ukce1861

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.

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?

You're right, that's a little overboard... Now I just gotta go find me a Scouting Director!

I actually had my wife tape a game a couple of weeks ago and plan on having her tape either our next game or the one after that. There's so much that I miss as a coach being in the game that it was good to see on film. I didn't study it all week by any means, but I would certainly recommend it if it's available to you. As for scouting, we all practice and play our games at the same time so that would be hard. I do peak over every once in a while at the team that practices next to us to see what's going on, so I guess that's scouting, but I don't feel too bad...

Hey guys, thanks for all the great suggestions. I put some of them into action for this week's practice and game and saw some definite improvements. We only had 6 players show this week, so that made some things easier, but I think we're getting better. We didn't score this week but we definitely improved moving the ball, adding a reverse and a fake off-tackle, end around. Adding those in allowed us to run the normal plays as well with some success. The problem was that we got into the no-run zone (5 yards either side of midfield) and couldn't move the ball. We've still got to work on passing. We completed two, but it wasn't enough... Funny thing about the reverse and fake off tackle. Most of the time I lined up my two biggest, fastest kids as the ones that got the hand off first or were faked to. The other coach kept keying his defense on them and when we made the extra handoff our little kids were running free... So how do you deal with a "win at all costs" coach? He's apparently taught his kids to block, which is illegal in our league. And half of the blocks they were using would be illegal in the NFL. Our rusher got pulled to the ground several times... The ref called a couple of flags but his philosophy was more to let them play and explain what can and can't be done. I like that attitude because for the most part these kids don't know what they're doing. What I didn't like was even after the ref told them they were blocking and that was illegal, the coach is telling his kids to block... I was really proud of my kids because while they were getting pushed around, they didn't complain too much. I told them after the game that we play fair and no matter what happens I want them to give maximum effort, which they did. All in all, it was our best game to date and I hope it's a sign that we're getting somewhere...

Inspired by an e-mail from Rob, here's my diatribe on my early coaching experience. (Sorry for the length, but I felt background was important. For more background, you can see my playbook here) To say it was going terrible might be a slight exaggeration… We lost our first game 25-0. Basically, we couldn’t move the ball on offense and our defense collapsed to the middle on every play. They had a couple of quick kids who would bounce to the outside and then off to the races… Nothing went well that day. The second game was a lot better. We moved the ball relatively well, had some decent drives and busted three long runs, two of which resulted in touchdowns. (Proud father aside: My son scored the first touchdown on a 30+ yard run. And I’m not one of those “feed it my kid” coaches; he only got two touches that game.) We gave up one long run and won 14-6, getting both extra points (runs from the 5 yard line). But it’s against the team that’s 0-3, losing to all three of the teams in our league. Our game this past weekend was fairly good defensively. They broke a long run on a reverse. Four of our five kids bit hard on the reverse and the one that didn’t tripped just as he got to the ball carrier. They scored another touchdown on a long run where three of our kids collided in the backfield right at the ball carrier. They went down in a heap and the runner escaped and outran one other kid that had decent position. Again, we had a ton of trouble moving the ball and lost 14-2 (got a safety and gave up a safety). Here are the main problems I’ve identified. First, our kids try and dance when faced with defenders. Instead of running downfield they’re running side to side, or worse, backwards, to avoid defenders. We have one kid that’s probably fast enough to get away with this but the rest aren’t. Even with him, I’d prefer downhill running to shifting in the backfield. One of my biggest kids could frankly intimidate most defenders out of his way if he would just charge downfield but he won’t. How do I get them to run north-south, as opposed to east-west? Second, as you might have seen on the forum, my new playbook is really limited. Basically it’s an off-tackle left and right and end around left and right. I’ve got a center drag in there but the passing game seems to be out of reach for now. I’ve got a couple that have a good arm standing still but they can’t hit a moving target and get them in a game situation and they panic. In the first game we threw the ball square in the back of one receiver and into open space on another play (literally all the kids were on the other side of the field)… The second game we threw no passes. Last week we tried a couple but they weren’t even close to productive. I feel like most of the kids don’t even have our limited playbook down so I hesitate to expand it. But as we are, we don’t spread the field enough so the other team loads up the box and we can’t do anything. I still have to explain to one kid that just because she’s not getting the ball, she shouldn’t try and pull flags… How do I add variety with out overwhelming them? I’m thinking of doing a couple of things. One, I’m thinking of doing an all pass practice. Routes, passing, catching, etc. Two, I’m thinking of locking in positions a bit more. I have a couple of little 6 year olds who are good centers but, honestly, can’t run to save their lives. I have a couple of other kids who have no idea how to throw and can’t even position themselves right for the hand-off. Right now I’m trying to rotate kids fairly evenly through all the positions but I’m about ready to settle on some, or at least preclude some kids from certain positions. Is that terrible? Third, what do you do with the kids who, for lack of a better term, stink? I have one kid who is, honestly, terrible. I call the kid my rock because he doesn’t move. When he’s lined up at running back, he doesn’t move until I tell him to go (even in a game). Same thing if he’s lined up at receiver. On one defensive play in the first game, they got a 45 yard run for a touchdown. I’m hustling down the field to line our defense up for the extra point and I look back and he’s still standing there, rooted to the spot I told him to go to. What do I do? Defensively, I think we’re in decent shape. We’re staying at home a lot better than the first game and, with the exception of some long plays, we’ve kept the offenses in check the last two weeks. Offensively, we’re, shall we say, severely challenged… Do I throw more out there even though all of them haven’t figured out the first bunch? Next week should be an interesting test as we play the team we played in week one. They’ve rolled through their first three games, so we’ll see. And we’re down at least two kids next week… Sorry for the long post... P.S. I realized reading through the post I probably sound a little overly competitive. I won't lie, I'm a very competitive person, but I do my best to keep it in check with the kids. We talk about having fun and giving your best effort being what's most important. That being said, I want to win and I want to compete. I guess I don't believe in all that "everybody's a winner" and I'm glad that only the championship team gets trophies in our league. While I'll be just as proud of our kids if they got out there and play hard and right and still lose, I still want to win...

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. 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?

Here's my new, much simpler, playbook. I plan on expanding it some as the kids get this, but I want them to have this down pat and then we'll go from there... Playbook.pdf

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...

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