Direct Snap

[coach44 0]

Hey everyone I am new to Y-coach and I have to say its terrific lots of great information. This is my second year coaching youth flag football and its my first as head coach. I was thinking of a play were the center direct snaps the ball to the running back is this legal in flag? My thought was having the center shotgun snap the ball to the runningback and he can take off just not sure. Please someone clarify this for me so I don't waste my time on this play.

[Coach Rob 26]

If your league doesn't allow QBs to run from a direct snap, don't waste your time on this play. Leagues usually set up that rule to prevent any kind of run from a direct snap. You could confirm it with your league director, but I'm betting they wouldn't allow it.

Good luck in your 1st yr as head coach!

[yurirdgz 1]

It depends on your league ruling.

On our league QB is not allowed to run, and ruling says that the first guy that receives the ball is the QB, so in our case if the Hb recives the snap he is automatically considered the QB.

I´ll tell you what I did. On my 12-14 guys my Qb was also my best runner so I set up my offense out of the shotgun with one guy actually siting very close to the QB, this second guy was not actually a running back and did No running at all, I called it a flex back, he was doing escape routes, fakes and most importantly I set up a direct snap to this guy so he could hand off to the Qb and let him once in a while pick up the yards by ground when nobody was expecting it. It´s not a wildcat but I called the play just for snap purposes “cat”, I drew up like 10 variations of the play but actually just ended up using 3of them.

Works really nice, on one game we actually got 2 Td´s out of it, the secret is to play a lot of passing and then all of the sudden this snap to the flex Works great, just look out not to use it much, I called it out 3 o 4 time each game.

Success of it probably depends on the age group, I designed the plays for 12-14 guys since I ran 100% out of the shotgun, I also used it on 10-11 kids just in practice sesions and it seemed to work good, I didn’t used the “cat” at game with these guys since my offense with this group was 100% singleback formation.

Good luck.

[Orange 26]

On our league QB is not allowed to run, and ruling says that the first guy that receives the ball is the QB, so in our case if the Hb recives the snap he is automatically considered the QB.

Correct, whoever receives the snap is the quarterback for that play.

[coach44 0]

If your league doesn't allow QBs to run from a direct snap, don't waste your time on this play. Leagues usually set up that rule to prevent any kind of run from a direct snap. You could confirm it with your league director, but I'm betting they wouldn't allow it.

Good luck in your 1st yr as head coach!

Thanks a lot Coach Rob thats what I thought I appreciate it.

[Johnp2 21]

What age group do you coach? As others mentioned on, it's highly unlikely your league will allow it. If you think about it however, there is no real advantage to this anyway. If your goal is to simply snap the ball and then take off running, just implement a quick pitch. If your goal is to give a specific player the ability to either throw or run, then simply have the QB quickly flip the ball to that player and have that player drop back to pass--if he can't hit his first read then he takes off. How you design that play depends on the rushing rules allowed in your league. Good luck!

[coach44 0]

What age group do you coach? As others mentioned on, it's highly unlikely your league will allow it. If you think about it however, there is no real advantage to this anyway. If your goal is to simply snap the ball and then take off running, just implement a quick pitch. If your goal is to give a specific player the ability to either throw or run, then simply have the QB quickly flip the ball to that player and have that player drop back to pass--if he can't hit his first read then he takes off. How you design that play depends on the rushing rules allowed in your league. Good luck!

Thanks to all of you that responded I was sure that was the case but all your information was very helpful oh and I can't waite for spring ball and to find out who my kids are two more months and we are playing our city just added the tournament to this season it used to be just fall now its both.