Game 3 Results
All three of the youth football teams I’m head coaching made progress this week in game 3. As is always the case your teams don’t necessarily progress evenly every week. Your offensive line and kicking game may improve dramatically while your defensive end play stays even with the previous week. The goal each week is to improve in most areas and not step back in any.
My age 7-9 team won 32-6 in a game against a pretty physical team that really wanted to mix it up, they had several late hits, one resulting in a penalty. The offensive line is coming along real well as we never punted and were up by the running clock mercy rule by the second quarter. Three different players scored in a game I was able to get 9 players the ball. Defensively we gave up just 2 first downs in the first half as they got a late score against our non starters.
My age 10-11 team lost 36-30 in a back and forth barnburner. This is the team where we have just 6 kids that have played before and just 1 “striped” player, goal is a .500 season with this group. Our opposition was starting 4 stripers and they had 2 big running backs right at the running back weigh limit. After falling behind 16-0 in the first quarter, on 2 long runs, we scored on a 12 play drive. We then onside kicked, got it back and scored again on a 10 play drive before giving up another big play just as the half ran out. Our little guys had a heck of a time wrapping up their 2 huge backs, we were in the right position to make the plays, but couldn’t take the ball-carriers to the ground. At halftime we reviewed and practiced one of the adjustments we use on the off-tackle as we saw a tendency by their defensive end. We ran that adjustment 6 times in the second half, averaging over 10 yards a play with it. After tying the game at 30 on a 9 play drive, we again got beat on a 60+ yard run where the ball-carrier broke at least 4 tackles. Our drive for the winning score was halted at the opponent’s 25 yard line as time expired as we could not overcome the only penalty of the game which put us in a 3rd and 12 situation.
Overall a gritty performance, but it’s very difficult to hide a lack of athleticism on defense, on offense you can execute short runs but have to be nearly flawless to stay in games like that and we came very close.
Age 12-13 we won 36-6 over again another big and very physical team in a game we never punted and had at running clock mercy rule in the 2nd quarter. Very good execution with our offense as this opponents defense gave us many different looks. We got out quick and had just 1 negative yardage play while on defense we held them to just 3 first downs in the first half. Four different players scored for us and we saw improvement on our special teams play in both kickoff and kickoff return. We are to the point we are cross training a lot of players now as we prepare both the team and the kids for the long haul. A very physical game like this, with a lopsided score really helps the team develop along those lines.
Huge improvement in execution with all 3 teams as we combined for a total of 3 pentalties for 15 yards TOTAL. each team had jut 1 five yard penatly and 2 of those were by non-starters.
