Week Four Is Over

[YMCA Coach 1]

The first game of the season, we left some points on the board, but still pulled off a 12-0 win. Since that time? We've been overwhelmingly outscored to the tune of 57-26. There's a team that scored 1 touchdown in their three games against other teams ... but they beat us 12-7.

The hard part about this season is that the players have just not followed directions well, especially on offense. When the players do their assignments on offense, we score. It's when we do the foolish things that it doesn't work and we lose the ball. Such as today - facing 4th and about 18 inches about six yards from the endzone, the QB was told to fake the handoff and just go forward - the offensive line will set picks, he can get the first down, we'll go from there. He nodded, and I repeated, "straight ahead", and the reply came back, "got it, coach." The ball is snapped and the QB ... apparently didn't get it, because he rolled out to his right. No fake, no forward, just runs. Flag was pulled, loss of two yards, turnover.

We were solid on defense, only allowed one first down, got the ball back at midfield. We ran left, ran right, short passes, etc, going fine. We execute two roll outs to perfection. The second, on 3rd & short, was a short pass, which was dropped. Hey, these things happen, no problem. We set it up to run the exact same play ... and the QB (different QB from first series) throws the ball to a player who was covered by 4 kids. He was supposed to pass it to the out pattern like he did before, who was wide open. Interception in the endzone.

It was hard, truthfully. We lost 25-13. Our touchdowns came from long throws, as our sustained drives (8 plays+) resulted in either a turnover on downs (four times) or interception (twice). Now we're at 1-3, and in our short 6 game regular season (eep), it's going to be tough to not be the last place team. All I want is for the team to not be last. Any place but last, I'm happy. Right now? We're tied for last (and we lose the tie-breaker). If we win out, we'll end up in 3rd. Otherwise, we'll need some help.

The tough part for me is that the kids on this team are all good kids, they just don't seem to get their assignments. I've gone over them, we have diagrams for the plays, all of it, but somehow a large portion of them just don't get it. It's odd, they hear the words and then ... don't do it. Maybe they've tuned me out, I don't know. I'm working on figuring that out this weekend, so that they can do better in the next two weeks. It's not alot of fun when you're beat by 2 td's or more two of the past three weeks.

I'm not worried about winning this coming week, we're facing an undefeated team that's averaging 4 touchdowns a game. Now, we've played them once before, and "held" them to 20 points (27+ points in every other game). Now, we were down some major players that weekend, and played hard to get to that point, so this weekend could be interesting.

I think what I'm going to do this weekend is to completely downplay the game itself. The kids have already started talking about it, all about playing the team that's steamrolling the opposition this season. I figure that building it up is not going to help, they're already freaked out.

What do you all think?

[Johnp2 21]

The hard part about this season is that the players have just not followed directions well, especially on offense.

I can imagine how frustrating it is. I've been extremely fortunate to have an incredibly focused group of players---who do execute things exactly as drawn up. If it doesn't work--then it's on me--as they did precisely what was asked. Over the years, I've had two players that I did not invite back because of focus issues. Last season was one of them. I had a player whose focus was sorely lacking. Great athlete (and good kid--he was not disruptive or anything), but I could not give him any sort of semi-complex responsibilities. He was left in the dust, and I had to really dumb down his plays for him. It might sound rude not to invite him back, but the one thing I require (along with gentlemanly conduct) is focus. I'm actually friends with his dad. He could see it was an issue as well, and even told me, "I don't think he has the mental discipline for football yet". He does awesome in other sports, but really struggled on our team.

I'm not worried about winning this coming week, we're facing an undefeated team that's averaging 4 touchdowns a game....I think what I'm going to do this weekend is to completely downplay the game itself. The kids have already started talking about it, all about playing the team that's steamrolling the opposition this season. I figure that building it up is not going to help, they're already freaked out.

I agree to be up front with them--and make them have a chip on their shoulders. While we've won two of our last three championships, I know this season we will be extremely challenged to win a few games (half our kids are nine and the other half 10 in a 10-12 league). I've explained to my players that they already know they are champions, but this is the season we will have to take our lumps, and in a season or two we will be back to dominating. I think there are times where you just know you have a very slim chance of winning. Fooling the kids into thinking they can win can really backlash. HOWEVER, telling the kids they have NOTHING to lose and to just go in like a pack of wild dogs, celebrating every little success they have during the game will keep that passion instilled in them, and they will not get caught up in winning, but will fight tough the entire game and let the chips fall where they will.

We went 11-1 last season, and EVERY game I went in thinking we were going to lose. I know it's odd--but it's what drove us.

[RedBaron 1]

Welcome to my world...lol.

Saturday, I had to take a timeout (our only one of the half that we get) to get everyone lined up on defense, BEFORE THE FIRST PLAY OF THE SECOND HALF.

I think I heard "coach can I play here" and/or "Where do I go", 27 times in ten seconds. We had two guys in the general vicinity of the LOS and the other 4 were standing in a mini huddle at the middle fo the field. If we had let them snap the ball we were toast.

[GeorgeC 1]

Welcome to my world....

Mine as well. We've had two pre-season games, and two regular season games. We were beaten soundly, 31-0, in the first pre-season game against a very good, experienced team. We were leading in the second game, and we should have run the clock out, but my QB put up a floater, they took it home, and we ended up tied, 18-18. Thus ended the pre-season. We lost the opener, 24-18, with some very bad ref calls (the ref got suspended afterwards by the league). The killer was last week, when we played a bad team. We were beat every which way, 28-0. Tomorrow, we go back up against that second pre-season team that we tied 18-18. We need to win this one, since we play two very good teams after that one.

For what it's worth, this is what I've done:

- My plays are all color-coded. I print 4 to a page and laminate. Going into the quarter, the kid knows what color he is.

- I don't change positions out much. And never more than two kids swapping at a time. Like WR and QB swap.

- I used a Flip HD to video a few plays at a couple of games. It really opened my eyes to certain kids running their routes.

We've now pretty much got the kids to running the right routes. Of course, the season is half over. Now, the next task is to get them to run clean routes, learn to fake, and get the QBs to cleanly execute. For some reason, our QBs can throw crisp passes on a line, except in games, where they get thrown up for anyone's taking. Our QBs also tend to hesitate a lot, and then all of the nice misdirection falls apart, since the defense has time to recover.

[RedBaron 1]

Our problem has been we have two kids we can't seem to find a spot for. One tends to let his mind wander. The other seems to have different problems depending on what spot he is in. He won't stay home as an end (3-2-1 defense)which killed us Saturday and does well at linebacker, but we like to blitz from there and he isn't very quick.

When we started getting beat on plays from one of those issues we tried to switch up and it made it worse.

Tonight, at practice, we just flat out told them....the spot you play tonight is where you play the next game. If you want to switch spots you need to get up big and then we'll talk about it.

I think we have finally got the speed guys evenly spread out, too. The "d" got two and the "o" got two. That, and I think we finally hit on a split that can allow us, if we want, to swtich up without overloading one side of the ball and hurting the other.

We decided to put the one guy I mentioned earlier at safety. I think our safety has made, maybe, 5 "tackles" and/or plays on the ball all year. Most of those, someone else was involved as well. There is so little throwing in our league it is almost a waste to leave him back in the secondary anyway.

We may leave him about 10 yards back (we can blitz from 7) and let him blitz, thinking he won't get to the QB, but may clog up the quick passing lanes and provide a "speed bump" for the ball carriers...we have the Thursday "Prime Time" game this week, so we'll see how it goes...

[Johnp2 21]

We decided to put the one guy I mentioned earlier at safety. I think our safety has made, maybe, 5 "tackles" and/or plays on the ball all year. Most of those, someone else was involved as well. There is so little throwing in our league it is almost a waste to leave him back in the secondary anyway.

With our defense, I agree that the most important thing to do is for the Ends to maintain their zones. The second most important thing is to have a very smart/disciplined Safety. My first four or five seasons I switched a lot of kids in/out of the position until a few seasons ago I found a great one. 99% of the teams in our league put their best defender at Safety. I can't say I do, but just like with the Ends, this position for us requires a lot of focus.

I forget the age group you are coaching. A few suggestions for the one(s) whose mind wanders (I had one last season that was like this). IF you are allowed on the field, stand by him when the play starts. With my player who was a LB, I'd say (very softly) "Wait..wait...wait...okay, go!" After getting the feel of tempering his natural urge to get after it until the ball has crossed the LOS a few times, it came fairly easy to him--of course offense was a completely different manner.

[RedBaron 1]

We have 7-8 year olds.

You hit dead on what we have been doing with a few of them.....We are allowed on the field,so, one coach usually stands in the defensive backfield and I stand on the sidelines, in line with the defensive line. If we have a "flincher" on the end, I put him on the side of our bench, so I can be right beside him.

That was part of the reason we put the one kid at saftey, figured we could have a coach right beside him.