Coaching overview and tips:
Practice Plan Outline:
- Play catch as players arrive (I make them focus on throwing and catching form and really practice it versus horsing around.)
- Jog as a group to warm up.
- Together for “stretches”.
– Circle up: ankle circles, knee circles, trunk twists, reach overs, arm circles, head circles
– Or do lines of walking dynamic stretches
- Some sort of conditioning. Usually I’ll go light on the weekday practice and harder on the Saturday. Sprints intervals, zig zag with cones, 5-10-20 (gassers), 3 cone drill races, ladder drills if you have one, cornerback backpedal drills. Get them a little tired.
- Basic skill drills: Things to cover in the beginning and throughout: Hand-offs, snapping under center, running pass routes (I do this every practice all year, select QB’s throwing to the other kids. Two sets at a time so that you are getting in a lot of reps.), flag pulling (can’t do too much: hot box 1 on 1, 2 on 1, sweep or pass to hot box, rapid fire pull drills, sharks and minnows), spin move (I put a huge emphasis on this), shotgun snap, basic QB drills for everyone (3 step drop and throw, roll out and throw, throwing mechanics). Always use a center in all passing drills. WR line can move through center position for snapping purposes. When you run out of ideas, YouTube!
- Practice offense, defense or run complex live action drills. In the beginning you will need to practice your offense. The more you huddle up, call plays, run plays in practice the more successful you will be in the games. Running plays gets a little slow for kids and there distraction with go up so do as much as you can and cut bait when you’ve lost them.
- Scrimmage. Always scrimmage and leave at least 20 minutes for it. Usually this will leave you with some sort of 3 on 3. Have a clipboard and call plays for the offense so that you get the offense practicing things you want them to. Have an assistant manage the defense.
Playing time: With 7 players every player should be playing a lot. League minimum is that each player is on the field at least half the time in each half. Be sure to get all of your players touches through out, even if you just have to hand it to them.
Thinking about defense:
Most points are scored by players running around the edge and down the sideline for a touchdown. Teach to protect the slideline and turn the play in. Second most points from players get behind defense on deep pass. Teach to keep play in front of defender and not let someone get behind you. This is a very difficult skill of this age.
Rusher: Have a fast or big and fast rusher. Disrupting the QB with an big fast kid can shutdown a defense. Sometimes though you don’t have the speed to spare for the position because you need speed elsewhere on your defense.
Run a zone or a zone/man hybrid.
Man skills are great to teach in practice though a man defense is very easily beat in 5 on 5 flag football.
3-1
3 Linebackers (left, right and middle) and Safety with Rusher. Outside linebacker protect sideline and flat. Middle linebacker covers short pass and provides run support. Outside linebackers drop back and cover side routes after pass is established. Single safety on an island. Need it to be a skilled kid who will stay behind everything.
Box
2 Linebackers (left and right) and 2 Safeties (left and right) with rusher.
Good deep pass coverage, hard to pass on unless go to middle. Defense gives the middle. Use rusher to drop into coverage of the middle of the field when offense goes after it. Rusher can option rush or cover to middle. Outside linebackers start read run, then when pass is established drop to cover short zone, do not drop in to deep coverages on sidelines like in 3-1. Safeties cover deep zones, maybe one cheating the up towards middle, one leaning back towards coverage.
2-1/Man
2 Linebackers (left and right), one Safety, one in man coverage with rusher.
Here you run a basic 2-1 zone and then take a top defender and have them play man coverage of the other teams best player. Here you are identifying teams that may have one offense player that can beat you so try to take that player out of the play by covering with what is usually your best coverage defender. Linebacker hold the edge on run read though also may have some deep sideline coverage as in the 3-1. Safety on an island leaning back. Can provide top help on the Man defenders coverage.
Thinking about offense:
Most scoring plays are long plays where the runner gets to the outside corner or you pass deep. Your offense should be looking to set up those plays
Run:
Aim to run 25%-50% of the time. Work on hand offs and the plays so the they executed quickly. Teach kids to get to the outside and to cut back less. Being able to spin is a big help.
Pass:
Your team needs to have short and long passing plays. Players learning to run accurate routes with good cuts makes a big difference. Practice the routes in your playbook in passing drills every practice. Make sure route lengths are uniform amongst your players. Crossing patterns and double moves are effective ways of getting open.
Option:
You can run an option playbook though the “QB” has to hand it to the “RB”, from there, your RB is your option QB.
Pass only:
When you are less than five yards to the line to gain (50 yard line for a first down or goal line) then you have to pass. Have plays for this situation. The endzones are tight and it is not so easy to get this short gain.
Have plays you know you are going to run against the different defenses. A box zone will shut you down if you don’t have a passing play that goes to the middle of the field. If you are playing against single safety then you need a play that will send two players deep, one middle, one sideline.
Playbook and play schemes:
You need to have an offensive system that allows you or the kids to call plays. The kids need to be able to execute the system. There is 30 seconds to call and run a play. You want to work on being efficient in your play calling mechanisms because it is easy for this to be a slow process.
Have a system the kids can memorize:
A lot can be done with a system that has a couple of formations, a couple of route sets and a few plays that run from any combination of routes/formation. Usually a “flip” is used as well to flip the play. The play call this is done by naming formation, routes then play. “Spread formation, route 2, QB roll left.” Having kids learn plays is better for their brains and allows them to work on an important skills set.
QB with playbook card:
This is an easy, inexpensive system. The QB has a folded card or small book that they keep in their pocket. Coach calls in a play number and the whole team looks at the play card together to get the play. This is a little awkward for the QB and players though it is very easy to manage and gets the job done.
Each player has wrist band playbook:
This is system is less awkward than the one above though wristband cost a little and it is a lot of work to print and stuff though things. Allows kids to not memorize playbook and coach to have a more complex playbook. A former coach has a couple of sets of wristbands available for anyone that wants to borrow them. I used “Flag Football Playmaker Pro” which is an iPad app. It allows you to export printable versions of the playbook for your wristbands. Attached are two sets of plays from a couple of years ago. My playbook for the jamboree and then a version of it from later in the session.