Registration Begins Saturday

Football registration begins this Saturday!  Our club is tracking 71 named players that have either played with us before or expressed an interest. We expect to have four teams - one will play in the Blue Valley League, and three will play in FCCJC.

Not all of those 71 will play - but others will sign up that we don't know about today, so we could certainly approach 70 players. I believe that we will have the largest fifth grade football club in the Kansas City area.

The first FCCJC sign-up is this Saturday from 10 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. out at the Heritage Park football complex at 162nd and Pflumm.

Coach Darius Lecthenberger sent an E-Mail to the Blue Valley league prospects this morning about their sign up process, which also begins this Saturday.

Below are the details - be sure you sign up for the league in which you intend to play.

Blue Valley League Sign Up Process (Swinford)

1. Register on-line. On this site - http://bvfc.goalline.ca/ there is a menu option on the left that says On-Line registration. You can pay the league fee ($210) by credit card during the registration. Be sure to list Coach Swinford as the coach.
2. Attend the equipment checkout on Saturday, May 22nd, 8-11am, at the offices of Blue Valley Football Club, located at 6730 W. 153rd St., Overland Park, KS 66223
1. If you can't make that equipment check-out, there will be four other equipment check-out sessions at Lakewood Middle School throughout the summer (6/12, 6/26, 7/10, and 7/17).
2. Be sure to bring your receipts from on-line registration to the equipment check-out that you attend
3. If you are a new player to the Blue Valley Football Club, you will need to bring BOTH a copy of your birth certificate AND a current grade report or student ID. You must have both items to register with the league, as they have both age and grade specific registration.
3. If you have any questions at all about the process or what you need, E-Mail Coach Darius Lechtenberger at darius@lm-energy.com.

FCCJC Sign Up Process (Adam)

1. Attend one of the five registration Saturdays at Heritage Football Complex at 162nd and Pflumm. The dates include this Saturday, 5/22, as well as 6/12, 6/26, 7/10, and 7/24. They go from 10 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the lines can be long early.
2. If you are a returning player, bring your FCCJC player card to registration. If you are a new player (or can't find your player card) bring a copy of your birth certificate and a grade card or student ID proving your grade.
3. There are three potential fees that you can pay at registration
1. Raffle tickets - these are yours as part of your registration price, available to sell to family and and friends if you prefer, or to buy outright at registration for your own use. They cost $160, and if you would rather sell them and pay later, the team will collect the money for them in mid August. Whether you buy them yourself or sell them to others, you can use them to enter a drawing for some pretty good prizes passed out in mid September.
2. Equipment rental - if you will  be renting equipment (shoulder pads and helmet) from the league, the rental price is $65.00. If you have your own equipment, you should bring it with you to registration to be checked and verified.
3. Physical - a doctor's physical is required. You may use your own physician as long as the physical has been performed no earlier than February 1, 2010. Or, if it is more convenient, you may use the doctor present at the registration. The fee for the registration physical is $20.
4. At registration you will be weighed and fitted for any equipment you rent. See more specific information right here or contact Coach Adam at any time at CoachJimAdam@gmail.com

MU and Nebraska

Well, nobody said the prediction business was easy.

I could KC Star this and say well, technically, Missouri hasn't been offered a Big 10 spot yet. Nyah, nyah, nyah. So I might still end up being right about the expansion plans of the Big Ten.

But then I would be a weasel, and I'm just not a weasel.  I was wrong about whether the Big Ten would offer Missouri a spot.  They have.  And I now, despite a lackluster record predicting this stuff, boldly predict - Missouri will go. Nebraska may not, Notre Dame will not, but if Rutgers makes the jump too then the Big Ten will go for Pittsburgh or some other Big East school shortly after announcing the offer and acceptance of Missouri and Rutgers to join the Big Ten.

I don't know this - but don't you imagine that Jim Delany told those four schools that the first three to accept were in, and put a deadline on it for the leadership of those schools? I'd deny it had been offered of course, because NOBODY turns me down - but recognizing that the pressure is mine to apply right now, there would be an end of May deadline for Round 1 of expansion.  If I get all four, yippee, then I choose my 16th team during June, and I'd have plenty that would want to be that magical last school in the first and biggest and best of the new mega-conferences. If I get two or three of the schools and one is Notre Dame, then I go for 16 by going after two or three more from my second tier of candidates in Round 2.

If I get everybody but Notre Dame, there is no Round 2 for now, and I stand pat with 14 teams.

From Delany's point of view, he must imagine that Notre Dame probably won't go. Nebraska and Missouri might not go either - these are high stakes games, and if Texas decides they want to keep one or both of those schools in their little playpen, and push the Big 12 toward western dominance, Delany would realize that the Longhorns could probably make it happen with an aggressive television and revenue sharing plan.

So he might be left with only Rutgers, and then he's at a nice even twelve teams and has added the NY/NJ market to his television share. That is a no-lose situation, even though the big prizes turned him down. He would presumably look east for further expansion at some later time.

But I don't think Texas really cares to stop Missouri from leaving. So MU is probably gone, the Big Ten will get two or three of these four they've offered, and the college conference landscape is clearly on the move.

Logical Progressions of the Option

When we went to the "true" triple option in 2009, logical necessity quickly established the Midline option as another version of the option we would run.

Our regular option dives at the B gap (the hole between our guard and tackle) and reads what we call the #4 man.  I've written many paragraphs in our playbook and even made videos about the numbering system on our password protected site about this option. In the interest of brevity for this article, lets just say that the #4 man is very often the defensive tackle.

Here's a drawing of our standard (inside) option play:

Notice that the fullback runs to the gap between the guard and center. Against this five-man front, we get to 'option block' the defensive tackle that is circled T4 above. If our offensive tackle gets past him to the inside, then we can hand the ball to the fullback.

But what happens if the defense lines up in a 4-4? Here's a picture of our offense lined up against that sort of defense:

We could run the same play - E becomes the #4 man. But with a defensive tackle over our guard AND the  defensive end over our tackle, it becomes more difficult to read the B gap effectively. If, for example, the defense slants to the outside, chances are that the defensive tackle will jam up the hole between our guard and tackle. Our quarterback could make a perfect read of the defensive end, hand the ball to the fullback, and we'd still not run a successful play, because the defense overloaded the gap to which we were trying to run.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the Midline option is a better call against this defense. For the midline, the dive path and dive read key change. Instead of running between the guard and tackle, the fullback runs just outside of the center. Instead of reading the #4 man for the dive, we read the first down lineman to the option side of the center. Here's a drawing:

By shifting the dive key read to the first man to the option side of the center, the option block shifts to the play-side guard. If he can get inside and out to the linebacker, he does, and that becomes a 'give' read.

If you look at both option plays, you'll notice that we prefer to call the option that allows our fullback a two-hole window. In the first drawing, there is no player lined up over the guard, potentially opening both the A gap and the B gap. In the second drawing there is no player lined up over the center, leaving both A gaps potentially open.  We call these two consecutive open gaps 'the bubble.' We prefer to run our dive to the bubble, wherever it may be.

Let's really complicate things: Imagine that our our opponent decides to put a defender directly in BOTH of the gaps to which we'd like to run. Here's an eight-man front that seems to take away both the inside and midline dive options:

By playing linemen in both the A and B gaps, this defense attempts to take away both dive options. So while the center is technically uncovered, it is unlikely that our guard will ever get inside his opponent, and the fullback would appear to be taken away for the Midline. Likewise the B gap is occupied as well, complicating our regular option. But there is a bubble in this defense. Between our tackle and our A back there is an open  gap. That is the C gap, and the Veer option attempts to exploit that gap.

The Veer option play we created was the direct result of playing against an eight-man-line during a pre-season scrimmage last summer. By shifting the option dive path to the C gap, we could once again run to the bubble and force player B4 to make a decision - fullback or quarterback.

By the end of last season we had three different versions of the option play available, and managed to use all of them to one degree or another in our games.

But in our Black squad's seventh game we ran into a different sort of problem. The defense wisely changed its scheme from down to down. They played a 5-3 defense as shown in the first diagram above, but also would periodically shift to an 'eagle under' look, where their defensive tackles would line up on our guards, rather than our tackles. The veer option would have been a great alternative against that eagle-under defense. But we didn't know which defense we would be seeing when we broke the huddle. THAT was a very frustrating day, and our boys at nine-years-old, in our first year running the true triple option, just couldn't understand quickly enough who to block.

I knew that we could run some option successfully, but I couldn't know until we lined up which one. So it seemed to me that an "Option On Me" scheme would be most effective. In "Option On Me" systems, the quarterback calls whichever option he wants to run at the line of scrimmage.

If he sees an eagle under look, or an even front shaded to the inside, or a gap 8 defense, he can call for the veer option. If he sees a wide tackle six or a four-four, he can call for the midline. Against nearly all odd fronts he can call for our standard inside option.

We will work on this system both with and without a huddle this summer. I'm excited to see if we can do it.

Meeting Venue Changed

We've been kicked out of Prairie Trail Junior High at the last minute. Our meeting location tonight is now the Meadow Lane multi purpose room.

Coaching Questionnaire, Just for Fun

Before being selected to be a coach in FCCJC, a prospect is interviewed by the area director. The recommended questions, and my tongue-in-cheek answers below:

Q: Why do you want to volunteer to coach?
A: Volunteer? I'm not paid??


Q: How much of your time can you afford to give to coaching?
A: Well, as long as it doesn't interfere with KU football. Or soccer. Or business trips. Or family time. Or weekends at the lake. I'm good with that.


Q: What is your coaching philosophy?
A: Know the minimum playing-time requirements.


Q: What is your coaching style?
A: If the kids don't get it, yell louder.


Q: What do you want the kids to gain from having you as their coach?
A: 20 pounds each, fear of failure, and coach-induced asthma


Q: What do want to gain personally from the coaching experience?
A: A trophy (wife).


Q: Do you have any experience working with groups of children?
A: Just in Internet chat rooms. Why? Is something wrong with that?


Q: What are your disciplinary techniques?
A: A rolled up newspaper works sometimes. Other times I grab kids by the handlebar - I mean face mask - and I really get their attention.


Q: What do you consider your strengths?
A: I'm a great referee from the sideline - never miss a call.


Q: What do you consider your weaknesses?
A: You're kidding, right?


Q: Are you familiar with the rules of the sport?
A: Here's my golden rule #1: It ain't cheatin' if you don't get caught


Q: Are you familiar with how to teach the basic fundamentals of the sport?
A: Yes. I gather them together at the very first practice, and I look them each right in the eye, and I say "MEN - we've got one job here, and one job only, that working together we WILL accomplish - make ME look good."

News From College Football

College fans take note - this is a big week for the Big Ten, and therefore all of college football.

Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution points out that Wednesday may be the day of reckoning. Yesterday Big 10 commissioner Jim Delaney met with some of his presidents at an academic association meeting, where he reportedly was to have had some expansion discussions.  Tuesday Delaney will be in a meeting with all 11 BCS conference commissioners, where he could give them a previously promised notification if the Big 10 plans on pursuing any of their members.

If the Big 10 attempts to get to 16, that means five new teams. My guess for five that would fit: Rutgers, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Texas, and Notre Dame.

But it won't quite happen. The Texas legislature just won't stand for UT going where Baylor and A&M can't, and Notre Dame isn't ready to concede conference necessity just yet. So while Delaney will pursue Texas and talk to Missouri, the MU talk is a red herring to improve the play for Texas. If the Longhorns and Irish sit tight, the Big Twelve will emerge unscathed, and the Big Ten will take on a Big East flavor with three new teams.

If by some miracle Notre Dame jumps and Texas isn't permitted, then Mizzou might be in play for balance - but then the Big Ten might just choose to add two Big East schools, and still end up with just three additions. Bottom line - I think the odds are long that Missouri goes, however much they'd prefer it.

ONW Ravens 2018 Football Club

Here we grow again.

For the second off-season in a row, your coaches have been planning for the addition of new players. We've also had discussions with Cedar Creek coaches Wes Swinford and Darius Lechtenberger about their team participating in our club, and they will be present for you to meet at our information meeting next month.

Last year the ONW Black and ONW Blue teams each had 19 players. The Cedar Creek team carried 16 players. Of the 54 players on our combined teams, 38 were brand new to tackle football.

How many players will we have in 2010?

Will we add 38 new football players again this year? We don't think so. But if we add just eight new players (we lost Andrew C from ONW Blue - his family has moved to Alabama) then we will have four teams playing in the club. Here's a table showing the possibilities:

Net New Players	Number of Teams
7 - 21	4
22 - 36	5
37 +	6

The crystal ball says that we should net 10 to 15 new players, and have about 16 or 17 players on each of four different teams. But that's anybody's guess really, and the meeting we will have in May will help inform us of what to expect.

What's the right size for a team?

We never want to turn away players. But we also don't want so many kids on one team that playing time becomes a difficult issue. We believe that an appropriate size for a team 15 to 18 players, provided the team has scrimmage partner teams practicing at the same time.

We believe that each team should have at least four coaches. (We were a little bit short of that last year on the FCCJC side, with six dads covering the two teams. )

Why is there a club now? Is it different than last year?

We're forming a club because we want to enjoy the economies of scale that a large group can provide. We can share sponsorship, equipment, coaching expertise, events, marketing, correspondence, uniforms. All the little off-the-field details that are both time-consuming and necessary for every team can be coordinated.

It is somewhat different than last year for all of us because we will all be part of a larger group. Coaching responsibilities will be adjusted a little. The FCCJC league won't allow one coach to handle three teams, and only by exception will  they allow one coach to handle two teams. We're still working out the details of all that, and should know more at the meeting.

We will practice in a different location - fifth graders use the practice field that is just east of the track at Olathe Northwest. We are working hard to be able to light the practice field later in the fall, to avoid starting practice at such an early time in the waning weeks of the season.

Our vision is that each 5th grader playing football next fall, whether in FCCJC or Blue Valley, be a member of the ONW Ravens 2018 Football Club.

When do we sign up? Where do we sign up?


The available FCCJC sign-ups are May 22nd, June 12th, June 26th, July 10th, and July 24th at the FCCJC complex at 162nd and Pflumm. The Blue Valley League signups can be handled by the team or individually. We will be sending E-Mails in advance of each sign up.

If you played for one of the three ONW teams last year, we encourage you to sign up again in the same league for this year. If you prefer to change leagues, that is always a prerogative. But know that as coaches we are committed to growing the club, not the individual teams, so we are just as happy having you involved with any one of our teams as with any other.

How many teams will there be in each league?

We don't know the answer to that yet. It will depend on the signups. If we had to guess today, we would guess three teams in FCCJC, and one team in the Blue Valley league. But no one knows for sure.

Who will coach the teams?

Coach Adam will coach at least one, and perhaps two FCCJC teams. The third FCCJC head coach is TBD. We expect Coach Swinford to again be the head coach again of a Blue Valley league team. For games, only FCCJC coaches will coach in FCCJC leagues, and BV coaches in the BV leauge. Both sets of coaches are subject to league rules that limit their participation to teams in their own league.

In FCCJC Paulo Koch and Steve McGavran have agreed to help coach, which brings us to eight. That is still a little light for three teams, but we're working on it.

Will the FCCJC teams have a placement period again?

It will depend on the signup numbers, and how many new players we have. But it seems likely that we will. The first couple of weeks of practice will help us get everybody on the right team. Non-contact begins Monday, July 26th!

Where can we get more information?

We are having a meeting on Tuesday May 4th at 7 p.m. in the Prairie Trail auditorium. Everyone interested in football this fall is encouraged to come. You can meet the coaches, other parents, other players, etc. You can learn about volunteer opportunities and what tackle football is all about. We will talk about camps that are available, our philosophy as coaches, calendar dates upcoming, and answer all your football questions. And we will cast our vision of a football club, talk about what it means and what we hope to accomplish in the coming years. We hope that you will join us, and we look forward to meeting with each of you.