Installing the Offense

   With two practices left in our first week with helmets, I thought it would be a good time to install our offense.  This group of kids is very attentive, and seems to be able to grasp a lot of what I am throwing at them. Because of this, I decided to give them a variety of different things on Offense.  Our league runs 10 plays offense, 10 plays defense per half.  After hours of drawing up plays, I decided to script out the 10 plays would use for the first part of the season.  I decided on 5 different formations, and we will run 2 plays per formation. We will be running an I, Power I Right and Left, Wishbone, and the T.  To keep it simple, I gave them 3 hols to run through, "Dive" being between the C and G, "Blast" between the G and T, and "Sweep" around the outside.  The play calls are Formation, Runner (RB, WB, FB), and Hole.  Luckily we have two coaches on the field during the games, so we can be sure they all know where to go.

   I want to get each kid a chance at everything throughout the season.  At this point, I cam up with 6 different back field configurations, each having 4 kids (QB, FB, RB, WB).  With 12 kids, this gave each kid two chances in the backfield.  Using this configuration for at least the first 3 games.  Each configuration will run twice in that time frame, then I will change it up so they can play other positions.

Helmets On

The kids got their equipment last week.  We are doing on week (3 days) of practice with just helmets before moving onto full equipment.  We ran the same drills that we have been doing all along. I just want them to get used to wearing the helmet.  As previously stated, 9 out of the 12 kids are new to football and its equipment.  Some of the kids played lacrosse with us, but a football helmet is a whole other animal.  After about an hour of practice, I had a few kids starting to get upset about the feel of the helmets.  After a water break, I decided to let them finish up the last half of practice without helmets.  I guess an hour on the first night is pretty good.  Hopefully we can make it through the next 2 practices with helmets the whole time, so we can move onto full pads next week.

Getting Our Feet Wet

   With our evaluation "camp" over, and teams selected, the past week we have been able to practice as a team.  We have 12 kids on the team, all but 2 playing football for the first time.  We started slowly, going over proper technique for blocking and tackling.  The drills were very basic, just straight forward block or tackle out of a 3 point stance.  Once they had that down, we added an extra element to each.  For tackling, we had the players 'shed' a blocker, and then move into the tackle.  For blocking, and had them first fire out of their stance, low, under a shield, for three strides.
   We started working on offensive plays.  I have them running out of an I-Formation, doing dives, blasts, and sweeps.  The first time we ran these drills, I had players line up at each offensive position.  I felt like the kids lined up as O-Linemen were standing around too much though.  I didn't want them getting too restless, so we did this in smaller groups.  I used cones to show where the linemen would be, just so the backs could learn the running lanes for each play.  This went much smoother.
    Next up, we are going to concentrate on the Center/QB exchange, as well as the handoffs.  We will still do our blocking, tackling and running drills, but they will be a little shorter in duration. 
   We have about another week with no pads, then hopefully we can get their helmets on them, so they can get the feel.  A couple of days like that, then we will go full equipment.  I hope to get about 2 1/2 weeks of full equipment in before our first game.