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Post by coachcb on Aug 28, 2008 22:34:50 GMT -6
This question is for those of you who coach/have any of the middle levels (middle school, freshman) of football where you have a lot of kids go out.
Do you guy prefer splitting those kids up between an A-squad and B-squad, or two evenly matched units?
I have coached in both situations and there are pros and cons of both, but I'd like to hear what you have to say.
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Post by mrfr33z3 on Aug 29, 2008 7:50:07 GMT -6
well it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish when you say splitting them up....are you doing it for scrimmage purpose or as far as depth chart?? if you were doing it as a purpose of scrimmage then I'd think I'd try to evenly match things up so that you can establish your depth chart of your A / B squad based upon which kids played the best. then once you have established a depth chart then just rep rep rep the heck out of each unit so that your B squad guys can work themselves into a potential starting role.. Just my 2 cents
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Post by coachwoodall on Aug 29, 2008 8:48:32 GMT -6
I was the JV coach at a same school, but a couple years had tremendous numbers and some good talent spread out. Now our JV was really a Jr High team. 7,8,9th grades.
I made a Blue squad and a Gold squad (school colors). One group had more of the better linemen and QB that was good at the option, the other had more of the skill players and our better passing QB. But all in all they were evenly matched. Each group had about 17-18 players total.
During practices we practiced them as a squad and every player had to learn an offensive position and a defensive one. This also helped out the coaching situation since we had 3 coaches. Half of the time was divided up for each squad to rep each side of the ball. Monday focus on one group doing offense and then on Tuesday the other group worked offense. Wednesday was even.
For games, I simply told them which squad would start on offense for that game and which would start on defense. At the end of the quarter, they would switch sides of the ball.
Takes a little planning, but I felt it was important to:
-teach every player 2 positions
-get more kids involved to keep them coming back
-keep the practices moving and not getting stale
-work some younger coaches on learning and working with different kids
-let kids work on their individual strengths.
-keep some flexibility from an offensive stand point, b/c based on the situation, I could mix and match kids based on their strengths
-later in the season as we got into the region, we could combine the squads to match up better with the better teams weplayed.
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Post by fbdoc on Sept 1, 2008 19:02:09 GMT -6
Our MS team has had a ton of 6th graders turn out so we are trying to separate them to help with their indoctrination to football and not slow down the 7th and 8th graders who have a little more experience. Theres also a big difference between an 8th grader and a 6th grader so we can control the intensity for the younger kids. So far its going very well.
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Post by teachcoach on Sept 6, 2008 20:20:27 GMT -6
Our freshman football team is divided between a true "A" and "B" squad. They play the other schools in our conference that do it the same way. In the past there was one team that would evenly divide their players and that would cause lopsided games when we would play them (running clocks in both games, one for us, one for them). The kids seem to improve when they are playing at their similar level of competition. Many of our "B" players go on to be good varsity players by the time they are seniors.
We play 6 level in our high school
Frosh A and B
Soph A and B All dress for Friday those who did not play or had little time play Saturday morning.
JV and Varsity (Jrs. and SRs.) All dress for Friday those who did not play or had little time play Saturday morning.
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