Here is a tip to help speed up the amount of time it takes to teach plays to your team this season. I have been using Microsoft's Powerpoint for years to create my playbooks and the program still beats all of the other specialty software handles down. I started using a color coding process for the positions when I had a 7-8 year old team about ten years ago. The little guys were getting overloaded trying to figure who they were and where they were supposed to be going and I found myself wasting time trying to explain the same things over and over again.
The best part about color coding your playbook is that you can teach the players blocking assignments much more quickly. If you color the right tackle yellow and his assignbment is to get downfield for a linebacker, simply color the linebacker the same color. As soon as you hold up the playcard the player sees his color and immediately looks across the line of scrimmage for his correspondingly colored defender. It works and it works at many levels. Older players can figure out assignments for more defensive looks and shifts with this system and changing defenses in the program is as easy as copying and pasting.
Another benefit is if you print out page sized playcards and bring them to practice, the guys can pretty well see what they are supposed to do right in the huddle. You can get free templates from a website called Youthfootballhandbook (.com) by signing up for the coaches newsletter. Not only will you get a template but you will also receive some really awesome ( and FREE) stuff daily.
Good luck in your season and hopefully you will have success with this process.
There is also a video of this on Youtube by Erik Saunders - The Youtube channel can be found by typing in Football Academy in YouTube. there must be 50 videos on coaching youth football and they give all kind of stuff away including some playbooks and a practice planner.
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