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Post by coachdoug on Jun 17, 2010 0:12:37 GMT -6
Tonight I coached in my first ever passing league game. Before I tell you what happened, let me paint the scenario for you. For my team, we had a group that was solidly mediocre last year as Pee Wees (Jr. Midget this year) - 4-4 record last year with a blowout loss in the first round of the playoffs. I'm new to these kids and they're new to me. 3-4 of the best players from last year's Pee Wee team did not sign up (either they chose not to play, stayed down, or moved to another program - probably not legally, but that's another story). A couple more of the top athletes chose not to participate in Passing League, and one of our best overall athletes broke his finger yesterday in practice (making a catch - just a freak accident). So, to fill out our roster, they invited players from other age groups to join us, so we have 3 younger (2 Jr. Pee Wee and 1 Cadet - the level below Jr Pee Wee) on our squad. Our opponent, the Raiders, was in the championship game last year as Pee Wees, and has a core group that has been playing together with the same coach for 4-5 years. All their players are Jr Midget, expect for 2 Sr. Midget players. BTW, the coach has 42 years coaching experience (including pro - Arena League - college, and HS). Luckily I didn't know our opponent's credentials before the game.
We started on offense, and moved the ball slowly, but managed to score on our final play (10 plays regarless of down - similar to a typical scrimmage). My QB hurried a few throws, but actually looks like he's starting to get it. We go on defense and get lit up for 3 TDs in 10 plays. Then we settled down, and did pretty well the rest of the way - offensively, we moved the ball pretty well the whole time and we shut them down defensively the rest of the way, only giving up one more TD on the next 3 possessions. We still lost (10-6 or 12-8, I"m not sure - it's 2 pts for a TD and 1 pt for an Int, and I'm pretty sure we had 3 TDs and 2 Ints, but the other coach told me he had it at 10-6 - I know they had 4 TDs, and I thought they had 4 Ints, too, but I could be wrong). I suspect they could have demolished us, but took their foot off the gas after the first series.
Anyway, I'm usually not one to celebrate a loss, but given the situation, I was pretty happy with what we accompished tonight. Tomorrow night we have the #3 team from last year (they lost to the Raiders in the playoffs on a last-second TD, so they're pretty similar). If we can do as well again, I'll be thrilled.
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Post by ojowens411 on Jun 17, 2010 5:10:28 GMT -6
Coach Doug,
Sounds like you are moving the boys in the right direction. Good luck tonight...post the results.
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Post by mhcoach on Jun 17, 2010 11:40:07 GMT -6
Doug
Congrats! It's amazing what some coaching can do. Passing league games can be funny, the most important thing is getting your QB reps. Sounds like you have things on the right path, don't be surprized if the word gets out & those players want to return. I have seen stranger things happen.
Good luck & put the pedal down!
Joe
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Post by coachdoug on Jun 18, 2010 14:23:21 GMT -6
Well, we had our second Passing League game yesterday. Another very good team and we didn't do quite as well. Again, we did okay offensively, generally getting open receivers, but we had a ton of drops - on Wednesday we had maybe 3 or 4 drops all night, but last night we probably had close to 15 drops. Makes it tough to get anything going. They played press coverage very well, and our guys had a heck of a time fighting through it and getting into their routes. And defensively, our guys are just now learning press coverage, and frankly didn't play it very well - at least they were able to see a concrete example of how it's supposed to be done, as demonstrated by our oppponent. LOL.
One bright note - our QB didn't throw any picks last night, he was very patient and showed a lot of maturity in not getting upset with all the drops and just throwing it away when nothing was open.
We have a lot of work to do defensively with teaching the proper press technique (we also need to put in off technique so we have another option). However, the biggest problem we had last night was the other team kept checking down to their 3rd or 4th option - which for them was typically a quick, scat-back type of kid that we had no choice but to cover with either a lineman or one of our younger kids (I have 3 kids playing 2-3 levels up with us). An obvious mis-match that I couldn't do anything to fix - I only had 8 kids there last night so I didn't have much in the way of options. LOL.
The final score was 10-4 (they got 5 TDs, and we got 1 TD plus a couple Ints).
Hopefully the schedule will get a little easier the rest of the way - if those two teams were the best, then we should be able to have some success against the other teams.
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Post by eickst on Jun 21, 2010 7:21:58 GMT -6
Coach Doug I love facing good teams early on, but sometimes its a mixed bag for the kids. You know where your team is, but sometimes the players feel down about losing or not doing well against a better opponent.
I'm sure you'll keep them motivated though, good luck on the season!
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Post by coachdoug on Jun 24, 2010 0:25:01 GMT -6
For years I've wanted to coach passing league - it just sounded like fun and a great opportunity to teach QBs & receivers the passing game and how to attack various coverages. Now that I'm in it, my attitude is changing rapidly - now, I'll admit that I might have a different frame of mind if we were having more success, but I doubt that even if we were destroying everyone I would not see the limitations of this format as a teaching tool. First of all, pretty much everyone plays Cover 5 (Cover 2 with Man under) all the time - a coverage that we'll almost NEVER see in the regular season. Plus, the LBs/Inverts/Etc have absolutely NO concern about the run game so 3/4 of the passing game (play action, RB screens, quick pop passes, etc.) are essentially eliminated from the game. I'm starting to agree with the legion of coaches that think Passing League is a waste of time. I'm not completely there yet - I still think that the time I'm getting to work with my QB that I otherwise wouldn't have makes the whole thing worthwhile, and we're also getting some good time to work with receivers on release moves and running routes, but all the rest of the benefits that I thought we'd get from passing league just don't seem to be there.
Anyway, we had our 3rd game tonight. I'm very much learning how this league works as I go - tonight I found out that there are no creampuffs here in Passing League - our league overall has about 15 or 16 programs, but there are only 8 teams in our age division for Passing League. Furthermore, the have combined Jr. Midget and Sr Midget into one division, so of the 8 teams, 3 are predominately Sr. Midget (up to 14 yrs old, unlimited weght plus 15- yr olds up to 150 lbs). Now, tonight I had 9 kids, 3 of which are either Jr Pee Wee or Cadet, meaning on our team they are playing up either 2 or 3 levels. Our opponent tonight was a Sr Midget team, meaning those kids were playing up 3 or 4 levels. It's almost impossible for a team to play up even 1 level and still be competitive (I know several of you have done it successfully, but that's the exception to the rule - over the years I have seen a ton of championship level teams try to play one level up and get destroyed by non-playoff teams). Can you remember being in the 3rd or 4th grade? - at that age, 14 or 15 yr-olds seemed like adults - competing against them athletically was just not a realistic option.
Needless to say, given the circumstances (did I mention that two of our best players - and we only have 5 decent athletes in this group - weren't there tonight - 1 for baseball and 1 with family plans), we got our butts handed to us. We lost 8-0 or 10-0 (I lost track). I hate to make excuses, and I hope it doesn't come across that way, although I suspect it probably does, but we just couldn't compete. Honestly, our opponent really wasn't very good, but with 8th graders going up against 3rd/4th graders, we really didn't have much chance. Even so, we should have been a lot more competitive - we dropped 5 interceptions and should have scored at least twice (again - we move the ball okay, but had some stupid turnovers near their goal line). I doubt we would have won, but a 10-9 loss or even a 12-7 loss would have left our kids feeling a whole lot better than what they actually experienced.
I've now learned that of the 7 teams in our Passing League (besides ourselves), 3 are Sr. Midgets (against whom we have no realistic chance - today's opponent was by far the weakest of the 3), and of the 4 teams in our age group, all of them made the playoffs last year, so there will be no easy games.
Sorry to carry on so long - I hope I don't sound like I'm whining, but I just don't want our kids to get discouraged playing in games that we just can't realistically compete in. I'm a little frustrated at the moment.
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Post by davecisar on Jun 24, 2010 5:54:15 GMT -6
Doug,
Makes sense, hadnt thought of those reasons
Age- you CANT overcome that one
If you have an exceptional select group, Ive played them up a Single Age division and done well, NEVER 2 or more divisions-Youre right, you have zero chance under those circumstances. That coming from the guy that pretty much never allows passes (including to myself) on excuse making LOL
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Post by utchuckd on Jun 24, 2010 6:20:05 GMT -6
First of all, pretty much everyone plays Cover 5 (Cover 2 with Man under) all the time - a coverage that we'll almost NEVER see in the regular season. This. A thousand times. Used to get so frustrated playing five teams playing 2-man in a 7 on 7 tourney. I could count the number of times we saw it in a game in season on no hands. |
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Post by utchuckd on Jun 24, 2010 6:28:03 GMT -6
Btw Doug, have you had a 3-5 team drop everybody into coverage? We used to run into that occasionally. With the 3 db's, 2 spurs, and 3 lb's they had 8 on the field, which I had no problem with if that's their defense. But it is 7 on 7, so they made the defense 'blitz' somebody every play to keep 7 guys in coverage. But you gotta watch those dc's, they don't always send somebody (more likely the kids just mix up the signals).
I just told the ref if they want to drop 8 that means they're only rushing 3 and I should be able to protect that pretty well so just give me 10 seconds to throw the ball instead of 5 and I'm good. ;D
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Post by mhcoach on Jun 24, 2010 7:54:20 GMT -6
Doug
First off you aren't complaining, you are lamenting. This is a great place for Coaches Laments, we understand because we all have been there. Passing league is a strange animal, first off it's not indicative of how you play during the season. Secondly it's not realistic because coaches can manipulate the system to thier advantage. I would be very surprized if you see cover 5 ever during the season.
You can never account for competing 2-3 levels above. The difference between JR Midget & SR Midget alone is huge. If you take this into account & remember the real reason you are doing Passing League it may help. I understand your frustration, but most importantly you are getting the players to compete. Once the pads come on things will change drasticly, for now keep your focus on the QB & team morale. Sometimes you can learn more in a no win situation then blowing people out. I know you put a lot into Coaching, this will pay huge dividends in the fall.
Years ago I went to 7 on 7 tourney with my 15 y/o squad. We were the last seed & had to compete against HS varsity teams. Our first opponnent was Oceanside HS with Jay Fielder as their QB. They were the #1 seed & with good reason. It was a total destruction something insane like 58-7. I learned more about my players in that game then I could have imagined. Like you we had no reasonable expectation of competing. However the experience was extremely valuble. Hopefully you can keep your kids from losing the will to compete, & keep them comming.
Joe
PS Install switch!
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Post by coachdoug on Jun 24, 2010 10:35:20 GMT -6
Joe - we ran switch yesterday (not well, but we did run it) and actually completed the ball to one of our weakest youngest kids on the slant. We'll work on it a little more in pregame tonight. Thanks for the suggestion, and thanks everyone for the supportive comments.
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Post by jhanawa on Jun 24, 2010 10:51:26 GMT -6
Doug, we are going into week 4 of our passing league, this Saturday is our championship final, double elimination tourney. While there are lots (LOTS) of things that irritate everybody about passing league, there are still lots of good things that come out of it.
IMO, just teaching kids the passing game, routes, details about how to run each route, competing for the ball, breaking on the ball, QB going through his progression, etc. make it worth it for us. Just the sheer amount of catches by our kids, most of whom could not catch a cold when we started, makes it worth it to me. We start each practice with a 5 line rapid fire catch drill and then go into noose, so our kids are catching at least 100+ footballs per day throughout June. Then they go into detailed route/pattern drills and then the same type of format on the defensive side.
It might not be a barrel of peaches right now, but trust me, the work your putting in now will really pay off in the fall, when it counts in real football.
As far as going against the older guys, again, its very tough (we go against our Varsity a few times a week and really struggle) but in the fall, against kids their own age, the game will "slow" down for your kids, things will seem to all the sudden get easy against kids their own age.
We run our league and have 13 schools in it (Freshmen teams). While its not perfect, we do avoid some of the common issues with rules.
All defenses must have at least 3 players within 4 yards of the LOS.
In our tournament format, teams get 3 downs to move it from the 40yd line to the 25yd line for a first down, they get another 3 downs to cross the 10yd line, inside the 10yd line they have 4 downs to score. Interceptions are turnovers. This format makes it a little more realistic than alternating 10 plays each.
We have a "no chuck" rule that is constantly being broken and readdressed, next year we might just go full chuck since it keeps popping up as an issue.
We have a kitchen timer that you set to 4 seconds on each field, it beeps when the times up, which is a sack. Stop watches and coaches eying them and the QB at the same time lead to arguments, audible clocks are the way to go to keep it fair in that regard. Of course, even this method has issues, we had a local private HS who's assistant coach took it upon himself to reset the clock to 3 seconds....couldn't believe the lack of ethics there, unreal, but anyway, if done right, 7-7's will help in the long run, even if it doesn't look real good right now...
As far as man/man, we've had one team try that against us, we got into bunch 2x2, 3x1 and ran mesh, shallow and some wheel routes, ended up in our favor...38-0, the following week they were in Cover 3. Patience and lots of bunch with rubs/crossing routes can give man under issues, people get into trouble against it when they get impatient and want to throw the ball down the field into double coverage. I actually prefer to see man coverage to force our kids to work on their releases and routes as well as make the QB go through the progression patiently.
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Post by coachdoug on Jun 25, 2010 0:16:50 GMT -6
Another Sr. Midget team tonight (actually about half Sr Midget, half Jr. Midget). I talked to the other coach before we started and told him our situation - I didn't ask for mercy, but thankfully I think he called off the dogs pretty much from the get go so as not to humiliate us. Good guy - I let him know afterwards that I thought he was a class act.
So, we had 9 there tonight, but about midway through one of our kids (a lineman type) fell awkwardly after jumping for a pass and came down on his wrist - I'm pretty sure he broke it. He obviously had to leave and he took another kid with him (they rode up together - I offered to take the other kid home, but they didn't want to get separated), so I finished with 7. Same story - we moved the ball okay on offense, but threw a couple stupid Ints near the goal line - we should have scored at least twice. We did get 2 Ints ourselves, but if we could have punched it in a couple times the score could have been a lot closer than 6-2 - of course I know they probably could have scored at will, so I doubt we could have won, but it was good to see the kids competing and I think they believed they were pretty close to their opponent.
I was still missing 2 of my best athletes tonight (and I only have 5 of what I would consider "athletes"), so in an interesting twist, we got a big boost when I switched QBs and let my regular QB (who may be our best overall athlete) play receiver - it gave our 2nd QB another legit option to go to and we actually moved the ball pretty darn well during that segment - I'm pretty sure we would have scored, but we ran out of plays.
Anyway, I'm pretty bummed out about getting a kid hurt - I thought Passing League would be a fairly safe endeavor - but otherwise was relatively pleased overall with tonight's effort. We'll get back one of the 2 missing athletes next week (and maybe both, depending on how baseball all-stars goes).
Thanks again for all the thoughtful and supportive comments in this thread.
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Post by cyflcoach on Jun 25, 2010 0:57:15 GMT -6
Hang in there Doug! I can't imagine facing 8th graders with kids that young but hopefully you and the kids will be able to gain something positive from the experience. It's one thing to play up against better competition but being competitive sure makes things a lot more fun, regardless of how many Ws you wind up with.
I'll be wrapping up my HS 7-on-7 gig this weekend in all likelihood and honestly, I'm more than ready to get back to preparing for the upcoming season with my 5th/6th graders. The last time I coached 7-on-7 was in 2006 for Coach Campbell, and I think I'm ready to go back into retirement myself!
I am looking forward to attending/working the QBA camp in Houston next week. I'll be sure to tell Coach Slack and everyone at QBA hello for you...
Dave Hartman
CYFL Coach
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Post by jhanawa on Jun 25, 2010 10:29:03 GMT -6
Throwing interceptions down at the goal line is frustrating, but remember, you'll probably be running the ball down there in a real game. It's much easier for the defense to cover pass down there due to the limited area and the fact that they know your passing....lol
Too bad on the kid getting hurt, not much you can do there.
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Post by mhcoach on Jun 26, 2010 8:29:08 GMT -6
Doug
Good job hanging in there. I know you are going to mold these players into something special. You are getting them experience and having them compete. It's too bad the lineman got injured, but remember he could have done it skate boarding. 4-6 weeks isn't too bad.
The fact that you are working on a back up QB is great. You are way ahead of the curve. When practice opens you will have this all behind you, just keep reminding them of this.
Joe
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Post by coachdoug on Jul 7, 2010 21:54:33 GMT -6
Well, I've been sloggin my way through the Passing League season without much success. We've gotten blown out a couple times and been pretty competitive in a couple games, losing by just a couple points each time. One game we really should have won - we had a sure interception go through not just one, but two of our players' hands before their guy caught it for a TD - with an INT being worth 1 pt and a TD 2 pts, that was a 3-pt swing and we lost by 2.
Anyway, today was our last best chance to avoid going oh-fer (and I've never gone oh-fer as a coach in anything, although I did once as a player - my freshman team in HS didn't win a game). They were actually short a player, so I gave them one of mine (not a star, but not a slug, either - my 4th best player there - and he made a number of catches for them). I thought we blew it (especially after they threw a long TD on the first play of the game over one of my younger kids) - we only scored one TD on our last possession, so when we went on defense we were down 7-6. We hadn't stopped them yet, so I wasn't very confident, but we managed to hold them and got 2 INTs (the second one on the second to last play of the game), so we won 8-7. I was pretty excited for the kids - they've been pretty demoralized with not winning, so I was really happy to see them have some success.
Nonetheless, the wins and losses are not the primary objective here - the kids have been steadily improving with both route running and coverage technique, and my QB's mechanics have also improved quite a bit, so hopefully this will end being a very useful exercise for the regular season.
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Post by cyflcoach on Jul 7, 2010 23:42:16 GMT -6
Although you're absolutely right that your kids will benefit from their experience, it's amazing what wins like the one you got tonight can do in offsetting a disproportionate amount of disappointment on the other end of a season though, isn't it?
Congrats on the W and best of luck the rest of the way Doug.
Dave Hartman
CYFL Coach
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Post by davecisar on Jul 8, 2010 11:39:48 GMT -6
Well, I've been sloggin my way through the Passing League season without much success. We've gotten blown out a couple times and been pretty competitive in a couple games, losing by just a couple points each time. One game we really should have won - we had a sure interception go through not just one, but two of our players' hands before their guy caught it for a TD - with an INT being worth 1 pt and a TD 2 pts, that was a 3-pt swing and we lost by 2. Anyway, today was our last best chance to avoid going oh-fer (and I've never gone oh-fer as a coach in anything, although I did once as a player - my freshman team in HS didn't win a game). They were actually short a player, so I gave them one of mine (not a star, but not a slug, either - my 4th best player there - and he made a number of catches for them). I thought we blew it (especially after they threw a long TD on the first play of the game over one of my younger kids) - we only scored one TD on our last possession, so when we went on defense we were down 7-6. We hadn't stopped them yet, so I wasn't very confident, but we managed to hold them and got 2 INTs (the second one on the second to last play of the game), so we won 8-7. I was pretty excited for the kids - they've been pretty demoralized with not winning, so I was really happy to see them have some success. Nonetheless, the wins and losses are not the primary objective here - the kids have been steadily improving with both route running and coverage technique, and my QB's mechanics have also improved quite a bit, so hopefully this will end being a very useful exercise for the regular season. Doug, Winning is great and good for the kids but remember in the fall you will get to rush the passer and run the football. One of my HS friends was at a 7-7 tournament- his team got beat 57-1 in it. They went on to be one of the best teams in the state in the fall- much different game. Best of luck DC |
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