The youth coaches were given about 6 wing-T plays, 4 runs and 2 passes to use for this season. Last season all the youth teams did poorly, one win amongst 3 teams.
I'm a new assistant coach and feel like I have some good ideas to contribute. I would like to incorporate some spread formation plays. However, being new, I'm trying to take an honorable approach by just holding my tongue until someone asks me if there is anything that I can contribute.
Heh. If it were me, I'd first be looking at those 6 plays and seeing whether they helped set each other up and made efficient re-use of practice time.
The points others are bringing up about execution issues are well taken and should be heeded. (That is, that you're unlikely to sell the lack of certain plays or formations as a reason for poor overall offensive performance -- we're not even sold here!) But then I'd look at the psychology of what's there vs. what you want to put in. Spread formation would be a radical departure, so a difficult sell on top of what's been written.
But if (just saying) it looks as if those 6 wing T plays are from different series, I might ask some subtle questions about what other play or plays set up
this play. You know, like you're practicing this play and then you just ask for information purposes when it might be called during a game, what the defense might be biting on that would make you want to call it, etc. Also if (just saying again) to execute those 6 plays 75% of your players have to learn 5 different assignments, you might make known that it's difficult for your players to have to learn so many different things for such a small number of plays.
Now it's always possible we're looking at this from the wrong perspective. Maybe the purpose of the organiz'n is primarily instructional rather than competitive. In that case those 6 plays might've been selected deliberately to teach your players lots of different moves & skills rather than to beat an opponent. If you wanted to suggest more, then you'd have to take a different tack entirely.
This year the organiz'n I'm in (Bronx Warriors, formerly Pelham Bay Warriors) is one I'm still learning about. (I jumped in by process of elimination.) It's house football, so Warriors can be considered the name of the league rather than a team. (Years earlier they'd had travel teams.) I haven't been assigned to a team yet; the players are having practices together that are mostly evaluations for a draft. I wanted to get to know the head coaches of teams in my preferred division so that if I had any influence over my assignment I could state a preference. There was only 1 head coach of a team there yesterday, so I asked him what his offense was like. He explained that only 5 players on his team from last year were returning (and could qualify by age & weight to stay in Pee Wee div.), and that he adjusts things according to the players he gets -- which is a good thing. So I asked him what kind of offense he ran the previous year.
He explained that his team had a bunch of different things, including wildcat, but was basically pro style. Then he explained that there was a basic offense throughout the Warriors, hadn't I been shown the playbook yet? (Playbook? I haven't even gotten a copy of practice plans! They were short on copies at the coaches' meeting and so gave them only to head coaches; I've been reminding them lately to make more copies and/or post them to the
He explained that the teams were free to add to it as they wanted, but wasn't clear on whether they were supposed to install all the basic plays. I'm getting the idea the arrangement is basically chummy and the rules are...uh...flexible. I hope the situation isn't as unclear as it was with the organiz'n I was with in 2007; I'm trying to follow instructions, but it's not always clear what they are, as when another ass't was sent to the station I was in charge of yesterday but either hadn't heard, or interpreted differently, the instruction from the president that I thought meant they weren't to attempt a swim or rip for that drill/evaluation.
Anyway, when I first talked to the president a few weeks ago, my intro to the Warriors, we explained our basic orientations. He said they were primarily supposed to be about fun rather than winning. (But apparently the head coaches are very competitive!) I told him I didn't think there was necessarily any tension between the two goals, and got the idea that what he really meant was that they would try to make the teams as evenly matched as feasible. I explained to him some of my ideas (like how I thought the sidesaddle snap especially suitable to teach beginners the C-QB exchange), and he said that was nice but that I would start as an ass't before moving into position to implement my ideas. I thought fine, I'll spend this season learning the ropes of this organiz'n.
But I know how it is. Sometimes you can't tell how much importance someone who's nominally above you in the chain of command attaches to the details he's giving you. "The youth coaches were given...." Does that mean it's an organiz'n of 2 or more teams who were expected to follow one basic plan?
Sometimes there are only a few new people coming into an organiz'n of people who've known each other for years and who don't need any explicit rules to get along. They all know their place, tend to think alike, etc. Sometimes the new guy's even
asking what the rules are makes them uncomfortable because they realize they don't have any, and don't really
want any because that will bring out latent tensions! So you don't know whether they think they're stumbling around in the dark and will just be happy to follow anybody new who looks like he knows what he's doing, or whether they're very confident of what they're doing already and need no upstart's ideas.
