Freshman follies

Had a kid show up late to practice one day, so one of the coaches told him to run 5 yards and hit his stomach and to keep on doing that to the 40.

This kid runs 5 yards and then punches himself in the stomach. He's now the backup QB at Missouri.

I just posted this in another thread but here we go:

When I first started coaching we had a freshman team that kept going off sides. So we started making them do pushups as a team everytime someone did. By game one it worked and we didn't jump offsides at all or in game two. In game three however we jumped and the entire offense immediately got down and started doing pushups before huddling up again.

Years ago we had a kid that was dumber than a bag of dinks, great kid but WOW. One day after a particularly patience-draining practice a fellow coach asks the kid: "do you have a metal plate in your head or something?" The kid immediately whips off his helmet and holds back his bangs to expose a big scar and with a big grin says: "yeah I do Coach, I was kicked in the head by a horse when I was two". Made me careful of what I asked the kids seeing that I'll tell you.

Yesterday, not a dumb moment, quite a brilliant statement actually, and was a great laugh.

We use a color#, color# cadence. The QB screws up the cadence (says the color a third time) and the center snaps the ball, some go, some don't. I ask the kid "having trouble there?"
QB: "I have trouble with colors (with a grin)"
I try to be funny: "What color is my shirt?"
Random player: "four."

The random player is the smallest kid in the program (not even 5'0" and not evenly remotely near puberty). He's a little high-strung kid, but he said it very calm and cool-like with his incredibly high-pitched voice.

I have one from today. Practicing PAT, a new kid/kicker. Center hikes the ball hits the tee and bounces into his hands. He quickly pitches it to the holder. Our HC says no, "yell fire and run to the corner of the endzone" so very next play bad snap ball bounces to him, he throws the ball on the ground runs to the corner yelling fire. Coaching staff was laughing hard today. In hindsit HC could of explained it alot better but man was it funny.

Had a freshmen player covering kickoffs one time and he referred to the opponent's wedge as a "U-Bone." Said something like you just sprint down the field, run around the U-Bone, and make the tackle. Works every time!

Number 1 is a legitimate question: I know of two programs who have had to play their Homecoming Week game on the road!!

i have found many of these style kids are visual learned so you must show them first how to do.

We had a kid that had very little ability and had never played the game and he was worth the price of admission. To his credit he had learned the playbook by the time we got into pads another kid screwed up and he immediately started telling the kid what is assignment was suppose to be. Another coach asked him is he really knew what to do. The kid said Yes Sir I know what every position is suppose to do on any play. So the coach tells him to jump in there and starts coaching up the other guys about not screwing up assignments will earn you playing time. Well on the first play he screws the pooch. Coach starts yelling at the kid about not knowing his assignment. The kid spouts off exactly what he was supposed to do. Of course the coach asks why he did not do it and the kids says "Sir I get nervous when I actually have to do something".

The same kid once was asked after another misstep son are you dumb or something? He gleefully responded, "just a little bit Sir".