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Post by coachthomason on Sept 21, 2017 13:22:38 GMT -6
Gentelmen,
We are fortunate this year in that we are a loaded team. Even our back-ups are better than a lot of the the teams we play starters. Last week we were attempting to speed the end of the game and prevent injuries at the same time and even our JV kept scoring on basic trap plays.
What strategies/tactics do you coaches employ to keep the score from becoming ridiculous Madden scores?
Don't get me wrong we still wanna beat teams thoroughly but we don't want to embarrass them with an 80 point game and a 70 point spread.
As usual, thanks ahead of time for your advice.
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Post by chi5hi on Sept 21, 2017 13:39:45 GMT -6
Yeah, opposing coaches don't forget that you ran up the score by keeping the 1st string in the game. They also know when you're playing your bench and everything you touch turns to gold, anyway.
Play your game and whenever possible play your bench. Let the chips fall. The kids want to win and have fun. Next year you might be on the receiving end!
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Post by fkaboneyard on Sept 21, 2017 14:04:48 GMT -6
Our JV rolled an opponent 63-0 last week. Our team is that good, their team is that bad. After the game in the handshake line one of their coaches said, "That was really classy running up the score on us like that." I said, "Coach, we pulled our starters after the 1st quarter, what else do you expect me to do?" His head coach stepped in between us and said to me, "Coach, it's not your fault, we need to coach our kids better." I thought that was very classy of him.
Bottom line, you can only do what you can do. There will still be people that disapprove. You need to get your kids ready for playoffs, I wouldn't hamstring them just to spare another team's feelings.
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Post by spreadattack on Sept 21, 2017 14:23:23 GMT -6
You do the best you can do. Have been part of some really lopsided games (fortunately more on the right side, but I've been on both). I remember a game where we led something like 49-0 in the second quarter and it was really put in whoever you have we had a backup tight-end playing fullback took a FB dive like 75 yards to the house. Another time I remember our second or third string QB audibling to a sneak in short yardage because the other team was in double 3 techniques and he took the sneak something like 50 yards to the house. It happens. Keep the clock running, get Johnny and Jeffrey some playing time and hope it's not you on the other end next time.
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Post by olcoach53 on Sept 21, 2017 14:27:17 GMT -6
If you pull your starters and play the bench it isn't your fault, unless you are throwing it deep every play, which I doubt you are. At some point it is their job to stop your offense and not the other way around. I would rather a team score points running their basic plays than taking a knee and punting. Blowouts happen, it's a part of the game.
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Post by Stangs13065 on Sept 21, 2017 14:52:04 GMT -6
I'm of the thought process that if you don't want the offense to run up the score, stop them. Obviously, leaving your starters in when the game is well in hand is not only in bad taste but stupid (injury risk), but at a certain point, it's not your job to avoid hurting the other team's feelings. It's a good thing that your kids are playing hard to the final whistle.
My favorite story pertaining to this is when Florida was playing Georgia in the 90s, and they were winning like 45-17 super late in the game. An assistant goes up to them and told him "Nobody has ever scored 50 against UGA at home". So the HBC calls a timeout, dials up a trick play, scores a touchdown. He then turns to the same assistant and says "They have now"
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Post by dytmook on Sept 21, 2017 14:56:33 GMT -6
Been on both ends. Usually starters play the first half but we start moving B team kids with the 1's a bit. If you score running your base stuff, sucks to be us. At that point I'm looking for our team to just compete they best they can anyways.
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Post by blb on Sept 21, 2017 15:24:04 GMT -6
If you pull your starters and play the bench it isn't your fault, unless you are throwing it deep every play, which I doubt you are. At some point it is their job to stop your offense and not the other way around. I would rather a team score points running their basic plays than taking a knee and punting. Blowouts happen, it's a part of the game.
Usually when we blew somebody out it was because we were running our "base" stuff really well.
We might have been doing them a favor if we threw it deep every play (after we subbed of course).
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Post by blb on Sept 21, 2017 15:30:49 GMT -6
Your only responsibility after the game is decided is to substitute.
You keep running your offense so that your backups get valuable game experience.
I would not blitz the heck out of an inferior team that couldn't handle it, though.
Just play your "base" and let your backups get game experience doing that.
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Post by Defcord on Sept 21, 2017 17:13:10 GMT -6
We were a young team one year. Had a road trip three hours away to a rough area. All of our papers chose us to lose.
We wanted no distractions so we only took 28 kids. We were rough off the bus. The other team scored on a slant first play on one of our D1 recruits. Then EVERYTHING went our way. We were up 49-6 at half.
The officials asked the opposing coach if he wanted running clock. He refused. We ran one play in second half with our our best rb. He was at 998 rushing. He got a 12 yard gain. We took him out and anyone we wouldn't want hurt.
After that we run dive with the worst we have available. (We were a 4 win team).
We end up winning 74-6.
Monday morning I had to meet with AD, Principal, superintendent to justify score.
What can you do?
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Post by Defcord on Sept 21, 2017 17:40:32 GMT -6
There was a time though when we were down 39-6 to returning state champs with under 2 minutes to go. They run 4 verts and we pick it. We run the ball and time runs out.
Their coach after the game meets me and says "Coach way to finish. That's great D!"
I say "don't humor me, you should have ran it and we should all be home by now!" (I was still pissed)
He says "you think I am trying to run it up?"
I don't have time to speak one of our part time assistants says "forget him he has little man syndrome!"
The opposing head coach then turns to a different one of my assistants,who he thinks said it and says "really??? You want to meet me in the parking lot?" That assistant of mine is befuddled.
I tell all of my assistants to shut up. We meet with guys. Call it night.
Moral of the story...shut up, shake hands and go home. I should have never said anything. Life goes on. I called the coach the next day and apologized and I should have. It's a game and as long as you are playing within the rules it's all fair game.
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Post by **** on Sept 21, 2017 19:09:51 GMT -6
Put the back ups in when you get up by turbo/mercy rule.
I'll quit trying to score, when you quit trying to score.
If my 2s and 3s can score on your 1s, sucks for you. I've been there, I know that pain.
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Post by 3rdandlong on Sept 21, 2017 20:14:50 GMT -6
I think it goes both ways. If I've slowed it down, put all my subs in and you start picking on my 5'4 RSP corner, then I get pissed off. It's kind of like the time UCLA called a timeout when Pete carrol was taking a knee and calling it a game. What was the result? Pete threw deep and scored another TD
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Post by agap on Sept 21, 2017 20:30:19 GMT -6
Run your base plays no matter what they are. We never got upset at a team that won big by simply running their base plays. At the end of the day, the defense has to stop them; if ours doesn't, than it's not the other teams fault.
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Post by 53 on Sept 21, 2017 21:26:32 GMT -6
We were up big on a team. We were playing all of our subs and basically just running straight dives. We had a girl on the team that scored on a 35 yard run right up the middle against their starters.
It made the regional news and they came to our school to do an interview with her since it was the first time a girl had scored in school history. That had to be really damn embarrassing for the other team.
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Post by Old Pro on Sept 21, 2017 21:39:15 GMT -6
I agree that I'll quit trying to score when you do. Local coach keeps starters in vs 2s and 3s. One game he onside kicked 4 times and got them all vs backups. Got the game relatively close and crowd senses a possible comeback. Suddenly I notice opponents have starters back in. Trailing team throws a pick six and one of their starters got waylaid on the return. Home crowd boos other team for hitting too hard. Unreal.....
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Post by murdr on Sept 22, 2017 6:50:07 GMT -6
I mean, I get coaches that run up the score, nothing wrong with it, but I feel like having mercy is the more "honorable" thing to do.
I didn't really like it at Mount Union, and I hated when teams would do it to me in high school. Again, not saying there's anything wrong with it, and you play until the whistle, but sometimes it's best to not embarrass guys. Hell, look what that cost EMCC on Last Chance U. Teams cheap-shotted them until they got suspended from the playoffs.
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Post by murdr on Sept 22, 2017 6:56:07 GMT -6
I mean, how I see it is that these are high school kids, not adults. I have no problem with winning it handedly, but if it's 42-0 at the half, no sense in completely demoralizing teenage kids, and potentially pushing them away from the game forever. I've been a player on both powerhouse and bottom feeder teams, and the big blowouts made a lot of kids hate football, the only thing they've ever loved.
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Post by wolverine55 on Sept 22, 2017 7:02:30 GMT -6
One thing to remember too is that a score doesn't always indicate sportsmanship either. I've been on the receiving end of an 84-8 game and I can honestly say the other team didn't do anything unsportsmanlike at all in getting to that score. It was just one of those things.
On the other side, I've lost a game 42-14 where the other team was attempting to "run it up." They even went no huddle their last drive--which they never do--and there last two passes were waggle passes trying to get the go route for a TD both times.
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Post by KYCoach2331 on Sept 22, 2017 7:36:54 GMT -6
If you run it up on us running your base stuff that's completely fine.
We had a horror story of a 7th grade game the other day. 5 kids ineligible which left us with 12 kids. Lose one on the first kickoff, so we have 11. 3 of which are playing their normal positions. The team pounds us which is what I expected. But when it's the 4th quarter and they're trying to take shots downfield when they had thrown twice that game prior, calling timeouts, and onside kicking then I have a problem with that. Especially at this level when we're just trying to get these kids to the next level and not ruin their experience.
"You don't meet anyone on the way up, you don't meet on the way back down."
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Post by MICoach on Sept 22, 2017 7:43:08 GMT -6
We don't get a running clock until we're up 35 and in the second half. We'll usually start spot-subbing if we're up 3 scores, but once we get a running clock we start getting as many guys in as possible.
We're not terribly deep and have a noticeable drop off between starters and second string so we usually want the game fully in hand before we downgrade to our entire second string OL (hopefully I can coach them up between now and next year...).
We have a couple times started taking a knee with 3 or so minutes left just to expedite the end of the game.
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Post by tothehouse on Sept 22, 2017 10:01:22 GMT -6
Several years ago we were kicking field goals on first down. Beat a team 70-0 and had the ball in their red zone a fair amount of times after that. We took knees with a running clock. Kicked field goals just to give the other team the ball back. It was pretty much all we could do to not score. To start the game we had the ball 4 times in a row. We scored on our first 4 offensive plays and the score was 42-0. How is that possible? Between we returned the kick off for a TD and had a pick six.
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Post by coachcb on Sept 22, 2017 10:14:03 GMT -6
We had this happen several times when I coached at the youth and middle school level.. We beat one team 70-6 and all we called was Buck trap and Belly Iso during the second half, without any of our more athletic kids in. We just kept popping off big runs because their defense was so poorly coached. The idiot across the way kept his studs in all game long and then had the nerve to b-tch at me at the end of the game. I told him he had more pressing things to worry about than whine at me when his starters couldn't stop our 3rd stringers.
We had a similar situation on our hands two weeks later and the league commissioner actually asked us to start taking a knee in the middle of the fourth quarter. I refused to do so and got dragged into a meeting with him and some other league officials the next week. I told them that we absolutely wouldn't be taking a knee. It wasn't fair to our kids as they have every right to actually play the entire game and shouldn't be denied that because the opposing coaches don't know sh-t about football. And, I then went on a tirade over the fact that I was getting chewed out and asked to make accommodations when the opposing coaches were leaving their starters in all game long.
It's really a no-win situation. As has been pointed out, all you can do is get your younger guys in early and keep plugging away. It's the opposing defense's job to stop you and it's on them if they can't do it. We got the sh-t kicked out of us at the HS level a few years back by an Air Raid team that threw screens, draws, and a few short passes with their freshmen and sophs out there. We didn't stop them and our HC complained that they were running up the score by throwing the ball. Our DC looked at him and said "it's on us if we can't stop a freshman WR from getting 7 yards on a bubble screen..."
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Post by hunhdisciple on Sept 22, 2017 10:43:03 GMT -6
I knew a guy a few years ago who chose to start every drive in the second half with a penalty. They were dominating so heavily and were significantly deeper, so he kept calling trap and ISO. But he said he figured it would at least make it look a little less bad. They won by almost 80, and ended up having kids slide down on long runs.
It's a great problem to have, but aside from taking a knee or committing repeated penalties, there's not much you can do.
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Post by msirishman on Sept 22, 2017 11:26:07 GMT -6
At what point do you guys take your 1's out? It's still fairly early in the season and it's hard to get guys in shape by only playing one half. I had a coach get upset at us last week and we didn't have a starter take a snap in the 2nd half nor did we throw a pass in the 2nd half.
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Post by blb on Sept 22, 2017 15:01:44 GMT -6
At what point do you guys take your 1's out? It's still fairly early in the season and it's hard to get guys in shape by only playing one half. I had a coach get upset at us last week and we didn't have a starter take a snap in the 2nd half nor did we throw a pass in the 2nd half.
We played our "Game Deciders" until the game was decided.
Meaning one of us was up by three scores in 4th Quarter or until running clock.
The problem is if you're up 35 or more at half time - your 1s might have gotten a better workout at practice.
You can't coach but one team, and that's yours.
Same as the other guy.
So you do what's best for yours.
If you're on the bad end of a blow out - coach-develop your kids better or change the schedule.
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Post by coachthomason on Sept 22, 2017 15:55:22 GMT -6
Thanks as always for the response fellas. We ended up scoring 11 TDs in the first half and one more (by the JV) during the running clock in the second half. My last starter scored with 8:13 left in the 2nd quarter making the score 51-6. We started subbing our 2s and 3s early. Our starters only played 16 minutes or so of the game.
We had 2 sophomores score 2 TDs a piece. 9 guys carried the ball, the second half was entirely JV so was the last 3 minutes of the first half. We called only one pass the whole game (for a TD) and ran basic formations with Buck Sweep and FB Trap from the 8 minute mark of the second quarter. The score ended up 83-14. They also had six turnovers inside of their own 20 plus attempted and failed a punt fake on their own 21 yard line. We scored off of each of those plus we had a kick returned and a punt retuned for TDs.
Of course the other team's coaches were upset. They left their starters in and blitzed like crazy agains our JVs and even on-side kicked and recovered it against our JVs. They thought we were trying to run it up but we were definitely not. If we had been we'd have scored triple digits with ease.
I just never want that to happen again. Not because I care about how their coaches feel, but for their players. It's not the players fault they weren't properly prepared for our game and I hate to think we may have turned one of their kids off of football because of a ridiculous sore like that.
Thanks again coaches for your advice and experience.
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Post by 19delta on Sept 22, 2017 16:48:29 GMT -6
Your only responsibility after the game is decided is to substitute. You keep running your offense so that your backups get valuable game experience. I would not blitz the heck out of an inferior team that couldn't handle it, though. Just play your "base" and let your backups get game experience doing that. I get pi$$ed off when a coach puts his backups in on offense and the other coach leaves his starters in on defense and just starts teeing off...11-man run blitz every play. And then they start whooping and hollering when they are crushing these poor kids in the backfield. $hit like that is just BEGGING for a naked boot or halfback pass.
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Post by coachd5085 on Sept 22, 2017 21:35:27 GMT -6
Run your base plays no matter what they are. We never got upset at a team that won big by simply running their base plays. At the end of the day, the defense has to stop them; if ours doesn't, than it's not the other teams fault. what if their base is 4 verts? Serious question.
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Post by coachwoodall on Sept 22, 2017 22:39:20 GMT -6
I knew a guy a few years ago who chose to start every drive in the second half with a penalty. They were dominating so heavily and were significantly deeper, so he kept calling trap and ISO. But he said he figured it would at least make it look a little less bad. They won by almost 80, and ended up having kids slide down on long runs. It's a great problem to have, but aside from taking a knee or committing repeated penalties, there's not much you can do. I know a guy who won 77-0 that punted on 1st down the entire second half.
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