Post by davecisar on Aug 23, 2011 13:31:52 GMT -6
First some background, my 5-6th grade team went 11-1 last season, winning a Division Title, a Tournament and out of state Bowl Game. With just 2 starters back on defense and just 3 on offense, this will be a very challenging season, to put it mildly. We lost 90% of our scoring as well as a Quarterback who threw for 16 touchdowns last season and my 2 best recievers. None of the starters are playing the same position as they played for me last season. We have just 2 “striped” players over the running back weight and our starting Quarterback weighs in at just 72 lbs. We have 20 players which is down from 25 as we had a good number age up to the 7-8th grade team. We have a number of kids brand new to football and one of our kids broke his arm in a non-contact drill.
While all youth teams must perfect the basic building blocks of any successful team, blocking and tackling, we really had to go to the atomic level with this group. With the league expanding again to about 100 teams, we were required to play the first game after just 3 weeks of practice. For us, the compressed schedule meant just 11 practices prior to game 1, an all time low.
We concentrated on fundamentals and while our offensive line isn’t very big, they’ve bought into and mastered the two-step, angle of attack and pad level we are looking for. They also have been very good about their blocking fits and blocking the correct player on each scheme. While this team isn’t going to out physical many teams, the execution is fairly crisp. Not crisp enough to compete with our other 5-6 grade team, who dominated us in a week 3 scrimmage. We played hard, but our inexperience showed in the scrimmage. On a positive note, no turnovers, no penalties, no bad snaps and just 2 negative yardage plays in 20 snaps. On defense, we aren’t very athletic, so we struggled a good bit in space.
Game 1 the 5-6 graders won 38-6, after leading 32-6 at the half. Our first team offense scored on every possession. We had no bad snaps with our rookie center, no turnovers and just 1 penalty. We came into the game with about 12 plays in our playbook and I think we ran 5-6 of them in the game. We kept it simple along with 2-3 adjustments, as we arent going to get real deep into the playbook with this group. Defensively our first team defense gave up just 2 first downs. We were pleasantly surprised as the opponent had 4 big athletic kids up front and at least 2 kids in the backfield that could have easily started for us. Our kicking game was quite good, this early in the season and our subbing was top notch, no major hiccups at all.
My 7-8th grade team won 34-0 after leading 20-0 at the end of the first quarter. This team is reasonably big and athletic. If we stay healthy we have a chance at winning this 16 team grouping. The first team defense failed to yield a first down, but we had 3 turnovers and our kicking game was very weak. Lots of room for improvement with this team, but a not a bad way to start the season.
While all youth teams must perfect the basic building blocks of any successful team, blocking and tackling, we really had to go to the atomic level with this group. With the league expanding again to about 100 teams, we were required to play the first game after just 3 weeks of practice. For us, the compressed schedule meant just 11 practices prior to game 1, an all time low.
We concentrated on fundamentals and while our offensive line isn’t very big, they’ve bought into and mastered the two-step, angle of attack and pad level we are looking for. They also have been very good about their blocking fits and blocking the correct player on each scheme. While this team isn’t going to out physical many teams, the execution is fairly crisp. Not crisp enough to compete with our other 5-6 grade team, who dominated us in a week 3 scrimmage. We played hard, but our inexperience showed in the scrimmage. On a positive note, no turnovers, no penalties, no bad snaps and just 2 negative yardage plays in 20 snaps. On defense, we aren’t very athletic, so we struggled a good bit in space.
Game 1 the 5-6 graders won 38-6, after leading 32-6 at the half. Our first team offense scored on every possession. We had no bad snaps with our rookie center, no turnovers and just 1 penalty. We came into the game with about 12 plays in our playbook and I think we ran 5-6 of them in the game. We kept it simple along with 2-3 adjustments, as we arent going to get real deep into the playbook with this group. Defensively our first team defense gave up just 2 first downs. We were pleasantly surprised as the opponent had 4 big athletic kids up front and at least 2 kids in the backfield that could have easily started for us. Our kicking game was quite good, this early in the season and our subbing was top notch, no major hiccups at all.
My 7-8th grade team won 34-0 after leading 20-0 at the end of the first quarter. This team is reasonably big and athletic. If we stay healthy we have a chance at winning this 16 team grouping. The first team defense failed to yield a first down, but we had 3 turnovers and our kicking game was very weak. Lots of room for improvement with this team, but a not a bad way to start the season.
