Cougar Football (7-2): Super Bowl Bound!

[Poli]

Just a recap from week 1:
Alex had 145 yards on 12 carries and a touchdown.
Ty had 24 yards on 7 carries.
Logan lost 10 yards on 6 carries and a touchdown (sweeps gone bad I'm afraid)
Brennan had 8 yards on 1 carry.
Matt had 1 yard on 2 carries.
Josh had 11 yards on 2 carries.

[Poli]

Week 2 didn't start out quite the way I had planned.

We got a four and out on defense to start the game.

Alex led the charge carrying the ball down to the 25 before Logan took it on a sweep to the left side...scoring from the 40 after a few penalties. Brennan kicked the extra point to put us up, 8-0.

We struggled a bit defensively giving up 45 yards...our defense just isn't lining up correctly. They threw a pass that was intercepted by Jacob at the 2. We start that second quarter from there.

Josh, Jacob, and Logan move us up the field about 15 yards before Josh's holding call forces us to punt. Brennan punts it 20 yards but our defense can't hold. We allow a touchdown on a sweep. They miss the extra point. 8-6 Cougars.

We take over at our 45 and Logan busts open a wedge thanks to Tyler's great block. He scores and misses the extra point. 14-6 Cougars.

St. Gen can't do anything with the football and we hold them on downs with just over a minute to go in the half. We lacklusterly carry the ball with Josh and Jacob again. With 35 seconds left, I sub out Josh for Alex. He punches in the power play from 45 yards out for the score. Brennan kicks the extra point. 22-6 Cougars.

They come out throwing from the 50 with just seconds left in the half. The result? Pick 6 from Matt who returns it 58 yards for the score. Logan misses the extra point as we go to half time: 28-6 Cougars.

Seeing as that is just 1 single point (I thought St. Gen would have 7) from where I wanted to be at half I decide to let every kid carry the football in the second half. I wasn't very happy with how we got there, but I'll take it.

We take the kickoff and after four carries we turn it over near midfield. Brennan then picks off the next pass and returns it for the score, only to have a block in the back called at the 30. A very needless penalty by Brandon. No worries, it allows us to let more kids carry the ball, which is what we do. Every eligible boy carried the ball in the 3rd quarter, with the exception of Grant, our center. None of the boys actually gained a yard, though. I wasn't worried. We didn't drop the football, that's what I was worried about.

We went to the fourth and I gave Josh, Jacob, Hayden, and Matt some more experience running the football. Josh scored his first touchdown ever in the process. Nate missed the extra point. When we let all the eligible kids carry the ball, I then let the non-eligible kick. That's my promise to the big boys.

I then let the big boys on the kickoff team and let Nolan kick it deep. He did well, and as expected they returned it for the score. Darn. Guess that means I can give my runners more experience carrying the football. That's a shame.

That's how it wrapped up. 34-6 good guys.

If I get the chance I'll try to compute some stats for the real runners on the team.

[Poli]

Our next opponent, the Blue Hawks, are a decent team. They're small, though. We're going to run wedge at them tell they're sick of it. Then we'll hit them with power. They like to put 5-6 kids outside of the box to stop the sweep. Perfect, that means there's only 5-6 kids IN the box. I'll take it every day.

[Poli]

I knew they were small, but I didn't realize they were this small: No player over 100 pounds on the team.

Practice this week was decent I guess. We destroyed the Gold Cougars again. He seems to think taking those lumps from my team helps. He turned around and scrimmaged the Red Cougars yesterday and did decently. He sounded fairly excited about that scrimmage. The thing is, both of those teams are 0-2. Red hasn't scored a touchdown yet on the year. Of course your defense is going to look good.

Matt's been out with the stomach flu this week and Kaleb is out on vacation, so I'm planning to play with 18, not 20. Alex and Garrett will take Matt's spot on defense.

[Poli]

Got a good dose of games today. I'm scouting next week's opponent at in about an hour. I'm then going to our field to tape the game before ours. It has our opponent from two weeks from now playing. Our game is after that. I have to announce the next game.

I'll then head home to watch the UT/Florida game on the DVR...making note not to listen to the radio, talk on the phone or any of that business until I watch the game.

[Poli]

22-6 win today. Ty most likely had 100 yards and two touchdowns.

After allowing an early score, Ty powered one in off the wedge from 40 yards out thanks in part to excellent fakes by Logan and Alex. Brennan kicked the extra point, 8-6...and that's how it went into the half.

Late in the 3rd Ty would score off another wedge, this time from 50 yards out. This time he broke left and spun in two circles as he had their safety holding on to his arm. He fell off on the second spin and went in for the score. Brennan kicked the extra point and the Blue Hawks were essentially doomed at that point. 16-6 and no real hope on offense.

Defensively we stepped up our game. We place insane pressure on the quarterback with Tyler and Logan. We sacked the quarterback four straight times and took back over early in the fourth.

I then drew the ire of the Blue Hawk coaching staff and their fans. I told the referee I wanted to have the signal for 5 seconds on the play clock. As we waited I lined up the team with our play I stood beside the team and wouldn't let Brennan snap the ball until I gave him the signal. Once I got the signal from the referee, I clapped my hands as I ran to my position 10 yards behind the players. We then snapped the ball and ran the play.

Four plays of that and whatever hope the Blue Hawks had disappeared. We got the ball back almost immediately and ran more of the clock out, running only wedges and powers. With just under a minute left, we gave Logan the ball on a reverse. I knew full well we would score and we did.

Jacob, the birthday boy, missed the extra point, my birthday present to him. That was the final.

I probably could have ran the clock out to finish the game, but I wanted to be up by over 13. One of the tiebreakers in the league is a win by differential. So, the final score helped our standing.

That and those Blue Hawks beat on me last year. It was nice to return the favor.

[Poli]

Cougar football returns today at noon against South County 2.

SC2 likes #7 offensively. They try to get him the football wherever he is on the field. We'll make certain he doesn't succeed. I've altered the defense to attack the football more and key on #7. Perhaps I've done a little too much and made the defense unsound, but I want to see if SC2 will capitalize on it. We're going to ignore the tight ends completely and make them beat us with them instead of #7.

Offensively, I think we can run our full offense. We're going to run a scripted four play set to start out today. We'll run our jet sweep to start. I know they've got a scouting report on us so I want them to believe we're playing into their hands.

Our next play will be the play action off that, called "Garrett special". We'll then run wedge with Brennan. We'll then run Ty off the field and put in our mighty mite Hayden. We'll wedge with Brennan, but Brennan will hand it off to Hayden as he wedges in the play. Hayden will then run in a circle around the outside with a lead block from Alex. We'll call that Crazy Wedge. I want them seeing the wedge action first and to key on that block. I think this will mess them up.

I want 50 points today.

[Poli]

35-6 win for the Cougars! Brennan, Ty, and Alex all got in the end zone for the Cougars! We're now tied with a number of teams for 4th place.

[Poli]

South County 3 has forfeited their 4 wins for using two 11 year old players. The players and their coach have been ejected from the league.

This changes the dynamic of the league quite a bit. Earlier I said we were tied at 4th...I was initially wrong. I was either in 5th or 6th and have now moved up another slot.

Trying to work out how many points a team loses by in overtime. Someone is trying to push that a loss in overtime only counts as losing by 1 point. I think that is baloney. They lost by 6 in overtime, they should lose by 6 in the point standings.

If it counts as a 1 point loss, we're in 5th place. If it counts as 6, we're in 4th.

[Poli]

First four plays are scripted today for us:

BP Sweep. Desoto doesn't adjust their defense to formation. They sit in their 5-3 with linebackers inside the DEs no matter what. We're running BP Sweep, a play created just for this game, to take advantage of it. We're taking Ty, Alex, and Logan and putting them on the left side, the weak side of the field for us, in a quasi trips look. We'll then block down on the linebacker and end and Alex will take the corner.

We'll follow that with our Cougar/Wildcat looks...instead of giving the ball, we're going to motion through and throw it over to them. We'll block down on that linebacker and end again in the process. We'll throw the first right to Alex and the second left to Logan.

Finally, we'll run the Garrett special pass.

If we don't have a touchdown by that point I will be mildly surprised. We'll also go back to our regular offense.

[Poli]

Colder weather than anticipated and a chilly breeze kept us from throwing the flat passes. Instead we converted them to jet sweeps, which is essentially all the play is anyhow.

After the four plays, we were up 16-0. After the fifth play, we were up 24-0.

The BP Sweep worked as designed. He went untouched into the endzone. Two offensive plays later, we were in with Logan's jet sweep. Two offensive plays later, we were in with Josh's run off 16 Power.

The crazy part was this all came in the first quarter. The first two scores came inside 4 minutes. The really crazy part is that we started the game off kicking to them! They recovered the onside kick around the 50. They got 9 yards on 3 plays and we stuffed them on 4th down and took over essentially on our 41. 59 yards later we were in the endzone. Rinse and repeat.

They started the running clock after our third score, which I wasn't a fan of. I scrambled to get our kids into the game after that.

I was still able to pull off the emergency plan. Only two kids didn't carry the ball that were eligible to my knowledge...Grant and Sherard. I just ran out of time!

Our final scores came at the start of the 3rd quarter. Alex returned the kickoff 70 yards for the touchdown. We kicked it deep following that and two plays later they were trying to pass to their best kid. We had the formation gameplanned like crazy. Josh sprinted in off the edge and sacked the quarterback, causing a fumble in the process. Ty picked it up and ran it in for the score.

It marked the first game in which my top five offensive specialists all scored in the same game.

Final score: White Cougars 36, De Soto Eagles 0.

[Poli]

I really wanted to stomp these kids into the ground. They ran the score up on me last year in our Super Bowl. I was glad to repay the favor.

[Barkeep49]

Not strictly on topic, but you originally got into youth sports as a stepping stone to higher level coaching. Is this still your plan? It seems like if this is what you wanted your consistent success would speak well for you.

[Poli]

I'm expecting that I'll be offered a position of some sort at either Festus or DeSoto next year. It's definitely the plan...though I am really enjoying coaching youth football.

[Poli]

White Hawks, our next opponent, are pretty good. That said, they really played down to their opponent this past week. They tied the Blue Hawks (we beat Blue, 22-6) 8-8 in over time. They were one yard from winning that game. The previous week, the lost, 26-8, to South County 1. The 34 points they have given up in the past two weeks are the only points they had allowed all season.

They started out the season with a 22-0 shutout over the Mustangs. The Mustangs have since beat DeSoto and Lonedell (two of the worst teams in the league in my opinion) but have been shut out in all three of their losses.

Their second victory came over South County 2, 22-0. Of course, we beat South County 2, 34-6. I went and taped that game. White then shut out the Chargers (both the Mustangs and Chargers are from Arnold) 22-0. The Chargers are 2-3, beating two terrible teams and losing to White, Desoto, and the Black Hawks.

The story for White is wherever Mr. Skaggs (#44) goes, so goes White. If he has a good game, so does White. South County and the Blue Hawks did an excellent job of bottling him up. In fact, I'm a little peeved with Blue. Winning 8-0 at the half, they punted in the 3rd quarter right to the kid. He returned it for a score.

They line up in what equates to a Power I and give to 44. They line up in a wishbone and toss it to 44. They line up in a Pro and dive it with 44. They line up in a Trips with 44 at quarterback and he's likely throwing it to one kid in particular or he's running it behind the trips blockers. They have a single back set where 44 gets the ball behind the two lead blockers who are essentially blocking the edge and creating a big seam.

Having taped the South County 2 game and the Blue Hawk game (as well as having seen their warm up 'walk-thru' of plays, I feel pretty confident about stopping their offense.

When 44 is in the backfield, we'll shift to the side he's opposite of. In that Power I set, he's always the offset fullback. They then run behind the other two backs who lead block for him. In the wishbone it's a power toss. The exceptions will be if they're in the Pro set, where we'll sit, or the single back, where we'll shift strong.

If 44 is at quarterback, we'll clog the middle as they've shown that they will wedge up the middle some. If that back motions out of trips, we'll shift to the motion. Our playside defensive end will motion out with him. Every time he goes in motion, it's with the intent of blocking our end inside so 44 can get wide. We absolutely do not want them to block our end inside.

They have a few complimentary plays to 44. Out of that single back, they run a counter to one of the wings, #20. Out of that trips set, 20 will get the ball on a reverse or #14 (normally the QB) will catch a quick hitch. Out of the Power sets, they like to run 14 behind the other backs on a keeper or run a counter with 20 or 24 going opposite the flow. I've even seen them throw a pass to their tight end, #8, once. None of that scares me. We'll ignore anyone not numbered 8 or 14 when they line up at tight end or wide receiver. We'll jump the hitch and we'll take any counter or reverse for a loss with our backside defensive end.

I'm worried about putting points on the board, though. I think our no-huddle will wear them out. They only have 15-16 boys, and most play both ways. They're very aggressive defensively. I think we'll try to sweep them constantly to try and wear them out even more. The pass will be there, but I can't pull it out early. I have to sell them on the run.

I'm going to put in the Lonesome Polecat this week and run that as our first play.

[Poli]

We're down one kid. Josh will be out of town. Sherard and Garrett take up his special team work. Matt, Hayden, and Jacob will take advantage of his absence by stealing a few plays at 1 and 4 back.

[Poli]

So a mess ensued after my last post.

Friday night before the game Tyler's mom calls me. A planned trip to Wisconsin was in the works for next Saturday. It was bumped to this weekend. So 19 hours before our game, I have to replace a two way starter as well as a member of special teams.

I start making phone calls. I have Matt taking fullback. I have Sherard take defensive end. I move a lineman (which I absolutely hate, but of the kids I have left to choose from, he's the most reliable) to special teams.

Day of the game I find out Hayden won't be here. How? He just never shows up. I'm not privileged to a text or phone call, just a missing Hayden. The problem? I already have two kids flipping missing! Hayden was starting at linebacker and on special teams, so now I'm moving another lineman to special teams and taking Grant and placing him at linebacker.

The problem with all that being we're playing the White Hawks, a very good football team. We're now down 3 starters on defense, 1 starter on offense, and having to replace 3 kids on kickoff and kick return. I'm having to scramble to make replacements just minutes before the game when I realize I won't be seeing Hayden.

Result? 44-22 loss, though it wasn't as bad as it looked. They scored a touchdown in the final minute after we fumbled the ball with 4 minutes to go on the 20 yard line.

Still, I was on fire about missing so many kids. I'm sure Josh's family thought, "It's okay to miss a game, we're doing so well. They'll be fine without him." I'm sure that's the thought process of Ty and Hayden's family as well.

Thanks for the loss.

The loss dropped us to 6th place overall. A 1-point win would have placed us in 3rd place.

[Poli]

The problem I had was not knowing until after our practice time was up that the two boys were going to be gone. I made changes to accommodate Josh being missing. I couldn't do anything about the other two except insert kids who had little experience or practice time at those spots.

Practice time for those kids, at those spots, would have been very nice and could have very well changed the course of the game.

[Poli]

We did win our last game, 39-8, over the now 2-5 Arnold Hurricanes. Starting the season 0-4, they had won their last two games with a combined score of 44-13.

We lost the coin toss and they elected to receive. We kicked onside like we normally do. I love our kickoff scheme. We "block 'em up and spread it out". We line up in a "block" two rows of five...with our fastest kids on the team out there. The block is usually about 3 yards to the left or right of the kicker. Brennan kicks it. We line up like that and I keep my back turned to the return team until I hear the whistle for ready for play.

I'll turn around and scan the return team. If they're not up close to us to prevent that onside kick, we'll spread out, the back line going to the left, the front line to the right. I'll then look to see if there's a hole in that front line, which almost always the case. I'll tell Brennan left or right, then up for a pop up or down for the squib. "left and down" was the call to start this one out.

Sherard recovers the ball. Brennan then runs the BP sweep, which has become sort of a team pride play. He gets 45 yards and run out at the 5 yard line. Ty runs it in off the wedge, untouched. 6-0.

The Hurricanes drive down the field on the next series before stalling at our 35. We run 18 Sweep with Alex and he scores. 12-0.

They take over at their 35 when our onside goes out of bounds. Two plays later, Jacob is returning a fumble for the score, we make the kick, 20-0.

End of the first quarter and we've ran three plays and are up 20.

[Poli]

They move the ball again, thanks in part to a fullback dive that breaks loose. Grant tracks him down, thanks in part to the fullback being rather slow. The Hurricanes get to our 15 before they turn it over to us.

We run about 7 plays in approximately 2 minutes and score starting from the 15. We are set to kick the extra point and get the running clock started. Only problem, we have 13 on the field. Not that it matters, it's a no rush kick. Still they flag us. We got one off the field, but still had too many. Another flag. I say screw it, we'll run a play. I'm more upset with the referee at this point than the kids. The kids know better, sure. Still, what's the harm in having the whole team on the field for a kick where there is no blocking or pressure? So we run a sweep with Josh. He gets in, but another flag is thrown. Clipping is the call on Brennan. We're then flagged for illegal procedure. The ball is moved all the way back to the 32 yard line for AN EXTRA POINT. At this point I just want to get the kids off the field. We run wedge with Logan. I figure he'll get three yards and we'll go kick it off. Instead, Logan SCORES from 32 yards out, untouched, up the middle. 27-0.

With 5 minutes to go in the half, the Hurricanes run four plays, including two incomplete passes. They took 90 seconds to do it. We took over at their 45 with 3:30 left. Josh scores after two plays and we're up, 33-0.

With the clock running, that ends the half.

[Poli]

The second half featured the emergency plan, where every kid who doesn't normally get a chance to run the ball gets a chance. We completed the emergency plan in the 3rd quarter.

I gave the ball to Alex and Josh in the second half, with a number of subs on offense to give them a few more carries. I doubt any team in the league has given the ball to their main two ball carriers as few times as I have. We've run the emergency plan in 3 games completely and partially in another. That's 15 kids getting a carry in a game 3 times now. I seriously doubt any team has given the ball to all their kids one time on the year. We've given it to all the kids three times now. I love that and I love pointing that out to other coaches. We have the second highest point total in the league currently, and we really haven't had that many plays with our starters.

[Poli]

Ty knocked the last score in early in the 4th.

I then "accidentally" let the other team score when I had our second team kids line up where ever they wanted. I told them I had to have four kids in the middle and surprisingly four of the smaller, faster kids of that group volunteered. The bigger slow kids wanted to be "monsters" or our middle linebacker/Safety types. That meant when they swept outside, which they eventually did, it was easy pickings. 39-8.

I did the same plan for our kick return group as well. Line up where ever you want, but I need 5 on the 50. I think they had a lot of fun doing that.

Keith, of all kids, recovered the onside kick. We ran wedge about 5 times to finish out the game.

[Poli]

Our next opponent, the Mustangs played immediately after we did. I had to announce the game since we were at our stadium. I took notes on their offense as the game went along.

I don't scribble out 11 X or Os when I take notes. Instead, I abbreviate formations and plays in a way I understand. For example, the Mustangs started out with a double tight end, pro formation, with a wing on the left side. I will know what that looks like without drawing all the circles, so I abbreviate it PWL. Teams rarely use split ends in our league. If we had one, I'd just say SER after the PWL. Plays are abbreviated in a similar fashion. D for dive. O for option, OT for off tackle, P for pitch, S for sweep, C for counter. PASS is for pass, I don't abbreviate it. Finally I'll write down who got the ball and how many yards. As I set up to write up the next play, I write down the down and distance.

[Poli]

The Mustangs do use a Pro set, wing left or wing right, nearly every time the wing is left he motions right. They're very right hand dominant. Their best back is 24, they like to pitch to him to the right side, though sometimes they will dive it left with him. 24 nearly always cuts the ball up the field instead of running wide. They'll also draw with their 2nd back, #57, and dive him as well. I saw a pitch pass as well. Finally, if 24 is in at wing, he's very likely to get the ball on some sort of reverse.

They're other formation is a double flanker set. 24 goes wide and they run a few plays out of this. Nothing very conventional, though. Quarterback sneak, statue of liberty, and a statue of liberty pass as well.

They lined up in a trips set once as well. Strong right on 4th down, they were clearly throwing the ball.

Overall, nothing we can't handle.

Defensively, a standard 5-3 defense except they nearly always blitz those outside linebackers one way or another. No play should kill those kids. Plus, if they blitz inside, we'll destroy them outside.

[Poli]

Finally, I think we're going to try and make this a statement game for us. We'll probably keep the starters in for the most part and not go to the emergency plan. We're averaging 28 points a game exactly. I want everyone to realize that we've been taking it easy on every except in our two losses.

I hate to run it up on the Mustangs (2-5), but I want that statement out there before we hit the playoffs.

Our opponent will most likely be the Blue Hawks. We're going to be missing Josh, Hayden, and Brandon for hunting, quite possibly another kid or two as well.

[Poli]

Game day. Let's roll.

[Poli]

46-6 win!! Six different kids scored on 7 touchdowns!

[Poli]

24-6 win in the first week of playoffs over the Blue Hawks. We scored on the opening kickoff and kept it going throughout the game. Logan had three touchdowns: One rushing, one receiving, and one on the kick return.

We had three boys missing today due to hunting season.

Next week is our Super Bowl. We will play St. Gen 1, a team we beat twice last season. They do a lot of the same stuff they did last year. They're 7-2 as well, having lost to De Soto and South County 1. They didn't beat a team that was ranked over 12 (out of 18) on the season until today, where they beat a rather weak Arnold Falcon team. Honestly, I have no idea how that Falcon team finished the season 4-4. It turned out their wins came against teams with terrible records as well.

I like our chances in this Super Bowl.

[Barkeep49]

Update?

[Poli]

I'm sorry, BK!

We lost the Super Bowl 26-16. It was a little disappointing. We looked like a team that just wasn't prepared. We were, but the kids appeared lost most of the time on defense. I think it was a little over confidence.

Afterward we lightened the mood as the kids dumped their water on me before we took pictures together. I got pictures with everyone individually before we left.

The next day we had our end of season banquet...where I said goodbye to the kids and asked Katherine to marry me (she said yes!).

Sherard has moved to New Mexico now that his mom is back from her deployment to Oman.

Overall, a great year and it was tough for me to let them go.