I open up my playbook and walk you through plays, play design, formations, offense strategies, age-based techniques and more.  Crush it as a Flag Football Coach and get 50% off my playbooks!

Transcript:

So one of the main things that coaches tell me, the value they walk away with, is something called the "I Know Exactly" mindset. So this is called the "I Know Exactly" mindset. I write it right here every single day. I had a training this morning, and it's writing down the things that I'm a little bit like, "Uh, what's my practice going to be about? What's my word of the week going to be?" Ah, if you get this, ah, if you see a kid who isn't quite sure about how to pull the flag right, how confident, how right, their whole entire demeanor changes. So you, as a coach who takes this somewhat seriously, we want to go into every single week taking it seriously with an "I Know Exactly" mindset.

So I start every week. We always know this Monday morning quarterback thing where we're like, "Oh man, if I only would have done this..." So I start writing out the things. So what is my, like, right when they get started all the way to the end? What does my practice look like? How many plays are we going to be running? Are we doing new plays? I saw some of the questions. Am I updating my playbook? How many plays do we want to run this week? What type of defense are we going to focus on? Those are things that I can, by the end of the week, by the time it's practiced, by the time it's game time, they can look to me as their coach and say, "Wow, he knows exactly what's going to happen."

So that's a tool that I have used consistently as a coach from the very beginning because everything is figure-out-able. Period. You can figure it out, but don't try to do too much with this. I want you to get like, "What is my practice going to look like? What are we going to do on game day? How many plays?" Right? So those are things that I would start writing down and turn it from an "I don't know" mindset to an "I know exactly" mindset. And what happens is you start to share that with your team, and then what they start doing is, "Oh, I know exactly when I look at my wristband. I know exactly where I need to be. I know that I'm Y. I know that I'm X on this play. I'm going this way. I'm doing a quick slant," what not. So those are things that you just want to start doing preparation-wise, mindset-wise, as you build up your confidence as a coach, as a player, doesn't matter. "I Know Exactly" — that's a great tool that I've used forever.

Alright, let's see. Yeah, okay, here we go, here we go. Perfect. Okay, so, um, so this is where it all started, right? This is kind of where I started, and then I started to build it up and whatnot. So this is who I am. I am seven years in, happened to be a dad that liked football. I mean, I got some football stuff around, and my wife was like, "Check it out, you're doing this." And so what we want to do is really build your confidence as both a parent, as both a coach who's out there trying to make an impact in the community, and as a player. So that's where these videos came in, and I don't really care about numbers. I don't care about any of that. What I care about is stuff like this, where when I go into one of these and I see, I see people like you and me coming in saying, "Hey, what about this? What about that?" Joe, like you were saying, it's a community, man. It's totally a community of like-minded people who are trying to figure out, "What am I gonna do at the practice? What the hell am I gonna do on, let's say, Sunday or during game time?" So what I do is I give you that confidence, and I give you those resources. And I'm not going to sell anything today, anything. I'm going to give it to you.

So first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go into my playbook, all right? About a year ago, I opened up my playbook, and it just went, it went a little nuts. So I have this website, Flag Football with Coach D, and I basically do this, right? This is my playbook. It's a PDF, and Judo, just like you, I use this tool called the Playmaker app, and you can get that app right now. They now have a Playmaker X app, so if you type in your phone, iPhones, it'll be Playmaker HD. You can get the X as well, but Playmaker, just one word, and the X is now the newest version, and you can start creating plays, and it's awesome. All of my stuff, I created it just like we're sitting here watching YouTube videos. Maybe I would watch a football game, and I'd be like, "Oh, I like that scheme, let me check that out." So let's talk details, all right? I'm going to get, I'm going to get into the weeds now, if that's all right. Do we have any questions before we jump into the actual weeds of what we're going to talk about?

Oh, you, coach? All right, cool. All right, so I'm going to give you specifics, okay? Whether you are in, now, I talk to people all over the world, which is incredible. I mean, we're talking in Mexico, Brazil, Norway, it doesn't matter where you are in the world, we're all having the same conversation. When I see Joe's who plays, they look exactly like mine. I mean, that's, that's the, it's a common language. So I'm going to speak the common language, all right? If I'm coaching the kids, right, so I'm going to talk four different divisions here. I'm going to talk pre-K to first, second to third, fourth and up, all right? And usually, I go sixth to adult. Those can usually gather. You don't need, and what I use is I use these wristbands, okay? And I'll tell you more about it, but I like wristbands, even at the young age. People ask me, "You're telling me a four or five-year-old can handle wristbands?" Yes, but you only need eight plays for your babies, right? And then as it gets a little older, your second to the third, and usually with the little kids, you're going to go 80% run, maybe 90% run, okay? With your second to third, you can go 60-40. You can start passing a little bit more, and then usually, up above that fourth grade level, you're passing about 80% of the time. You're spreading it out a little bit more. You're not tight with your formations. You're spread out. So just keep that in mind as we go through some of these.

Now, the way my playbook looks is I make it like this, okay? I have, let's say I'm going to coach my son this year, just signed up, fourth and fifth graders, right? And we are going to be doing about 80% pass, okay? 80% pass, we're going to have 24 plays. So on a wristband, I'm going to have eight on the front, eight on the inside, and eight on the inside. That's three levels of eight. And yes, over, I would say, the last five years, and that's two seasons every year, I've been doing this. Wristbands work. I love it. But so I'm going to have 24 plays for those. With my plays, just to keep it simple for us today, A is a running back, okay? B is a running back, usually, and I'm going to go over formations in just a second. C is going to be my wide receiver, quarterback, center. Easy, okay? Got it? Anytime you see an F, that's a fake.

So on this play right here, and I'm going to go over several of them, on ready, go. That's my cadence. Ready, go. Quarterback's just going to literally turn around. They're not going to try to do anything fancy. They're literally just going to turn around, and you can't see me. You can't see who's getting the ball. See that? See how you can't see me if I start running around and trying to do that? So literally, if you have a split-back formation, which is what we're looking at, and you have two coming this way, the quarterback is literally just going to turn around, just like this. You can't see me. Boom, I'm going to fake to B. B gets the fake. A gets the ball right away, right away. And coaches and players, what I see, and what you can see here, is everybody is going one way. What does this do? That draws that defense over here, and all I need is A, a couple of seconds, and A, here's what I coach, win the sideline. You write that down, win the sideline all day long. Now, whether you're a beginner or you've been doing this for 30 years, it doesn't matter. If your player right here is not winning the sideline, getting that sideline, and going the distance, there's an opportunity.

So you'll see on a lot of my plays, I pull everybody one side, and then... okay? So that's big, all right? If you see a dotted line, that's where the pass is going to go, okay? Now, here's a big principle that I want you to teach your players from day one. If I look at this play, I see that the person with the star is getting the ball. Does that mean if I'm C, I don't really matter? I don't really have to run a crisp route? Absolutely not. Joe, we know this all day long. With every single one of our routes, they have to run that route as if they're getting the ball, even if it's a running play. Because C is just as important, that center is just as important doing that quick slant out that way, as A is, as B doing a fake. Because they're drawing the attention of the defender, right? You've got your cornerback here. You've got a linebacker up here, right? All they're doing is one split second of looking this way, thinking that the center is going to get the ball on the quick slant, and all of a sudden, this one is able to win the sideline.

So I don't care whether you feel like it or not, do your job. I do the Patriots "do your job" conversation at the very beginning of the season. Whether you get the ball or not, boom. Okay? Another thing that I would write down to have a conversation about: as the coach, I will choose who is going to be in which position. Now, we've all been in that huddle where the kids, or the adults even, are like, "Hey, I want to do that. I want to do this. Hey, can I do that? Can I do this? Can I get the ball? Can I get the ball this time?" Nope. I don't want any of that. Nope. I'm going to decide right up front, and what I usually do, whether it's adults or not, is I will keep them in that position for the entire series, right? So I've got three, four downs to get the first down, and then I've got an additional three to get in the end zone. That quarterback stays in the quarterback. That C stays the wide receiver the entire time. They throw an interception; that's what happens. That's okay. They miss the ball. It doesn't matter. They stay in that position. Otherwise, it's all over the place. Okay? So that's just fundamentals, a couple of fundamentals right there. Anytime I see an F, I see a fake right there. It just helps it work out.

Now let's talk formations. Some of my favorite formations here, and you'll see I run a lot of, um, what's called progressions, right? And if you've been coaching for a while, you got that, you know what it is. If you've never coached before, progression is very, very simple. It is, I want to have the same look four plays in a row. The reason I love my wristbands is because I can call one, two, three, four. They are all split-back formation. However, the first one, I'm going to give to A. The second one, I'm going to give to B. The next one, I'm going to fake to both and then throw that out pattern to C. The next one, I've got the right, I'm going to make the same look so that the defense is like, "What's going to happen?" So progressions are very important. Don't just throw random eight plays, but be strategic about it. That's why they call it football strategy because you're deciding on your "I know exactly" what progressions work best. And then during your practice, you're running about 30 minutes, at least, of plays, and you're trying your progressions, which ones work, which ones don't, right? That's why your players need to know these plays so that you can, when I turn around, this guy over here has no idea because I've turned around three times in a row. He doesn't know if I'm going to hand it off, if I'm going to fake and roll out and hit the long, deep post pattern. So progressions are very important, no matter what split-back you have here. Now here I give you exactly what it is.

Um, I like to have my, now this is fundamentals, no matter what playbook you use. For me, I like to have, if I'm the quarterback under center, I like to have my running backs, whether it's single-back formation, split-back, which are split-back, single-back, I like to have about five to seven yards back. That's, that's a, that's, that's a long way. Some of these kids will line up, like, right here. Like what? Like, by the time you get the ball, you're gonna get your flag pulled right there, right on the line of scrimmage. I like to have full speed. So these are just little things that are very important, whether you've been coaching two days or you've been doing this forever. I like five yards back. Get five yards back. So when I turn around, you're full speed. So by the time you hit the line of scrimmage, they can't touch you because you're full speed.

Second thing is fakes. Things have to happen right away. Things have to happen right away. So when I'm practicing, and I'll show you my practice schedule in just a minute, I'm practicing a lot of plays. It's not just drills. Drills are very important for fundamentals, but I'm practicing the play so I can get the speed of the game. Coaches, you've all, and players even, you've had this experience where you've been practicing, and then you get in the game, and the other team is game-time ready. Like, they understand the speed of the game, but you've been kind of going half-speed, relaxing at practice. So what happens is they score on the first play because you're like, not game-time ready. So practice as if it's the game. When I practice my plays, I am very tough on the speed of the game. Come on, right away, right away. Fakes have to happen right away. Um, so just, and it's not intense. You know, I have energy, and I'm excited, and it's always positive, and it's fun, but it is right, consistent, and it is the speed of the game. Cool.

So we have tight formation, one of my favorites. Oh my gosh, this is one of my favorites. Um, everybody's tight, and maybe C is further out, so my wide receiver's, you know, five, seven yards out, but everybody else is right here, and then what I can do is a lot of this fake stuff, right? Oof, it's so nice. It is good. Good. It's so nice, like this play right here. Um, we'll, we'll go into it in just a minute, but I'm gonna fake to B between the quarterback and the center. I get it. I fake to B right between me. On the last play, I handed it to B, and boom, first down. But now I fake to B, and I've got a quick slant. C is going this way. So I, right away, are you kidding me? And again, you can see I pull everybody one way. So whether you get the exact play or not, there's concepts. No matter what type of defense you have, they're going to be lined up tight here, 2-2, it doesn't matter. This guy's going to start, like, going this way. Everybody's going to start going this way, and then this one just, and there's a quick rollout, or even just right after I throw it, boom, depending on, but there's congestion here, confusion here, and then I open it up.

So I'm big on that as well. If you have a lot of congestion in the middle, I'm not going to throw in the middle, right? I want to go, I want somebody to go outside. I'm going to pause right here, and I'm going to give you one of the, like, the probably the top two things that coaches have said I really like, and here's a very simple principle. I'm going to admit this guy. Here we go. Let's say I am in this type of situation where I've got a lot of congestion, and everybody's covered here in the middle. What I want to teach my wide receivers is something called the short passing attack. It's called the short passing attack. It's one of my YouTube videos, but let's keep it very simple. Let's say I've got a, say, the QB. I've got a couple wide receivers, right? And everybody does a couple of, we call this, um, just the hook route, right? They're just going short, but everybody's covered. This guy comes up, does the same thing. Covered, covered. What happens a lot of times is they just stand there and wait. Well, if you ever watch American football, you will see what usually happens is the smart receivers, they're not gonna go up. Like, don't go deep. I'm getting rushed here. I'm getting rushed here as the quarterback. Don't go hook and then just run forever. That's what kids used to do. Now what I do is I teach them to do a quick move here, go in, and then go out to the sideline. So do a nice little juke and then go out to the sideline because I can hit you on the out pattern, and you usually are one-on-one here. There's nobody. If you can get a little bit of distance here, right? So if you're here, do a quick head to the sideline. Same thing. Don't go deep. Go across. Quick move, boom. Because what happens is there's so much congestion in here, I'm looking for one person to pop open. That's it. So help your quarterback out by doing that, okay? It's called the short pass attack. There's a video on it. I'll, I'll include it somewhere, um, but that 100% like works so well when everybody's covered, okay?

We'll talk single back. Single back, I like to do a lot of, like, trick, um, like handoff and then, uh, end around type of stuff. We'll show you that in just a second. Twins, you just have two on one side, right? So, so that's nice. There's no backfield, and basically, I just go over, and I tell you some of the things that are pretty nice about each one. Trips, I don't use a lot about of this, but it is nice, and Joe can attest to this, anybody can. Um, it's great for tricking defenses. They don't know how to line up on this because you usually have a guy over here, right? A safety back here, and then all of a sudden you line up here. What are they going? Man-to-man? They get really, like, super tripped up. So trips is all of them on one side, okay? All your wide receivers. Now everybody's a wide receiver, okay? And then I pattern. I don't do it a lot, but every once in a while, I'll stack it back here, and I've seen in some tournaments they do this, uh, pretty fancy stuff. It's not my favorite, but it's there.

Now, if you're doing adult leagues or if you're doing, like, older kids, I would say shotgun, which is SG, all day long. And the way that I do shotgun, let me just tell you about this, I'm about five yards out from my, um, my center. Make sure you practice this so that that is clean all day long, but then what I do, and I saw this my first year at a tournament, as the quarterback, for spacing, I have A and B right here, and we're going fingertips, right? Just fingertips. It's not like an unbelievable concept here, but for spacing, I'm gonna, so at the very beginning, I go like this. Then they put their hands down, and we're fingertip to fingertip, just like this. So that's how you know the spacing on any of these shotgun, like this. I like to do that, and then it's, everything is in front. Everything is in front. I'm not turning around. Nobody's coming back behind me. Everything is right here in front of me, okay? So that is, those are formations, those are the formations that I really enjoy, that I really love.

But let me just show you a few, um, of the plays that I... you know what? Let me pop open... you know what? So I told you earlier that fourth and fifth is what I'm looking at. Yeah, fourth and fifth is what I'm going to be, uh, coaching this season. So what I did is I put together 24 plays for that age group so that me, let's say a new coach or even a coach that's had experience, can come in here and can pick specific plays for that age group. So let's go through the 24 plays real quick for this age group. Got the same breakdown, but here we go.

So what formation do we have here? You're right, it's the single back formation. Even if it's over to the left a little bit, it doesn't matter. So these are on my wristbands, right? I have these. The first eight are right here on my wristband. So we will practice, and as you can see, you can see it. The first one, two, three, four, five, six all look the same. So this is a progression. So the first thing that's gonna happen if I call one, two, three, and what's great about wristbands is that now they, especially, and this is crazy, even second graders up, can look at that. They know that they are, let's say, the quarterback, and the quarterback can look and see, "Okay, you need to be a little bit further over there, a little bit further over there. Go." Okay, they call one, two, three. Now what I have, coach, is I have hurry-up offense. I have hurry-up offense because, see, we usually get 45 seconds to huddle, but what I want to do is I want to get out there and move quickly. So I've called now one, two, three, four, okay? One, two, three, four all look the same. On this first one, here's what's gonna happen, and I don't care what the defense looks like, I'm basically trying to draw everybody this way. As you can see, on ready, go, on hike, I'm gonna give the ball to B, and then B, I'm telling you, touchdown.

If you can move, that'd be awesome, dude. If not, that's cool. So I'm going to keep going because this is what happens in flag football too on the field. You just got it, all right? Check this out. I go hand B, is going to fake hand to A coming this way. Check this out. So I've practiced this during practice. B gets the ball, right? Boom. And then they're gonna fake hand off behind right here. You can't even see it to A coming this way as a fake end-around. Boom. Guess what? To the house. They hold the ball over here. They're gone. And again, I want to coach my player B, coach them to win the sideline. Go to the sideline. If you get caught, make a cut in, but you're good. That one works. You can write that down. It's a great one. Love it.

Then the next play, I do the same thing, but this time I hand it off to A. You got to practice this. This is fourth grade. This is literally my playbook for my son's team that starts in a couple months. Handoff. A gets the handoff from B. He's coming around. They still think B has it, and all I need, all I need is for a split second of like, "What's going to happen?" Speedster. You need a speedster right here. Goes around, and again, coach, which way am I pulling everybody? I'm pulling everybody this way, so it distracts everyone going this way. Open field. Then you want B to be able to throw the ball. Check this out. I'm gonna hand it to B again, third time. I'm gonna hand it to B, but this time, instead of handing it to A, they are going to throw it because now they're on to it. You've got a rusher coming in. You've got a rusher coming in. Boom. Perfect. I've got an over-the-top in pattern. That's C right here, and that just means B gets the ball first. So that's B1, and then C2 does a nice in pattern. Boom.

Now, what's great, this is kind of an RPO, run-pass option. They can run if it's open. If they can get away from the rush that's coming in here, they can absolutely do that. No problem. Okay? So these are things that I am doing regularly, and all it does is it just keeps the defense second-guessing. All right? So that's the kind of thing I would do for all of these plays, right? Any play that you have. When I get a little bit older, I like to do shotguns, so you can see this. And I'll teach you one last thing on the offensive side. It's called that RPO, and I mean, we're talking championship teams use this on a regular basis. And as you can see, this is more spread out, so as you get a little bit older, fourth adults, if you ever watch the, you know, AFL, like any of that, they're spread out. So now you're spread out a lot more as you get a little bit older, but you have your speedster/quarterback. So someone who can run and throw is gonna be B, and I'm the quarterback here. Let's talk about number 11 right here. This is just like gold. Gold. I'm in shotgun. I get the ball to me, and I can, maybe I'm fast, maybe I'm not, whatever, but immediately, I hand it off. Immediately. Like, it almost goes directly to the person, but in order for it to actually work and be legal, you have to get the ball to the quarterback first, and then they have to hand it off. And then that person, this is all day RPO, that person can either run, as you see here, or they can pass. So they can roll out, and you almost want people to be like, "Wait, who got the ball? Who snapped the ball? They can't run. What's going on?" And now B can either run or pass. And so you see all types of quick slants where they're going in and out, you know, stuff like this, where there's no bumping, there's no blocking in flag football usually, so you just got to be clean. And then one of these, let's say on number 13, one of them is going to open up, meaning somebody's going to beat their cornerback here. Cornerback or a safety might be back in here, and they're just going to boom. That's a quick slant, right? So B has the option when you do that. When you hand it to them, that's why you want your speedster/quarterback, because now they can run or they can pass, and they have the option. So I think that right there is one of my favorite takeaways that I've learned recently that I think is really important.

So that is a little bit of my playbook. These are the plays that I'm going to be running, these 24, literally. If you want to grab them, go to my site. I'll even give you, uh, Clinic 50. I'm doing like 50% off, but I don't want to like sell stuff, so you message me. And I, uh, I want more and more coaches to have the tools so they know exactly what to do when it comes to game time. So that's what I do on plays on offense. I think it's very important. What questions do you guys have about that section?

[Music] Coach, what are you cool? Coach, um, when you're starting to set up your plays and looking at your personnel, um, Joe was saying, um, what are you looking for for us? And do you want to, I know you said fourth grade, now they're throwing 60% of the time, you said, or am I correct? Yeah, yeah, actually fourth grade. Fourth grade, I go up to about 80%. So you'll see a lot of dotted lines here. You'll see most of these are either run-pass option, or they're going to be throwing 70 to 80% of the time. Yep. And what are your, like, you know, like most QBs and most, call offensive coordinators, we have like filler plays where you, what I mean by that is plays, your starter plays, where you kind of get an idea what the defense is going to do. Do you have any type of those plays where you work with with your youth? Yeah, yeah. When I first start out, like, I want to get a feel. The reason I do some run plays right up front is I want to see, first of all, what's the weak side and what's the strong side of my defense? I want to identify right up front, and this is very, very important. Who are my, like, monsters? What I call monsters on defense. So if I do a play like this, this is absolutely a filler play. I want to know who's going to come across the field, right, and attack this person. Or is this my weak side? Is this my strong side? So I do these two back-to-back right up front so I can understand what is my strong and what is my safe side. And then I teach my quarterbacks, because I want them to start calling the plays themselves, I teach them to be able to read that defense, and then I want to stay away from my monsters. I want to make them work for it, right? If I've got my strong safety over here, and he's just crushing us all day long, then I'm pulling this over here versus this. I'm going to this left side of the defense, and I'm playing with him. So I want to know right away. So really, it's, it's my run plays up front that I want to know who the strong speedsters are. That's a great question.

Up within your place, I'm just looking, do you flip the plays at all, or you have? Sometimes I flip the plays, depending on, yeah. And I've got them down where they know it. Sometimes I will flip it, and I'll say, "Okay, we're going left side, left side," and so we'll take this to the other side. I do that, but I don't do it often. I used to do it a lot, and I used to just flip it. Then I created the progression, where I can go back to whichever one, so that the defense doesn't know which one I'm calling. Okay, so instead of flipping the plays, which I know is very, very popular, and I used to do it all the time, I have actually made the same look. I just switch it up just a little bit so they can't read that.

Any other questions from you guys? Anybody else?

Continue, coach. Guys, this is freaking awesome. Yeah, I wish I had these resources, you know what I'm saying, back in the day. Um, all right, so real quick, let's go, um, so I could go defense. I could go, let me show you my practice real quick. Um, so part of what I do for, for my fourth and fifth, when I, when I give a, uh, I call it a play pack, I also include, like, eight practice schedules because one of the things that I struggled with was, like, what should my practice look like? You know, what should my first meet and greet look like? You know, so the meet and greet is the very first thing. Obviously, the first practice that you have, and depending on who you have, you may not know, like, they may not know anything. So, um, I've built a bunch of these videos for you so that if you ever wanted to go check out that YouTube, like, "Okay, what should my first practice be?" All that, the resources are there. But the first practice, you gotta kind of get from the fundamentals of the different positions. And what I like to do is I like to break down the position, and then I like to do a drill to, like, make sure it's solidified. So that's center-quarterback exchange. That's just basic stuff, right? So that's my first practice. But then after that, it's time to really get into plays. Now, this is very important because I used to, when I first started, I used to do, like, 45 minutes of drills, and I was like, "Man, you got to get the fundamentals," but then they got into the actual game, and they didn't know what to do because I would, like, position them and take them physically to where they had to be, and I would show them, but no, you need to run at least 30 minutes, 30 minutes of plays at least. And then as they get more and more comfortable, you can run a little bit more, but with your drills, every week you should have a focus. So if last game you guys were not pulling the flags, then drill that. Drill flag-pulling. This shuffle-pull is incredible. If they're not running crisp routes, then run some route drills. If they're not breaking down and doing the defense basics, that's where you need to have that "I know exactly" mindset. I know exactly what we're focusing on. "Hey, today we have a focus of..." Right? Because I only have 15 minutes to run through four or five drills, and I'm going to take a couple seconds right now. When I talk about preparation, I need you to get there a little early. You're going to see me talk about this a lot. Arrive 10 to 15. Whenever you can get access to the field, arrive early. And what I like to do is set up stations. I don't have, like, five cones. I've got, like, 25 cones because I want to set up this drill. I want to set up this drill. And I want to set up this drill before anybody arrives so that we have stations set up so that I'm not spending an extra two or three minutes running over here trying to set this up. "What are we supposed to...?" No, no. I prep that out. So we've got station one, two, three, ready to go. And the first thing I do, coach, I would tell you right now, get yourself one of these, okay? On my website, I have a place where you can grab equipment. Get an agility ladder because as people come in, these kids, these adults, doesn't matter, you want them to warm up, and the agility ladder is the place to go. It's like the most important thing, right? So get that started, and then you can move through your practice. But that's very important to know your practice. And then throughout the weeks, it just depends on... you're running 30 minutes of plays. Week four, 30 minutes. Then it might move up to, you know, 45 minutes, depending on where they are. They need to know those plays front and back.

Okay, now let's talk defense real quick. Um, I'm going to show you some of my defense formations. Um, on my, on my website, I've created something called the Complete Coach Package, and what I did is I just threw all of my playbooks, all of my, what we call drill packs, which is a drill pack is basically me telling you, "Hey, here's a drill. Here's how to do it." You can print it out and then take it to the... oh, that's easy. Give it to your assistant coach and have him run some drills, and it just tells you exactly what to do. But at the back end of my defense drill pack is the defense formations that I love. Now, I'm going to teach you the one that I love the most, and I think it works for anything, really. Any defense or really any offense, any look, this works. It's called the Husker.

Now, before I dive into that, the first video here on my popular, it says, "Defense techniques that work." If you ever want more information about the Husker, my defense strategies, it literally is the number one video because you guys are crazy about defense. I get it. But I talk about the Husker, and the Husker is freaking awesome. You have two linebackers on the line of scrimmage. You always have to be at least one yard off. Now, here's the difference with my linebackers, and a lot of coaches ask me, like, "Well, how do you decide who's going to play which position?" Okay, totally makes sense. I actually list out who are my top flag-pullers, who are monsters with flag-pulling, the people who can just, without a doubt, they're not super fast, they're not, like, the best players, but they can pull flags all day long. That's my one and two right here. They're right on the line, so if something comes this way, that way, it doesn't matter. They spread. Now, this is their zones, right? And they stay home. Stay home. Stay in your zone, no matter how many tricks are happening here. Stay home. Stay in your zone. Then I have my cornerbacks back here, right? Cornerback is usually going to be covering the defense or covering the wide receiver who goes a little bit deeper. Those are my fast, great hands. Um, agile. They're just agile. They're able to cut, right? They're great. They're probably running backs, right? Um, and then you have your monster in the back. I call my monster my safety, my free safety here in the back.

Now, what I like to do on the Husker is I like to, in fourth and up, we can rush. And usually, adult leagues, you can rush, and you can rush two, you can rush three, but we usually like to rush one at least. Now, if I'm always the rusher, right, you'll see in a lot of defense, you know, "Oh, four is the rusher, always gonna be the rusher." Well, the quarterback knows. Quarterback knows who's coming at him. They can make one quick move. It's done. Easy. But what I do with the Huskers, I give these guys colors. So I say black, red, blue, right? Husker blue. I don't yell it out because they'll pick it up pretty quick. Black, red, blue. Black, red, blue. So on blue, four is going to rush, and these guys decide. Now, sometimes I'll run out there, depending on the age, and I will tell them, "Hey, I'm seeing this. I'm reading this from the, you know, the quarterback's strong side is over here, and we want to cut that out, so we're going to go this way," right? But they're going to decide. Okay, if they say black, three's going to go. They say red, five's going to go. And then four, if, let's say, five goes in, four backs up and is now going to cover about this section and this section, and no one, coach, players, no one gets behind the defense. Okay? What happens is you're cutting off the, like, confidence of the quarterback because they don't know who's going to rush when. As long as they're seven yards off the ball, they can rush. So now you've got this guy coming in. Maybe you have both, you know, red, red, black. You're, you're taking away the confidence right away, and then you have your strong side here. So any run plays that are coming up, you got it. And then you got your strong safety in the back, okay? So that formation I love, and I would start introducing it, like, right away, okay?

And a couple key, like, principles, if you guys have these type of flags, these type of flags right here, anytime you're coaching flag football, a lot of times you'll see players try to grab the flag right here. I'd say the number one tip I give is to grab it by the handle. Come up here, grab this by the handle. No matter what, once you hold onto that handle, no matter where I go, you've got a hold of that. That's coming out easier. So grab it by the handle. Make sure no one's behind you, okay? Stay home. All of those, those are some, like, key tips that I get a lot.

So with that, I'm gonna wrap up. I've got about five, seven minutes. Um, if you have any questions, you can always reach out to me and go to my site. It's just, you know, Flag Football with Coach D. You can email me, coachd@flagfootballwithcoachd.com. Easy to get in touch with me. I'd love to help you out with any kind of question. I love doing that. That's obviously free all day long. There's no, no reason not to. We're all in this together. So what questions can I answer for you?

Coach, do you...? I saw that you said your number one defense is, um, you have your two backers, um, and then two side guys, and then one safety, your Husker. Um, yeah. Yeah. Um, what are the rules of the youth in the States? Is it...? I don't know, actually. I don't know the rules for youth here. Maybe the youth coaches can help me out. TCN, what are the rules for, for the youth? Um, far as in time for QBs? Um, seven seconds? Is it usually seven seconds? Yes. Okay. Yeah, so they've got seven seconds. Um, so do you, do you run...? Do you...? You're counting on that that seven seconds runs out, am I correct, with the Husker if the QB is trying to throw the ball? And that's why I don't go too many. That's why, if I've got a run-heavy, if I've got a run-heavy offense, I might go two of them, but I want to make sure this is covered as well, so I got to make sure that I'm covered here. But yeah, I'm at least going one to shake them, make them run. And the biggest tip I have when I'm running the Husker is I'm watching this quarterback, which is their strong side. So if they're rolling out one side or the other, I'm shutting down their, their strong side with my, um, with my rusher. So I'm not going straight on. I would teach five to go to the strong side because they keep going here, and most of them are not Mahomes. They can't go both sides all over the field. You know, if they're having to run this way and throw across their body, they're in trouble. So yeah, that seven seconds usually runs out pretty nicely.

Coach, you have a question, said, "Coach D, I didn't quite reach, uh, but how long was your practice time with kids? 60 minutes, 90 minutes, or 120 minutes?" 60. 60 minutes. Short, yeah. That's why these videos, man, they just came in so handy, and that's why I tried to make it. I kind of go with the new, you know, either the new, not new players, but usually new coaches. That's how fundamental it is, and a lot of times, we need to, whether we're Michael Jordan or, you know, Tom Brady or anybody else, we need to go back to the basics. Um, and that's where, that's the kind of stuff I deliver. Yeah.

Okay, Coach, I see that you are highly organized. Um, is that a lot...? Um, is that a lot of time...? Do you spend a lot of time on that, making sure that you're organized on everything? You know, I like to at least know what I'm gonna do because, you know, one of the things that I did not like is when I got told on Thursday that I had these 10 kids or 10 players, adults, doesn't matter. When I go out and I, I coach adults, you know, I need to know what am I doing, you know, it doesn't matter. Um, so the confidence comes from preparation in my mind. It doesn't have to be, like, super organized. I have to have everything ready to go, printed out. No, no, I'm not OCD when it comes to it, but I like to have a good idea. And you can tell the difference when you're on the field, the coaches that do and the coaches that don't. And the players buy in a little bit more when you know what the hell you're doing.

Okay, um, I have another question. This is... Thanks. Thanks for joining us, coach. Um, you spoke about grades. When were you talking about the balance of percent between pass and throw forward? Um, for ignorance, what ages relate to those grades? That's... Sure, different ones. Yeah. Yeah, so like four to six is like pre-K, right? So if I go to my full playbook up here, let's go up here, right here, right? So what? Four to six, right? Then you're like seven, eight, right? Maybe nine, depending on... Nine, ten, eleven is like fifth grade. So my son is, uh, in fifth grade, and he was, you know, he did like kindergarten twice type of thing. He's a September birthday, so that's like ten, like nine, ten, eleven. And then above that, six to eight is like twelve, or eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. And usually for kids, it's four to fourteen. Right? So eighth grade is like that fourteen. So, and again, reach out if you, if you need me to go over that again. I'm happy to, but four to six, seven to eight, nine, ten, eleven is fourth to fifth, and then eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen is six to eight, depending on... Yeah.

Um, my other question, so when you do, you... When you... You said you have these 24 plays. Is that it for the rest of the season? Oh, you just... I don't like to switch it up. You don't change it up throughout the season? I, I don't... I don't like to switch it up. If something is going wrong... So my first practice and my first, my first meet and greet and my first, like, practice and game, I'm testing everything out, making sure everybody's getting it. If something's like a, just a fail, they're not getting it, you know, a sneak is not working, then I might, I might trade it out. But usually, I want to stay consistent. Otherwise, if I'm sending these players... I mean, it depends if you're working with adults, they can, you know, and, and they're committed. We all know, like, are they gonna, like, be committed? If they're professionals, then yeah, of course, I'm gonna switch it up. But these kids, how much time are they gonna spend on it throughout the week? Um, what I don't want is a poorly executed play because that, no matter how great the play is, if it's poorly executed, hasn't been practiced because I've switched it up so many times, it does, it doesn't matter how great it is. So that's why I like to keep consistent, and that's why I like to have 24 plays. So I have a nice mix, you know, if I'm not... I'm probably going to use 16 consistently a lot, and then I'll throw the other ones in for certain situations. Great question.

You have another question? Coach, um, how do you coach positions for the youngest? Does everyone have to practice throwing/slashing, even if they have zero talent or just that specific skill? Or how do you keep those guys motivated? Let them do something else? Oh, no. No, I do stations. So, okay, let's quickly, let's talk this real quick. So you're talking about positions. I'm teaching kids the youngest how to do, let's say, be a center. I'm not going to take two, two kids, a quarterback and the center, and then everybody else is kind of standing around that. I've tried that. Does not work. I've tried to be academic about it, meaning explain things. Doesn't work. The reason why I do it like this, which is get them on the field and get them doing it, and coach, you need to have four balls, at least, right? Something that they can play with. So I'll have one, two, three, four, right? They're paired up, and they're all moving at the same time. So drills and practice 101 is have everybody moving at the same time. Whether I have my assistant coach helping me over here, I'm doing something over here, the kids, especially at that age, are constantly moving. Otherwise, my daughter, when I first started, was just doing cartwheels all over the field. Killing me. Just killing me. So you don't want that. Keep them active. Train by doing instead of telling.

Okay, I think it kind of answered the next question, but I read it out loud anyway. Um, yeah. Um, hey, hey, coach, quick question. Do you have any experience with motivating unmotivated kids? Because here in Germany, we usually start coaching ten years old, and some of them didn't do any sports before and don't have the football mentality. Yeah, mentality is huge, and I talk about that in... Did you understand the whole question? Yeah, I got that. Okay. Yeah, so, um, two things on that. First of all, if there is an unmotivated player, I make it very clear in my meet and greet, first, first practice, I make it very, very clear to the coaches or to the, to the parents, to the players, if it's adults, doesn't matter. Um, I will have a straight-up conversation with you if I see lack of effort. Like, effort is my number one thing. If you can't get a skill, that's okay. But the first thing that I need to see from you is effort. And I will, coach, you gotta address that right away. If you see somebody going halfway, and everybody else is trying really hard, and they're just kind of like, "Ah," I go right to them. And it's not a hard, like, "Get on the..." you know. No, it's, "What's up? What can we do? What are you feeling?" All right. And then I practice with them. I do a one-on-one with them to show them that I care about their development, and then I give them the opportunity to get back in the field. And I want to see that from you. Right? So it's social pressure. It's, "I care about you." And it is, I'm very active on the field, so I am being the example of what that mindset needs to be. So they see that from me, they see that from the other players, so it stands out. And I'll talk to the parents, and I'll tell them, "Look, I'm going to have a hard conversation to the point where if they are belligerent, they're not wanting to be part of something, they will sit out. They will have... and then I'll give them an opportunity." Always give them an opportunity. And then finally, the one thing that I would say that really helps is this word of the week. So I talk about it a lot, right? Talk about it a lot. It's called the word of the week. Thanks. Look at that. Um, hi, Viviana. So the word of the week is the most important thing for... It's called the word of the week or word of the day. That's your motivation right there. So you find something like sportsmanship, teamwork, leadership, whatever it is, and you use that at the very beginning of your practice and throughout the practice, throughout the game, to help build that motivation. What did you see Johnny doing that was... that showed teamwork? What did you see? How did you show leadership? Right? So those kinds of things get that, start to build that, like, focused football mentality around one centered, focused word or meaning, and that draws everybody together.

Uh, one last question, coach, for you. Yep. Um, hi, coach. When you play your Husker defense, do you always blitz someone, or do you play without blitzing sometimes? Sometimes I do a fake blitz, right? Like, it depends. If you've got a really talented quarterback, and I need... I need my team out, like, if they're, if they're, um, if I blitz, and it's not doing anything to the quarterback, the quarterback's almost, like, making a fool of my defense, then I'm just going to focus on coverage and make sure that he doesn't have or she doesn't have anything to go after. But I will, I'll try to, to... Again, the thing that I like about the Husker is that I'm trying to play with that quarterback, um, and if you have a high-level quarterback, they can kind of play back. Um, so sometimes, yes, but what I like to do, you know, win or lose, I like to give the responsibility to the players, and I like to let them... And it's only going to take them one time to get burned. I like to give them the opportunity, and this is all about leadership, to make that call. Who's gonna... Who's gonna rush? You're gonna rush two? You're gonna rush one? You're gonna rush zero? Right? Is five gonna go five yards and then back off? Play with it, and give them the responsibility so that you're not the only voice on the field, but you're building up leaders by giving them the voice. But yeah, absolutely, there's times I do. Depends on the quarterback.

Awesome. Um, yes, any more last questions? You can just unmute yourself and chime in. Um, we have two minutes.

Um, coach, um, when I used to work with youth, it's been a while, uh, how do you...? Um, how do you handle parents and coaching dads? I love it, man. It's... It's tough. I mean, it's tough. First of all, that's why it's important to be prepared because you gain respect. And the reason... You know, somebody... I, I remember my, what, second season? I was working with a brand new coach, just a dad, just whatever, and I was like, "Hey man, you want to meet for beers and, like, go over the game plan?" He's like, "What do you mean, game plan? This is flag football. Why take it so seriously?" Just right there. Cut it right there. "Why do you take it so seriously?" Because when I get there on the field, I want to have the opportunity not only to impact the lives, but also to have serious conversations with the parents. If they're late, it's the parents. It's not the kids. I'm not going to make them run laps and all that kind of stuff. It's the parents. So I go, and I talk to the parents day one when I do my meet and greet, this meet and greet, day one. I have a conversation, and I set out the rules, the expectations. If your son or your daughter is not trying, not practicing throughout the week, and everybody else is, I'm gonna have a conversation with you. So I set that out right away.

And the other thing that I do is communication. Like, at the very beginning, one of the things I like about this full playbook that I have is I have an email template of the exact email. Welcome, and this is me gaining their respect. If I just send out a, "Hey guys, we're meeting, uh, you know, on the field this day or whatever." No, I send out a text group. Everybody's on the group. Send it out. And I also send this welcome email that tells them exactly what to expect so that I have the right now to talk to them or to talk to their kids because I care, and they see that. So preparation is not just about confidence. It's also about gaining respect. And through that, I've never had a parent... I've had parents email me. I've had parents talk to me. I've had parents come to me strongly. The other coach was yelling at their kid, and they didn't appreciate that, but they know that I care. And just like in the workplace, if you have a manager who will go to bat for you, and you know that, and you can follow them, they know where they're headed, then you respect that. And so I work hard to gain that respect, and, um, and that's how I deal with it. And I, and I handle things right away. Like, I'll just go right to them, not, not confrontational, but hey, let's find a solution. And encouraging this whole thing, like being an encourager, it's all about like, "Hey, I want to lift. By the end of this conversation, we have a plan, and we're feeling good about what the next step is going to be."

Awesome, coach. Thank you, coach, for everything. Um, thank you for taking your time out to... Of course. ...to speak to everybody. Um, I know you didn't have it. Yeah, it's been awesome. I know you're busy moving and things like that, so I appreciate you taking your extra time getting this... Holidays, a bit crazy. Yeah, we're just setting up. But, uh, guys, thank you so much. Um, no matter where we are, we're all doing the same thing, all having the same issues and everything, so I love to play in the sandbox with you guys. If you ever need anything, reach out anytime. Like I said, I've got anything that I have, Clinic 50. Uh, that's 50% off anything that I have that can be a resource to you. Email me, text me, go to my flag football YouTube, and if you need something, I'm always here to help any way I can.