I think I'm in for a bad season ...

Nothing wrong with stemming (jumping around pre snap). But if you scout a team and they can go on first sound stemming isn't necessary. It's just to confuse the OL but if the other team is ready for it it loses it's effectiveness.

Personally, if I was calling the O, and I saw a defense stemming, I would coach my line to get in a 2 point stance, and run through a non stop cadence for 20 seconds each play. The d-line would not last the entire game.

Coach,

Youre in for a long season. Poor priority setting is the curse of the poor youth football coach. Scrimmaging like that for that amount of time is a red flag 10 yards by 10 yards flapping in the wind.

freelance, I feel your pain. I've seen situations like this first hand. Best of luck to you and your team this season.

Sounds like my first year as HC. Won two games with them, three including our first scrimmage, they hadn't won two games in three years.


Same thing my initial year. Other coach mutinied the team. He's in jail last I heard of him. When you face greater numbers, simply rep the hell outta the QB's first step. He calls for the ball that first step goes simultaneously. Now he's got a running chance on the count. Quick count him to help even more. We had it where the fight clique(players who were related to the mutiny coach) would deliberately stop blocking or overload the squad on half line drills so the white QB(another coach's son) would get smothered.

He was really rattled. My emphasis was to try and get him to get that first step right so he could at least open up enough to throw the quick pass over the coming blitz. If he made one play he could win players over. He stayed knee knocked/leg locked and looked the snap into his hands instead of feeling its arrival, so he wasn't even stepping right. He never did get it right, it's my regret more order wasn't in store but making waves could cost me a spot with the league at the time.

His dad wanted to see him at QB, and was a big Mike Vick fan. He was a good guy and his kid paid his dues playing OL and none of the skill positions. It didn't matter though, he probably wasn't a pure QB from the get go.

He's pretty smart if you talk him through things, he gets a lot of what is coming in terms of formation tendencies if you point it out, etc. when watching games from stands. He loses it in real time though. IMO he'ds thrive at a supprt position with less pressure on him and add much to his game.

So I had three coaches all wanting their relatives or kids to be the stars. One of those was asked to leave after accosting wives of spectators at the games and asking if they were single, a relative of the one on vacation at this time... yeah I had a great situation to work with there.



Try and get them into true line drills. Count, spacing, stance, steps. Just walk it out up until they fit form. They have got to make the snap count part of their arsenal from the start.

Look up covered/uncovered here, ask doug, dave cisar, lochness or another regular about that in detail or search it. It basically goes gap inside to over you, block him, otherwise consider it uncovered and help to the next player to play side. Pair this with a lead blocker to kick out the end man of the line since everyone is looking to block down.


Let him learn the hard way and get embarrassed on game day. Teach yours how to pile up blockers because it's obvious he does unsound schemes and will have players in position to get attacked from two directions. Hips low, head up once you get going, try to level out on the LOS before the snap but use some of the natural curve in your back for natural coil/leverage(/Vermeil).




Quick count them to help your QB. Doubt they'll remain effective with it. We had teams do that to induce penalties and pointed it out to the refs and that tactic changed too. If it's obvious the intent is more or less to cause chaos and has no other design they're likely to put an end to it. Inducing false starts are a matter of determining intent on the defender's part.



Work early. Start with your non snap hand on the ground until you gain command of your balance. Take a slight step forward on the snap to keep from getting moved back as you balance might shifting otherwise.

Every C I ever coached made it to the next level at his position(one was even switched the T the next year by another coach).




Hey, at least they are familiar with the term wrapping up. Simply emphasize the aiming point of contact from there. My preference is to aim in front a bit so the player has to cut back to your help, others seem to do it more effective here with aiming level of behind to eliminate cutbacks.

IMO it's best to aim in front slightly so your head can get across them and you form fit them easier from there. If they can't get past your core strength they are down. If they cut back from that point you can still drive into them, drive your inside leg through them and keep your feet moving.

Help them determine pursuit angle using clock faces. The further away you are the longer it takes to get there, start adding a few minutes to your direction. Depending on their defensive scheme find out what time ranges work for each level of the defense and thus you have your afternoon and evening references for where the ball is going.


Had the same thing happen two different seasons, let it slide like water off a duck's back. It's part of the game, just focus on ways of helping everyone see the big picture. Set some small goals and go forward from that when they see benefit to it, use the advice and experience here to build on that improvement.

The second season, with a new team, the league's best play was one our HC had in mind from his college/HS days but it was my suggestion of going double tight that allowed it to best work. It took both of our best ideas to make that play work best, the HS added it to their series runs for short yardage.


We still differ in play calling though, I take much more of a series based approach, and then mix in spread concepts to keep the defense off balance. He prefers more trickeration than I do and even more spread.
We had supreme talent too, lost the final game but did take a late lead. A lot of our guys are gone now to other programs in the area or other states. We scored the most of anyone and generally got a lot of playing time for everyone possible.

This year we really appear to lack dominant skill players, so we're going to try and use more tricks. We'll essentially have to rely on much of that.

He hasn't even seen what I'll suggest for special teams. We're going to go with Kurt Bryan's spread punt stuff since the best punter we have is actually an OL and he happens to be our best QB. That way I can get him reps in the four minute mark or for no huddle with concepts his arm can match. Our other stuff will be much safer complimentary type of passes.

;D
I just have to get him convinced to let me call the special teams plays.

Update! ....

We were away on vacation - missed a few days.

While I was gone, we got completely worked in a scrimmage. Shocker! They ran wide on us all day, and when I was back at practice, he had moved his defensive ends out to at least head up on the tight end. I managed to bite my tounge and not say, "I told you so".

The offensive line got worked over, but when your blocking instruction consists of "block someone!", that's to be expected.

So Monday was the first day after the big blowout scrimmage ... and there we were, back to scrimmaging for 97 percent of practice.

We did work on a tackling drill - no time spent on fit and freeze tackling, just right into two kids running into each other full speed.

And yes, one of the kids got hurt during this exercise.