One Long Saturday Afternoon of Football
September 13, 2008
Ouch! Today was one long afternoon of youth football. Sean had another football game this afternoon. Luckily, the weather held out and it was only about 90 degrees. Unfortunately, the other team showed up and we got slaughtered by a score of 42 – 0. It might have been worse as its possible I lost track of a score or two there.
We played the Nogales team today who is historically the cream of the crop in rural SE Arizona. Our biggest issue when we play some of these teams isn’t necessarily size (we are always the smallest), but numbers. The Nogales team had over 30 kids on their roster today. We had 13 and 1 got hurt early in the game.
It’s not the playing both ways that hurts us, its the lack of ability to practice. We just don’t have any way to run offense against defense and vice versa and it shows. I said size isn’t the differentiating factor but Nogales did have a 6′ 4″ 11 year old kid on their roster. He was a bean pole and a bit awkward, but did catch a couple of passes.
I have to give our kids credit for trying hard and playing hard the whole game. Sean again led the team in tackles including a half a dozen or so for losses. He even had one tackle for a loss of about 20 yards and forced a fumble though he failed to recover it. I still think his strong suit is defense as he has a pretty good nose for the ball. Sometimes he thinks too much instead of just going, but we are working on that. He also needs to learn to hit a bit harder and attack the ball carrier instead of waiting for him to come to him, but a well played game defensively.
On offense, Sean has been made the center because the other kids have a tendency to botch the snap or forget to block. Last week, I was a bit miffed at Sean as he and the QB botched about 5 snaps. I spent some time this week working on technique with him (having been a QB myself growing up) on making sure the QB gets the ball and how to block while ensuring the snap is complete. It seemed to help as they didn’t have a single botched snap all day.
As I think I have mentioned before, Sean really wanted to play with the older kids this year because he has been playing with them the last couple years and plays baseball with them. However, his birthday is one week on the wrong side of deadline so he plays with the younger kids. I was talking to the coach of the older kids today and he was really wishing he had Sean as they could use him. All of the age group teams suffer from the same issue as our team: numbers. Its just so hard to practice if you have less than a full offense and defense squad.
Next week, we have an away game. It will be about a 75 minute drive to the game. It’s against the boys that barely beat us last week, so it could be interesting. I had hoped to take some pictures this week, but lost track of time this morning and ran out of time to get my camera stuff together. Since its an away game, we will go as a family (instead of two cars at different times for home games) so maybe I can get some pics next week. I would like to get some video footage one week too.
Sean’s Team Loses Opener
September 7, 2008
Sean’s football team started their season this weekend. Unfortunately, they didn’t start it out on the right foot. They lost a close game by a score of 14 – 12, losing by missing their two extra points, while the other team made both of them.
The game was actually pretty sloppy and ugly, which is to be expected for the first game of the season. Neither team was able to generate much offense. It definitely was a defensive struggle.
Our first touchdown came in the first quarter on an interception. The kid stepped in front of a pass and raced about 50 yards for a touchdown. A couple of series later, the team from Douglas scored when their halfback raced 70 yards on a running play for a touchdown. Both of these score occurred in the first quarter. Since Douglas made their extra point and we did not, the score was 7 – 6.
The score remained that way until late in the fourth quarter. With less than a minute remaining and hope looking lost for our team. However, suddenly, the same kid that intercepted the pass, ran up the middle for a 50 yard touchdown. He broke several tackles along the way. I think that 50 yard run gave us about 70 yards of total offense for the game. Again, the extra point wasn’t good, but we were still up 12 – 7.
However, on the ensuing kickoff, the Douglas team raced about 70 yards down field before being tackled at the 5 yard line. Two plays later (and a timeout), they scored a touchdown and an extra point to take the lead again for good at 14 – 12. We did manage to get the kickoff and run two plays but they both gained no yardage before the gun sounded.
To have a chance this season, are kids are going to have to figure out how to play offense. The Douglas kids were probably twice the size of our kids, but that’s not a good excuse. We completely failed to execute on blocking. Defense was a whole lot better. Except for the one long run, they did a pretty good job of containing the Douglas offense.
Next Saturday is also a home game and I will try to get a few pictures during the game…
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