Coaching 27 5/7 Y/o Players Without Help!

[gator569 0]

I am currently the head coach for a 5-7 y/o flag tream (7v7) with 27 players on my roster. I have coached for several seasons but with 10 or less. I don't want to just "manage" these kids during practice and make them do alot of running drills to keep their attention. I want to teach them as much as possible but with this many, it's quite a challenge. Has anyone else been in this boat. I have thought about breaking the boys into 3-4 teams and having 3 teams sit with there parents while I coach one team at a time. Or, breaking them into 2 teams and just have them each practice twice a week on seperate days. Any suggestions? Now games will be a whole different challenge. Do I assign each kid his own position or not. I generally don't at this age level in the past. As for rotations and playing time, I have always broken my team into 2 seperate teams. This made substitutions and making sure every kid got to play a snap. But, doing this with 27 players in a whole new problem. With this many kids, even if I had 3-4 teams and rotated them all, each kids would only get to play maybe 3-5 downs each. Any suggestions would be helpful.

[Johnp2 21]

Wow! I think 16-18 is the max players I've ever had (and that was when we played 8v8). I'll be the first to ask...how did you end up with so many players?

Honestly, what I would do is poll the parents and see if any of the dads are interested in coaching a team---give him half the players and then add another team to your league.

[Coach Rob 26]

Makes no sense to have 27 players, John is right, I'd see if you can split the team in two. We hold our team to 10 playing 5 v 5 for the simple reason of playing time and ball touches. 14 players on a 7 v 7 seems about right to me.

[gator569 0]

Makes no sense to have 27 players, John is right, I'd see if you can split the team in two. We hold our team to 10 playing 5 v 5 for the simple reason of playing time and ball touches. 14 players on a 7 v 7 seems about right to me.

Adding another team isn't an option. I'm trying to recruit other dads but no luck yet. If I get a couple then great. But, I'm planning this as if it is only me coaching.

[Coach Rob 26]

Adding another team isn't an option.

Hmm...Something seems very strange here. Curious why this isn't an option? Is it because they don't have enough coaches?

[Orange 26]

Split into a minimum of two teams.