Youth coaches, your thoughts please

the best coached 7s and 8s i have ever seen were both dw teams. one was coached by Kevin Thurman www.endzone.net I believe is his site...adn the other was coached by Ross Lagrande. IN both cases the coaches NEVER YELLED at the kids and bird dogged the crap outta their small playbook. both teams ran a very nice dw comprised of sweep/power/counter/counter xx/wedge and trap. and one pass play.

And get this, both coaches pulled the backside guard adn tackle thru the hole on the powers and counters. Lagrande even pulled his tackle along with his guard on the traps just like the big boys.

Never assume that because they are 7 or 8 that they cant be taught, kids will learn what you teach them...i know, i have to ask 7 year olds how to get my dvd player to work. they whip me in video games that require hundreds of combinations...kids learn thru repetition.

I watched alot of highlight tapes this past year of "bobble heads" from around the country (pet name for the lil guys) and the best coaches can get the kids to do amazing things. some very creative ways to teach plays thought...ie "power blue" or "power red" since many dont know left from right...they gave em red and blue wrist bands...stuff like that.

coachcalande@comcast.net

Calande,

That's one of the best posts I've seen here. The one thing that holds true no matter what you run, at what level....THERE'S NO SUBSTITUTE FOR REPS!

Great post,
Brant

One constant you are seeing...THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR REPS! Plan your practices and keep the kids busy. I have coached at both age groups and I can tell you that the kids will learn WAY MORE than most people give them credit for IF it is repped often and correctly. We used "word" calls for our plays (sweep, power, dive, counter, bootleg) and put in a numbered offense at 9-10. One key: teach proper stances to your OL & DL (THEY CAN LEARN THEM!) and watch them excel. When you see two teams at this level line up against each other, the team with the best looking linemen (stances, splits, alignments) will win 90% of the time.

The difference in age levels is quite simply their attention span. Having coached 6/7 year olds, you have to keep your drills short, sweet, and easy to understand. As they get older and know a little more about football, you can start to see that their attention span is a little bit longer--not by much though. Making the drills fun for the smaller kids is always the best way to do it. Treat each drill like it was a sort of game for them to master and play. Kids at that age tend to need to hear more positive reinforcement as well. I hope this helps.