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Post by pirate1590 on Jul 24, 2013 21:46:48 GMT -6
Just got our first look at our team today. 21 boys 4 5th graders 10 4th graders 7 3rd graders. 5 out of the 21 have played before. For a team that was so green im pleasantly surprised. Our backs are probably averaging about 72 pounds (limit 80) and are actually all fairly elusive. Not a lot of toughness yet though but a good amount of speed. Have 1 kid that can throw it well, one that can throw it ok. 2 real backs that can run well. Our line is fairly small (biggest player 102 pounds max 110) but they're actually very athletic. 1 tall kid who can catch decently, 1 that can catch ok and one that's marginal at best. This team is actually very athletic, not slow at all and not small or big, but we just are a little timid right now but that's just due to experience in my opinion. Once they hit their marks they will be good to go. Looks like we aren't gonna have to cut our playbook at all. Im very optimistic. Could be a 7-2 8-1 team if coached right goal is 7-2 in regular season. What did santa leave for you guys?
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Post by coachdoug on Jul 25, 2013 1:41:15 GMT -6
Well, it's not looking very good right now. 5 of 21 with experience is probably about average for a 9-10 yr-old team, but I have the 8th graders (12-14), so I would hope that at least half our guys have solid experience. Right now I have 15 or 16 players - 2 from last year's unlimited team (same age group), 3 from last year's Jr. Midget team, and 3 with experience in other organizations. So, that's 8 with any experience at all. We'll need to pick up another 6-8 players, none of which are likely to have any experience, so that will probably end up being 14-16 first year players. Yikes!!
On the bright side of things, I have 2 kids that can play QB (don't know how well yet, but at least I know they can handle the basics). I've got at least 2-3 kids that can play receiver (I'd like to have 6+), and I have some decent size up front - probably 2 kids in the 190-200 range, and another 3-4 in the 170-190 range. I also have one kid that can play RB okay running around in shorts, but I still have to see what he can do in pads. Defensively, I suspect we'll have a serviceable kid for every position, but I'm very worried about depth - if we have any injuries or attrition, we're going to be in trouble.
It should be a good challenge and a lot of fun.
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Post by utchuckd on Jul 25, 2013 6:38:23 GMT -6
Doug if you happen to have another QB like the one in that last video you posted you are living right lol! We have a ton of potential but not much experience. I've got as much speed this year as I've ever had, my top 8-10 guys are within a step of each other in the 20yd. But I don't know how many of 'em will hit. But hey, that's the fun part of coaching, eh? Not too bad on size but we are green up front. I have good enough numbers (had 53 show up Tuesday) that I am about 80% sure I'm committing to platooning my O and D lines. No real studs that just have to play both ways, so gonna let 'em learn and rep one side all day every day. Could have a real good season, could flame out.
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Post by coachdoug on Jul 25, 2013 10:26:49 GMT -6
That kid that played QB for me last year was special. The kids I have this year should be okay, but it will be a big drop off from last year - you just don't get a kid like that every year.
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Post by pirate1590 on Jul 25, 2013 10:38:11 GMT -6
Have you ever thought about moving 1 of your recievers to tail? You run more of a simplified version of the air raid. You can work with 2 good recievers by moving them around and teach the newbies to play a bit. Why not put one of the weaker recievers at tail and have him do his thing? He would probably be no better or worse than your current RB. Plus with a weaker QB, its imperative that you can run the ball well..that sounds like a pretty good team my only advice would be that..what do you think?
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Post by pirate1590 on Jul 25, 2013 10:38:52 GMT -6
53 on one team!!! or is that organization wide??
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Post by utchuckd on Jul 25, 2013 12:02:31 GMT -6
It's the middle school team for the county. Historically numbers start around here and fall to 35-40 by season. Mostly 8th graders, some 7th. The last year of youth league overlaps with 7th grade so most players stay there for their last year.
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Post by 33coach on Jul 25, 2013 12:22:23 GMT -6
we start in 6 days. i cant wait. we look really good on paper  |
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Post by coachschro on Jul 26, 2013 21:00:14 GMT -6
We will have our biggest 5th/6th grade team ever, I expect 28 players. We have around 35 total boys/girls per grade, so that is a really good number. This will be my 3rd year and this will be our most talented team. Started 7 5th graders last year each way on our 5th/6th team that will be returners. I think we might have the fastest team in the league(around 50 teams). Have a couple stud linemen to replace from last year. We don't start till Monday, so everything is still on paper |
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Post by coachdoug on Jul 26, 2013 23:48:37 GMT -6
Have you ever thought about moving 1 of your recievers to tail? You run more of a simplified version of the air raid. You can work with 2 good recievers by moving them around and teach the newbies to play a bit. Why not put one of the weaker recievers at tail and have him do his thing? He would probably be no better or worse than your current RB. Plus with a weaker QB, its imperative that you can run the ball well..that sounds like a pretty good team my only advice would be that..what do you think? Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm doing. The kid I'm looking at for RB is probably one of the 2 best overall athletes on the team, but he doesn't seem to catch very well. I won't really know until we get 'em in pads, but I'm hopeful he'll be a decent RB. I'm pretty sure I'll have at least 2 guys that can play receiver. I think we'll be fine at QB - not nearly as good as last year, but still well above average. The line is a bit of a concern. I'm pretty confident we'll have at least 2, maybe 3 kids that can play, but if I have to go with 2 other weaker players up front, it could really limit what we can do. I think we'll be okay with the starters (maybe two or three positions will be substantially weaker than I would like to see), but I'm very concerned about depth and having a team with nearly 1/2 MPPs. Again, I won't really know about any of that until we get into pads. Hopefully it will be better than it looks right now. Thanks for your thoughts. |
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Post by utchuckd on Jul 27, 2013 7:19:15 GMT -6
Schro I think you have twice as many returning starters as I do! The best thing about youth football is all the new kids you get to teach the game to every year and the worst thing about youth football is all the new kids you get to teach the game to every year.
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Post by CatsCoach on Jul 30, 2013 6:26:55 GMT -6
I still not sure how we look yet! Practice for us doesn't start until Monday! But I am ready to get started
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Post by coachrobpsl on Jul 30, 2013 10:21:04 GMT -6
I have seen most of our new kids in speed training over the last month or 2. Many played on our other pee wee team last season so I have seen these kids play before. We picked up a very good rb that moved into town. His dad took a job at a local high school on the football staff. I think we have the best overall team speed that we have ever coached. No absolute burners but a bunch of fast kids. Very good depth(potentially). The problem is many of the new kids on the team have a poor work ethic and are not accustomed to our attention to detail. Once they buy in we should be down right nasty. The player agents for some of the new kids may end up being a handful from what I hear. We will nip that in the bud at the parents meeting.
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Post by coachdoug on Aug 1, 2013 23:51:57 GMT -6
Well, after our first practice, I'm encouraged, but still have the same basic fears - a lack of depth and no obvious superstars. We'll have at least 6-8 above-average athletes, but it drops off drastically after that. On the bright side, I didn't see any kids tonight that looked like total liabilities. This group appeared to have a reasonable high sports IQ, listened well, took direction, were largely coachable and just seemed like a really good group of kids. I don't think we'll be any threat to win a national championship, and I think even our local league championship is a bit of a pipe dream, but I'm hopeful, that we can play with and defeat most of the teams in our league. I think 7-3 or 8-2 is probably very realistic for this group. We'll see ...
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Post by pirate1590 on Aug 2, 2013 6:17:56 GMT -6
That is great!! Give it some time though it takes a while for those types of kids to come into their own! and at least with 0 liabilities you can actually play everyone and develop them. How does your tailback look?
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Post by formrbcbuc on Aug 2, 2013 11:31:55 GMT -6
We look awesome on paper, we play the youth equivalent of Chandler Hamilton, Kewaunee, De La Salle type program our first week. We'll see how it goes.
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Post by CatsCoach on Aug 3, 2013 6:02:49 GMT -6
With practice starting on Monday! I have seen the roster and only have 13 kids so far hoping to get more next week. Also, looks like I have mostly linemen..
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Post by coachdoug on Aug 5, 2013 14:24:49 GMT -6
That is great!! Give it some time though it takes a while for those types of kids to come into their own! and at least with 0 liabilities you can actually play everyone and develop them. How does your tailback look? The tailback looks okay so far, but again, we're just in shorts and helmets right now, so I won't really know anything until we get into pads .... and he's on vacation this whole week, so I won't be able to really see what he can do until next week. Auuugghhh. Again, the biggest issue right now is overall numbers & depth - I only have 16 on the roster - I really need another 5-7 players ASAP. I ask the kids to recruit up their friends every night. I've had a couple inquiries, but nothing solid so far. It's going to be a challenge bringing in kids that are a couple weeks behind everyone else, but I don't think I have many options here. |
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Post by CatsCoach on Aug 7, 2013 6:56:33 GMT -6
With two practice now in the books! We don't look that bad. Was sure what to expect since I really didn't know any of the kids at all. But, we could use a few more kids for add depth and experience for sure.
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Post by jcoleman7 on Aug 8, 2013 22:37:40 GMT -6
Just drafted tonight for my 3rd-4th graders. Already had a few decent lineman and a good FB/DE/LB coming back, just low on skill players.
Went and grabbed argubably the best player in the league 3rd grader as my #1(gonna have to put him at QB until I get another hopefully moving back into town.) He is the son of the league president, who im pretty close with anyways.
Grabbed a kid at #2 at WR who jumped out at me immediately. Fast, tall, didn't drop a pass, went up for the ball, and ran decent routes.
Grabbed the commissioner of the leagues son as my #3, smallest kid on the field, but by far the fastest. Kid is lightning fast and quick. 3rd grader, gonna be my half.
Grabbed a kid that was already bigger than me at #4 for my line. Kid was dominant over the others during the drills today.
#5 grabbed a 3rd grader that stood out to me during LB drills.
The rest of the picks I relied on my assistants because they have been in the league for years and knew about most of the rest. Got mostly lineman and a few potential good skill players.
I am VERY satisfied with what I got. All of my top #5 picks, I had wrote down as the kids I wanted, and I got them all. The other junior team already had there skill players(mostly the coaches sons, etc.). But I seen the kids I drafted compete with them in drills earlier, and let me tell you, I'll take them anyday. I have the fastest kids in the league hands down and thats what I wanted. The other team was drafting for interior players since thats what they lost.
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Post by utchuckd on Aug 9, 2013 7:12:21 GMT -6
Finally started seeing signs of life out of my trap yesterday. It's been a battle this year and I'm not sure why. Slow guard, center getting stuffed, qb not getting depth, fb not taking good steps. It's probably a combination of everything, but it finally started coming together thank goodness.
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Post by coachcb on Aug 9, 2013 11:35:54 GMT -6
We'd look a whole helluva lot better if the "head coach" would figure out what it means to have a disciplined team.
This may be the first year in nearly fourteen that I don't coach football.
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Post by utchuckd on Aug 9, 2013 21:31:31 GMT -6
Oops, wrong place.
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Post by shockssid on Aug 10, 2013 17:55:45 GMT -6
Weather has been the issue with us. Started Monday, had a nice Tuesday, then had to run install on our defense in the high school parking lot Thursday night! Volleyball killed us this week in getting in a gym. We were full gear for the first time this morning and our 16 5th and 6th graders didn't do so well. Hoping for some dry days ahead so we don't fall behind.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Aug 29, 2013 10:21:56 GMT -6
A month in and we look pretty good. Our first game is Saturday against a very talented opponent. All of our new kids have fallen in line with how we run things. Our defense is has a chance to be scary good.
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Post by pirate1590 on Aug 31, 2013 23:32:18 GMT -6
My 8-10s won today 28-13. We came out on all cylinders firing last weekend, probably the best first game I can remember one of my teams having. Today we took two steps back. The team we played today was ok, but not great. We should beat them by 2 more scores..but they didn't make any mistakes, didn't turn the ball over (pick/fum at all). We had 2 fumbles and a pick on our side of the field, they only scored off one of them though. They didn't really try to throw on us at all which was surprising, their OL did very well, beat us up a bit. They took one drive 60 yards in the second quarter and punched it in on a BB Trap(DW Team). Didn't have the game in hand till about halfway through the 4th when we had a 45 yard spin 26 power go for a TD. They stopped us 2x on downs and 3x on turnovers and once at half. We were only 3-7 passing with a pick today...which is unacceptable. Our WT6 struggled against the SP, but we stopped crawling and were able to hold our own. If we see them again, we will not bear crawl at all. Other than that and getting beat outside (fast kid, which happens) once. Hindsight being 20/20, I took my foot off the gas a little this week in practice, which I wont do again for a while. If that was a top team we probably lose by 2 TDs. If our week 1 team comes out though, we will probably go 10-0 or 9-1, if this week team comes out probably 7-3 or 6-4.
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Post by coachrobpsl on Sept 1, 2013 20:04:02 GMT -6
We won our first game 33-0. Very happy. We have some issues but nothing that we can't fix.
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Post by CatsCoach on Sept 3, 2013 10:21:21 GMT -6
Had our first preseason this past Saturday, and we go the breaks beat off of us 42-0! But, we did much better in the 2nd half, only allow one TD at very end of the game. We did have a lot of positive in the game, and things that we can build on. We had a few turnover early that hurt us and then some mental mistake on defense as well. We have our 2nd preseason game this coming Saturday!
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Post by utchuckd on Sept 4, 2013 7:37:36 GMT -6
We're 1-2 (0-2 conf) and I am almost stunned. I've seen years in this conference where the team I have this year would roll most teams up by 20-30 points. Last week we pretty much dominated the other team, ran 62 plays to their 23, they had no drives over 3 plays, held their stud to 8 yards on 5 carries. Of course the problem was he actually ran it 8 times, for 224 yards and 3 tds. And had a 99 yd kickoff return. We had a game clinching TD called back on a 'holding' call in the last 4 minutes, turned it over on downs, their hoss goes 80 yds on a damn sweep in the last minute. Lost 30-28. Last night traveled to same town to play a different team, came out a little flat, but scored to tie it up 8-8 in the fourth. Get another 'holding' call inside the five, end up fumbling and they drive for the go ahead score. We get it with a minute to go, hit a pass down to the 10 with 20 seconds left. Rocket sweep for the tying score called back on another 'holding' call (same guy that called last week's td back). Get tackled on the 5 on the last play. Next week we get the undefeated conference leader so no rest for the weary. Gotta strap it on and get back at it today.
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Post by 33coach on Sept 4, 2013 9:31:56 GMT -6
we lost our opener, big. we ran into the #1 team in the south county (and they are in our conference...  ) but we have a few cupcakes these next few weeks. so we can gain some confidence and before we play the rest of our conference schedule we should be AT LEAST 2-2 if not 3-1. |
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