Coaches Notebook

At the end of the season you will look back at your preparation during preseason, and the season's success or lack of success will often be determined by this preseason preperation.

Success in football, more than any other team sport is based on how prepared you are as a coach, which leads directly to how prepared your players will be.

Something that is often overlooked or flat out forgotten as that we as coaches are here to teach players and provide them with the best opportunity to be successful.

What is success?

When it comes to having a successful passing game in youth football many factors are involved.

The primary factor is the passing scheme and plays that will be used.  There are countless passing route trees and diagrams and every coach has their own unique system, but I wanted to share with you my 60 series passing tree.

Offensive linemen are often the forgotten part of a successful play, everyone watching a game likes to watch a deep touchdown pass or a long scoring run, but none of those exciting plays would ever take place without a solid, dependable offensive line.

At the youth level the difference between most teams is the skill and technique of the offensive line, simply put the better offensive line you have the better your chances of being successful are.  However often coaches ignore or lose sight of this fact and do not invest the time to teach proper blocking techniques.

A solid running game is great to have at the youth level, it allows you to control field position and chew up time off the clock.  However there are times that even the best rushing attack can stall without atleast the threat of a passing attack.

Installing effective pass plays at the youth level can be tricky.  There are four different passing schemes at the youth level:

The objective of your offense is to score points, well that is a fairly simple objective, right?

Well that depends on your offensive philosophy, your player personnel and your opponent as well.