it's something kids will remember (and can use) their entire football careers.

One more thing to note on this: the Center position. Because most routes are dependant on running toward/away from the middle of the field, I made the middle of the field just to the left of our Center. This way, when the Center runs an Out route--he goes right. When he runs a Post, he turns left, etc.

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yurirdgz,

Like your passing tree diagram. I added a little and added it here. Let know what you think.

Thanks hollad6636, the passing tree you are suggesting I have seen it and studied before, that is precisely the passing tree that I used as base to build the one I attached in my post. I am coaching 10-11 year kids and you could mostly say they are all rookies, my personal view is that the "official passing tree” is a little complex for my guys and basically that is the motive I wanted to start with something easier for them to understand.

As I mentioned to Johnp2 I’m still in the process of finding the right pass play calling system, I don´t know if the system I came up with based on numbers is the best thing to do but I can´t by the moment think of another way that will suite my needs.

Our team is by the day getting bigger so I have now 5 players to start a 12-15 year category, so I will probably go into the passing tree you gust sent me with these guys.

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yurirdgz,

Like your passing tree diagram. I added a little and added it here. Let know what you think.

As I mentioned to Johnp2 I’m still in the process of finding the right pass play calling system, I don´t know if the system I came up with based on numbers is the best thing to do but I can´t by the moment think of another way that will suite my needs.

Much depends on how many different plays you want your team to learn/execute. What I've found is that on passing plays, as long as the players know their routes (by route name) they don't necessarily need to learn the play/route association. Said differently, we have maybe 20 different passing plays. When I first started with my team, I did not expect each player to learn his route for each play--but I did expect them to know their routes in general. Asking which route to run in the huddle is expected, asking what a "slant" is (for example) is not.

Thus as mentioned I just called their routes in the huddle. By mid-season, I did not even need to call the routes as the players knew what to run by the play name (after simple repetition). Of course, if you are not allowed on the field, this is a moot point.

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I’m not allowed inside the field and offense only has 15 secs to get the ball on action. I call Qb to the sidelines every two plays and give him the next pair of plays to execute, sometimes I call him every play depending on what I’m reading on defense, but I try not to do so since Qb gets tired out.

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15 seconds is not much time at all. We get twice that. We're moving to 10-12 year old, and I recently found out that coaches are allowed on the field. Part of me was hoping we weren't as it would be a new opportunity to implement some new strategies, but being on the field does allow me to do much more, so I'm happy with that too.

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For 8 year olds, at a very first practice, we taught them the drag, square, slant, and button hook and practiced without a ball for 20 minutes. Then, using something I learned elsewhere on this site, and using plays from Orange, I had them printed and color-coded. In a huddle, I showed them the play and was easily able to point to each kid and say: button hook, button hook, drag left, slant ... got it? And generally, they executed well.

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