Offensive Help Please 7On7 6-8Yr Olds

[jmart 0]

I volunteered to coach my son's YMCA flag football. I have 9 kids playing in a 7 on 7 league. The kids range from 6 to 8. 4 of the 9 have never touched a football. My son (the qb) has played and is a well rounded player. We had our first 2 games this past weekend and lost both. We had about 5 practices leading up to the games. My practices are 1 hour twice a week Tuesday and Thursday. I have been following this board and reading all the tips, etc and have implemented lots of the drills in my practice. We do lots of flag pulling drills, lots of handoff drills, agility drills. We did well in our games on defense although I will make a few changes due to us being burned on the outside corners. That is where both of our opponents beat us on the run was around the outside. It rarely went up the middle and when it did we stuffed them or got them behind the LOS. I NEED help offensively. It was a cluster after each play having them all line back up in the same place and getting the play off in a timely manner. I also had lots of penaltys of my offense jumping offsides. I had a playbook, color coded but in the heat of the moment turned to "hey you go here" etc and it was confusing. I was inititally wanting to give all the kids a chance to touch the ball during games, but with what I saw after the first games that is dam near impossible at this age as they don't know the positions well enough to switch around quick enough and know what to do. I will start today with assigning a position and a color to that position so they know exactly where to go after each play. I am an over thinker..I keep going back and forth on the 4 or 5 plays I should use. I have seen all the playbooks on here..lots of good info but most of them seem to advanced for my team. I need 4-6 easy, solid plays that I can use. I have a few in mind let me know what you guys think. Keep in mind in this league they do allow the QB to run and everyone is an eligible receiver. They also allow rushing by anyone (we got killed in our backfield most of the time just trying to handoff)

1.end around

2.qb sneak

What formation should I run that I can run 4-6 plays out of? I don't want to confuse the kids. I want to line them up same spot everytime and have a handful of plays to use. Should I use a RB or Tailback or just have everyone on the line and do end around / fake end around and QB sneak and bring the WR back to RB sometimes to do handoffs to?

Please help me..I have practice tonight

[TeeDub23 0]

I dont see a lot of 7v7 leagues for the younger ages, but this is what is played in college and is referred to as "screen" flag football. It is referred to screen because some teams use 1 or 2 players to screen (block) the rushers. Like a basketball pick. You cant block down field, but can screen block the rusher at the LOS. There are many different ways to play it from a single screener, double screener, double QB, triple QB and even an option formation.

From a simple basic youth formation, I would line up in this formation everytime. Evenly spaced from left to right I would go WR, slot, Center, slot, WR. Then I would have my QB and a RB. That balances the formation with 2 WRs on each side and a RB.

I have attached a very basic formation set with 4 formations. A single RB as above. A two running back option formation (if QB can run), a 2 screener formation and a 3 QB spread offense. Personally, I love the spread offense, but that might be too hard to run unless you have a good passing attack. I would develop simple plays from the single RB formation and you can alter that formation all you want. Move the RB around and develop sweeps and fake handoffs with reverses, etc.

Oh, and I would spend a large amount of my practice running through the huddle, break, and execution of the play. The more they do this the more they start to understand how to run a play and you can start moving people around.

Hope this helps.

FlagPlays7v7.ppt

[GeorgeC 1]

Hi Coach,

When you are in your first year with the kids, simplicity and consistency are important. One formation if you can. Coach teedub posted some good ideas. On defense, you've got to keep the offense from turning the corners around you. At this age, coaches will hand off to their fastest kid, get to the corner, and turn 'n' burn. We just finished our second year, and we improved from 0-8-1 in the first year to 3-6 this year. Two games could have easily swung our direction, and we would have been 5-4, so longevity should be added to that simplicity and consistency.

This post, http://www.y-coach.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2135, was one that I did at the end of our season 1. It contains a lot of what went wrong, what went right, and what I should have done differently. There are some good add-on comments from the senior coaches on this board.

Good luck, and keep posting here on what works and what doesn't.

[caneincgfl 0]

Our league last fall was 7 on 7, just like you describe. One variation we had was that the offense on a run had to go at least five yards right or left of the center before turning up field. This basically prevented runs right up the middle. We ran two formations: one balanced formation very much like TeeDub's and one totally unbalanced formation where everyone was lined up to the right of the center and qb. In the unbalanced formation I would have one player about 3 yards to the right of the center and the other four out toward the boundary with a yard or two between each player. The unbalanced formation was a change of pace. The advantage it gave us was that most defenses would play zone and not switch when we went unbalanced. Therefore, we outnumbered the defense on the unbalanced side. We ran three plays from that formation. The first was a qb sprintout to the right. Everyone would block/screen defenders and or run pass routes that took them downfield. Our qb was a good runner and scored several touchdowns on this play due to blocking and the chaos created in the defense. The second play is a qb rollout pass option off the same look. In this play the qb acts like it is the previous play but pulls up on the rollout and passes to either a short receiver or long receiver, depending upon who is open. The primary read is long but there is a short safety valve. The qb can also tuck and run if there is too much pressure to get a good read. The third play is a reverse to one of the receivers off the qb rollout with the receiver taking the reverse back against the grain to the left side of the field. The plays were run in this order to set each play up.

[Coach Rob 26]

Congrats on taking the coaching job! I'm with TeeDub, 7v7 is a tough gig, especially if the field is smaller. Sounds like your defense is doing well, keep stressing the flag pulls.

With regards to getting kids lined up after the huddle, if you can have an assistant on the field, I'd make them be responsible for the kids not involved in the play. I'm betting part of the challenge on offense is creating some space for kids to run. I would definitely have a few unbalanced looks with trips or quads to one side and run the play to the other side type thing.

When I coached a 4,5,6 yr old team last spring, we would crunch out the handoffs with a basic formation each time. The other team pretty much knew what we were going to do, just like we knew what they were going to do. It boiled down to kids running fast, not looking down to see if flag was pulled, and not stopping until they heard the whistle.

For bigger gains, I'd run the unbalanced formation sending four kids way off to the left and hope the defense sends four of their kids over to cover them. Then I'd have one of my faster kids as QB and another kid in the backfield off to the right as a slot. If the kid in the slot position can pull off a really good fake and your QB keeps it, that will be tough to stop. In fact, I might even waste a play throwing a quick los pass to one of the of the four kids, then run the play I mentioned above the very next play. Teaching your kids what a good fake looks like will be the key to gaining bigger yards.

[jmart 0]

thanks coach teedub and others. I do appreciate the encouraging words and attached plays. I honestly think those are way to difficult to teach the team I have. Passing at this time is not even an option. I would like to start with 4-6 very basic plays that I can get them to master before moving on to passing or running routes or lining up in different formations. The biggest problem I had my first 2 games (which were back to back so not much time to adjust) was that the kids did not know where to lineup when we broke out of huddle. Part of the problem is my fault as I was frustrated due to lack of time to call the play and frustrated because I know the kids I have are athletic but just need a very simple basic formation to run. I tried changing up positions after every few plays to get more kids touches, that was a cluster. It became so frustrating I just had them lineup with 5 on the line a rb and a qb then had the qb sneak or handoff left or right. And the defense knew what play we were going to run each time. I had my first practice last night after our initial games and it was much more productive. I spent more time huddling the kids, going over the play and making sure each kid knew what to do, etc. I don't think I was spending enough time executing the plays before. I also noticed all the other teams in the league all line the kids up foot to foot all the way across the line on the Offensive side. There are no gaps anywhere on the line. The defenses seem very talented even lined up foot to foot the kids were coming through and pulling us in the back field behind the LOS. I have also stressed to the kids screen blocking and that also improved last night so hopefully this next weekend our games will be better. We got good stops, but at least once in each of our 2 games they hand to the fastest kid, he runs outside and is gone. I have adjust my defense for this and will try to force the runners back up the middle.

[jmart 0]

Coach Rob..thanks. They only allow 1 coach on the field so I must do it all..I will implement an unbalanced formation and a few plays like you mentioned. I was kinda thinking that way but appreciate the response. The play you mention with the unbalanced formation and 1 slot on the right side, how would they play go down? The QB would fake to him then run right? Or would he handoff to the slot?

[Coach Rob 26]

The play you mention with the unbalanced formation and 1 slot on the right side, how would they play go down? The QB would fake to him then run right? Or would he handoff to the slot?

Yes, I would have QB fake to slot and keep. We put our slot off to the right a bit so QB had to run towards him creating momentum. I would set up this play by making one of your 4 receivers stay on los and throw a pass to them, want to keep the defense honest. You can also handoff to slot once in a while and have QB fake like they still have ball, slot would cut up field.

[GeorgeC 1]

I think that I would keep it as simple as possible for the first couple of weeks. Twins-only format with one tailback. Color-code each position. When you start the game or practice, every kid should know his position, and color. When they are in the huddle, line up in the relative position that they'll be on the field. Then, you can easily swap 'em out: "Johnny, you swap with Joey". We did this in practice and after about 20-30 minutes, got to where I could just yell "Johnny, tailback" and they knew to swap. Try to keep center and QB relatively the same.

As far as plays, I would start with the Houston Oilers playbook (only us old guys will get this one): (1) Earl to the left, (2) Earl up the middle, (3) Earl to the right. And an occasional throw-away deep bomb to keep the defense somewhat honest. Practice the handoffs and pitchbacks with Center, QB, and tailbacks (everyone) until it is smooth and like clockwork.

For other plays, add in left/right center drags (those are 1-yard "passes"), and an end-around, and practice until they are perfect.

At that point, you've got twins formation always, and 4 basic plays that you can build on: handoff, pitchback, center drag, end-around.

And, as Coach Rob says: Defense, defense. It's hard for the other team to win if they have zero points.

[jmart 0]

Update - We had a game this past Saturday and lost by a deep pass thrown on us in the last 30 seconds for a TD. I am NOT upset at all. My boys played AWESOME. After taking advice from here and color coding my plays, keeping them simple and adding lots of mis direction, using good flag pulling we played a really nice game. The team we played had NOT been beat and the coach from that team told me after the game he hadn't seen a better coached team. His team had ran the score up to like 50 to something on the team the week before. His team is GOOD but they could barely move the ball on us and we scored twice against them. I have a very good grasp of the offensive side and thought I had a solid defense until we got burned twice on deep passes. Can someone recommend a "standard" defense to run with 7 on 7? What I did was play 6 on the line and had my fastest kid back as a safety. He obviously did NOT stay home and the passes worked against us. The run got shut DOWN. My son as well as 2 others were back behind the LOS almost everyplay pulling a flag for a loss of yards. On the other hand we got beat deep with the pass. Suggestions?

[TeeDub23 0]

With only one safety back and you are not dropping the corners, you will get beat deep. I would run either a 2 safety or 3 safety as in the attached. I think the 2 safety would be my based formation. You would have most of the field covered and still have plenty of run protection.

You could run the 3 safety and based on how they are lined up, blitz from one of them and have the other 2 adjust to the spacing.

FlagPlays7v71.ppt