arbond
Sophomore Member
No "philosophy". Just play.
Posts: 103
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Post by arbond on Jul 18, 2010 6:30:31 GMT -6
I've always thought any time getting the kids together - to play some football - whether its organized, or just pick-up, is time well spent. Learing moves, timing, catching, throwing, running(conditioning) - each moment etches the little nuances of football into their football brain. It's time well spent.
Now, a "heavy" 7 on 7 schedule? Well, one or two times a summer is good enough for me. I don't see the need to get involved with a league, or even worrying about winning many of these things. I don't want the staff or the players to take these TOO seriously.
I view them as "another" activity to help overall develpment. If you only want activities that help teach YOUR particular systems, then maybe you dont want to get too involved in 7 on 7. But, for the overall development of players at this age level, I think there are benefits to participating in 7 on 7 competition.
Get them involved - go participate a bit - they will become better football players.
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Post by rpetrie on Jul 18, 2010 6:32:52 GMT -6
I agree w/DCOhio on allowing "practice" 7v7 opponents to "dow what they do." We have a vew local schools that play odd-man fronts. If they every drop 8...then no big deal and it makes our QB/Receiver kids be more efficient. We've even had teams run blitzes "past" the QB. We also tell our QB if the pass isn't there...particularly on waggle (also on drop-back)...RUN IT! We set up cones to represent escape lanes when we work with those situations.
Now back to Brophy's original question...is there something that would warrant better allocation of funds & time? If there was a legitimate chance of getting my squad to a summer team camp that fits our schedule...that would be my first choice. One that would come work on our facilities. Just not big on the potential "intangibles" of sleep-away camps.
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Post by wingtol on Jul 18, 2010 12:25:00 GMT -6
Like many others on here we do not do any 7-7 tournaments, if we do a 7-7 it is against a few local teams and more of a you run 10, we run 10, line it up and coach it up if you want to we don't care. So for us we do not invest any resources into 7-7, we are allowed basically unlimited contact with our players in the summer. As of right now we do 3 two hour practices a week. Also new to us this summer we are allowed to put on shoulder pads in the summer, so we basically have OTA's with our kids all of July.
So to answer the original question, I guess in our situation yes there are better things to allocate time and resources to than 7-7. If we are allowed to hold OTA's (best way I can describe it) then why not have all 11 of your offense out there work as opposed to just 7. Now if you’re in a place where you can have no contact with your team until the official start or just a few days then having your team do something football related is better than nothing. Scheme wise it may not be the best thing but at least the kids are doing something to do with football.
I guess on a side note we were looking at taking our stud soph. wr/db and moving him to qb this year to give us four true running threats in the backfield. So we ask him to throw the ball one day, it went about 10 feet in the air and about 3 feet long. We also have a stud rb we wanted to put in a wildcat type set, asked him to throw. Got better results from him he got about one rotation on the ball in a ten yard throw. I guess my point with that is it is amazing how many kids that are athletes can not throw so I guess having a kid like that doing something football related in the summer is better than nothing. The schemes in 7-7 may be s**t but at least the skills of throwing and catching can be worked on and improved.
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Post by groundchuck on Jul 18, 2010 12:36:53 GMT -6
WE are in a pretty good 3 team 7on7 "league". All three of us head coaches run similar I formation back fields and use a lot of play action-----even in passing league. Two of us are 50 teams, one if a 4-3 team that runs cover 2 as it's base. We are cover 3 and that's what we play at 7on7.
It does give us a chance to see our kids cover and move in space.
Yes all three teams use more 2x2 and 3x1 in this setting but that's the nature of the beast in 7on7.
We have it set up in scrimmage format 10 min O, 10 D and switch teams. We play each team once on each side of the ball. No score is kept. Yeah the kids and coaches know the "score" but nobody really cares.
Tonight, because of baseball we'll be using a lot of kids who are less experienced, need reps, so that's what they'll get. I would not show up to a big 7on7 tournament in that situation though.
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Post by champ93 on Jul 18, 2010 14:23:03 GMT -6
I have also wondered if 7x7 (outside of practice time) is really worth it. We are allowed 7 dates, we use 4, and it is in a non-competitive climate described by many others. Doesn't cost us money, just time and effort.
We play our base D and run our base O--Double wing. And yes, we had a team drop 8 against, every play, last week, making power pass, etc. be precise. The I see it, it's not hurting my team when someone plays us that way, wish they would in a game.
Anyway I do find it helpful to a certain degree in assessing our players against others. When you go against your own guys, it is very easy to be fooled that you are faster, slower, better or worse than you really are. It is a competitive situation to evaluate skills. And yes, I have been fooled more than once by a newcomer who is all world 7x7 and can't play in pads.
To me, its value is very limited. I sometimes think we'd be better off having a cook out for the kids.
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Post by jgordon1 on Jul 18, 2010 19:47:25 GMT -6
I always b!tch and moan about 7/7 but it has been a godsend for us this year...we are a first year program...have no institutional memory.....we have been able to install our 3 and 5 step game and get some basic stuff done on defense..adjustments to trips..no backs etc..we play what we are going to play during the season (keep our lb's no more than apex)...our technique is horrible but at least we have some sort of a base to work off of
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Post by unc31 on Jul 18, 2010 20:11:10 GMT -6
We get a lot out of 7 on 7. We always do what we do in season on both offense and defense and we do not do tournaments. We get together with one team at a time, occasionally two teams and we stop and teach if we need to.
Bottom line is that QB gets to learn his reads and more importantly he gets to throw against other teams "best" players instead of our #2's. Receivers get to learn their routes and adjustments and more importantly get to run routes and catch balls against the other team's best players. Our secondary and LB's get the opportunity to play coverage against the other team's best receivers as well as make a their adjustments and automatic calls.
I understand Brophy's concerns and I think tournaments are a joke. I saw one today on TV and it barely resembled football, especially on defense.
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Post by dsqa on Jul 19, 2010 7:50:44 GMT -6
For what its worth, I tend to agree with the sentiment that it brings your players together in a semi-competitive context, and while it lacks all the specifics of the fall schemes, it is still a chance for your players to rally around each other, and learn to play together. Notwithstanding the scheme adjustments, etc. It is essentially getting your boys to do something together as a team that we used to do without having to be told - sandlot football. :-)
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Post by superpower on Jul 19, 2010 8:24:49 GMT -6
Brophy's OP is a very valid question. In the 4 years I have spent at my current school, we haven't attended any 7 on 7 competitions at all. If we "required" 7 on 7 in the summer, we would risk losing kids who would have to choose between football, summer baseball, summer basketball, wrestling camps, jobs, etc. It doesn't seem to be hurting us at all as we have been to the playoffs for the past three seasons and were district champs last year and league champs the previous year. We also do not attend a team camp, and I don't feel that we are falling behind at all.
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Post by brophy on Jul 19, 2010 8:41:41 GMT -6
yeah - thanks, thats exactly what we're getting at.
It isn't a question of "IS 7on7 productive"? (yes, it is)
It is an open-ended question of "can we use that time to be more productive (doing something else)?" (make a bigger impact for the fall)
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Post by huthuthut on Jul 19, 2010 14:25:37 GMT -6
I agree with Brophy. I love some formats of 7 on 7. Don't like others.
We went to a 7 on 7 tournament this weekend: total cost around $1000. Guaranteed 4 games....last game got rained out after a couple of series. NOT WORTH IT! Last time I pay that kind of money for 7 on 7.
Had a coaches/officials meeting before the games started. Played by four distinctly different variations of the rules in the games. One official interpreted 4 seconds to be 1001...1002...1003...1004...1005. Said as long as you got the ball off before 1005 it was okay!
Also hate 3rd and 1's and the QB shovels the ball to a back just past the line near the center. Not a football play he'll run or we'll defend.
Let's make it as realistic as possible and get something out of it.
Also saw coaches acting like it was for the playoffs or super bowl arguing calls. Just give me some reps and I'm happy.
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Post by phantom on Jul 20, 2010 9:20:40 GMT -6
A tangent to Brophy's original post...AND along the same lines of thinking as my "My personnel Sucks" thread.. It seems that "everyone" seems to point out the practice of teams doing things outside of their normal system during 7 on 7, and "everyone" seems to agree that this is a ridiculous practice. So..if "everybody" sees it as a stupid thing to do.....who is doing it? Well, among others, us. We had a tourney this weekend and did every classic 7-on-7 maneuver: modified 2-back formations with RBs about a yard behind where the guards should be; five receivers out immediately; 100% shotgun; lots of vertical stuff. The HC wasn't able to be there and some of the assistants got the fever and wanted to win. Ended up a waste of time and money, IMO. On the plus side, the HC feels the same way and we won't be tourneying anymore.
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Post by blb on Jul 20, 2010 9:33:59 GMT -6
I coached three years for a guy at a D-III college whose idea of practice was calling plays, so we did huge amounts of 7-on-7, offensively and defensively.
Two years I was offensive line coach so at least it gave me more Individual and Group time.
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Post by leighty on Jul 20, 2010 9:37:07 GMT -6
The HC wasn't able to be there and some of the assistants got the fever and wanted to win. Ended up a waste of time and money, IMO. On the plus side, the HC feels the same way and we won't be tourneying anymore. When the cat's away...
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Post by coachd5085 on Jul 20, 2010 16:09:02 GMT -6
A tangent to Brophy's original post...AND along the same lines of thinking as my "My personnel Sucks" thread.. It seems that "everyone" seems to point out the practice of teams doing things outside of their normal system during 7 on 7, and "everyone" seems to agree that this is a ridiculous practice. So..if "everybody" sees it as a stupid thing to do.....who is doing it? Well, among others, us. We had a tourney this weekend and did every classic 7-on-7 maneuver: modified 2-back formations with RBs about a yard behind where the guards should be; five receivers out immediately; 100% shotgun; lots of vertical stuff. The HC wasn't able to be there and some of the assistants got the fever and wanted to win. Ended up a waste of time and money, IMO. On the plus side, the HC feels the same way and we won't be tourneying anymore. Good to see someone admit it!
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Post by wingtol on Jul 20, 2010 18:39:53 GMT -6
I have a question: If you are not allowed to be around your players in the summer or have limited time that is only allowed for 7-7 type work do you realy have a choice where your resources go? Also if you can only do a 7-7 type summer practice are you better off saying forget it we will use the money to buy a video editing program or end zone cam or something along those lines that would help us more than 7-7 in the summer?
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