I love this shit though. I was up til 1130 last night working on depth chart stuff for 5th grade football and how I'm gonna get playing time across the board as well as trying to develop my blocking schemes up front.
Our league, 5th grade is the first year DL can line up in gaps and head up on the C. So I'm having to work a little harder with the OL in terms of our "rules" of how we're gonna block this thing. I'm not sure if we'll see odd fronts (I hope we do cause I'm gonna bubble screen and jet sweep them to death based on box counts) or even fronts (alot easier angle wise IMO) but I think I've settled on the "G.O.L.D" method from a rules standpoint.
Gap
Over
Linebacker
Down
Should be pretty straightforward.
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Originally Posted by O.city:
Yeah, we played flag football that early as mostly a 7 on 7 type thing.
That shouldn't be near that physical at that age.
The rules clearly say only shadow blocking with minimal contact is allowed, but if they don't call it what good are the rules?
I asked the refs for clarification on some of the rules before the game and they literally told me they didn't have them. The league is a fucking disaster.
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Originally Posted by staylor26:
Unfortunately I live in Key West and I have no other options, so I guess my son won't be playing football until middle school. I will have him ready though. Breaks my heart though because he was really into it and one of my best players (easily the best under 6).
That sucks. On the positive side, you get to live in Key West.
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I coached my son's flag football rec team last year and it was not good as well. I didn't sign up to, but the team was formed and the coach they had quit, so they asked multiple times for another parent to do it. I reluctantly did, because I grew up in a small town with no football and I had no experience to draw on, and this was all after the coaches meeting where they explain the league and rules.
I was given a printout of the rules and the flags and other gear, and sat down and read the rules and looked up videos and one thing I keyed on that was new to me, was the rushing the passer rules. Paraphrasing, the rules were that the rusher of the defense started 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage, and established their rush line of their spot to the quaterback at the snap. If an offensive player was in that line, the rusher had to go around the blocker, but if the line is open, no offensive player could divert the rushers rush attempt by getting in their way, even if they were running a route, the rules literally said it was the offensive player's responsibility to get back out of the rushers way so they have a free run to where the quarterback's dropback location was for the rush.
Wordy....but long story short, I argued the very first game that the offense was running into my rusher and causing them to stop, and the kid refs didn't understand what I was talking about. I showed them the rules, and talked about it at halftime, and the other coach started chirping with "they are just running a route...they have a right to run a route" and I pointed out where it said it was the offense's responsibility to get out of the rushers way unless they started in that spot at the snap. Needless to say, they never once called it as the rules were written.
Another frustration was when we played the best team in the league, and they, when they had long pass plays, would just leave the ball where it landed on an incompletion, and my safety was running to get the ball for them, then running it all the way to the line of scrimmage to give to the ref or place at the spot, then running all the way back to the safety spot, where in that time the offense would break the huddle and line up while my guy was still going back to get to his spot. After a few times of this, I yelled for my player to leave the ball where it was...he already had it and asked me why, and I told him to drop the ball there and get back to his spot. The other coach heard my and started screaming at me about it and saying I was just wasting time, so he ran from his sideline to get the ball and bitched at me about it the whole way.
At halftime, I called the refs over and said we would not be getting the ball as a defense any more, and they echoed the coach saying I was just wasting time....the coach walked over and started cussing at me again about it, and I pointed out that more than once they huddled up and were lined up before my defense could get set from getting the ball for them....yadda yadda yadda....ranting now. I'm glad I'm not coaching with them any more. The kids and everything were awesome to work with, the other coaches and under trained kid refs were hard to work with.
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Yeah, we had alot of that stuff too. ALot of parents are living glory days with this stuff, it's sad.
But don't let it get you guys down. Youth athletes need good smart disciplined people to coach them.
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