Coach's Report: Mountain Brook Athletics 5th grade Colts

Coach's Report:

Pat Cope

Mountain Brook Athletics 5th grade Colts

Birmingham, Alabama

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I coached a group of 5th graders in Birmingham, Alabama this year. After using the Reed based single wing a couple of years ago, this year I got all of Dave Cisar's stuff and put it in.

My team had a 8-2 record and won our league championship. We scored the most points in the league, allowed the least, and dominated time of possession. I don't consider myself a particularly good coach, so I give all the credit for this year's success to the great coaches at the Single Wing Etc. Football Forum who helped me out tremendeously.

What I learned This Year:

1) The single wing absolutely eats up the clock. The biggest reason our defense was good was because they didn't have to be on the field much.

2)16 power, the base play of the single wing, will over the course of a game absolutely wear a defense out. Even when we struggled with it early in games, it ALWAYS worked late. In a couple of tight games we played I was having trouble with my play calling in the second half, so I defaulted to 16 power. We then ran it down their throats and even though the defense knew it was coming, there wasn't a darn thing they could do about it.

3)The single wing offense makes your team tough, both offensively and defensively.

4) The single hardest point to teach the running backs was to run a wide loop on sweeps. They always want to cut it up too soon. I should have repped it more.

5) My best blocking AND tackling drill was a 3 on three sweep drill. Two lead blockers and a ball carrier against a defensive end, linebacker and defensive back. The kids loved it.

6)Dynamic warm ups are great - kids get loose in a lot less time and the kids seem to like it much better than traditional warm ups.

7) I told them at the beginning of the year that I would only make them run if they blew their mental assignments in practice. The threat of wind sprints increased their concentration a thousand fold.

8)When the defense cheats to the strong side you can throw to the backside tight end all day long.

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Single-Wing Sentinel Editor's Note: Congratulations to Coach Pat Cope & his Colts!

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