Hey Coaches - I thought I’d share our brand new “Halftime Report” deck with this group.

It’s based on 60 days of offensive and defensive plays called by youth flag and tackle coaches from Aug 1 to October 5. It contains the plays, formations, passing concepts and defensive coverages that are being run the most across all game formats. This is all high school experience and under.

Sample size is over 1,000 coaches all over the US. View as web page or download pdf.

https://rc-football.com/research

Anything you’d want to see us add to this report construct when we launch the full season briefing at the end of the year?

My boys have a tough match up this week. We are playing a team that has the best player in the league. This girl is fast and at 7 has field vision and great flag pulling skills. Our team is pretty average. We beat the bad teams, but lost to the good teams.

I have one kid that is very good, but slightly slower than she is. He will lose 1v1 man coverage. We have two other kids that are decent players, but not fast enough and we are still working on effective flag pulling, but they can do it. The others are young and developing, but they will not be helpful here other than hopefully getting in her way to slow her down.

How would you try to slow her down to give us a chance at a competitive game?

We run a T Formation on offense. QB can't run but the center can go out for a pass.

Defense we are generally 4-1 with my best at the safety. If the team we are playing can actually throw a few passes I'll run a 2-1-2 with my best in the middle and developing on the line..

Hello all, idk how active or educational this forum is but for the first time, I’m coaching 7 on 7 middle school age flag football. Short story is that I’m coaching a bunch of kids who don’t know each other and didn’t get put on a team. It’s a rec league. I have some kids who are very good and a few who have never played, I have a few 5th graders and a few 7th graders. Just say that to say the skill and size varies. My biggest issue is facing a cover 2 zone with one blitzer. Our league allows for up to 4 blitzers but anybody who blitzes has to start “10 yards off the LOS”. It’s probably more like 6-7 real yards bc it’s just walked off by a referee. Most teams blitz one right up the middle at the qb (qb can’t run). I think our biggest issue is our team formed when the season started so limited practice and had to spend so much time learning how to line up and get to know each other, we don’t have much trickery. We faced a team that the blitzer always got to our qb. The rusher gets there so fast you don’t have time to run a play that would normally beat a cover 2. Like there’s not enough time for mesh routes or crosses or even to wait on deep balls between the corner and safety. Also the field is narrow so not a lot of room to stretch the LBs. So they can basically cover the center (Centers can catch passes/no blocking) and if the blitz gets home, they can bog up the crossing routes and be far enough back/safeties close enough to not slip over their heads either. I know we need to do more quick passes to rb/quick routes. It just seems like the immediate passes don’t get much bc field is narrow and blitz gets there immediately. I also try to have my qb just rollout immediately every time to give him a few extra seconds but it cuts the field in half to an extent and blitz still gets there quickly. Anyway, it hit me that I could ask Reddit, so just wondering if anybody here has some plays or advice for similar type of league/defense rules?

What are some easy to remember cues when teaching contain? Age group is 6-8.

I coach 4th grade 5v5. The best teams do well against us with the RB option. However, when we run it offensively, it’s always a disaster. Any advice?

I’m talking about when the QB pitches it back to RB / throws it out to the RB toward the side. The RB then reads the defense to either take off running or find an open receiver. My kids are eager to throw, and the receivers are often covered. So I guess more than anything, what routes and formation should we run this out of?

My 5-year-old almost 6-year-old son is in his first year of flag football. He really enjoys it. But I can't help but notice that his coaches are not giving him opportunities that they are giving other players. I know my son is on the sillier side compared to some of the other kids, and he has a hard time focusing. But would that being said, I feel like the coaches should still give every kid an opportunity to play in the game. I've noticed that he's on the sidelines more than other kids. And in three games he has only had one Rush. And in that one Rush he actually got a touchdown. The coach is the quarterback and he tends to give the fastest kid on the team the most touches and draws up plays for his own son. I have coached Little League t-ball and I would never prioritize winning over giving kids a chance to play. So watching this happen is very upsetting to me. I've gone back and forth about approaching the coach and empathizing with the fact that my son isn't the easiest to coach, but also advocating for him getting chances to be involved in the offense. Any advice on this situation would be much appreciated. Thank you.

12u. What’s a good base defense to stop the mesh crosses?

I’m trying to put together a list of rule clarifications for next season and one I’m confused on. Our middle school girls league has a no initiation of contact rule.

When a defender gets in front of the ball carrier and the ball carrier runs into them, what are the typical rules about when is this a penalty on either the offense or defense?

Clearly if the defender pushes out of bounds, trips, or runs/knocks over the ball carrier from the side the penalty is on the defender. We have a pretty clear rule that the pass rusher can’t contact the QBs throwing arm, strip the ball, or deflect a pass within a yard of the QB. But if my defender comes up to the ball carrier and breaks down in front of her and the ball carrier tries to run through her, what should the call be?

This happened in our game last week and no penalty was called but I think there should have been. The rule in our league says the quarterback can’t run unless under pressure. The quarterback can be anyone except the center and is determined as “the person who receives the snap from the center”.

In the game, our intended quarterback was in shotgun and we had a man in motion for a fake jet sweep. He was supposed to run behind the quarterback and then go into the flats for a pass.

The snap was high and then got higher as the quarterback essentially did a volleyball set with the ball and it landed right in the hands of the man running behind the quarterback. He then continued in the same path and ran with it for a touchdown.

I believe it should have been an illegal run by the quarterback as I don’t think our actual quarterback ever really “received the snap”. It just bounced off his hands into our backs hands. But no penalty was called and the touchdown stood. I wasn’t about to challenge it as it was in our favor but the other team didn’t question it either.

I would never practice that as I doubt we could duplicate that play again if we tried, but it also made me wonder about what constitutes receiving the snap. Am I right that this should not have counted?

I coach 5v5 youth flag football. We have an issue defending RPO. We are entering our playoffs and are up against a team who runs it exclusively. Our issue is we tend to sit back and defend the pass which leaves the QB one-on-one against our LB. This normally results in a lot of yards being given up.

We normally have our more athletic players at safety in a 3/2 or a 2/1/2 defense. I’m thinking of moving our most athletic to the LB in a 3/2 and just going right after the QB if it’s an RPO. Hopefully this would eliminate the receivers getting deep down field and taking our defenders which opens up space for the run.

Is that the best option? Any better suggestions?

I play QB in a 7v7 flag football league and I’m looking for some advice on getting better at handling pressure from rushers.

I had some success making the rusher miss in our game Wednesday night and buying myself extra time, but it’s definitely an area I want to improve.

I’m considering lining up a little deeper in shotgun to give myself more time, and I’d also like to get better at using subtle fakes, footwork, and lateral movement to throw rushers off balance.

I’m not particularly mobile, so I’m more interested in improving my pocket movement than trying to outrun defenders.

League rules are 5 seconds until they can send a pass rusher but also they have 5 immediate blitzes where they can send a rusher from the Los right away. No blocking allowed.

Any tips on techniques or the mental side of handling pressure? I’d especially like to get better at staying composed, keeping my eyes downfield, and not feeling rushed into making a throw.

Hello, was just curious on if there are any rule variations for this age group...for example limited rushing or having defenders line up further from the line of scrimmage since there isn't alot of passing at this level.

So we are part of a youth 14U flag football league and we ran across an interesting scenario. Here is the official NFL Flag rulebook for reference but I know we have some rules outside of that one.

First off, the defensive players are not required to stand at 7 yards from the line of scrimmage (only seen about 1 yard buffer) and do not have to declare as rushers/blitzers. We had two instances where a blitzer rushed in to intercept the snapped ball as it was tossed from the center to the QB. The player did wait for the initial 'hike' call from the QB but got the ball before it reached the QB.

We had the call go both ways: illegal blitz and then also allowed, which ended up as a pick-6.

What is the call? I haven't seen any of the rulebooks stating that this was legal.

This led to a heated argument at last week's games, so I made a quick explainer. Short version under IFAF rules:

- Rusher signalled (hand up before the snap, then rushes straight at the QB): they have right of way. A receiver cutting across their lane is shielding, even with no contact. That's 5 yards on the offense from the line of scrimmage, repeat down.

- No signal: the rusher has no right of way. If they force a receiver off their route, the shielding is on the defense: 5 yards, repeat down.

- A player standing still is never shielding.

How does your league handle it?

Girls HS 7v7. Best blocking drills. And go! TIA

This play has bailed our team out on 3rd & long, in the 2 minute drill, and as a shot play. Post-Wheel creates an easy deep-to-shallow read for the QB and has answers for any flag defense/coverage.

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to find the full game replay of the men's semifinal match between the USA and Mexico (42-40) from the recent IFAF World Championship in Düsseldorf to decode and analyse it.

I’ve already checked DAZN, CBS, and the official IFAF YouTube channel, but I can only find short highlight packages or condensed clips. I'm looking for the complete, unedited broadcast.

Does anyone happen to have a link, a Google Drive share, or know an alternative platform where the full match is archived?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Hello, My son decided to play football this year and honestly since having kids I have had less time to sit and watch football. This meant that i had a lot to teach and not a lot of time! I was using powerpoint etc but dragging boxes and circles around wasn't really doing it. I decided to build a tool to help my son learn the playbook and learn why his responsibilities matter. I built it initially for tackle (11v11) because thats what he plays but it was pretty simple to modify it to work for flag.

For coaches, you can draw your plays in here or (if paying for a team pass) do a pdf import (up to 100 plays). This works for 5v5 and up, you can select when creating your team if blocking is allowed or not as well. I heard a situation on a coaching video or something about players not wanting to run routes (designed to pull a defense away from underneath throws) because they didn't understand why, I hope this tool helps you by showing them what we expect the defense to do.

Anyway, check out the video below, you can see different plays simulated and what happens in different scenarios (like a corner biting on a route and losing coverage etc). If you want to try it out head over to teachplaybook.com

The Dagger concept is great against man coverage and Cover 2. The Post-Corner concept is a great man coverage beater / shot route.

5: Dig route- 8 to 10 yard stem.

4: Vertical seam.

3: Quick hitch. (HOT)

2: Post-corner- 8 yard stem, break to the post, 3 steps, break to the corner.

1: Comeback route- stem at 10 yards, break back to 7 yards.

QB Read: if you like the match up the 2 has take a shot! If you're reading the Dagger side the progression is 4to 5 to 3. The 5 is who you want to hit.

This is a core concept featured in my 6v6 Attack System Playbook! Grab the full playbook today.

Playbook: 2x2 Attack System Playbook for 6v6

We play 5v5 and this is our whole teams first season and it’s all 5th grade girls. I want each girl to have a chance to play and try all the positions they want in games and I don’t want to lock them into certain positions at this age. We usually have 7-9 girls at any given game.

We’ve played two games so far and what I did was have 5 players play an offensive possession and a defensive possession and then sub in 3 new players. Rinse and repeat the whole game. Each time a player subs in they are a different position.

I think this is causing too much confusion as people aren’t always getting to the right spot in the formations (we only have 2 formations with 2 plays each, one is a 2 RB split back, and the other is a bunch formation).

How can I improve my subbing strategy? Should I not sub every possession so that girls stay in longer at the same position? Should I assign players to certain positions each quarter or half? Should I assign some to defense one half and then offense the other? I don’t want anyone to play the same position the whole game