Getting effort from scout team

The big thing with scout team--I think anyway--is to really emphasize the positive. We have enough numbers as a coaching staff to where me and another coach are able to run the scout offense. More him than me, but we go nuts in a good way whenever we run a play that gains positive yards. "Way to go, Scouts!" "Hey, keep kicking their ass, Scouts!" and stuff like that. We have our scouts get a break whenever the session is over just like the defense does: "Scouts on three...1..2...3...SCOUTS!" and stuff like that.

One thing that helps too is a lot of teams in our district run some sort of two-back shotgun stuff, so I can almost always tell the OL to block the play as if it's one of our plays and give them an exact play call. That obviously helps with their confidence too.

Be as basic and simple with the instructions as you can. Remember you are asking them to do full speed something they are learning right now against an opponent (your starters) who are going full speed something they should know well. If your scout team is able to execute the opponent stuff as well as your starters then you're probably overly complex and not coaching well. So just give them a small movement to execute and let it build from there.

I think the problem is sometimes with low numbers those scout guys aren't any good. So it is difficult to get any sort of tempo. This is what I battle. We have cards, a script and our O-Coordinator running the scout. We also have a practice player of the week and we talk a lot about the importance of their jobs and how that relates to us winning a game. All this said - we do not get a very good look.

Our kids take pride in being on the "Blue Squad", our school colors are blue and white and our regular practice jerseys are white so our scout team wears blue shimmels. Something we did early in the summer is anytime somebody on scout makes a good play all the scout coaches will yell blue squad, sounds quirky but the kids bought in. Now the kids are the one's yelling it. We also have a coach who takes pride in running our scout offense, he goes crazy if they have to reload a play cuz we didn't defend it right. The kids feed off of him and work hard. We are fortunate enough to usually get a pretty decent look just cuz he gets them fired up.

Scout team has to be fun. It's all about getting a group of kids to have fun by getting the first team in trouble. Your coaches have to be passionate and really focus on the positives. You're an idiot if you blow a gasket over a scrub not being able to run plays they've never seen before well enough to score on your starters. Kids work harder when they're having fun.

it is thud

Something we had to change this year for our varisty defense vs scout Offense. We told our varsity D linemane they were full live for 3 steps and then shut it down. They still get much of the technique, but don't completely disrupt the scout offense play. Our problem was our varsity D tore our scout Offense a new one, and my varsity LB's could get a decent scout Offense look. This has helped a lot.

I'm the Scout O major domo, and we make it all about fun. Some things:

We make it a personal challenge to have fewer repeats because our picture was bad than because the D messed up.

Spot the ball where the scout O has a reasonable shot at scoring, we use the +40-45.

Cheat a little, take advantage of knowing the script beforehand to give a more exact idea of what and how to block/run

Define passing progressions, I R4 all the pass plays for the QB for a few reasons. 1) it gives him something to work on that ties into our O, 2) it increases our chance of scoring, 3) it gets him more engaged, he's not just standing around and throwing at whatever, which means more completions and more engaged receivers

I open up as much of the other team's offense as I can, I try to give them as many reads and route conversions as I dare, let the OL make calls as appropriate

I translate as much as I can into our O, if they run IZ slightly different but it's not critical, we'll just run our own IZ and have the guys go through all the same motions. This increases carryover, success, and buy-in from the players.

We have a brief scout O meeting every week so we're aware of the motions and we've seen stuff before it's drawn on a card.

I give a fair bit of leeway for playing different positions. Part of it is necessity but every OL and WR wants a shot at playing TE, let different guys run the jet stuff, whatever.

I go nuts and cheer when we make a big play, I make them feel special.

I stick up for them when the DC gets pissy about something.

I make a big deal of it when we catch the D messing up. I know it's probably not because of our magnificent work but I make them feel like we beat the starting D.

A healthy dose of all the other team's trick plays

Emphasize that scout O gets to run all the fun new plays every week against the top D, instead of running the same boring plays every day against the scout D, so for four days a week our job is way better.