Posted by: @coyote

I dunno, seems to me that if you need a wrist coach to remind the kids what to do, you may be running too many plays.  The knock on us, is we only run 4 plays - belly weak, belly strong, buck short, and bucksweep - we actually have counters, traps, Belly sweeps & play action passes, but we run those base plays over and over and over again.   Since we practice them over and over and over and over again, the kids' muscle memory eventually takes over. 

 

Yeah I wasn't envisioning having too many plays. You're right that relying on them would be an issue.

You know what's interesting is that I completely get what you're saying, but I kinda wonder if this wouldn't be a help during installation then. Obviously it seems like over kill....

I've considered drawing plays on the ground in paint or sidewalk chalk or maybe rope. It would probably help initially. 

@gumby_in_co

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Posted by: @coach-kyle

@gumby_in_co

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lgombos@hotmail.com

I'm a big fan of wrist coaches.  There are many efficiencies that can be gained by utilizing them but everyone has their own strategy and reasons for liking them or hating them.  

Personally I never put the entire play on the wrist coach, why?  It's simply too much information.  I do not need a lineman worrying about what is going on in the backfield nor do I need backs worrying about how the line is blocking a play.

The approach I took personally was: individual wrist coaches for each position.  They take some time to put together but the only "master" wrist coaches were for the backs and the coaches and they had the actual name of the play.  Here's how we laid ours out

##-----BLACK--------------RED---------------GOLD
00-----36 Power-----------10 WEDGE--------25 Counter
01-----35 Cutback---------ETC----------------ETC

So "BLACK X00" (which could be 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 or 900) = 36 Power 

If we looked at the centers wrist coach it would look like this
##-----BLACK--------------RED---------------GOLD
00-----MOMA-----------WEDGE---------------MOMA
01-----MOMA---------ETC----------------ETC

If we looked at the left guard's wrist coach it would look like this:

##-----BLACK--------------RED---------------GOLD
00-----PULL TO 6-----------WEDGE--------TKO WALL
01-----TKO WALL---------ETC----------------ETC

If you've got a back that needs the extra guidance, you just tailor the wrist coach to that back.

I do have a brief story to go along with this that surprised me.  We were into the post season and had a night game and expected rain.  I had some serious concerns about the players being able to read their wrist coaches under these circumstances.  FYI I would draw all of these up in photoshop, verify each one of them and laminate them so they were pretty impervious to rain and such.  I was primarily concerned with them simply not being able to read them at night time.

We installed a huddle and quizzed the players.  Turns out that every darn one of them knew what they were doing by heart anyways because we had repped it so much.  Perhaps the most disturbing thing was that the linemen actually knew who was getting the ball and where it was going based on the "CODED" play call...even the kids I expected to not get it.

@coach-kyle 

last year we used them for every player. We went 100% no huddle. We have about40 plays on the wrist coach band. We are Doublewing so we don’t have that many plays ,just plays to both side and all the tags and rules . Honestly worked great for us and I personally loved it. And a couple of weeks ago we had a zoom with Tim Murphy and one of the subjects was wrist bands. He showed us 73 plays (2 bands)  and all off them are diagram like you were talking about. I asked him how in the world did he do that, he said he has a coach that’s does it for him. That’s way to advanced computer work for me. I know you a lot guys are a lot better then I am at coaching but I find that the kids seem to have a lot more confidence in the heat of the battle. We rep it during the week 1000 times like everyone else, and the boys still look at the rules for the most part during the game. If they like it I’m good with that. That’s my 2 cents on the subject. 

Bill sr 

I'd like to see a pic of one of these, because I can't imagine how you could fit diagrams on them without them either being illegible or having so many pages the referee says, "No boxing gloves allowed."

If you can make them work, then more power to you. 3 things are permanently banned from my teams:

1) Those silly tunnels parents make after a game

2) Shotgun snaps

3) Wrist Coaches

I let my OC use them for a few games, then pulled the plug. Then one day, Mahonz showed up to help with our passing game. I had to leave 15 minutes into practice to get pictures taken with a 7U team I was helping with and returned with 15 minutes left only to find the wrist coaches had made a triumphant return. Mahonz didn't know I 86'd them and my OC took full advantage. How doe the saying go? "When the cat's away, the OC will run all the stuff he has always wanted to?"  After another week of nonsense, I confiscated them.

2019 I assisted a coach that used the little diagrams of the plays on wrist coaches. Just the backfield got them. Thats when I realized most of the OL had no idea what the play was. I think the TE may have had 1 also. I hated it for obvious reasons.

In the past I had mainly coached DW and Wing T line.  Pretty line intensive. I find myself helping with OL during practice thinking how can I add pulling to these plays? Drove me crazy until I decided to just focus on the defense. I could not imagine running a reverse or counter without pulling someone.  I asked coach who will block that backside corner or LB that may be waiting there and he told me RB should be able to beat that corner.??  Reverses ended up being about 50/50 that year 5 yard loss or a 20 yard or more gain. I just was not expecting even that good of results vs an unblocked defender. (I still envision a bunch more TD's if we had pulled someone to lead out there.

I have also been involved with teams using wrist coaches and even pictures or Signals.

I liked having wrist coaches with play #'s on them so I could follow what was being called so it made it easier to coach up the OL knowing what they were supposed to be doing before the ball was snapped. (otherwise I was the only coach asking what play was being called)

Tom

@majortom I feel you. At first glance, it would appear that only the backs know the play. However, we have been 100% "check with me" for many seasons now. The backs get the play, then the OL coach (me) starts barking all the calls. You can get away with being a little dumb in my backfield, but not on my line. My biggest frustration last season with the wrist coaches was the OC yelling out a number or name and not calling the blocking. A few times, I just let it roll to demonstrate the importance of making the blocking calls.

BTW, I finally came up with a "check with me" line call for pulling. Only took 7 years.

Posted by: @majortom

2019 I assisted a coach that used the little diagrams of the plays on wrist coaches. Just the backfield got them. Thats when I realized most of the OL had no idea what the play was. I think the TE may have had 1 also. I hated it for obvious reasons.

In the past I had mainly coached DW and Wing T line.  Pretty line intensive. I find myself helping with OL during practice thinking how can I add pulling to these plays? Drove me crazy until I decided to just focus on the defense. I could not imagine running a reverse or counter without pulling someone.  I asked coach who will block that backside corner or LB that may be waiting there and he told me RB should be able to beat that corner.??  Reverses ended up being about 50/50 that year 5 yard loss or a 20 yard or more gain. I just was not expecting even that good of results vs an unblocked defender. (I still envision a bunch more TD's if we had pulled someone to lead out there.

I have also been involved with teams using wrist coaches and even pictures or Signals.

I liked having wrist coaches with play #'s on them so I could follow what was being called so it made it easier to coach up the OL knowing what they were supposed to be doing before the ball was snapped. (otherwise I was the only coach asking what play was being called)

There's no free lunch.  What you might've had to do to pull someone to lead out there could've had consequences you might not have liked.

This year I want to go fully modular with the play calls.  The OL doesn't have to know the play, only the blocking scheme.  They should know where the runner's going, but don't need to know how the runner gets there with the ball.  Some plays, the backs will have to know because they'll have more than one way of getting there.

I also want to go full "flip" with the offense so the holes go from 1 to 9 from the wing side to the weak side, regardless of whether that's left or right.  (I never understood why wing T used a hole numbering system that makes perfect sense until you switch from 100 to 900 formation.  If you wanted hole numbers to stay the same right to left, why not use the odd-even system?)  And offset and move forward the FB, and have some snapping thru the QB's legs.

But first I'll have to become HC of a team.  Before that, I'll have to see what the club's plans are for this fall.  And before that, I'll have to get well.  Recently I caught the flu and have gone into atrial fibrillation; cardiologist's talking about long term solutions rather than just shocking me out of this one.