Re: Don't be nervous. The kids and parents are more

I have been coaching my son's teams since they were 4. The trick for me is lots of praise and encouragement. Just remember the most important part of leagues that age is participation. I always make sure every kid gets to get hands on the ball. I suggest create 6 plays 3 running plays and three passing plays and call them A. B. and C. Don't try and coach offense and defense. Have your assistant coach one or the other. DO NOT WASTE MUCH TIME ON DRILLS. Drills are great for developing skills and abilities but practices are short. The kids want to play football, jump right in and start playing. If you want to do drills devote about 10-15 mins in the beginning otherwise just jump in and teach your plays and play the game. With defense I found that teaching zone D worked better than man. Kids would get confused when their guy would run a crossing route.

Finally you will see that of the 10 kids you get you will have some really good players. These are the players that will understand the game and drills and you can give them more complex instructions. Just don't fall into he trap of putting them in position to make every play.

Have fun. Good luck!

ALLweatherfan

All-TigerNet [11186]

TigerPulse: 100%

Posts: 8189

Joined: 11/2/01

Some tips....

Feb 20, 2024, 1:04 PM

Tell the kids and parents up front, "look, every kid wants the ball thrown to them" if we go 3 and out and that limits the number of times you are on offense. So if one kid emerges that consistently catches the ball and gets first downs, then that creates more opportunities for everyone (best to tell that before the season starts).

Good drills:

Line up the kids in 2 rows. Throw a high lob at them and have them compete for the ball in the air. this helps them to increase their catch radius and teaches them to catch the ball with their hands instead of waiting to trap against their chest. Waiting to trap against their chest increases the odds of an interception as well. mix and match ability levels.

Line them up and throw intentionally bad passes to them. This is what they will get in the game anyway. Be sure and tell them and armchair coach dads this is what you are doing other wise they will assume you cant throw.

Use wrist coaches with the Velcro peal up that gives you 3 pages. I used to draw the actual plays out and reduce them down to fit on the wrist coach. you can color code the different receivers so kids will know where to line up and what route to run. This will help you run a really fast offense. This will also allow you a simple way to call plays different things to keep the other team from figuring our your plays. For example: Person Place or Thing. "Person" is first page, "Place" is 2nd page thing is 3rd page. So Jimmy 3 is page one 3rd play. But you can call the same exact play and say Matt 3. Place can be Georgia 2 for example and you can say Mississipi 2 and run the same exact play. Thing example is Football 1 or Cone 1.

Depending on age group you can do other fun things with your signal call such as Food, Drink and Desert. Think "Corndog 4" and "Hotdog 4" is same play. The advantage to that is when you are dealing with a bunch of little kids your kids will get the laughs out at practice and can not be phased in the game when you call "Corndog 4" But the other team will relax and start laughing saying "Cooornnnnn Dawwwwg?!!!!!" and you snap the ball and run right by them.

T-mail me if you want more explanations or suggestions.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

"The one who thinks we can and the one who thinks we can't are both right! Which one are you, son? Which one are you, son?"

Coaching my sons 8u flag football team

Re: Coaching my sons 8u flag football team

Re: Coaching my sons 8u flag football team

Don't be nervous. The kids and parents are more