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Post by coachjtm on Aug 25, 2015 15:42:00 GMT -6
Schemes in youth football are great. If they're simplified, kept easy to understand (they're not the same thing), broken down for the kids to learn and leave most of your time to learn the fundamentals. I'm not one that ascribes 8 years old as too young to play. It can be frustrating to coach young players and if your coach isn't in tune on how to break down his scheme (blocking, passing, tempo, whatever) to those kids it won't work. I would worry more about the staff trying to put your kid in 5 positions and learning that. He'll be running around trying to learn and execute plays instead of focusing on one job and getting better at the little things (footwork, hand offs, blocking, running proper routes, reading gaps, etc.).
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Post by coachjtm on Jul 23, 2015 10:03:44 GMT -6
We have 30 kids on our 6th grade team. How should we go about our starting lineups and substitutions? Keep in mind, only about half are good players, which pains me to say. There's a fine line between trying to get equal playing time which doesn't seem realistic with 30 kids, but also doing a disservice to the kids who work hard and could start both ways. I think we're going to try to have as many 1 way starters as possible and just rotate in guys. We always pride ourselves on putting the best 11 out there. But now I'm torn between getting quality playing time for each player vs building the best team we can and utilizing our best players. I don't know what the correct way to go about it is. Each kid has to earn their playing time but at the same time each kid HAS to play. Any help would be greatly appreciated. *RANT WARNING* Unless your team is some kind of select traveling team that is in an ultracompetitive league, "playing the best 11" in 6th grade football is complete and total BS. We routinely have 25+ every year and we play EVERYONE...in fact, we are usually able to start everyone somewhere. When we can't start everyone somewhere, we create some kind of rotation between 2 or 3 kids at 1 spot (2 plays in, 2 plays out..something like that). I see this every year. In our league, most of the other teams only play the best 11 kids. So you have a team with 20 kids and 11 or 12 kids are getting all the snaps on offense and defense and those other 8 or 9 kids, if they're lucky, get in the last couple minutes, usually when the game is decided. That is complete crap and it pi$$e$ me off to no end. Do we win every game? No. Have we lost games over the years because we don't play our best 11? Absolutely. But we win more than we lose and seldom have parents complaining about a lack of playing time. Parents know when they come to the game on Saturday morning that they are going to get to watch their kid play a lot of football in real game situations. In fact, I can't even begin to try and guess the number of parents who have told us that our organization is the best youth sports experience they have ever had. In my 16 years of coaching at the high school, middle school, and youth levels, I am most proud of that. I have run our youth organization since 2009. Since then, I can count on one hand the number of parents who have complained about how playing time is allocated. And almost all of those parents were mostly upset about the position their child was playing, not the lack of playing time. Again...I have a low opinion of youth football coaches who do the "play the best 11" thing (unless the exception I noted above). For those guys, the #1 priority is winning. Developing players, giving kids a fun experience, fostering a love and appreciation of the sport...those priorities are all secondary so some local hotshot can brag up his youth football record from the barstool. Those "play the best 11" youth coaches...the football is really for them and not for the kids. RANT OVER I get the playing time thing and I agree with a lot that's said on here, but I'm going to disagree in part. I coach in a low income area. More than half my kids come from single parent (read mother) homes. Only about a quarter of my kids can afford their own equipment. We have to beg, borrow and steal to get enough shoes some years to make sure all our kids can play. Our philosophy is that if you want to get better, you show up to practice, not the games. We will play all our kids. But in an average year we will only start 15-17 different kids the whole season. Start that is. Our kids playing time is determined by a) showing up to practice, b) effort at practice, c) ability to execute, d) skill. We will never be and in fact most of our staff thinks it's immoral to teach our kids that everyone gets equal playing time. We have to teach our kids work ethic, "hard work pays off" isn't just a call and response for us, it might literally keep some of our kids out of jail. If our kids are taught that just showing up is enough to earn playing time, we will hurt our kids. We have to teach them that success is built on hard work, applying skill and that execution on the field, in the classroom and in life is important and will be rewarded. So while I agree with some points, I think that whom you are coaching can have a lot to do with how you coach. Of our 6 coach staff all of our kids collectively in a 13 game season last year played less than 120 snaps. Most of our kids will play 50% or more of the snaps this season. We weren't any easier on them and pressed all of our kids to improve whether they started or not, played or not. Practice is where the kids really get better and that has to be stressed to parents and kids alike.
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Post by coachjtm on Jul 22, 2015 9:25:51 GMT -6
We struggle with this every year. Our best solution was working in kids during points of the game so that we can rotate the 2's and 3's through certain positions say WILL or SS depending on the defensive front or at an off back/receiver or backside TE. Those guys sub out pretty regularly and we will designate a few plays a game to reward the kids who are pushing it in practice with a targeted screen or run to get the ball in their hands. We also work a very fast pace in practices with our offense. Our 1's will run 4-5 plays in quick succession then grab water (it's Texas, it's hot) and our 2's will take 4-5 plays, then water. It really helps those guys develop. You don't slow them down in between plays, you work with them in group and indy to correct mistakes and you have them work tempo and plays in team and it's a great way to get them experience vs. air, rotate a lot of kids through and build their confidence.
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Post by coachjtm on Jun 24, 2015 10:24:26 GMT -6
7 on 7 is useful and it produces wonderful skill position players. It promotes spacing, route recognition and one on one skills. Flag I think is exactly the same thing. Tackle promotes better footwork, hand placement, game situations that flag just doesn't. I think lots of other sports (especially soccer) can teach spacing and and one on one skills. I like having kids in pads a year or two before middle school at least. Gets them used to the helmet and pads. Gets them way more physical and understanding of what's needed at that level and the next. The flag players that I've seen generally aren't good blockers which is the number one skill you want everyone on the offensive side to do. The flag players that I've seen generally get stuck on blocks like they're glued. If I was in a middle school program and a high school program I'd want them out of flag and in pads by about 6th grade with a preference on before that.
As an 8u coach right now, I deal every year with the kids who are moving from flag to pads. Teaching them to shed/destroy blocks and to maintain a block are the two biggest skills I can give these kids.
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Post by coachjtm on Mar 20, 2015 9:46:37 GMT -6
I'm helping my organization's new President and funds wise our previous organization staff left us in terrible shape. We've had just enough to cover costs for our bowl game (major fundraiser) this fall. We've got some smaller fundraisers out there that we're planning in the mean time and reworking how we spend the money, however we're looking around to see if there are some grants to help us out. Previously no one in our league was tax-exempt. Our league will be tax-exempt for the first time this year, and they are trying to tell us that we can as an umbrella use that (of which I am highly dubious).
So I'm turning to y'all. Are there any reliable grants that y'all are aware of for either 501(c)3 or non-tax exempt associations? Any help on this matter would be appreciated!
(My understanding is that all the staff will be going through the USA Football training for the first time this year, I've had it for several years, and I'm aware of theirs, but I'm not counting on that.)
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Post by coachjtm on Mar 11, 2015 7:53:30 GMT -6
Also not a bad idea to bring a crap load of extra towels to the games for the referees. We've done that a couple of times to make sure we have relatively dry balls in all but the worst conditions (driving rain).
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Post by coachjtm on Mar 10, 2015 7:52:56 GMT -6
You could custom build a chute pretty easily to teach them to stay low. Also getting the board out and teaching power steps helps a ton whether in the 2 or the 3 pt stance. For kids 9-12 I'd bet the power steps would be more important than whether it was a 2 or a 3.
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Post by coachjtm on Mar 10, 2015 7:48:37 GMT -6
I'm stealing that drill. Too late, it's already done!
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Post by coachjtm on Mar 9, 2015 14:38:04 GMT -6
The biggest thing on those wing option plays is to make sure you have an athletic guard who can pull play side and seal that edge. A lot of time when first installing an offense you can overlook that. If this is going to be a mainstay in your offense, that guard has to practice that pull every individual period. Practice the first step, the pull and the seal religiously and it's crazy effective. However if you're in a league where the DC's love to put their big athletic kids at DE, you're going to need make sure there is a combo block or a chip on that edge rusher. That will eat up a young option quarterback if they don't have confidence that the edge will be there.
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Post by coachjtm on Mar 9, 2015 12:39:02 GMT -6
Howdy y'all,
I'm a youth coach in the suburbs of Dallas. I'm currently the OC for a youth team in Mesquite and have been coaching for 4 years now. As are many football coaches at the youth level, I'm frustrated with the general lack of education and quality of youth coaches. I'm blessed to have some good coaches in my organization and in the community. I'm working hard to get with our Jr. High/Middle School staff to put in place a version of their systems, trying to get kids from our program ready to step into theirs on day one. Like a lot of late to the game coaches I have a son playing, although I try and coach the other kids and let the staff coach him. I've worked primarily with QB's and RB's, but I'm getting down in the dirt with the OL more this year. I got to attend a Glazier presentation by Coach Huey himself on how he teaches his zone blocking and I was sold. Thanks for the advice I'm going to get in advance, I've got a lot to catch up on.
2012 - QA Asst. Coach / Video 2013 - RB Coach 2014 - OC / QB Coach / Asst. HC 2015 - OC / OL Coach / Asst. HC
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Post by coachjtm on Mar 9, 2015 12:30:57 GMT -6
The other way to do this is to run a check with me system. Not a true triple option. Give the kid one choice (what ever check option you have called) or two options (keep or pitch). Teaching a triple option at that age as mentioned above is really dependent on a quarterback. And truly what you would need to do is develop that quarterback an age bracket lower by installing the same system with the checks and then adding in the third option.
This is done a lot of some of the Wing T or Double Wing guys who might run some zone read. You're not actually giving the QB a choice, you're calling the option from the sideline through a check. You run the play several times in the first series and see however the defenders you're targeting are responding and then run your plays accordingly.
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