Great Scrimmage Sunday

Thanks Blue and White teams for making a great scrimmage on Sunday afternoon. We saw so many good things!

I really appreciate your moms and dads sitting in the hot sun watching a little football. Hope they had fun too.

Thank You BVNW

Many thanks to Coach Tom Baird and the BVNW Huskies. What a great opportunity for our Black team to scrimmage one of the top teams in Johnson County.

Special thanks also to Coach Mike Zegunis of BVNW High School, who spoke with both teams after the scrimmage, and had a great message for our players.

I thought we were much improved defensively compared to our effort against them a year ago. Offensively, we've still go a ways to go. But we will get there.

Thanks parents for taking some of your Saturday to help us Get Better.

But What Would Scissors Mean?

I was teaching a little option football yesterday morning. I stopped two-thirds of our guys, an entire scrimmage, just to get a point across about blocking the midline as compared to blocking our regular option.

I won't bore you with all the details of that, for which I'm sure you are quite pleased.

But almost as an aside, I also mentioned that a quarterback could give a hand-signal behind his back to indicate his pre-snap read to the fullback. (Pre-snap read means the look of the alignment of the defense that the quarterback sees, and what his expectations are based on that look.) Basically, if we see the dive key read aligned inside the gap to which we're trying to dive - be it A, B, or C gap, depending on the option we are running - chances are we will not be handing off, and a hand signal prepares the fullback for a quick jump around the hole to help with the blocking.

I thought the hand signals we'd invented for them were pretty clever. If the quarterback sees that the dive gap looks promising, he clenches his fist behind his back, because the fist is equal to the rock, and the fullback is going to get the rock.

If the quarterback holds up an empty hand behind his back, he tells the fullback that he will get the empty hand - in other words, nothing at all, meaning a fake.

Being a wise and sagacious coach, I taught, then tested with a question:

"Now boys, if I use the closed fist behind my back like this, it means THE ROCK, and the rock means the ball, and the ball means the quarterback believes he's going to give the ball to the fullback." I said that and was mildly encouraged that nods of understanding were seen all around. So I continued, "Now boys, if I use the open hand behind my back like this, that means THE EMPTY HAND, and who can tell me what that should mean?" to which Jack B, nearly bursting with newfound understanding, shouted out, 

"Paper?!" 

It was a very entertaining moment for our assistant coaches.

Heat Practices This Week

We will be right on the edge tonight of being unable to practice due to heat. That may be the case all week.

Our plan will be to practice at 6:30 p.m. 6:25 p.m. until 8:25 p.m. Monday through Thursday this week in pads. If upon arrival we are heated out, we will shed the pads and walk through for an hour. Parents, check with us at drop-off to see which sort of practice we will be holding. Or, if you live close enough, you can check the FCCJC web site at 6:25 p.m. or so - if it is way over, you'll know it is a walk-through.