65 replies to this topic

[Texas_D_Coach]

checked out your latest and greatest. your kids are looking good, recognized a lot of those plays. some of those chief players were 3 times as big as some of your kids.

Thanks Rob. That Chiefs team is the same one we had to beat to win the championship. They beat us in that first game (the one on the video) 31-12. Their kids were huge (most of them looked like they were in 6th or 7th grade instead of 3rd/4th grade). Their size really intimidated our team and we had a lot of little guys this winter that were new.

Unfortunately I didn't get our best games of the season (the last 2) or the playoffs on video. I plan on recording all of the spring games though.

[Orange]

My teams are usually on the shorter side for some reason. I just don't have any tall kids. But what I do have is quickness. When we run into these teams that tower over us I give them my old speech (I use it all the time, not just against tall teams). The words vary but it goes something like this: "Boys, flag football is a speed sport. It doesn't matter how tall or big you are, it matters how fast you are. We have speed, lots of it and if we use it properly we'll do well. I want to see you guys flying around out there, use your speed. I don't want you to hold back and be afraid to make mistakes. I'd rather we play fast and make a few mistakes then play timid."

But yea, a tall fast team is killer. The best team in our area, the Colts are just that, tall and fast.

[Texas_D_Coach]

My teams are usually on the shorter side for some reason. I just don't have any tall kids. But what I do have is quickness. When we run into these teams that tower over us I give them my old speech (I use it all the time, not just against tall teams). The words vary but it goes something like this: "Boys, flag football is a speed sport. It doesn't matter how tall or big you are, it matters how fast you are. We have speed, lots of it and if we use it properly we'll do well. I want to see you guys flying around out there, use your speed. I don't want you to hold back and be afraid to make mistakes. I'd rather we play fast and make a few mistakes then play timid."

But yea, a tall fast team is killer. The best team in our area, the Colts are just that, tall and fast.

I do have a couple of tall kids, but none like they had on that other team. That team had an interesting mix of really tall but slow kids, pretty tall and fast kids, and some really short really fast kids. They ran a bunch of plays where they would put all their tallest/biggest kids bunched up on the line around the center, and then run one of the very little super fast kids out of the backfield. It made it really challenging for our defense to see where the kid was coming from with all those big kids screening like that.

Orange,
I PM'd you, did you get it?

[TheTebowEffect]

Here is my team's game this past Saturday. Sorry its so long, had a couple of parents who missed the game and wanted to see most of the game. We won 31-2, but could have been more. I say "could have", but I told my kids in a time-out to drop any interceptions to stop running up the score. I'm the intern for the league so I didn't want to get a bad rep from the coaches. Was that the right thing to do? I also gave the kids a speech about how we're a team that respects the other teams,and will never run up the score. I felt as if 32-2 was running up the score a little and I noticed the other coach gave me a cold shoulder after the game. We also only ran probably 4-5 different plays the second half hoping their team would catch on and not let us move the ball. My kids are great and all but one said they liked the idea. The other one wanted to score another one because he was on that team last year and wasn't drafted by the coach. Good move or bad?

[Chris W]

Here is my team's game this past Saturday. Sorry its so long, had a couple of parents who missed the game and wanted to see most of the game. We won 31-2, but could have been more. I say "could have", but I told my kids in a time-out to drop any interceptions to stop running up the score. I'm the intern for the league so I didn't want to get a bad rep from the coaches. Was that the right thing to do? I also gave the kids a speech about how we're a team that respects the other teams,and will never run up the score. I felt as if 32-2 was running up the score a little and I noticed the other coach gave me a cold shoulder after the game. We also only ran probably 4-5 different plays the second half hoping their team would catch on and not let us move the ball. My kids are great and all but one said they liked the idea. The other one wanted to score another one because he was on that team last year and wasn't drafted by the coach. Good move or bad?

I agree that it isn't in anyone's best interest to run up the score, however, I disagree in having your players intentionally dropping interceptions. Kids / coaches are receptive and that can be seen as rubbing their noses in it even more so than scoring again. Your better bet is to continue to play and when on offense look to get players that may not be as gifted athletically more opportunities or let them play new positions, etc...

[Orange]

I agree with the comment about dropping interceptions. I am not a fan of having my players back off or play less than they are capable. I want them always giving 100%. I think asking them to play less or not make interceptions can start a bad habit. Plus it's actually more insulting to the other team that you are beating. As the previous poster said, a better technique would be to insert players who are perhaps less gifted, not as fast, playing out of position, etc. Also, on offense just run it up the middle. On defense don't rush the passer and play your defense back with a big cushion. Do different things in the strategy but don't ask the players to "let up" on the other team.

[Johnp2]

This can be a situation where you are darned if you do, darned if you don't. I for one, do believe it is prudent to show a cognizant effort as to not run up the score.

We played in a game last season where it got very ugly in the first half. I think we were up 26-0 at the half. At that point, I DID start calling vanilla plays on offense. There really was no point to start giving it to my lesser-skilled athletes, as I spread it around evenly whether we are winning or losing.

I distinctly remember in that game that there was 35 second left when when we were in the in the huddle. I told the kids to just let the clock run out. The ref said, "You have time for one more play, coach." I said, "I know, but we are finished." The other coach said, "It's okay, let's do one more play." I called my most vanilla run play--straight up the middle--and of course our RB broke it for a long TD. I felt AWFUL, but the coach was very gracious and said afterward, "I know you weren't trying to run it up, you showed class."

Of course, the final score is not indicative of running up the score. I once had a team up on us by something like 12 points, and their coach ran hurry up and called timeouts with 20 seconds left in the game in effort to score again. We stopped them before time ran out, but that was insulting (and we only lost by 12 points).

To the other coaches' points, some feel a sting if you go out of your way to "hold back." Last season we had a team in our league who were up big on a their opponent twice. In both games, once they made an interception, the player took a knee. I know for a fact that this really insulted the other coaches---but when you think about it, the coach was not trying to "show up" the other team, but instead was simply displaying sportmanship---or at least that is how I saw it.

So...I personally think you did the right thing. Whenever in question, err on the side of doing whatever you can to NOT run up the score. If it gets so bad you have to have your kids drop INTs, take a knee, or run out of bounds--then that is what you have to do. It's a whole lot easier explaining that than explaining why you scored on every other play.

[Coach Rob]

In blow out games, we've had our kids knock down passes instead of intercepting. However, we have a mercy rule (if a team is up by 24pts) in our league that allows the other team to start near midfield and add a 6th player if they choose to do so. I think that gives the losing team a good opportunity to score.

Thinking back, I'm not sure having them knock down passes was the right thing to do. I'm big on ball touches and my responsibility is to our players, not theirs. If I allow the other team to keep the ball on offense, my kids get jipped out of more ball touches. I'm not out there to make sure the other team's kids get more ball touches.

What I can do is:

~wait for them to be ready on defense*
~help the refs**
~encourage their players when they make a good run, catch, or flag pull
~use developing players at QB, RB, WR
~no rush
~run up the middle

*Waiting for them on defense. We were having a blowout game this past Sunday, ball was set, we came to the los and we started to hike the ball. Their defense was still in a huddle, so I stopped the play. Kind of funky for me to do that, but the refs agreed probably because of the score at the time.

**Helping the refs. We were up by 24 pts, so the mercy rule goes into effect. Refs missed the starting at midfield deal, play was about to start so I yelled to stop the play. They agreed and moved ball up towards midfield. Same with intercepts during mercy rule, you can't run them back, ball is dead where the intercept occured. Refs missed it and our kid ran all the way down the field. Reminded them about the rule, they agreed and called it back.

Tough one, but I think a lot of it is attitude and how you handle yourself out on the field. If I do things like I mentioned above, then allowing my kids to still play hard and get more ball touches is fine with me.

[TheTebowEffect]

I see both sides of the argument. At practice today I went over giving 100% on every play. I told them that I should have never told them to drop INT's. I did mention next time we'll just take a knee or run it out of bounds. I mean in the video you clearly see that my players could have returned two INT's for touch downs at the end of the game. This is what I love about coaching young kids (this is my first year coaching), they take everything to heart and most of them will take what you teach them and run with it. Thanks for responding and hope I can get more advice from you throughout the season.

[rushbuster70]

Im kind of the butthead coach because I'm all for the kids having as much ball touches and if that means the score gets high then so be it.I can take my teams butt getting kicked.It will eventually happen anyways lol.Its the opposing teams job to stop us.With that being said when we are up by 4 or more TD's I always tell them to just bat the ball down.We wont rush.We will always wait for the other team to get ready.But when we are offense I'm not going to be conservative about it.The goal on offense is to get your players confidence by getting them touches and thats what I do.If it means scoring then so be it we will score.I haven't scored more than 36 points this season.Even that game wasnt terrible.36-12.

[OakParkCoach]

Here's one of my favorite games....I'm compiling a season highlight film...it's almost 20 minutes long...doing it primarily for my entertainment and will have that up in a few weeks.

Roy

[Texas_D_Coach]

Here's one of my favorite games....I'm compiling a season highlight film...it's almost 20 minutes long...doing it primarily for my entertainment and will have that up in a few weeks.

Roy

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=P4asZSqIlI0

Nice video coach!!!

Great Game. Congrats on the win. The kids looked like they played off the hook. Some awesome plays in there.

Nice intro and transistions in the video. What video editor do you use?

[YMCA Coach]

I see both sides of the argument. At practice today I went over giving 100% on every play. I told them that I should have never told them to drop INT's. I did mention next time we'll just take a knee or run it out of bounds. I mean in the video you clearly see that my players could have returned two INT's for touch downs at the end of the game. This is what I love about coaching young kids (this is my first year coaching), they take everything to heart and most of them will take what you teach them and run with it. Thanks for responding and hope I can get more advice from you throughout the season.

I can see both sides of the argument, having been on both sides, so I'll explain how I approach it.

I almost told my kids to do just as you said, drop interceptions (we had 2 already in the game). I changed my mind, as I don't want these kids just dropping a chance for them to show what they can do. Instead, I told them that as soon as they picked one off, run the ball to one of our less-skilled players, hand him the ball for the run back. When we're up alot, I make all plays go to the weaker players, passing to or handing off to kids who haven't scored as often as others.

I won't call a timeout with 30 seconds left if I'm up by alot with the ball, but sometimes I do call timeout to give the opposing team a chance to get another play off before time runs out. Never on third down without asking the other coach about it first, though, so I'm not looking at running up the score.

I ran into this last weekend, where I was up 19-0 with time running down. One of my kids lucked into an interception (tipped pass literally hit him in the chest), and he ran it back. But before he got to the endzone, I saw him slow down enough to let his flag get pulled. He walked over to me with a big grin and said "I'm sorry, Coach, I could've scored, but I wanted to give Jacob a chance to score today." My response was a big hug. We ran a play for Jacob (I-formation, handoff to the lead back, pitch to the fullback, who was Jacob) and he was the one who pitched it to him, even though he could've scored easily.

I spoke to their coach afterward, and his initial angry response was eased when he learned why the INT wasn't returned for a touchdown.

Sportsmanship is huge to me, and character essential. Instilling this in young players is one of the reasons I coach.

[OakParkCoach]

Hey Texas...THANKS! I just saw your question...sorry for the late reply. I used Apples iMovie...had never used before and just wanted to see what it could do so for that movie, I used every transition in the program just to see how they would look. I've finished my "opus" of the entire season and will try to post in July when I return from vacation. Not sure if I can upload a 25 minute movie but sure had fun making it...i learned how to do slow mo and break clips plus added tons more music...it was a lot of work and my wife things I'm obsessed, but like I said it was fun. iMovie and iDVD are free Mac programs that are really worth checking out.

roy

[dellobo]

I posted a highlight video of some of our games from this fall season.

You can view the video here:

View on Vimeo.

Enjoy!!

Great video...