patscoach

I've been the circuit on software, from using something that someone gave me to using PowerPoint and Publisher and creating plays myself - even animated!!It's fun to do, but hugely time consuming. If time is the essence, I bet you can get something on a piece of paper faster this way: Decide what offensive formations you want to use and create some "blanks" in PowerPoint or Publisher (or the old fashioned way - by hand) for photocopying or mass printing. Bring several to practice and sketch plays as needed against the typical defenses you may face. Our league mandates a 5-2 at that age, even easier! If you're like me, you have a family, a job, and want to go fishing once in a while. Keep it simple, they're 3rd graders and would benefit more by seeing the play drawn out in front of them as opposed to looking at something already set up. I also run the Double Wing and at that age limit the kids to 1 or 2 passes and 3 run plays with mirrors (wedge, off tackle and sweep). We say that each back gets to do the plays. This way the QB and FB get in on the action as well, keeping their interest up. Also simplify the terminology. I coach junior high kids. If i have a play called "split left red 99 power sweep" for my team, I ask the 6-7 coach to call it "split left sweep left". At that age they need to have fundamentals more than playbooks.Good luck!

Does anyone have any ideas on liability coverage for coaches? Our league, individual teams, officers and one head coach from each team are covered, but none of the assistants. The topic was brought up at team and league board meetings about the necessity of covering the assistants as well. Opinions seemed to be at both ends of the spectrum. A friend emailed me a law class syllabus from George Mason University regarding sport coach liability and several cases were noted, every one of them scared the bejeezus out of me.That got us thinking. What, if anything, does your team do? Are there any lawyer/coaches out there with ideas?

We dropped our stretches and went with something that incorporated "football movement" in our agilities. Kids that age don't have (for the most part) muscles enough to stretch, as puberty hasn't really gotten up to speed yet. You may evaluate your kids to see which boys are more muscle developed and dosomething with them prior to practice, but the dynamic movement theory works best.

At that age you should coach them as their 3rd and 4th grade teachers teach them - small amounts at a time, and be thorough. They're telling you to stick to 2 formations and 3 plays from each, which is about all they can handle. If you want, you can either add a play or two once they master the initial set, or exchange a couple to fit their abilities. If they're firing on all cylinders, the opponent won't be able to stop them even if they know what's coming. Chances are the 9-11 yr olds on defense you'll hbe up against aren't capable of "adjusting" to your formations all that successfully.

3 more weeks of All Stars Little League (off seacon coaching practice!) and you'll see more of us back. Thanks for fixing the site, it's one of the best, most active sites out there.

Our team is comprised of kids and parents from 8 different towns, grades 3-8. The program is an independent member of a 16 team league. Each town has a "town Rep" that serves on the local team board who comes from the parent pool (there are 8), as does the coaching staff. The closest high school's school board just passed approval for a varsity team and hired it's first coach last week. The team youth board has members that serve on both boards, HS and youth. The new coach has already expressed his desire to bring in his college comglomerate offensive playbook (replacing our Double Wing - sorry, Jack, we're trying!!) and feels he needs to be embedded in the youth program down to the flag level. Without a youth PD we coaches feel we're gonna get railroaded into a teaching style unsuitable for youth. How common is it for area programs to be so heavily influenced by HS programs?

ltlacy Do you have him playing more than one position that doesn't ask him to be aggressive the whole game? Does he get adequate rest? 2 way players tend to not come off the field enough and will play as long as you have them out there. He's young and impressionable and wants to please. Did he ask to play the positions or did you ask him? In short, he's 8, not 18. Kids that age do not think of it as a football attitude like a coach does. They give what they have, for the 5-7minute attention span that's in their nature, then they begin to stray mentally. Obviously he was involved in an attitude changing collision that has made him a bit timid. My son is a 9 yr old that plays and I asked him how he would feel. He said he prefers to not play so much because he sometimes gets tired. He's a linebacker and a tackle on offense. I think the coach gives him a hitting break on offense to keep him "active" on defense, or he gets him a rest all around. Even though he may say he wants to be there, we should try to learn why he wants to be there. Some kids hear from a parent or coach that they should keep at it until they get over their fears, something that drives them back to soccer. A good coaching practice for the average kid in youth football is to have a sub ready for a player that was just involved in a long run, hard hit or lengthy series of plays. At that age weird things creep in to their minds if they don't get a break. Physical and mental breaks are important for recharging their motors. Assess to see if they're desperate to go back in. I've mentioned this in other strings, talk to a 3rd or 4th grade teacher to get an understanding of the mindset of the 8-10 yr old. I've done it and have learned lots about managing that age in sports. One coach in my jr high league is a 4th grade teacher who has talked to me extensively about this topic. He supports the short duration theory and thinks that teams and philosophies that go beyond the 5-7 minute modules (drills, playing time) for kids that age run the risk of them inexplicably losing interest (aggressive attitude?). Coach encouragement and standard motivation tech doesn't really cut through the fog. I see this in my new 8th graders that shy away from hits, either running or tackling. We get some (not all) over it by hammering on form and technique, NOT BADASS ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENTS.

Winston, I gleaned that from rereading your strings. It's a tough situation. How many games and practices do you have left? Did the HC clearly outline goals for the program, positions, disciplines and kids? In your initial question, someone proclaimed that you were behind and you should scrimmage more. Well, if you're behind in game management, then scrimmage more. If you're behind in "play understanding", spend 15 minutes per practice stepping through your 4 or 5 core plays to "confirm" that they understand their BASIC assignments until they begin to get it before you scrimmage more. If behind in position fundanmentals, continue to drill the FUN-da-mentals for 20 mins per practice (in 3 different drills per group - remember that a 9 yr old has a 7 minute attention span !>) ). If you must scrimmage more, then teach while you play. We scrimmage our 7th graders against 7th graders from other teams in our area. It does me no good to scrimmage that group of kids against my better players, who will only bash their brains in both physically and fundamentally and then learn absolutely nothing but who's their daddy. Your 8 yr olds are probably similar to my 7th graders, 10 yr olds to my 8th graders. Believe me, a demoralized kid learns nothing. The best way for them to learn is to learn together against other kids in the same boat. You must have access to teams in similar situations in your area. Most importantly the parents will appreciate your effort at finding appropriate ways to teach your kids. Two nights ago we had such a "scrimmage" against the 7th graders of a very good team whose head coach happens to be a 4th grade teacher. This is the only way he can justify the process for teaching his next year's team. His full 7-8 team beat us 32-12 in our real game. Our 7th graders tied his 7th graders 6-6 in the scrimmage, which by all accounts was as close to a real game as we could make it. Both teams made the same mistakes but kept figting through them. Imagine a few of your studs screwing that up? If your HC doesn't understand this as being the real reason the kids are there HE needs to leave and you need to stay! And you can tell him I said so.

Winston, I'm kinda going out on a limb here, but here's what I think is appropriate for 8-10 year olds. My only experience here is that I have both a 9 yr old (2nd year player) and an 11yr old (2nd yr player) in football, have coached 3rd and 4th grade soccer (5 yrs) basketball (3 yrs) as well as jr high football. At the 8-10 yr old age group I see lots of similarities in the kids and their capabilities to learn, not the sophistication level of the sports. I took the time to verify this with my sons' 4th grade teacher. She opened up a world for me i never considered applying to "coaching". Kids at this age need to learn fundamentals before they can compete. Simple as that. Their maximim absorption time for learning is 5-7 minutes, simple as that. They will not "learn on the fly" like an older kid, especially a sport like football. Sure, some will, but it only takes one blown assignment to make the best laid plans fail. If your kids can't compete in the arena of blocking and tackling they will not have as good an experience as they would if they could do those things. I suspect that you may have more than one kid who lacks fundamentals, and is dragging down the other "athletes". From the strings of questions I see you ask, it seems to be split between basic and advanced fundamentals, and fairly spohisticated X's and O's. I'd really look to see if you are trying to get them to "perform" at too high a level for the amount of football exposure your kids have, and for their ability to learn those X's and O's. It could be that your opponents are doing more like coach Breck suggests, keep it short, sweet and simple and hammer the fundamentals, which might make them more successful. Scrimmage them 20% of the time, teach them fundamentals 80% of the time. One defense, 4 offensive plays, no sophisticated blocking schemes, hammer on form taclking, good 3 point stances, better first steps, driving for a few steps, and they'll do just fine. If I were the next level coach in your system I'd expect to not have to reteach fundamentals to the kids that they should have already learned. I would want them to learn the base plays to my offense so when they got to me I could expand on what they have been exposed to.

JWA, We use the Wedge. We stack all of the linemen overlapping each other shoulder over shoulder to create a flying (RumblingBumbling) Vee that has the QB tucked in thwe middle. It's good for 3-10 or more yds each time. This weekend we had the linebackers trying to leap over the top. Our linemen just carried them downfield. When they tried to submarine us we trampled them. Kinda tenderizes the middle!! A team that overstacks the outside is vulnerable to this. The other thing you can do is call a sweep to either side and call "Even or Odd" as an audible. Ours to the right is even and left is odd. The QB looks it over and yells the side he wants to go to. Have faith, they can do it!

I have a super nose tackle that has the freedom to take whatever A gap he wants, he just needs to communicate with the MLB so he can cover the other one. In the 5-3 I also have my tackles pinch in to the B gaps, and if the nose gets doubled, one of my tackles will be free in the gap. Teach the tackle to rip with the "Man Arm" and keep the "Gap Arm" free to make the tackle. Ripping will help him fend off the tackle's down block. If the nose gets doubled and the tackle gets down blocked, the OLB should be able to fill the C gap. If that doesn't work, Use a full out blitz with the MLB. If they doublr the nose, it's a c-g team and that should free up the LB. they will surely have to adjust the ideas of doubling so long as you vary the gaps the nose and MLB take.

We put 2 men back, 2 ballcarrier weight men in the middle and 7 up front. We use area blocking after a 10 yd drop back. We usually return to a sidelines . If it.s a return right, the left side dropsback and to the middle to form the wall. We try to keep the spacing to a minimum to make the area block to a minimum. Slam anyone who comes to your area. Our outside front men are fast and good open field blockers to catch the outside man sprinting to the carrier. The 2 middle men fall back to form a team of blockers to lead the way and are responsible for leakage. Breaking one is tough, so we strive for decent field position and discourage our return men from running wild. Stick to the plan and we'll do ok. Question, any good training techs for fielding a kick on the fly, other than spending 30 mins doing kickoffs? Not all can do this well.

What do you all ask of your returning players in the off season? We suggest they get involved with other sports to stay in shape, but it seems our program attracts those kids that don't play other sports at all. That fact begs that they do something to get in shape before we start the preseason.

Greg, We use a "2 hop slide step" at a 45 deg. angle away from the LOS for the first part of the motion. That allows us to get the timing down and set the back on the path needed to attack the LOS at the correct angle when in the Tight formation. Believe me, motion and timing takes lots of practice. We went to the extent of pacing off the actual width of our offensive line so that when the backs are practicing separate from the line they can get indexed properly with cones being the right distance from the QB. We just added a faster "Rocket" and "Lightning" motion, one faster than the slide step type. 2 nights at 20 mins each and we're still adjusting. If we can't get it from the Tight formation we'll just try to split the back out more to allow him a longer runway for timing. If you want to run a trap, set it up by taking the other wing not carrying the ball on a sweep and have him go in the opposite direction on the snap, like for a reverse. This will suck the DE down the LOS a bit more and allow the play back to get around him without the down block, in effect taking him out of the play. Once he adjusts the contain, then you can reverse, having set it up with the correct motion on the earlier play. Be sure to get the fullback going to the sweep side on both. He can help out with the DE. Try to leave them scratching their heads.

Tkerch, I coach 7th and 8th graders and have a son Sam in 3rd and 4th grade flag and another Tom in 5th and 6th grade tackle, all headed my way in the next few years. They both process praise differently, probably due to the coaches' techniques. Neither get stickers and feel they get the props they deserve. We give stickers as rewards and the kids feel they get the props they deserve - and they like to see them on the helmets. It's more ceremonial than competitive, and the kids love to see their mates be recognized and adorned by the coach that harangues them all week long. Needed? No. Harmful? No. I spent $50 on 300 stickers, not too bad.