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macvolcan

Flag Football 7-7 7-8 Year Olds Rookie Coach; Tldr

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Hello all, I have been cruising around the forums the last couple weeks as I have recently taken on the challenge of coaching a 3rd grade Flag football team.

The rules are 7-7, Offense must put 4 players on line of scrimmage, and have 2 in the backfield. QB can run, defense can rush after 5 seconds, if QB runs "outside the tackle" defense can rush. No fumbles, ball is dead where it lands.

I have put a decent amount of thought into the strategy I am going with this aproach, and have borrowed/stolen from what I have found on the message boards (good info btw). Going to outline what my approach is, what is working for me, what isn't working for me, and hopefully someone can give me feedback, criticism, suggestions, anything to help me in doing a better job.

Rotation strategy:

After reading through some threads I came to a strategy of each game I will split my 13 players into offense/defense and the 6 remaining players that aren't starting on Offense will start on defense (with one player playing both). Halftime switch and side that was playing offense then play defense. Naturally I expect some substitutions when a player is winded or losing focus, but I intend to keep the players at the same spots and not rotate them around (will see if that changes after the first game or not).

I am only expecting to have 1-2 main quarterbacks with 2 additional that get some playtime throughout the season, on Defense I expect to keep the same few players in the safety spot, but aside from the goal is to get each player some play time at each spot. (practice will open up some other players to try to get a sampling at QB). Thought being that the QB spot is so critical in that if the assignment is blown there no one gets the ball. I am attempting to design plays to either throw or run, and try to get each player atleast 1 touch in the game. I really want to spread the ball around, and I really want to try to keep it fun.

OFFENSE

Basically I have Color Coded all of the positions, not not overwhelm them with information, I currently have 4 playbook wristbands which I have given out to the 4 receivers I have on the line:

Left End, Center, Tight End, Right End (in terms of lineup location), and in the backfield I currently have them line up in what amounts to be a 'weak I', where QB is under Center with HB directly behind him, and what amounts to be a FB shifted off to the left.

Each of the wristbands has a route tree displayed with a number corresponding to each route: ie: 0 for quick hook, 3 for a slant, 5 for IN, etc. 0-9. I do not expect them to run/catch all of the routes, in practice mostly working on hook, slant, and IN routes, but I have them occasionally run the others as it will pull defenders (assuming defense is running man) into the direction I want them.

As far as Running plays, i have tried breaking them down into basic 'dive', End around, TE around, with minor tweaks where QB can fake and take it around. Each of those will correspond to a Superhero name (to try to keep it fun).

I haven't encorporated much yet into the running game so far has really just been a dive left and dive right which can go to either HB or FB although the FB play will just be to the left, with QB fake and rollout in opposite direction. Next practice going to try to encorporate the end arounds, and soon will be trying to put in a reverse.

I only intend to have 1 formation offensively to keep it as simple as possible.

Defense:

Plan is to have what essentially amounts to 2 LB few yards from line of scrimmage on each line of scrimmage. One Rusher/LB lined up directly in front of QB maybe a yard or two back from where the LB are lined up. 2 CB lined up essentially over the WR basically at the same depth as my Rusher who will be ultimately responsible for outside contain and anything in their area. I intend to have 2 safetys playing a bit deeper 7-9 yards off line of scrimmage, amounting to what I think is a 3-2 zone defense in terms of flag football play calling.

Eventually plan to have some minor tweaks to this, basically one for short yardage where more players are closer to line of scrimmage and one deeper for longer plays. I haven't gotten too far on encorporating my defense as of yet, slow moving train. I have made sure to include runnver vs defender drill each practice, and have had a couple sessions of sharks vs minnows to get them acustomed to pulling flags. Still need to work on Swarming (from what I have read in the threads).

What is working:

The wristbands. While the players don't understand the depth of the route they are supposed to run, the wristbands so far have been instramental in getting them in the general area of where I want them to be and getting them to quickly understand their responsibility. I am intending to get more wristbands for the other players to see if that success works well with running plays as well. I think with some further refinement and practice running these in practice I will be able to get them closer in terms of distance. Compartmentalizing, as long as I don't overwhelm each of the players with more information than they need, they seem to be doing very well. The dive plays work well, I still need to get more of the fundamentals down on the snap and the handoff to make it faster (faster it seems to go off the better it works).

The kids respond very well when I am keeping them busy doing something so I have adjusted many of the drills to fit my needs. IE: the defender vs runner, I have adapted to include a center and QB (started off with just a QB) to give the runner the ball, so I am practicing multiple things at once (center/QB exchange, QB- RB exchange).

I have identified 2 possible candidates for QB (mostly that they pick up the game quickly, and can follow directions, less focused on who can throw the ball the best). Found a couple of my strongest tacklers, still have to figure out who is strongest in terms of catching.

Where I am struggling:

Time constraints, very few practices to get the kids where I want them to be. I don't have any assistant coaches that can make it to practices (I have one that has commited to the games that can help me with substitutions or anything that I need from him. I have gotten one parent to pitch in and help which has made some of the drills go better, but any attempt thus far in splitting the kids up so I can get them into smaller groups to focus on has not gone well. I have had a little bit of difficulty getting to a point where I can do a full scrimmage but I think alot of that is starting to get worked out, I had one rough patch of practice where I had the parent assisting try to run the sharks/minnows drill with half the players and the players lost all focus and it went south quickly. The group that I was working with did grasp some offensive concepts and I was able to atleast get started there.

I haven't had a chance to even coach the basics of zone beyond 'this is your area and you are responsible for what is in it'. Hoping to try to emphasize this in further drills.

Encorporating the center into the passing game has been difficult so far. I have placed my focus with the center on getting the snap to the quarterback before they run their route, and what seems to happen frequently because of that is after they snap the center often stands there and forgets what they were supposed to do. not sure if this is something that is going to just get worked out after some more practice. I am hoping when I get time to encoporate a rollout where the center does a drag route and qb gently passes the ball to him.

Plan from here:

Feel that teams weakpoints are still:

swarming to the ball.

throwing to moving target/catching ball on the run

getting the snap quickly to QB and quick QB-> HB exchange

Swarming to the ball

route running (getting them to the depth I want them to on catching)

Todays practice I am planning to:

* Couple minutes of stretching talking to players about what to expect for today

* 5 minute warm up doing 'jingle jangle' (movement drill around a cone square to practice backpeddling and lateral movement)

* 15 minute drill of runner vs defender (today Center will snap to QB and going to have player line up in essentially TE role and take a handoff going into the drill, my way of encorporating the TE around play into my offense).

-- quick water break

* 10 minutes Coach pass route running drill. (made this up on the fly this weekend, basically going to have some cones set up in line for depth I want them to run slant/in/drag/ hook. I will be passing to them today because they haven't really had a chance to practice catching, i have had some drills in past where players are throwing, but today i want the emphasis on catching). -

* 10 minutes QB/ Defender/ Receiver essentially same as last drill but i lift up cones but have players rotate between being qb/receiver and a defender to pull flag.

-- quick water break

* Full defense vs Center/QB/HB practicing dive left, dive right, qb fake handoff bootleg, rotating the players on offense, half way rotate offense and defense. Defense focus on them swarming to the ball and maintaining their areas of responsibility.

* scrimmage (if enough time)

* huddle up, finalize team name (had players submit names at previous practice, today going to have them vote on them in a tournament style 1 name vs each other, until we emerge at a team name).

I have one final practice before our first game, in which I intend to do more scrimmaging, with what I anticipate being their positions at the first game to make sure they are comfortable with what they are doing.

=================================

Sorry ran so long, If anyone has any feedback on anything you think I can do better, or questions about my thought process on what I have done so far I am all ears. I will keep you posted on how things go through my rookie season.

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Practice went well for most part today, although ran into some distractions, certain players if they end up close to one another will end up horsing around while they are waiting to do the next drill. Need to make it a point next practice to seperate them.

Have one final practice before first game.

Definitely need to try to gel the passing game, its getting closer starting to complete a couple passes in scrimmage, majority of the players can catch but no one is really standing out as being able to throw, so sticking with the base players that can listen and follow directions the best as QB. I have maybe 4-5 that fit in that category, 1 that really seems to excel. Some of the receivers are grasping the route thing while others tend to do their own thing.

I really need to figure out a way to focus on the defense while keeping the other players occupied, the Parent that is normally able to help wasn't able to make it to this practice so pretty much on my own there, and like I said if they are not active constantly there is a lot of horseplaying (they are 7-8 years old after all :).

Kind of thinking for next practice seperating them into two groups, both running routes and catching with no defenders or center, just 1 running one throwing, then rotate. (Might see if I can get hands on another football and break into 3 teams although will be very difficult for me to watch and keep them all on track if I split it too many groups).

Also thinking as another drill an adhoc of the 1-1 defender vs runner drill, spread 5-6 players across a 30x20 yard or 40x20 yard, have one player hand ball off and have the defenders work on pursuing. (keeping them 10-15 yards away until the runner has the ball. Will have to think about it some. Re-enforcing to swarm to the ball and slow the runner down, might also be an option of throwing in center=> qb exchange and qb => rb exchange.

Still struggling to get the center involved in passing game, worst case comes to it I might have to rotate the center out half way through the half so they can get a chance to run the ball. Tried to work a bit on the center drag QB rollout pass, but they seem to be having a difficult time grasping the concept (or perhaps im not explaining it well enough). Thought about designing a drill around it, but im afraid of taking away precious time away from the other needs (tackling, passing, center => QB exchange, qb=> RB/FB exchange, and most recently QB=> TE exchange, I also thinkt hat it won't be much of a step to get each of the wide-receivers to be able to do an end-around play. I am feeling very good about the running possibilities and being able to include multiple different players/positions in the offense, but really need to take the passing game to next step (but I think that will come at some point in the season as long as I keep to fundamentals).

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You are headed in the right direction.Think it out and read up on the www. Good luck with this season!

Sorry i'm short on advise.

Thanks, its probably jitters but obviously I am overthinking certain pieces. There are definitely some things I have had to let go of initially, IE: its okay if they aren't taking the handoff exactly how you coached them initially as long as it hasppening quickly. Its likely not realistic that everyone plays QB, but most of the other spots should in theory be able to be rotated.

I understand this board is slow to read/respond to posts, and that is okay, I am going to continue to brainstorm outloud and give my status on how things are going. Helps me brainstorming outloud and might help other coaches in the future that decide to coach. If anyone has anything constructive on criticism I am all ears.

Next practice in 2 days, last one before the 1st game. In over thinking I have already worked out projected play spots for the first game, with some contingency plans in case people don't show up (which inevitably someone wont).

I have 13 players so my thoughts are that 7 will start the first half on Offense, remaining 6 on defense with 1 "iron man" player that does both. At half time switch and the 6 players that 'started' on defense now are on offense, and 7 players that 'started' on offense now play defense, with a different player playing both sides. Likely will have the player from one of the halfs that play both sides play Center, as that is the position im still struggling to get the ball in practice and that player will have had an opportunity already in the game as a different position.

====================================================================================

Since I already have projected play spots for the first game, my thoughts were to do a kind of walk through for the positions, to try to make sure everyone has their assignment/timing down.

Practice is on a friday afternoon right after school and I expect the kids to be ansy, so going to start practice off with:

5 min warmup, (stretching, maybe a quick team jog where they all stay together).

10 minutes shark/minnows (perhaps expand the area a bit to 25x25 yards so they have a bit more room to run to burn off some of their energy).

-quick water break

10 minutes of QB => receiver passing. Im planning on dividing them into 4 lines (2 lines of QB, 2 lines of receivers) with the receiver on each side running a route and QB throwing to them. I am torn as normally in practice I would just rotate them through, but I really want to give the players that will be receiving more reps catching and the ones likely to be throwing more reps in throwing. I don't plan to make this a permanent adjustment but I really thing before the game it will be important to get some more reps on the position they will be playing.

20-30 minutes: Plan to cone off 20x 40 yards. Split players into two teams, 'offense' and 'defense', defensive players line up on a line equally spaced out, maybe 15 yards off the ball. Offense lined up in their normal positions. One at a time go over some of my basic running plays, hb dive, fb dive, te around, wr around, qb fake to RB bootleg (having 2 of the possible QB's as center/qb rotating snaps). Allowing qb to take snap, work on exchange, and for all the players to practice running when facing multiple defenders. At the same time working with defense on containing, pursuing, and swarming. I am hoping that with simplifying the offensive responsibilities to only 2-3 players moving at a time I can focus a bit more on the defense. After 10-15 minutes / switch.

10 minutes: have them line up in their defensive spots, cover position by position on what their responsibilities are. I honestly haven't had time in my first practices to do this yet I have just told them to stay in their area of responsibility, watch QB eyes and attack the ball. Hoping if I spend a bit of time here I can get them closer to where they need to be for game time. I expect this to be incredibily difficult to keep their focus and am tempted to buy a box of M&M's and bribe them that if they stay focused that they will get them after practice is over.

10-20 minutes (assuming time). Scrimmage so players practice the stuff they learned.

(huddle up, make sure everyone knows when/where the first game will be, expectations Q/A)

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slight correction: I had a misunderstanding on what the 'shark vs minnows' was. I was under the impression it was a tag game drill that someone had posted, looks like that name implys a different drill entirely. I will likely have to include this drill in my practice.

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I think you have a lot of great stuff going so far, you're probably going to be far more prepared than most teams before their first game. Couple of thoughts come to mind, so I'll just throw them out:

-work hard to get an assistant that will commit to helping you. it will payoff big time as the season starts rolling.

-pull in parents or older siblings to help in practice where needed. even if it's shagging balls or setting up cones.

-i'd try and work in more "games" into your practice to keep the kids interested.

leap frog - i use this for my older players also. pair up the kids in lines next to each other, one starts as center and one is QB in each line. have a relay race against each other. basically the snapper becomes the QB and QB becomes the snapper. we'd set up cones since we used a shotgun snap so the QB knew where to line up for the next snap. it will help you find your snappers and gives all the kids experience at snapping the ball and being QB.

don't drop it - in our passing drills we pair up, have the kids close enough to catch an easy pass back and forth, emphasize watching ball into hands, then see how many each pair can catch between them. if they were really cooking, we'd have a coach walk behind and talk to them or walk in-between the lines while they were throwing to make it more challenging.

swarm the coach - i'd have all the kids in two lines facing me. if i pointed the ball right they went right, pointed left then they went left, if I looked like I was going to pass they yelled "pass" and back peddled to cover. if i tucked the ball, they yelled swarm and all of them came running towards me. i'd run off to the left or right to make it harder. they all had to touch the ball with one hand.

3on3 or 4on4 - one game my kids loved was playing against each other in small groups. we'd have 3 teams of 3 and play against each other. similar to cutthroat in basketball. one team was on the sideline waiting to come on the field. two teams played against each other, one on offense, one on defense. offense had to get past 7 yards to stay on the field with only one down to do it. if they did, defense goes off and team on side comes on. if defense stops the offense, they become the new offense, team from side comes in as new defense. object of game is to be on offense and keep the ball moving down the field. i like this game because every kid gets a chance to play QB, center, WR and RB.

ultimate - we'd usually end practice with a 10 min game of ultimate football. we'd get the parents involved and play kids v. parents/coaches. ultimate football is same as ultimate frisbee.

The reason I bring up the game/drill concept is kids tend to get bored with concepts at almost any age. I'm currently coaching 8th grade boys competitive basketball and I include several game-like drills in our practices. It's a bit more competitive, but it still has a fun aspect and always incorporates a few skills we're working on.

Once you play that first game, things will become crystal clear. You'll definitely see what needs attention in the next practice and who your better players are on the team. The strengths and weaknesses will start to become evident.

Relax, enjoy the ride, and keep it fun.

Kudos to you for taking on this coaching role. Looks like you're doing a great job so far!

-

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Coach Rob

thanks for the feedback.

To take your points 1x at a time.

-work hard to get an assistant that will commit to helping you. it will payoff big time as the season starts rolling.

-pull in parents or older siblings to help in practice where needed. even if it's shagging balls or setting up cones

Definitely something on my list, but given my current crop I don't think I am going to be able to get one consistent assistant coach the whole season, knowing that been focused on trying to get the parents to assist. (you make some good points of getting started though about even having them help setup is a nice gateway into them running a drill or helping in other ways). During one of the practices so far I did pull in an older sibling when I needed an extra, probably something I need to be better at, but some of the practices have been a little overwhelming keeping all of the kids on task (organized chaos).

Another challenge I have run into is that the equipment room only issued me 2 footballs, and all of the footballs I have at home (or others I have been asking) are not the same size as what we are using.

-i'd try and work in more "games" into your practice to keep the kids interested.

You are right I should include more games into my drills. With the feedback I have gotten so far the favorite drills so far have been the tag game, and scrimmage. Been doing some reading on what Sharks/minnows is (what i thought the tag game was named) and will likely include that as a drill as well.

I have been hesitant around the leap frog game as 1. we only have 2 footballs at the moment, and 2. since I have been including a center/qb snap in several of my drills I don't feel too worried about the center=>qb exchange as I am about other areas. All of the players have had a chance to take some snaps and snap the ball a few times and have atleast a general idea of what they are supposed to do. Certainly not perfect and may go back to this drill if I want to work on that further. It does sound like it would be something they could have fun with and wouldn't take as long to run as I had in my head the way you are describing.

dont drop it - interesting take on it, if I can get my hands on some more footballs I may try this, maybe see which team can keep the longest streak.

3on3 or 4on4 - as i have 13 kids would probably be 4-4, have been considering adding this to my drill list, although not sure how to handle the odd man out, either id have to have one extra body floating between teams, or id have to stack the teams so that the 5 players had a couple of my weaker players, although if im missing a player which is fairly common won't be an issue. I would probably do something slightly different though in keeping them on for 4 plays or until they went 15 yards (first down in our league) and rotate. Do you do something similar but tell them only to pass? wondering if I open this as a QB/Center/TE/WR vs defense (as that is one of the areas I think we need to focus on) if it might be more fun than just lining them up running and catching.

swarm the coach - been on my list to encorporate into practice, but hadn't gotten to it yet.

ultimate - ill have to put some thought into it, i can see the fun element and can see it improving ball handling skills, I just probably can't leave well enough alone unless i figured out a varient that included another skill item i want to build upon. already feel pretty crunched in time constraints with practices, but this could definitely be something fun to add mid season if we hit a rutt with practices.

Really appreciate the feedback going to adjust my practice plan a bit for this week. maybe something to the effect of:

5 min warmup

10 minute tag game

--water break

10 minute sharks/minnows

15 minute 4on4

5-10 minutes: defense walkthrough responsibilities

-- water break

20 minute (to end of practice) : scrimmage

(huddle up, cover 1st game logistics expectations Q/A)

then like you said after first game ill have better idea of where team is at and what drills we need to focus on.

Relax, enjoy the ride, and keep it fun.

going to keep repeating this to myself lol.

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went with the practice plan above:

5 min warmup

10 minute tag game

--water break

10 minute sharks/minnows

15 minute 4on4

5-10 minutes: defense walkthrough responsibilities

-- water break

20 minute (to end of practice) : scrimmage

(huddle up, cover 1st game logistics expectations Q/A)

The Tag game was a hit as usual, and the Sharks vs minnows game the kids couldn't get enough of, kept begging me for more. The kids seemed pretty tired so thought they might enjoy the break of trying to do a defensive walkthrough. Got some info out there but went very quickly before I started losing their attention. Tried shifting to a 4 on 4 drill, but couldn't keep the focus of the team that was supposed to watch, drill deteriorated very quickly.

Partially recovered by moving to scrimmage, but its definitely safe to say lost the kids focus somewhere after sharks/minnows. In all fairness it was a hot day, perhaps I let them over exhert themselves before I was asking for their focus.

At any rate first game is tomorrow, little nervous as some of the plays I thought we had down pat seemed to have lost their timing in this drill, and some plays just seemed to have been forgotten entirely. Will see how tomorrow goes, I have a feeling that offense will more or less get back on track (not perfect but good enough), defense I am hoping to get gelling at the game but I have a feeling that got some work to do there.

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First game done.

We won 3 Touchdowns to 1. (each touchdown is worth 6, no extra point, first downs each count as 1 point). but didn't really keep track of that, we got a couple first downs they didn't get any.

Offensively, things went very smooth, everything we wanted to do we could. First half it almost went too smooth as it seemed each run went for a score, which made it seem like i wasn't giving as much play time to that group of kids. 2nd half, with the other set of kids, things went pretty well, had some missed handoffs that were dropped, passing game started to pick up and had a couple completions. Threw one interception (which happens) the QB for second half was beating himself up about it, but once I had him back in the huddle I told him forget it and its a new play, don't worry about it. He seemed fine after that.

Next practice going to keep working on execution, I definitely think I have enough plays in playbook, just need to get them down a bit better.

Defensively, First half we completely shut them down. They were very much a run first team, had all of the 4 players that were supposed to be on the line of scrimmage as blockers (we are allowed to put arms in and try to get in the way of the other players. I was able to crunch my defense toward the middle and pretty much completely shut them down. They tried a couple passes that were incomplete, their most dangerous play was QB going back to pass and scrambling, which was shut down by the guy I had as 'R' who I have in a QB spy while waiting for time to rush. Second half they burned us for one long on that play as we had some missed flag pulls, but overall the guys were in the right spot to make the play.

Overall feel pretty good about defense just need to keep re-enforcing fundamentals in practice.

It is definitely more challenging to get everyone the ball than I anticipated. Couple players had 2 touches (don't think anyone had 3), but i was spreading the ball around pretty good but even still a few players left without even a pass thrown there way, going to have to put them on my hot list to get the ball next game.

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Had another practice today, went pretty rough, none of the kids had much focus, not even for the fun drills (sharks vs minnows). Defensively I feel like we are miles ahead of where we were last week, but offensively starting to struggle, areas I had thought were solid (ie easy handoff exchanges) were failing. Granted I was shifting some of the positions around from where they played the last game, trying to give kids a chance to play different positions where I can might just have been a bad practice hard to say. Unfortunately that was the only practice this week for next game. Fingers X'd that I can pull out some game day coaching and pull it all together :).

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Looks like you're off to a great start! Congrats!

Bummer on the footballs. Same thing happened in our league, they gave us two, so I just asked if kids could bring one from home. Eventually, I ended up purchasing some cheap ones on my own.

The ball touches can be tricky. Having someone track them helps. I'm betting you'll be one of the only coaches who tracks it which shows the kids and parents you're at least trying to get everyone touches.

On practices, it sounds like you're getting a feel for which drills/games are a hit with the kids. One thing I did is use the more popular drills as incentive. If we needed to work on a skill (e.g. proper handoffs, fakes, etc.) I'd run the boring skill drill for a bit and tell them to give me X number of good handoffs/fakes or whatever it was to get out of that drill and into the fun drill. I planned each practice on a paper and had a list of drills below to use when things started dragging.

I found that keeping the drills moving (extra help from siblings/parents helps w/ that) and setting time limits for each drill helped keep the kids interest. Most of my drills would be 5-8 min with a max of 10 min. With the harder drills, I'd set time limits and tell the kids, "two minutes left, work hard" or "only 1 min left" which seemed to help them know there was as end in sight. Even then, you'll have those days when the kids seem like they're sleepwalking.

Always try and end practice on a fun note. That's what the kids will remember when they're talking at home.

Keep up the good work!

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2nd game down. Lost on paper 5 touchdowns to 4 touchdowns.

This one was a tough one. Other team had 1 player that we absolutely couldn't stop, we would get 3 guys around him, stop him completely, miss his flag and hed be off for a long run or touchdown. I had early on put someone to 'spy' him but somehow he would still get away. Had one play that was highly suspicious that one of my players had ahold of his flag with both hands and the player drug them before falling to the ground (and ref blew whistle).

At any rate besides not being able to stop that one player, the other team was taunting my team, punching, kicking in the plays. Had 4 of my players have to come out for injuries (nothing severe but brief). Overall was proud of my team for not lowering themselves to that level. They came out not so focused but as the game went on they were really trying hard. Need to get a bit better at swarming the ball, multiple times we had players in the right spot to stop the runner, but didn't have enough team mates around to pull the flag.

Offensively we had a couple drives stall but I got almost everyone on the team the ball. I think there were 2 kids that didn't get touches and will work on that. The mis-exchanges that i saw in practice didn't seem to be happening in the game, my end-around and fake hand off plays were definitely my money plays (and works great for helping spread the ball around as you have a play designed to get almost everyone the ball.) 3 different kids of mine scored touchdowns (1 kid scored 2x) On their team all but 1 of their touchdowns was by the same player.

All in all feels to me like a win, although could have done without the punching and kicking, I made it a point to talk to the other coach after the game as we play this team again at the end of the year. Kids played hard, were good sports in the face of a team that wasn't playing good sportsmanship, and seemed very much win at all costs, and all in all we still hung in there (almost tied it up at the end).

Have 1 more practice before next game. Debating on rotating out my 2 qb's, I have a couple other players that could fit in that role, and might be good to switch things up to keep the kids interested more.

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Coach Rob,

you bring up some good points around saving the fun drills for the end as something to look forward to and to get through some of the tough drills. I think I may try that out and see how it works.

Think I finally have a Parent that might be able to help some, going to try to utilize him to help split the team into smaller groups I think that will really help.

Just got to get through the next game and I will be able to get back to 2 practices between each game atleast for a few games, maybe can finally work in the center drag play.

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tried out saving the sharks vs minnows for the end to give them something to look forward to, seemed to work well. Had left practice on a fairly high note. Rotated in some new quarterbacks in a bit in the scrimmage to try to get them enough practive for potential game time when I need them.

Then today had a new game, amazing how fast the season has started and how many games they crammed together.

Lost 4 or 5 touchdowns to 0

At any rate felt like we were overmatched, Team could throw and catch up to 20 yards down field, and had 3-4 players that were good runners/tacklers.

Offensively we didn't execute right, My QB's got lazy with the handoffs and were telegraphing them, and there were a lot of mis-exchanges, even had 1 center mis-exchange. When they did execute the play right it went for big yardage and we had several sustained drives that moved the ball down the field but we couldn't get it in the end zone. This was partially on me as we were close to the end zone I was making it a point to try to get someone who hadn't scored a touchdown.

We started on Defense first that they had connected on a 20 yard deep pass and scored, then our first offensive possesion we threw an interception that got ran back for a touchdown. After that we started playing a bit better, we didn't allow any long runs for touchdowns, and stopped them on a few possessions.

Defensively I let the Parent that has stepped up and helping in practices run the defense, there were some things that I could have done better, but it was nice to be able to gather my thoughts on the sidelines and watch for other stuff. Its very nice not having to be managing both the offense and defense the whole game.

Going to have to go back to more of the basics in next practice and just work on execution. I feel like I have the right number of plays (aside from maybe a center drag) and if we just get our execution down a bit more we are going to be difficult to stop, and will allow me to continue to get more people a chance to get involved in the game. We are still struggling passing the ball but its getting closer, had 3 passes that hit people in the numbers they just couldn't come up with it.

Some positives to take from the game:

1. Got everyone at least 1 touch (carry or catch)

2. Had someone step up that looks like he will fill the safety role (not overly agressive but still reacts to the ball very well).

3. More kids are improving at pulling flags being in the right spot.

Getting beat this bad is a tough pill to swallow, but the team took it well, and I think we are on the right track, I think the team we played today was the exception for this league and not the rule, they were well coached and multiple good atheletes. Going to take what I can and work on it for next week, finally have 2 practices before the next game, so will have time to work on it.

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Not sure if anyone is getting anything out of these posts but here goes.

Rough week of practice. We normally practice on M/F as those are the days that I can alter my work schedule to accomodate. At any rate Monday was Columbus day, still practiced but only got 7 kids. Friday was actually the observance day, so again I only got half kids.

I knew the big thing to focus on this week was snapping the ball and handoffs, so focused most of my drills around that. Did a 1 on 3 drill, basically where I had center/QB and runner (either from wide out spot or HB spot) and rotated the kids through, when the go the ball they had to go up against 3 defenders with a wider field. We also did walk through's on offense as we had less people and was able to do some 3x 3 drills.

Took Coach Rob's advice and saved the best event for last (which the kids love sharks/ minnows) to end practice on a postive note and use as leverage getting through the 'boring' stuff. That seemed to work well.

That brings us to gameday, this week game fell on a Monday so no practice for today. It was a rainy nasty mess. Most of the kids showed up with 2 minutes of time till game started and It through off my entire plan of who was going to play where. That confusion aside though, we absoultely did not play well on offense. Kids ran into each other, missed handoffs, I thinks we had 5-6 failed snaps. There were atleast 3 potential long runs stopped because we ran into each other. Defensively we played pretty well.

Really felt this was a game we should have won, I know winning isn't everything but It would be nice to atleast execute the plays that we have been running all season long. I can lose happy when we are executing and getting everyone the ball, but when I can't get people the ball because we missed a handoff or missed a snap thats pretty frustrating. I still feel all of my places are very successful when they are executed right.

Hopefully can get enough kids at next practice to really focus on what we need to get focus on, else going to just have to give the kids that are showing up to practice a majority of the play time, this is also making it difficult for me to rotate kids at different positions.

Final score Loss 2 touchdowns to 1.

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All this focus last night on the loss, i forgot to mention the Highlights.

We had a stand on the goal line that we stopped them on the 2 yard line and took over. My first play was essentially a FB dive, which defense was ready for and quickly surrounded the player. They all forgot to pull his flag and he kept just going inch by inch for what seemed like forever. Ended up with 15 yards because no one pulled his flag when they surrounded him. Was quite amusing to watch.

The one touchdown we had came off of a fake end Around. The QB has started running to a side when handing off to one of the WR coming around, something I hadn't told him but encouraged when I started seeing it (originally had designed play for QB to pretend to pass then hand off). As we had run the end around multiple times and with some success when the ball wasn't dropped, he executed a beautiful end around fake that the entire defense jumped on and he kept on with the ball and scored. I got comments from the parents on sidelines after that they couldn't even tell who had the ball and were quite impressed with that.

I am hopeful for this week assuming I get a good number of kids to practice, to iron out the little things.

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Appears to me you're doing just fine. You'll have those games where kids run into each other, forget the plays, and apparently have some type of oil on their hands. It happens at all age levels.

You mentioned the fake end around, that is gold if you set it up right. I usually put a few WR's way out left, have one slot or WR solo off to the right, everyone else is on the left side of the line or backfield. First play, we hand it off to the solo WR coming back left for an end around. Second play we run something completely different. Third play we set up the same end around formation, but this time we use the fake. If your WR can really turn their shoulder, keep running hard and not look back, the QB is usually good to go. Sounds like your QB can run at anytime?

Another play that is similar, is the center end around. Some leagues get a bit funky about this, we got around it by making sure the center took a good step back from the los. The center snaps the ball, QB steps back, center steps back to receive the handoff and takes off towards the sideline. If you have a WR coming back for the end around, the center can handoff or fake and keep. It's legal in our league because the center steps back behind the los after the snap.

I just made sure on my fake end arounds to try and only have one player on the side my runner was going. I think it increased my odds of getting bigger yards since less defenders were on that side of the ball.

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So offensively, I have kept the same formation to try to simplify things.

essentially:

WR C TE WR

QB

FB

HB

My base plays are:

Fb dive.

HB Dive

TE around

Left End Around

Right End around

Then essentially each of those the QB knows to fake and take off running.

Each player has a wristband that contains a Passing tree on it labeled 0-9. So when I call the play it goes something like: 7 1 7 5 Batman 9 Where Batman corresponds to a run play (all run plays are named after superheros) I am pointing to each player in the huddle on what his responsibility is, if he doesn't know the play (fairly new to the position) he looks at his cheat sheet on his wrist band which is color coded and only contains the information he needs to worry about.

The league is a bit funky on the center receiving a hand off and I would have to doublecheck if its legal or not, but Yes QB can run at any time, but if he goes 'outside the tackle' area he is fair game to be rushed, else wise under a normal pass scenario its a 5 second rush.

All of my plays have been money to an extent when executed correctly. The FB dive while very simple, if they get a quick movement on the handoff and do not telegraph its good for 3-8+ yards if the runner runs w/o stopping to look if someone got his flag. The HB dive goes anywhere from 3 yards to a touchdown based on whether or not someone misses a handoff, both when faked and QB goes around almost always goes for big yardage when properly set up by the dives. The TE around because of how quick it develops has been one of the biggest money plays, the End arounds have been trickier to get the execution down, but when they are executed correctly they almost always go for 10+ yards. Of course with the End Arounds also have the option of the Fake, which goes for huge yards. Passing of course varies as they have the passing tree, but realistically I mainly only try to connect on a few different passing routes, and I can almost always get someone wide open 8-10 yards down field, sometimes we catch it sometimes we don't. It is easy to get them to run the right route... just difficult to get them to run the right depth, where I had envisioned a 3 yard pass, it ends up being a 15 yard heave down the field that i have to hold my breath isn't intercepted each time its thrown.

I have made my best efforts to keep the offense as simple to the individual player, but as complex as I feel I can make it without overwhelming the kids. Naturally as I shift the kids around to different positions that makes it tough as I haven't really given them a chance to master the one spot, which is also where the wristbands help. Some of the kids do not need wristbands and in practice I tend to let them run without them, but other kids are almost too dependent on them.

While 'blocking' is kind of allowed I have steered very clear of having my kids do that, and have actually discouraged it, I tend to send them on passing routes away from the play, I find if the kids are trying to 'block' the just end up slowing the runner down. Which is another area I have found plays have broken down is I have told a kid to go on a passing route away from the play and he pulls himself over to 'block', but thats to be expected they are 8 after all :).

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Another Game down. This time won 6 touchdowns to 2. Kids executed really well, last practice really focused on snaps and handoffs and I think it really paid off. Almost all of the plays offensively broke for big yardage. Defensively we pretty much shut them down to short gains. Several times they sustained a drive down to the end of the field but we would stop them close to the goal line. The 2 touchdowns they got came from reverses. Basically they would line all of the 4 players that are to line up on the scrimmage on one side which would force my defense to adjust, then they would start running to strong side with one of the RB and reverse back around to the End around. I have to give them credit for being able to execute it, difficult play to execute.

Positives: I got everyone a touch that was at the game. 4 different kids scored touchdowns including 2 that hadn't scored one at all this season yet. I think in addition to each touch each kid had at least 1 play that went for big yardage. It seemed like the kids had a lot of fun. Defensively they did a great job attacking the ball and pulling flags. I was very pleased to see the kids were not intimidated by the other team (several of the players were a lot bigger than any of the players we had on our team).

Negatives: Weather was really cold and wet, cause a little bit of loss in focus (but manageable). Only had 8 of my 13 kids show up to the game.

Only have 2 practices left then 2 back to back games.

Highlights:

Lot of highlights with how the kids played but one really sticks out in my mind. We had just taken over the ball on our own 5 after halting a drive, score was currently 5-1. I had it in my mind that I wanted to try to put the halt to the offense a bit, even spreading the ball around really hadn't slowed us down at all to this point. Had decided to try passing as that is our obvious weak point. I had called the play to go to one of the players that hadn't touched the ball much in the game (assuming he was open of course). QB dropped back to pass one of the kids yelled out QB's name and raised his hands (calling attention to that he had sprung wide open), QB hit him in stride a good 12 yards down the field and he took it all the way down for a touchdown. Not sure where the throw/catch came from because often we can't have a passing game to save our life.

Game plan going forward to last 2 games. Next 2 teams are teams we played before, basically going to continue to work on a lot of little things, hand-offs, snaps, route running etc. Likely going to continue to try to get a 3rd kid to be able to take QB and rotate him into the last two games. Going to try to end the last practice on a real fun game either ultimate football or Sharks n Minnows (as that seems to still be the team favorite). Last game we play the team we played in which we had major sportsmanship problems with, and in talking with some of the other Coaches, seems they had problems with them as well. Going to make sure to get extra visibility from the program heads on that game for the Players safety.

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Tomorrow will be another game, it seems to be getting harder to get kids to practice now, lately have only been having 6-7 kids that regularly show up to practice, I have a feeling that it must be due to the weather and/or burn out. Haven't minded too much because it has allowed me to focus a lot with the kids that show up and really fine tune a lot of little things. Although I know I am going to have problems with 4-5 kids that haven't been to practice much when they show up to games. Although I have been compensating there by limiting the amount of positions I put the kids that don't come to practice, and that seems to be working well.

Today think finally making some major strides in the passing game, finally have the Center drag play installed well enough where I feel comfortable running it tomorrow, added one small addition, FB spot will basically take a step forward and wait as a secondary receiving target. The idea being the Defense will likely jump all over the QB running to the outside which should leave the center drag wide open, but if it doesn't the FB (or HB whichever i target for this) will be a couple yards behind the line of scrimmage with basically no one around him. Hit it a couple times in practice today and seems to be an easy catch for the FB (as he isn't trying to catch it on the run) and when he catches it its basically wide open for big yardage. Very hopeful about this play. I am especially excited because it allows me to involve the center position better, and hopefully wont have to worry about rotating someone in that spot to get the center the ball in a different position.

Spent the last two practices really trying to hammer down the hand-offs further, that seems to be the hardest thing to make sure they remember, I will probably do a warm-up pre-game as a refresher for any kids that didn't show up to practice this week.

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Had a very wet sloppy game, was pouring down rain and was a big mud pit where we had the game. Offense struggled had several mis-exchanges, naturally passing didn't have a lot of success hit people open but couldn't come up with catch. Had a couple long drives that sputtered. Defense played well but got burned on a reverse a couple times, ended up losing 2-0, but game ended with us having the ball 1 yard away from touchdown.

I am very impressed with how the other teams defense played, even my simple run plays up the middle were stopped after two yards (usually I expect to get 4-5 yards) they were extremely good at flag pulling. They only had 6 players show up to their game so game was 6 on 6 instead of 7-7.

There defense played 1 right on line of scrimmage in front of center, and the rest of the line 4 yards back spread across, and had no safety. My thought was if I could break past that initial line we would be golden, couple times we broke it but runner fell down or ball slipped out.

Got one more game and 2 more practices for the season, will see what happens next week.

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Just got through the last game of season. Lost 2-1 in what amounted to be a very hard fought game. We played the same team that we had played in week 2 that originally was really rough to my players. I had complained all the way up as I was concerned that we had to play this team again that I wanted extra set of eyes on it. I didn't get the extra set of eyes that was promised to me, but I did have a conversation with the referees ahead of time that they needed to be aware of pushing shoving kicking etc.

While I did get some of the calls I was hoping for around whenever my kids were pushed hand thrown to the ground. The refs were also heightened focus around my team, called us several times for False starts and even called us a couple times for us lining up in 'not on the ball' when I had visually inspected the players before the snap, if the player was in front of the line it was by 6 inches or less, usually stuff that was understood as the kids are 8 years old. The other team was far worse on their lineups and false starts but didn't receive a single penalty there. I'm not one to normally gripe about ref's taking a one sided affair but out of all the games we played it really felt that there was a bias. The stuff I was complaining about (non-calls) was around the safety of the players, but I digress.

Long story short, was a very close game that we ended up losing 2-1. Several of our drives were interrupted by penalties (false start plays weren't blown dead but were enforced after the play, so instead of several plays that were either touchdowns or first downs were called back and kind of messed with our offensive flow.) The game was a lot cleaner this round than last time, not nearly as much shoving and no punching this time around, and the blatant fouls were called against them, so the kids had more fun this go round. The other team played a similar style of defense that the team prior played, where they had 1 person in front of the center (presumably the rusher) and 6 kids that were in zone straight across the field and were good flag pullers and didn't seem to over commit to plays on the other side of the field. With how far they were off the ball we had a lot of success with quick runs straight up the middle, and aside from all of the timely penalties really felt we could move the ball well.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With this being the last game of the season there were some things I learned and some things I had come up that not sure how to deal with it if I were to coach again next year:

1. Little details matter a lot. I knew this going in that it was important to get the handoffs right, the snaps the way I wanted them, the QB carrying through after the fake, etc. With the success we had in the first game I had layed off thinking maybe it didn't matter as much, but that came back to haunt us in the sloppy wet games. Mis-exchanges really kill a teams offensive progress. I would go as far as to say that if I coach again, every practice needs to have atleast 1-2 drills in which you focus on hand-offs, and never think that your team has it down, keep hammering on it to make sure it is not forgotten.

2. Recruit as many parents as possible. I really should have done a better job at the beginning of getting parents to contribute more, instead I often had parents drop off their kids at practice and leave or wait in their cars. I had a couple parents step up, but I could have done a better job of getting all of the parents to contribute, and If I had done that it would have allowed me to focus alot more on the little things.

3. One I don't have the answer for yet, despite my constant email reminders, I found the entire second half of the season I got terrible attendance of the players to practice, and this made it incredibly difficult to make sure the players were on the field had the best opportunity to succeed. I always let kids play when they were at the game despite whether or not they made it to practice, they just might not get as many opportunities to get the ball or as much play time as the kids that were at practice every time. Not sure if this is something I could have done anything about or not, can't make the kids show up to practice afterall. If anyone has any suggestions here I would appreciate it.

4. Be very fluid in your positional assignments. Its really easy to over think who should play what position, but when you have people show up late (or not at all), it makes your positional assignments difficult. Last few games I had made it a point to have a couple positions that I felt comfortable with each kid playing and assigning the offensive as soon as the kids would show up, whoever wasn't assigned an offensive spot would start out on Defense, and I could sub players in as appropriate. I also found it important to ask the kids where they had the most fun playing, and aside from QB (can't have everyone play QB) I tried to accommodate where possible. I found some interesting things, ie: 1 kid really enjoyed being the snapper, a couple kids really enjoyed defense but didn't really like offense. I was able to start putting kids where they wanted to be by the end of season.

5. Save the fun drills for last. Coach Rob gets tons of credit for this, this really helped the flow of my practice saving the fun drills for the end of practice so I could use it as leverage for getting through the drills that weren't as much fun.

6. Compartmentalize all of the responsibilities. Don't give the kids too much information, for different plays it really helps for them to only have to know the generalized responsibility. I had great success with wristbands in this method. Every offensive player had a colored wristband with various assignments. In each huddle being able to point at each kid and give them their responsibility allowed me to be very fluid with my play calling and adjust to what the defense was throwing at me. Also allowed me to get fairly complex with the playbook and still be successful, as once a kid knew what he had to do for one play, he could easily do that same motion in another play. I may have been the only team that didn't change formations, and while this may have hindered me in some spots, it was one less thing I had to worry about teaching the kids and allowed me to focus on the other little things, like fake handoffs and clean quick timing on handoffs.

All in all had fun coaching the team, and was a great experience. If my son decides to play flag again next year I will probably volunteer to coach, he has been stating as of late he wants to make the jump to tackle, which I have been discouraging so far, as I think another year of flag would do him good before making the huge jump to tackle (larger time commitment, and likely less opportunity to jump around to different positions.) Its amazing to think where the kids started the season, to the massive progress they had made by the end of the year.

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"Its amazing to think where the kids started the season, to the massive progress they had made by the end of the year".

Great job coach! Your statement above speaks volumes. It's always bummer to end the season right when things are starting to click with a team.

Ahh, the refs. You're not alone with those feelings of having a lopsided game when it comes to calls by the refs. In the past 13 months, my 7th/8th grade basketball team has played 120 games (year round leagues and tourneys). There have been many discussions both on and off the court with those men and women who hold the ultimate power. I've come to the conclusion that as long as my team is winning, everything is fine. ;)

There's nothing more frustrating to a coach than having a player miss practice, especially when you're reviewing a new play or concept. It is unacceptable if a player continues to miss practice, even at the rec levels. It's not fair to the other players and parents who make the effort. More importantly, as you stated, it's difficult to help that player succeed in the game without them making it to practice.

1) I would set the expectations in your preseason meeting of why it is important for players to make it to practice. You understand conflicts arise and kids get sick. You can explain your philosophy of making practices fun with game-like drills and how it helps them succeed in games. Thank them for their time and effort to get their kids to practice.

2) During the season if a player misses consistently, I would shoot off an e-mail to the parents and ask if everything was ok. It might be the kid currently not digging the sport (in general, not your fault) or a practical issue of not being able to get them to practice. Sometimes parents sign their kids up for sports, not realizing the time and commitment it takes on their part.

3) Keep those practices fun. Challenge the kids, teach new skills, but keep it fun. Throw in tons of encouragement for their efforts. Get the parents involved (if you can) to help at practice which helps tie them in. You want the kids talking about how fun practice was at the dinner table and not wanting to miss the next one. It's challenging.

Good job overall! Now it's time for you to coach some basketball.

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Thanks for the Tips, I felt like I did a decent job of keeping it fun, always room for improvement in that area though :), with one season under my belt I think I will be better prepped for that next year.

I do think that the weather did play a factor in practice participation, when it was raining people were afraid to bring their kids to practice, also had less participation at games. Perhaps next year I need to have some indoor accommodations prepared in the event if raining?

How do you handle the pre-season meeting with the parents? I hadn't thought of doing one of those, as some parents seemed irritated that I was continuing to practice when the games started (comparing to other sports like baseball where practices stop once the games start) so hadn't even occurred to me to try to have a preseason meeting. I also noticed that some of the parents would simply drop their kids off and leave when practice started. I didn't really gripe about it in fear they would just not bring their kid to practice next time, but it made it challenging when trying to put out information, not everyone reads the regular emails I sent out about practice and game times.

I did follow up with a few of the kids when I noticed a trend for them not showing up for practice, and that did seem to help somewhat, especially when I saw them at the game, within an earshot of parents I would tell them that we missed them at practice and mentioned some of the fun stuff they missed out on.

I had thought about coaching the basketball team as no one was stepping up, I'm not as familiar with Basketball, but figure if nothing else I may volunteer to help be an assistant.

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How do you handle the pre-season meeting with the parents?
I think the parent/coach meeting is extremely important. I cover my coaching philosophy, practice expectations (when, where, importance of, etc), how I expect the parents to conduct themselves during games (no yelling at officials), what they can expect from me, my philosophy on playing time during a game, asking for volunteers to help at practice and to keep stats, and pretty much anything I think they need to know. The main point of a parent meeting is to clearly communicate your expectations and how things work on your team so there are no surprises down the road.

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