Game two

Played the top ranked team according to the coach’s poll.  Local podcast covering the league – the ‘expert’ commentators all three picked the opponent to win. 

For the second game in a row, we lost a starter right before the game.  Our SE / Safety – primary receiver, also plays baseball.  Took one right in the mouth at practice Fri. night.  Mouth too swollen to wear a mouth piece.   Next man up.  Good blocking, poor receiving.

We made small adjustment to our blocking, emphasis on a TKO approach to counter the opponents ‘amoeba’ defense blitz-arama.   

We received the opening kick-off started from our 41 yd line.  Our OG kept beating the count and we were flagged on the 1^st two attempts.  The call was belly strong, was wide open each time.  3^rd time was the charm.  Our TB took it to the house from our 31 yd line.  They had blitzed their LB’s and we washed them down and no one was home to stop our TB.

To encourage passing, the league has gone to 2 pts if we pass it in from the 5 yd line.  So, we jumped, backed up to the 10, and then hit a little Play Action pass which came up 2 yrds short.   Score 6-0

They countered with a very long drive, took up the rest of the quarter.  Lots of wedge, an incomplete pass, a couple good sweeps.  They scored on 4^th and Goal from the 1 on a wedge (second quarter).  Missed the 2 pt pass play.   Score 6-6

They attempted an on-side kick, we recovered and started from our 37.   Called Belly to Weak side.  They blitzed both inside LBs.   One of the biggest lanes I’ve ever seen opened up, TB took it to the house.  We tried to pass it in for the 2 pt conversion.  Perfect pass, dropped.  12-6

Their second drive was a repeat of wedge, a couple incomplete passes, a couple pretty good sweeps.  Long drive, took up most of the 2^nd Q.  They punched it in from the 3 yd line.  On their pass attempt, we intercepted in the end zone, kid took it all the way back…   picked up 2 pts for the good guys.   Score 14 – 12.

There was only about a minute left in the half, tried a couple other backs, ran out the half.   14 -12 lead.

3^rd Q.  Our onside kick was successful.   We took it on their 46.   Added a big run to the 21 on a belly weak.   They kept blitzing, we kept washing them down and Kicking ‘em out.  A Buckshort went no where, another Belly to the weak side scored.  Another pass for the 2 pt conversion dropped in the endzone.   20 - 12

The opponent recovered the onside. Then fumbled the ball on their 2^nd play which we recovered.  And went belly strong for another score.   At this point, I can only assume its just plain old stubbornness that kept ‘em  blitzing.  But I think I could get used to these one-play scoring drives.  Again, our pass for 2 is dropped, it would have been a great catch, but he did get both hands on it, sort of.  26-12

They drove their next series – again with the wedges, sweeps, reverses.   About our 25, then threw another INT.  Two Buckshort which gained 3 and 8 yds with 2 more Bellies and we are at the 6, we faked a belly weak, and the QB waggle walked in for the score.   We went with the Belly strong for the 1 pt conversion.  33-12.

That ended up the final.  We had two more possessions, their kids were beaten, our back ups managed to pick up a 1^st down.  Then it was time for victory formation.

Our line did a fine job washing the Defenders down, blocking for our Bellies.   So much so, that our TB went off for 247 yd and 4 TDs on 7 carries.  I doubt we’ll ever see a performance like that again. We had 4 takeaways. 

The win takes us to 2-0 and is extremely satisfying since we were picked to lose.  Love being the underdog.   

Posted by: @coyote

 Opened with the team ranked 2^nd in the league in coach’s poll (we’re ranked 3^rd). 

How are teams ranked in the pre-season?  What sort of a application model is used?  Aren't there kids there that haven't played with any of these teams before and therefore "unknown?"  Same with coaches?  Pre-season rankings in college ball are bogus enough, but I can't understand the math involved for this.

--Dave

Posted by: @coyote

The win takes us to 2-0 and is extremely satisfying since we were picked to lose.  Love being the underdog.   

So much for the rankings...

--Dave

Posted by: @coyote  We had 4 takeaways.  

Posted by: @coachdp

How are teams ranked in the pre-season?  

Informal poll of the coaches after the draft.  Based on returners and kids added by draft.   The top ranked team returned nearly all their good kids, had the #1 pick and via a draw out of the hat after the draft added a stud.    #2 ranked team pretty much the same, they didn't return quite as many studs, tho,   We returned most of our Oline and a good back, but drafting last, missed out on some of the top talent...  and so on. 

The XP's are a concern, as well as our getting pushed around up the middle of our D.   OLine did well, tho and our TB had the best day of running I've ever witnessed.   Next opponent is 0-2, so we need to avoid the big head, and  use the game to get better.   

Game 3

The opponent came in 0-2 and hungry.  Our DE’s were hungrier. Our defense shut them out, snagged two fumbles and added a pick-6.

Our TB scored  a TD and converted off Bellys, and caught a little safety valve pass for another TD  Our HB is finally settling down and following the blocking on BuckShort and picked up a long TD – his 1^st ever.  Our QB was accurate, the SE snagged a couple contested passes, our WB added some yardage. 

But the real show was on the Oline.  The kids are really coming together, we had a slow start in the 1^st game, but last week we looked good against a blitz crazy defense, and this week we were dominate.  No drama to report, we showed up, played well, walked out with a 35 – 0 win.

We're now 3-0.  Have one practice before a thurs night game.  Then the holiday. 

EDIT:  The Thurs night game was postponed.  Next opponent non-league contest 

Tonights game has been postponed.  Next game, a week from Sat.  Non-league opponent.  Our cross-league challenges pit the two 1st place teams against each other, the 2nd place teams meet, and on down the line.  So we will be playing their best team.   These are the games I measure myself by, and we're 7-3 in these games.   One loss was by 1 pt, another by 2 pts.   The 3rd, we showed up and the team were scheduled to play was on the field playing someone else.  We were told they brought in another team for us...  a travel team.  We humg with them into the 4th Q.  But we were punching up way out of our weight class.  they hit a 4th Q bomb to extend a close lead, then we threw a pick-6 late in the game.  Good effort by our kids, but...  

Anyway, we play the other league's 1st place team.  We should know more about ourselves from this game. 

GAME 4   In Non-league action…

First non-league game, against the other league’s top team.  They had 2 big fast linemen and a pair of really fast, tall backs.   Our TB has gotten used to having big holes to run through and being the fastest kid on the field.  Not today.   It was a very physical affair lot of stoppages for banged up kids.   By my count, they had 8 kids go out for at least a play, we had 5.

We opened with a nice drive, our HB and WB both had nice gains, our TB had a couple nice gains, then on the 5^th play, broke it for a 36 yd TD.  Our C messed up the snap, took ownership, ball slipped out of his hands.   6-0

Our Onside failed, they picked up a short gain, then passed, we picked it off.  7 plays later we hit pay dirt again, tried to pass for 2, missed, 12-0

Another onside, they recovered again, they managed to pick up a couple 1^st downs before we got another INT.   Then the penalty bug hit.   We did get a 1^st down after an off-side, then added a holding penalty, which negated a nice gain, and we failed to pick up the 1^st.

They had another nice drive, 6 plays covered some 40+, and then we recovered a fumble. 

Then we moved the TB to wing, and brought our beastly DE/OG into the backfield. Kid is all burst, no long speed.   We ran Mid-line option w/out the option.  We trapped their big DT, running right up the middle of the field running the same play 3 times in a row, picking up 19 yds, on the 4^th play we faked it, and handed to the TB who was moved to the wing, for a nice 16 yd game.   In the prior 3 games he would have scored, but they had speed in their Defensive backfield and he got forced out.  Unfortunately, time was running out and we didn’t get the score.

Half – time  12-0

3^rd Q we tried another onside, they recovered.  They put together a good drive, got down inside our 10 before we drove them back outside the 15 and took a fumble from them. Then we put together just under 8 minute drive.  Our Big Boy was punishing as a runner, doing just enough for 1^st downs, our wing picked up some nice gains, and  we pounded the rock up the middle for the most part, setting up some nice counters and sweeps off the mid-line action, and Our Big Boy took it in from the 1.   Again, we failed to convert.  18-0.

They had the ball for 5 minutes, trying everything they could to get on the board, and we defended pretty well, except for a pass, in which our DB went up for the INT -would have been his 3^rd on the day – and tipped the ball to their receiver.  Which got them down inside the 10 again.  They finally scored with less than a minute in the game. 

We covered their onside kick, and finished out the game.   18-0.  The tail of the tape = we had 4 take-aways. 

Our Oline had a tough day, hard to say how much of that was us, and how much of it was them just being good.

Lack of conversions is troubling. 

If you're Plus 3 in takeaways, you should never, ever lose.  We lost one time in all my years as a header, be it youth or high school when we were Plus 3.  I wonder what your game would have been had they not turned over the ball.  But then, your defense had something to do with that, too.  Take care of those extra points.  Can't tell you how many games we stole because we got our XPs and our opponent didn't.   Congratulations on the win.  And thank you for the recap.  I look forward to reading them.

--Dave

Game 5

We lined up against a winless opponent, who actually has been improving over the season.   Kudos to the other coaches for not only keeping their kids’ chins up, but getting them to believe they can win.  They came in determined and gave it their best shot.

We received the opening K.O.  and put together an 8 minute drive and scored.  Our starting C was out for a funeral, so we had a back-up C in [ggod game for him to start] and we had decided to give some our RB  back-ups 1^st team reps, and managed to slip a couple of those in during the drive.  Our TB took it in on a Belly to strongside.   Then converted on the same play but from an unbalanced line.   [run in, only 1 pt.  Kick it, or pass it in, 2 pts – idea is to get more kicking and passing in, which hadn’t been working for us.]    7-0

We on-sided, they recovered, short drive, picked up a 1^st down on penalty, we took over on downs.   Put together another nice drive, mixing back-ups in with the 1^st teamers.  Some Buckshort, bucksweep, and Belly to weak side, and belly sweep to weak-side, got us down into the red zone.  Then a back-up fumbled the ball away on a buckshort.

We stuffed their drive, after they picked up some nice yardage on a sweep, but could only get the one 1^st down.   Driving, we threw an INT.   On 4^th down, deep in their own territory, we flushed the qb and missed him twice, he galloped nearly 70 yds for the TD.  They missed the conversion.  7-6

With about 2.5 minutes before half, we hit some big runs on the perimeter, then let the TB take over on Bellys.  They were so focused on our TB we had been  faking the Belly and swept with the WB, who was having a big day.   Our TB scored on the 2^nd of 2 belly plays from inside the 10.   We got the conversion on the same belly play as earlier.   14-6

We on-sided, they recovered, ran one play and it was half.   14 – 6.

To hear their side of the bench you would think they were winning.  They came to play.

We opened the 2^nd half with an onside kick and this time we recovered.   We brought our beastly OG into the backfield for a change of pace, and Mid-lined him right up the middle for 3 big gains.  We had success with that in the last game and I still don’t think anyone has caught onto the fact we are trapping their big boys inside.  On 4^th down we ran a sweep off the mid-line action, they collapsed inside, and our TB took it to the house.   We converted, faking the belly to our TB and then handing off to our WB on the sweep.  21-6

They recovered our next onside kick, picked up a couple 1^st downs, before we took over on downs.  We kept feeding our big boy, adding in some sweeps and got down to the 2, our big boy took it in right up the middle for the score.  We converted passing (2 pts) and went up 29-6.

To really get the feel for this…  they have a massive unusually strong for this age, A-gapper, and a kid who is physically gifted – size, speed, the works – playing MLB, their 3 tech is pretty good, too.  To run right up the middle play after play took a toll, as we marched right thru the strength of the defense.  All year teams had been running away from their 2 main studs.   We attacked their strength- the one thing they had hung their hat on thru a rough year for them -  and won that battle.   I expect that the confidence boost we got will pay off later.

Again, they recovered the onside.   We shut down their next 2 drives, gave the ball to some back-ups to in-between, and ran out the clock on our final drive.

Our DE's again were dominating, one had 2 sacks and 6 TFL, the other 1 sack and 3 TFL.   One of our OLBs actually complained about not getting a chance, since our LT type kid was 'hogging' all the tackles.

Final score: 29-6.   We are now 5-0.  Out-scored the opposition 123 – 30.   Thurs night we play the team running the 3-5-3 defense.   I’m particularly interested in this match up.  Then Sat. another non-league game in a cross-league challenge pitting the two 1st place teams against each other.   Even with a loss, we’d still be in 1^st place due to tie breaker. 

Game 6

Our game was moved to last night due to a ref shortage, I have mid-week services and was unable to be there.  My DC ran the show and from our phone call last night...

Took on the 3-5-3 team.  Our formation adjustments worked well. 

• sometimes we moved the WB into the C gap behind the T & Y to give him a better angle on the OLB/ Safety
• We shifted from Buckshort to Long trap on their 5 tech. The 1^st time was brutal ear-hole, the kid had his head on a swivel after that and really slowed his play.  Sounds like folk will be talking about that one for a while.
• Sometimes we would bring the X over to just outside the Y & WB to widen out their front - forcing the LBs to cover more ground, and gaining an angle advantage.
• Sometimes we added the HB to the strong side above.

They eventually tried moving their Weakside OLB over to counter our unbalanced formation, which gave us the advantage on the weakside. 

It was a long night for their DC.  we kept him off balance all night.

TB scored on Belly Weak and again on Belly strong….  As in cruising down the freeway with the top down, wind blowing in his hair ….  Our OL was really opening up the alley.   When they over adjusted, we ran belly weak, ~ 70 yd TD.   The Belly strong was killing it, and he picked up a 20+ yd TD there.

Our HB & WB were picking up some nice gains, then we brought out the Big boy to run the Mid-line he bullied his way for 7 -8 yd gains and  a score.  Then later faked the mid-line and swept it for another 30+ yd TD.

 27- 0 at the half. 

Our Defense was stellar.  They only had one big run the whole game, and it was on a broken play.  They never passed, which surprised us.  After the game we heard that was because they were afraid our DE’s.  

So, 2^nd half we ran the back-ups and while they moved the ball and had some nice runs here and there, the final remained 27 – 0. 

We were +3 in the turnover margin.

We are now  6-0.   

Sat.  we play the top team from another league.  All we really have on them is that their QB runs like a gazelle,  and they  are built around the QB sweep or QB up the middle more than anything else.   So tonight's practice we focus on stopping QB sweeps. 

Game 7

Cross league challenge.  These are the games I measure myself against.

During warm-ups they were passing out of shotgun and looked really good doing it.  Confab w/ my DC, we agreed, we needed to put pressure on the QB.

We received the opening K.O. they kicked it deep, we ran it back for the score.  Converted: 7 – 0.  7 seconds off the clock.

We on-sided, they recovered.  2 sweeps, they scored, and converted.   7 – 7    took just under 1.5 minutes off the clock for both teams to score. 

 2 things stood out. 

• They had two really good RBs.  
• They had no clue with what to do with the Oline. The Line didn’t even huddle with the backs.   

At that point I wasn’t worried about winning, just how we were going to corral their 2 backs.  

We tried to work the clock, breaking the huddle around 17 seconds, and snapping the ball with 2-3 seconds left on the play clock.   However, they were very undisciplined, we kept going on 2 and they kept jumping off-side.  which kept stopping the clock. Their coach blew his stack repeatedly, even took a time out to chew out his Defense.   You could see their heads dropping.   We scored off a belly strong, and converted, clock down to just over 5 minutes in the quarter.  14-7

We on-sided and recovered.   Pretty much rinse and repeat of the prior drive.  They were hanging their heads, and kept jumping off side…   our kids were starting to laugh about it, it was that bad.  Their coach took another time out to chew on his kids about watching the ball.   It was a text-book example of how NOT to coach.  Some Buckshort, a couple bucksweeps to the open side and a good dose of Belly to the weak as well as the strong side, and we scored again, this time faking a belly and sweeping off the look.  Pretty sure we gained as many yards off the penalties as we did running the ball.

We hit a pass for the 2 pt conversion.   22 – 7

Plenty of time left in the 2^nd Q.  we on-sided, they recovered, they tried passing, and we sacked the qb a couple times, and forced them to punt (Walk 0ff punt).  We picked up a couple 1^st downs and then hit paydirt on a belly strong.  Hit the pass again for the conversion, 30 – 7.

Onside failed, they hit some sweeps for good yardage, got inside the 5, tried to force things up the middle, we drove them out to the 11, and took over on downs.   We moved the ball well enough to run out the half.

Half-time score:  30 – 7.  Their coaches had sucked the fire right out of them.  The 2 RBs were still dangerous, but their Oline was done, their Defense was shot.

We opened the 2^nd half with an onside and recovered.   We started running back-ups, they did OK, but demonstrated why they were back-ups.  They kept trying to work their RB’s on the perimeter and picked up some nice yards here and there, but it was boom or bust. 

People forget that a lot of the big plays on the perimeter are made by the defense. 

We did pick up another score early in the 4^th Q. Conversion failed.  League president sent down word for us not to onside again, so we kicked it out of bounds.  He and I are going to have a confab later…

They hit more sweeps, tried another pass, got sacked again, and went back to the sweeps.  They eventually scored, conversion failed…   36 – 13

We got the ball back, and we started letting linemen carry the ball.  We ran out the clock.

In my opinion, their coaches had as much to do with our win as we did.   I don’t know if they had panicked or if it was just the way they did things, but …

We’re now 7-0.   We have one more regular season game left.  Our opponent has only 1 loss in league play.   I find I’m really looking forward to this one.

Posted by: @coyote

Their coach took another time out to chew on his kids about watching the ball.

After our game, a grandma from the opposing team congratulated me on how disciplined our kids are...  frankly, I can go a month on that kinda compliment.  It says a lot about our kids, but also something about coaching.

After thinking about for a the last couple days ...  Sometimes I think coaches yell at their players for the folk in the stands to hear.  Kinda covering their anatomy by letting the world know that the kids' errors are not their fault.  They had told the kid(s) what to do, and the kid failed.

Over the years our snap count [we always go on 2, and occasionally use 1 as a change of pace] has caused numerous coaches to blow up on their kids.  The result is always the same - these are 8 & 9 y.o. kids -  their heads come down and lose focus for a bit.   Its a morale killer.

We also have had 3-4 times when the opposing coaches started arguing & fussing with each other.  Again, a team morale killer.  

Jumping off-sides wasn't their only failure in discipline, but its the one that stood out - kinda hard to miss it.    My guess is that they've been able to win on the talent of their 2 RBs out-athleteing their opposition and being able to hit a couple deep passes each game.   Over-all they were very un-disciplined and that goes to practice.   My bet is in practice they never go on 2.   Whereas every drill and every snap in practice we go on 2.   Well, once or twice a practice we do go on 1, but that's about it.  Much easier to use 1 for the change-up.

Point is, we have to coach 'em up.   Chewing kids out in a voice loud enough to be heard in the parking lot is not going to have a positive effect.   Our failure to prepare the kids is on us, not them.   The practice is our classroom, the game is our exam.   In school if the kids fails, they flunk the kid.   In sports if the kid fails they fire the coach.
 

Game 8

Regular season finale…  we faced the 2^nd place team in the league, they have a very strong roster.   A fitting end to the regular season, #1 vs #2.  There was a lot of interest in the game beyond just each team's fans.  Our opponent has been rolling and their coach has been doing some talking...    

So, of course, we came out flat and the 1^st half was a comedy of errors.

We received the opening kickoff.  They tried an onside, we covered it.  Picked up a nice gain on buckshort to start things, then got a holding penalty on the next play.  We completed a pass for another nice gain, then fumbled the ball on the next play losing several yards.  We got the corner on a bucksweep to the open side, got a 1^st down, then next play our OG beat the snap and we lost 5 on the penalty.   We did manage to overcome our errors enough to score and convert.   7-0

Their HC had said that he had something special for us.  I didn't notice anything on Defense.  Turns out they came out in the Beast.  No surprise there…  we do scout.  We expected to see it as a change of pace kinda thing, not the complete over-haul.  Frankly, I think they made a mistake abandoning their offense at this point in the season and go to something completely new with only 2 practices.  Still, they moved the ball some before we stopped them and took over on downs.  We struggled to move the ball, too many errors, missed blocks, wrong routes…  pick up 8 yds one play , lose 5 the next  ... we eeked out a couple 1st downs, burned a lot of clock, but turned it over on downs.

They got the ball and we shut them down hard – 3 straight plays they lost yards,  then they hit a deep pass taking them down to our 5.   The Defense rose to the occasion and drove them back out near the 15 where we took over on downs.   We moved the ball out to midfield, turned it over on downs.  They went no where against our Defense.  We moved the ball a little more, before time ran out.   Half time:  7-0

Halftime...  praised the defense, asked if the offense needed a cup of coffee.  They thought I was joking and it got a few chuckles, but I noticed they kinda relaxed.   So I told another joke, a real groaner, and they really groaned.  Hit 'em with a 3rd  joke and you could see the kids visibly relax.   Our kids go to school with some of their kids and there had been a lot of talk about the game.  Perhaps that is why some of the kids were so tight.  

2^nd Half.  We kicked off, they recovered our on-side attempt.   We shut them down, took over on downs.  We moved our big boy from OG to TB and started pounding the mid-line.   About half the time we got the trap right, and it was a lovely sight.  But when our OG didn’t get the trap right, it was ugly and our big boy moved the pile.   Basically their kids panicked, as soon as we saw their kids on the perimeter where bailing out to help out on our big boy, we faked it up the middle, and our regular TB came from a wing alignment and picked up a big gain.   About every 3^rd or 4^th play we’d fake the mid-line and hit a sweep and get a nice gain.   Eventually, we got them on a sweep off the mid-line and scored.   We converted for 2.   15-0

We on-sided, they covered.   They abandoned the beast and went back to their regular offense.  Moved the ball some, and just when it looked like we had things sewed up, they got good run, we had him, but he broke lose and got just inside the 10.   This was their 2^nd time into the red-zone.  And again, our defense rose to the occasion and stopped them.   We milked the clock, we’d break huddle, and wait at the LOS until we got to 8 seconds, and then the qb would start the cadence.   We got a nice drive going with our regular set, took us into the 4^th Q, and burned most of it.  We finally got loose on a belly and scored.  11 plays, 91 yard drive.  Conversion failed.  21 – 0.

Our defense was stellar all day, and played great in the last stanza.   We got some carries for our back-ups and finished out the game.   Final score: 21 – 0

The opposing coach tends to be rather bombastic and boastful.   It felt particularly good shut him out of the end-zone.

We finished the regular season 8-0 and have the 1^st seed in the play-offs, facing the 4^th seed.   We have outscored our opponents 207 – 43