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The Best Software For Playbooks?

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I am sure this has been asked several times, and I am a noobie here. I will be diving into my first year of coaching, and I like to have things organized. I was wondering what is the best software/tools to use? I have a friend who places his in Excel. I read other places where people did it in Visio. I have Visio, but I need a template or something. I have found a few software programs by Googling, however a number of them are a tad bit more than I am willing to pay.

I located this one program which was free called AS Football Play Editor (http://assoft.home.comcast.net/%7Eassoft/asfootballplayeditor.htm) which I have not been able to get to work so I guess that defeats the purpose. The other is called Coach's Office (http://www.coachsoffice.com/).

That Coach's Office looks pretty good, and they have a youth option for $89. I just wanted to check with some people who have been there first before I go out and purchase something I might not need. The only prob with that CO is that there is no section to enter the kids info in...which is feature I think would be pretty cool.

What do you guys think?

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I'm an engineer so I use AutoCAD... But that's not really an option for most people. I attached my old playbook ("Old" because it was basically scrapped after our first game. Long story...). I don't have a PDF of my new one here; I'll have to get it tomorrow at work and upload it then.

As for the AS Football Program, I just downloaded it and am trying it out now. It seems a little clunky but I got it to work. Still playing around with it to see if I want to use it. Maybe if you can explain your problem some more I can help you.

Old_Playbook.pdf

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I'm an engineer so I use AutoCAD... But that's not really an option for most people. I attached my old playbook ("Old" because it was basically scrapped after our first game. Long story...). I don't have a PDF of my new one here; I'll have to get it tomorrow at work and upload it then.

As for the AS Football Program, I just downloaded it and am trying it out now. It seems a little clunky but I got it to work. Still playing around with it to see if I want to use it. Maybe if you can explain your problem some more I can help you.

So you said you had to scrap it after the first game? lol. I'd love to hear the story behind that.

Regarding the AS Football Program, it comes up, but say for instance the PLAY option. When you go in, all the options for route, style, starting point and end type are grayed out. Even when I click NEW, nothing happens.

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I'm an engineer so I use AutoCAD... But that's not really an option for most people. I attached my old playbook ("Old" because it was basically scrapped after our first game. Long story...). I don't have a PDF of my new one here; I'll have to get it tomorrow at work and upload it then.

As for the AS Football Program, I just downloaded it and am trying it out now. It seems a little clunky but I got it to work. Still playing around with it to see if I want to use it. Maybe if you can explain your problem some more I can help you.

So you said you had to scrap it after the first game? lol. I'd love to hear the story behind that.

Regarding the AS Football Program, it comes up, but say for instance the PLAY option. When you go in, all the options for route, style, starting point and end type are grayed out. Even when I click NEW, nothing happens.

You have to create players first. Once you have players created, create a new play and then drag the players from the left onto the field. If you need a more detailed explanation let me know. Honestly, if I was coaching more advanced players I could see using this, but it just seemed to unwieldy for my purposes.

As for my playbook, I stuck to the first 5 sheets for the game but the two formations was just too much. My new "playbook" is two sheets (soon to be three) and one formation. They have enough trouble lining up in that one formation without changing it...

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Thanks for the advice with the playbook. I got it to work. Now do I care for it? Not really. Seemed like it wasted more time for me.

As far as your playbook, I have a few questions. The numbering system. Are those just arbitrary numbers, or do they correlate to the position? Like with the one I was constructing, QB-1, SR-2, FB-3, RB-4. Also wondered about blocking assignments for your linemen?

What ages are you coaching? I will be coaching 7-8 yr olds.

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Thanks for the advice with the playbook. I got it to work. Now do I care for it? Not really. Seemed like it wasted more time for me.

That was the way I felt as well. I downloaded the Demo version of Coach's Office today and figured I'd give that a shot. I'm not going to pay $89 for it but I might get some use out of it.

As far as your playbook, I have a few questions. The numbering system. Are those just arbitrary numbers, or do they correlate to the position? Like with the one I was constructing, QB-1, SR-2, FB-3, RB-4. Also wondered about blocking assignments for your linemen?

What ages are you coaching? I will be coaching 7-8 yr olds.

The numbers correlate to position. I found that the kids didn't really associate with the position names as much as numbers. I don't know why but the numbers seemed to help them line up. I just point at each one and say "you're 2" or "you're 3" and it seemed to work better than "you're left receiver", etc.

Blocking assignments? You're joking, right? It's just 5 on 5 flag football so I have the linemen run routes to draw defenders and at least get between them and the ball carrier. At least so far, the defense is fairly easily confused so any little bit of motion seems to help draw them away. We're not allowed to block but I'd say if my receiver happens to be separating your defender from my ball carrier that's not really blocking. It's all I can do to even get them to move at the snap of the ball; I can't imagine trying to get them to block.

I'm coaching 6-8 yr olds. 5 on 5, flag. How many players on your team? Flag or tackle?

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I will be coaching tackle, and it will be 7-8 yr olds. I have been playing with the coach's office, and I can definitely see some benefits; especially if you plan on coaching for a while. I am a rookie, but one of the things I like about it is how you can create a play, then use the drop down list to show various defense fronts. I guess when you have been coaching for years those things probably come second nature, but to me, i guess I am thinking too hard.

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I will be coaching tackle, and it will be 7-8 yr olds. I have been playing with the coach's office, and I can definitely see some benefits; especially if you plan on coaching for a while. I am a rookie, but one of the things I like about it is how you can create a play, then use the drop down list to show various defense fronts. I guess when you have been coaching for years those things probably come second nature, but to me, i guess I am thinking too hard.

I've finally gotten around to playing with Coach's Office. I can definitely see some benefits but it's also much more cumbersome. We'll see...

The biggest thing I see is I don't see how you indicate hand-offs or passes. When I've been drawing them, I've just used a dashed line but I don't see that option on this. Is there a way to do this?

How's it working for you?

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To be honest, I haven't played around with it in quite some time now. All my plays are currently on an excel spreadsheet, and I haven't taken the time to enter them in because I don't want to put in a lot of time if I am on the fence about purchasing. Like I stated before, I think I may get it just because as a rookie coach, I like how you can see multiple defensive fronts. That is probably my favorite option on there. I also like how this is basically a database I could build on for future years.

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To be honest, I haven't played around with it in quite some time now. All my plays are currently on an excel spreadsheet, and I haven't taken the time to enter them in because I don't want to put in a lot of time if I am on the fence about purchasing. Like I stated before, I think I may get it just because as a rookie coach, I like how you can see multiple defensive fronts. That is probably my favorite option on there. I also like how this is basically a database I could build on for future years.

I did some looking last night on a google search and ran across a couple of programs that were cheaper and honestly seemed more in line with what I would use. I didn't really check any of them out too much, but I saw a couple I liked. I'll try and update you as I look into them further.

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I found a free trial of a play designer at www.jes-soft.com/football. This is a good progarm to get started with. You get a thirty day trail. After the 30 days you can still use the softwware but most of the features are deleted. I have been using it for 2 years and it works great for me.

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Sorry for such a late response. I tried that program Coach Robo, and could not figure it out. Do you have any saved plays you can e-mail me? I am just curious to see how someone uses it. Just PM me as time permits.

I have been playing around with this Visio football stencil (attached) which I found while surfing, and thusfar it has really helped me as far as creating guides for my coaches, diagrams for the kids, etc. Problem I am having is actually drawing up plays. The blocking arms tend to be a tad bit too wide, and I am not that proficient in Visio to effectively alter (nor create my own). Whoever created this, I like how the icons represent the formations. That is something else I can't figure out how to emulate. The way the items snap to the grid is helpful to me since I am a compulsive about things aligning right, so if I could figure out how to draw some additional items and add (blocking arms, arrows, etc.), then I may be able to work with this.

Anyone good with Visio?

Visio_football_stencil.zip

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I am sure this has been asked several times, and I am a noobie here. I will be diving into my first year of coaching, and I like to have things organized. I was wondering what is the best software/tools to use? I have a friend who places his in Excel. I read other places where people did it in Visio. I have Visio, but I need a template or something. I have found a few software programs by Googling, however a number of them are a tad bit more than I am willing to pay.

I located this one program which was free called AS Football Play Editor (http://assoft.home.comcast.net/%7Eassoft/asfootballplayeditor.htm) which I have not been able to get to work so I guess that defeats the purpose. The other is called Coach's Office (http://www.coachsoffice.com/).

That Coach's Office looks pretty good, and they have a youth option for $89. I just wanted to check with some people who have been there first before I go out and purchase something I might not need. The only prob with that CO is that there is no section to enter the kids info in...which is feature I think would be pretty cool.

What do you guys think?

I've used Coach's Office and it is the best. You can enter the kids information and player assignments in the playbook using the built in word processor. You can have multiple plays on a page or design your own page templates. It now has a cool feature for creating your QB wristband without having to type in the play names. And you can print play cards for your practices directly from the Chalkbaord drawing program that is part of the youth and pro version. There is a lot more I could say but there are video tutorials on the website that explains everything.

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