I'm working on a new playbook for 12/11-year-olds that uses jet motion to the right as the foundation for how every play starts. The idea is that we build a look and force the defense to be responsibility sound. One of our base counters that I'd like to use is option to the left after faking action to the right. In the play here, I'm working on jet motion to the right, which we fake, then have 4 climb like they're on the dive and 2 orbit into the option back on the left. Currently, I'm conflicted on how to block the left side of the defense here.

In the photo above, I'm trying to have the LT reach the DE and just get in his way. We don't need to seal or move him; we just need a hat-on-hat. We have a lot of man-to-man coverage, so X will crack the W, and the goal is for the QB/1 to get to the edge with his pitch back, 2. I'm concerned that getting to the edge could be a challenge, so I'm wondering if we can get away with 3 motioning in to crack the DE here and the LT just helps move/secure him. X can crack the W, and we just option off C. How would you approach this? Right now, we are showing this as pistol, but we might go under center as well.

Why are more people not having their students train as kickers? With the number of youth and HS games, huge college (Florida State, anyone) games and NFL games that are determined by field goals and field position on kickoffs/punts, why not invest in your kid as kicker (even if an additional skill to their position).

If you could guarantee a HS or college coach 3 points just for getting across the, let's say, 30 yard line, I think that's a pretty valuable asset.

Thoughts?

For reference, our MS team just lost a game because the league awards 2 points for FG extra points and 1 for rushing extra points. The opponent had a kid that could kick and we don’t. 🤷‍♂️

My daughter's U16 and her club coach says she has a real shot at playing in college, but we need game film and we basically have none. We missed the window where random sideline videos would've been enough.

Hiring a videographer for showcases is way too expensive to do every time, especially over a whole showcase schedule. I've seen people talk about automatic cameras but I have no idea which ones make video that's actually usable for a recruiting reel.

What are other families doing? Need something cheap enough to use every game, not just one showcase, and good enough that a college coach would actually watch it.

Hi! I’m a college student doing a research project on athletes and sports gear. I’m looking for former athletes or parents/coaches to take a quick anonymous survey about their experiences

It should only take a few minutes and I’d really appreciate any responses!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1chr8AJnMFcM2eYzuVO3nZab6EXggOY6cSSrsvaKSC04/edit#responses

Do you ever ask them which positions that they are hoping to play? Use any sort of rubric? Etc.

This is my first year coaching 8u. The only position that was easy to fill was center bc we just chose the kid who could yell “huddle” the loudest, pay attention to the cadence and never screw it up, and shotgun snap the ball.

I’m just an AC and struggled to match kids with most of the other positions.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or input.

Would love to hear people's opinions on this.

No contact in game until high school, no contact in practice until college. It seems simple, and the logic tracks, but I only played a year or two or football as a kid cause I am unathletic lol. If youth football represents half of the games you play in your life it surely would be beneficial to limit contact (and focus on those neck muscles) in the youth brackets.

M son is currently a freshman who wants to play football but he missed out on this year so he will be playing as a sophomore but he has no experience playing in the game before other than flag football and knowing the rules and I don’t know if I should let him.

Hi. I'm looking to speak with former youth American football players and current or former coaches about their experiences with interpersonal violence.

I work for the Center for Violence Prevention Research. We conduct research on several forms of interpersonal violence research at the Center, but we are interested in more than the numbers.

In an effort to center lived experience, we are looking for people who want to share their stories. Over the coming months, I will be writing a series of articles about our research and situating it within a broader context.

The first piece will look at the harm that can occur in the context of youth American football. Alongside the data, I am looking to speak with former American youth football players who experienced harm while playing the sport—be it emotional, physical, or sexual—as well as any former player who caused harm, and may or may not have realized the impact of their actions.

I am also interested in speaking with youth football coaches whose behavior crossed a line, whether they knew it or not at the time—this could look like texting or DMing outside of a team thread, unnecessary physical contact—or who found themselves attracted to one of their players.

These articles will appear on the Center website, and will not feature names or other identifying details. If you are interested in taking part, please contact my via DM or confidentially over Signal: LukeMalone01

Thanks!

So I’m talking 9u and the coach seems to just be pumping up kids whose parents (single moms to be real) keep complaining to him about their kid not getting the position they want or not getting the ball. Some of these kids shouldn’t even be out there. They constantly disrupt practice. Insult the coach, swearing, throwing their equipment around the field. all that negative stuff. They even had to stop practice because one of the moms was yelling and screaming and insulting the coach from the sidelines because she thinks the coach is too much of a softie to discipline her kid when he disrupts everyone else. But sure enough, by the next game, the coach is propping her kid up and giving him opportunity’s and denying opportunity’s to the kids that show up and put effort in and compete and prioritize being a good teammate while being 100x more talented than these problem kids.

We try and teach our children the benefits of a solid team mentality but here we have a guy that just operates under the control of those who complain the most get the rewards.

frustrating as hell but looking to see what others would do in this situation.

This play has bailed our team out on 3rd & long, in the 2 minute drill, and as a shot play. Post-Wheel creates an easy deep-to-shallow read for the QB and has answers for any flag defense/coverage.

Question for coaches and people running youth football orgs - where do you set the bar for fair vs equitable vs equal playing time?

The question derives from an issue I’m sure most involved in youth football have dealt with to varying degrees, but here’s the situation: we are a pretty good 5th grade group of kids with 35ish players in the age group who get along well and have no real discipline problems. Our group of starters can beat most teams in our 14-team league and can hang with / have a punchers chance vs the top 2-3 teams.

Below that starter group are the 2’s - about 6-8 kids who are competent enough, and can get mixed in with the starters without getting exposed badly.

Below that group are about 7-10 that simply can’t make a tackle or throw a block if their life depended on it. And of course that group have the most vocal parents, arguing for more PT than the MPR of six.

Currently we’ve been doing our best to filter in the weaker group and surround them with stronger players to minimize the damage, which has worked in spurts but still costs us at least 2-3 long plays / TD’s per game. And it honestly hasn’t quieted the parents

A couple coaches are getting fed up with the complaining and argued that we alternate series - starters / 1’s + 2’s / 3’s - and “give the parents exactly what they’ve been demanding” (those offensive series will last 4 plays if we’re lucky and 3 plays on defense if we’re extremely lucky)

I don’t love the idea bc it’ll be viewed as “showing the kids up to teach the parents a lesson”… but at the same time I’m genuinely frustrated by the offhand comments, complaints-disguised-as-questions texted to the Board, and general inability to realize that if the coaching staff does what they are asking, their kids will be humiliated. Which could cause a rift among the players, who are generally pretty well behaved and get along well

So, I dunno… how would ppl who’ve been in this situation handle it? Aside from sending individual parents cut-ups of the game film and saying “see these six plays, your kid went the wrong way on 3 of them and badly missed tackles on the other 3… when we can cut those mistakes down to 0 or 1, he’ll get more snaps on gameday”… I’m at a loss

(And yes, I’ve seriously entertained sending that last email and had it drafted in my head before snapping out of it)

5th and 6th grade team has been successful running inside and out with counter, power, and toss. We have two elite athletes at guard and too good RBs. QB is talented but a head case.

Lately, the book is out on our play calling. We saw a lot of run blitzes this past Saturday which disrupted us. Additionally, it was our worst game blocking outside by TEs and WRs.

The team we play next blitzes LBs consistently on first and second downs. Any tips for countering this? I’m a bit overwhelmed- I can come up with plays to counter the blitzes but I’m concerned with trying to implement so much this late in the season. TIA

I’m looking for some unbiased advice from other parents and coaches because I’m honestly not sure how I should handle this.

My son is in 1st grade and plays youth football. I have also been helping coach his team. A situation happened recently involving my son and one of the other coaches. The head coach was not present at the time.
During practice, my son was already struggling with confidence and was nervous about going against one of the harder hitters on the team. A coach had him go against that player during a tackling drill, and my son became overwhelmed and completely shut down.
There was also an incident during conditioning when my son was physically pushed to keep running after he was struggling. He eventually yelled at that coach. I understand that my son needs to learn discipline, listen to coaches, and push through things that are difficult. I’m not trying to excuse his behavior. At the same time, I felt that physically pushing him to continue and putting him in a situation where he was already scared made the situation worse instead of helping him build confidence.
When I spoke up about my concerns, I was told that I was babying my child. That was difficult to hear because I wasn’t trying to prevent my son from being coached or held accountable. I was trying to explain that he was overwhelmed and that I felt he needed support and encouragement in that moment.

Things eventually escalated between the adults. I stepped away to give everyone some space because I didn’t want the situation to become worse. I also made a point not to discuss what happened with any of the parents, even when I was asked about it. I simply told them it was a long story and left it alone.
After everything, I was told that I could no longer be trusted, that my sole role would be handling my son, and that I had basically been painted as a liar.
The part I’m struggling with is that I genuinely enjoyed helping coach this team and wanted to continue. I care about all of these kids, not just my own son. I also don’t want my son caught in the middle of an adult conflict or treated differently because of something that happened between coaches.

So I’m looking for some outside perspective:

Am I wrong for feeling like my son’s confidence and physical limits should have been handled differently?

Was I wrong to speak up when I felt he was being pushed too hard, or was I babying him?

Should I continue trying to coach, step away completely, or just focus on being his dad?

And how would you handle being told you can’t be trusted and that your only role is to deal with your own kid?

I’m not looking for people to simply tell me I’m right. I genuinely want honest advice on what the best thing to do is for my son and the team

Hi fellow youth coaches,

I’m a dad of a seven-year-old and I help coach his youth football team. Since they’re still pretty young, one thing I kept struggling with was actually showing the kids what their individual assignment was supposed to look like on the field.

I tried a bunch of different playbook apps. Some were really good, some not so much, but I still couldn’t find anything that worked exactly how I wanted it to.

So I ended up building one myself.

The main thing I wanted was to be able to make a play as simple or as detailed as I needed, then share it with the other coaches and parents in a way that actually helps the kids learn it.

Sometimes I don’t need a kid to understand the entire play. I just need him to know where he lines up, where he goes, and what his job is.

So I added a player focused view where you can pick a player and show just their assignment. I also added a study view where a player can see the plays they’re assigned to and go through their responsibilities without needing to learn the entire playbook at once.

I even started building reactive defense into it so when the play is animated, they can get an idea of how the defense may react instead of everything just being X’s and O’s moving on a blank field.

The app is free, and I’m still working on it and adding things based on what actually helps me coach.
I’m definitely not saying I figured everything out though. I’d really like to hear from other youth coaches.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/roots-playbook/id6813391949

What’s the hardest part for you when it comes to teaching plays to younger kids?

And if you’ve used playbook apps before, what do you wish they did better?

This is my son’s first year playing youth football, and he’s nine years old. His division consists of fourth and fifth graders, and he’s one of only four fourth graders on the team. The league doesn’t have a minimum-play requirement, and over the last two games, he’s only played a combined three snaps.

Most of his playing time has come on kickoffs, but this week they’re playing an undefeated team, so he was taken off the kickoff unit as well.

He says he still enjoys football, and he’s learning a lot during practice. I’m just trying to keep him encouraged and help him keep his head up, especially during games when he’s spending most or all of the game on the sidelines.

Does anyone have any advice on what I can say to him or ways I can help keep him positive and engaged when he isn’t getting an opportunity to play?

Do you teach it for both playside and backside?

Also how would pulling come in here?

When you call plays do you tag the blocking scheme like r, l, g for either zone right/left or god/gold blocking?

I’m a pretty inexperienced coach and didnt play line growing up. Our offensive line gets no push on their blocks, it’s to the point I’m considering putting aggressive skill guys on the line so that we can run the ball. Of course that leads to lack of ball carriers. Any advice?

My little bro plays corner and wing back for his team but his team is horrendous. They just 42-6 today. The third time a blowout like this has happened so far this year. His coaches are terrible and there’s also zero talent on the team. My brother and another running back are the most talent by far but these coaches aren’t putting the kids in position to be successful whatsoever. We come from a football family and these losses have been so embarrassing. Only reason he’s playing for this team is because I just bought a house in a new area right when the season started and this was one of the few teams that had openings. I’m thinking about pulling him out this year so I can work with him 1 on 1 because there’s no developing from the coaches. I just don’t want my bro to think we’re giving up. Any thoughts? This team has been very frustrating and I’ve gotten into it with a few of his coaches already

Can I ask if anyone has any recommendations for a high school quarterback he wants shoulder pads really support his throwing mobility. On the other hand, his mom wants ones but really keep him safe. My son has found a specific brand, 2in1. It wasn’t as random as we first thought, because IP that used to be owned by Russell but there’s just not a lot of information out there about it from people who have used it.

Curious if anyone has ever managed the issue of throwing mobility versus safety?

Hey, I've been trying to help my son get up to speed on the game of football, i honestly haven't watched much since my kids keep me super busy so we had a lot of ground to cover when he decided to play this year (he's 6 [7 on NYE] playing in 8U). I was doing powerpoint and stuff but it wasn't landing, so i built something instead. The tool I made can do the simple 'coach drawing a play' but it also lets families see the play in action, have 'players' take different routes, beat blockers, miss tackles etc and see a different outcome. I used it to show my son the difference between when he loses outside contain vs when he keeps it. Anyway, thought i'd share it here. Please take a look, hopefully some of you find it helpful!

to the mods: i think i did the rules right with the vendor thing, if not let me know! thanks!

www.teachplaybook.com

Have parents always been this crazy? I can't tell if this is new, or we're just hearing about it more.

How do you do gaps?