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LemonThrower

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LemonThrower last won the day on July 16 2017

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  1. i find that throwing bullet passes at young ages results in dropped passes. so i let the kids arc them and i just design plays for kids to get open. i do change this up based on down and distance. for a short first down or XP, i tell the qb to throw a quick bullet, and remind all the WRs that its coming quick, be ready for a bullet, and to turn around and look for the ball as halfway to the FD marker.
  2. i definitely teach the spin move. i have some plays on youtube under the channel 3682david. search those for spin and you'll find them. i show the kids the film. one film shows one of our best athletes nearly get a TD. the next shows the same play by an average athlete below average speed spin and get the TD. it works. not ever time, but it doubles your chances. for a drill, i line them all up side by side to watch me demonstrate. the key is a 2-step technique. if you try to spin in one step you have to slow down too much or you'll fall over. if you accomplish the spin over 2 steps you can maintain most of your forward progress and still move the flags. after i demonstrate, i have each kid practice running from the 10 yard mark to the endzone. we do this about 10 times and then we switch the side they spin from. whole drill takes less than 5 minutes.
  3. I've seen this play used in Tackle football, middle school I think. In fact this reminds me of the play we did when I was in Junior High and playing a receiver. This of course works with larger teams (11 is best, but 8 might work), and a good passing QB. During the huddle send one player to the sidelines, but have him stop just before going out of bounds (or step in just before the snap - depending on league rules). Line up like normal, the Defense will likely not notice the sole player just on the edge of the field near the other players (or parents). Snap the ball and immediately throw to the sideline player, he'll have a clear shot to the end zone, and again this will only work once. HFi have used this play successfully. we roll the qb to that sideline and send the extra kid deep. i think this is more sporting than the 'whats the play' trick or 'wrong ball' trick.
  4. another thing on blitzing i picked up watching my film. . . .first, a lot of teams send their worst player to blitz. this is a mistake as its usually ineffectual. second, the blitzers invariably go for a sack. i have had a lot of success with a different approach. i send a faster kid to blitz. i had 1 kid who was tall and fast but had poor football instinct. i had another kid who was on the slower side but big with good instinct. i also had 2 very small inexperienced kids who shouldn't have been at this level. i would send the bigger kid to the QB's right and tell him not to worry about the flag but to try to block the pass and wave his arms. this was very initimidating and resulted in lots of hurried passes and changed trajectories. the smaller kid i'd tell to contain the QB and go for the flag. they didnt' get any sacks but by cutting off the contain they shaved several seconds off the throw.
  5. we tied our first game, lost our second game, and then i installed a safety and a 2 man blitz and we won all of our games thereafter and gave up an average of only 1 TD per game. i think an overlooked part of coaching is evaluating personnel. people write books about plays, but the knack of coaching is setting up those plays and what you ask and who you ask it of. my son is a good athlete but very aggressive. he'd be a terrible safety. i had 2 other kids at safety that saved a ton of TDs for us. they were average speed, slightly shorter than average, but had sound fundamentals and a disposition to follow directions. also, kids enjoy doing what they do best. at my last practice, i asked the kids if there was something they hadn't gotten to do. my best pass rusher summoned up the nerve to comment. i thought he was going to ask to do something other than rush the passer since i had had him doing that almost exclusiviley because he was so good at it. instead, he asked to rush the passer. he had found a way to make a real contribution to the team, and didn't want to give that up.
  6. my former asst coach insisted on shotgun and we'd fumble about a third of the snaps. this season he coached his own team and sure enough they were still using the shotgun and still fumbling a third of the snaps. i experimented with many things but rolling out the QB works the best. if you have him roll close to the l.o.s., it works like play action and the secondary often gets mesmerized by the run and you can sneak a WR past the defense.
  7. there are a variety of ways to call plays. depends on what is most important to you. i have a friend who does the color thing - he gives each kid on the field a different color wrist band so everyone remembers who is what color. other guys have a large laminated play card with every play diagram shrunk down. i have a playbook but i find it hard to use in the huddle. instead i draw up the plays with a white board each time. instead of drawing an O for each offensive player, i draw their initials and an arrow of where the play goes for them. we generally run the same small number of plays each time, but with minor tweaks. i find it easier to draw up the play than to find the right page in the playbook. also, the kids seem to focus more as i draw the play. i like the whiteboard because you have to be flexible. if the other team is doing one thing, then you have to do another. also, i'll run a play and keep running it until the other team defends it. then i'll draw up a play that looks just like it but is very different. so i might run a pass play by lining all my receivers on the left side of the ball. then i'll run an end around out of the same formation. its hard to pull that off with a playbook or a color coded system unless you are changing players colors on the fly, and if you are doing that then you are losing most of the benefit of the color. I generally have 2 squads and 2 QBs but rotate everyone else. i don't focus on per game stats but i do try to even it out. if someone didn't get many touches in a game, in the next game they get the ball first and they get it alot. i do keep stats and watch film, and i'm often surprised to see kids on film or on the states page contributing that i didn't quite notice in the game. as for rotating players, in my experience i have always had a big spread between the best and worst player. I'm mindful of that, and have found ways to get a score for everyone or nearly everyone. but I try not to put a kid in a position where he can't succeed. so the slow runners don't get many handoffs but when its time for a short pass for a FD or TD or XP i design the play to go to them. or ill let the best runner run a handoff say to the right, then i'll run the same play with a fake to the best guy to the right and actually give it to a lesser player to the left.
  8. my 8 and 9 year olds will pick you apart if you don't rush us. i would send 2 - the better one to the QB's right and then the worst player to the QB's left for contain. some of the better qbs will roll out from the rush but the 2 man rush accelerated their throws by several seconds. you may scoff at sending 2 but i usually had a little guy who wasn't much use in coverage anyway so it was a perfect job for him. the better rusher was a guy who was taller but was less cooridinated and not too good at following directions or instinct. this was a perfect job for him as welll. this scheme was very effective at taking away long passes and creating interceptions.
  9. i like to roll the QB out too. in addition to buying time, it shortens the width of the field for the QB. I'll spread 3 receivers out at medium depth, and try to sneak the other 2 deep. because the throws have less east-west component to them, the QBs can throw a little deeper, and this usually surprises the defense some.
  10. i think the key against good QBs is to blitz them. i'll blitz 2 guys, have a 3 across zone, and 1 safety. in my leage, blitzers have to start 7 yds back. i'll send the best one to the QB's right, because most QB's roll that way. i tell him not to worry about the flag, just get your hands up and intimidate/hurry the QB. the second blitzer will be the slowest or shortest guy on the team. there's always a guy like that, and this is a good spot for him. its his job to go low and get the flag (if it ever comes to that). we probably ran 200 blitzes this year and never pulled a flag before the ball was thrown, but we did block 3 passes and hurried just about every throw. in our last game, we really perfected the defense and we had 1 blocked pass, 4 INT's, and 3 tackles for loss. what I found is the kids never take a sack and they just throw it up. a lot of times they got the pass to the receiver, but either the pass was lofted and therefore easily defended because the QB was hurried or just simply thrown inaccurately and were much more difficult to catch. i was surprised with how effective this was. we were the only team to send 2 blitzers and we gave up an average of only 1 TD per game.
  11. the biggest mistake i see new coaches make in flag football is assuming its like tackle football. i coach my defense to force players to the middle so that if they miss they don't screen their teammates. it also allows more guys on defense a chance to pull the flag. field position matters a lot less in flag because at the youth level most of the TDs come from a single big play. most of the big plays occur when a runner gets to the sideline or when a receiver gets past the defense.
  12. i coach in upward, 6v6 3rd and 4th graders. i only have challenges with the rush when we pass. for runs, we use misdirection and you have to have quick developing plays. we mostly see zone. when passing, we do 2 things to beat the blitz. first, we roll the qb out 50-75% of the width of the field. you have to teach the qb to stop and plant his foot before he throws. second, we spread out all the receivers on one side between the center and the sideline. I send the center and sideline guy deep. i have the other other 3 go medium with 1 on the sideline, 1 straight in front of where the center started, and one between them. we mostly see zone. what usually happens is a defender will pick up 1 of the 3 kids who do a medium depth route, and 1 or both of the deep routes go uncovered. sounds stupid but the defenses usually don't shift over, and the coach on the other side thinks you area going to run some sort of trick play to the empty half so they usually tell at least 1 man to stay over there. the dbacks are usually content to cover someone, and they don't realize that they have the medium routes double covered and have left the deep routes uncovered. you can run this to either side of the field. after the other team has seen this play/formation a few times, i like to change it up. i'll roll the qb out still but have the sideline wr run and endaround and take a rolling handoff from the qb. or i'll have the receivers go a little deeper and have the sideline wr run a drag underneath - by the time he gets to midfield he usually has clear sailing. the other thing i'll do is fake the end around and throw to the rb after he's past the QB.
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