7-on-7

What a disappointment. I left the Groover farm a day early in order to play in a football scrimmage the following day. I was under the impression that it was going to be a full-contact, serious scrimmage, although when I got there I was informed it was going to be two-hand tag with helmets. You call that football?! Geez. The evening went wrong for a couple of reasons, mentioned below:

New Head Coach - This year our team got a new head coach. It was something to look forward to at first, since everyone seemed to blast last years 3-8 season on the previous head coach, but our joy has turned to tears for a couple of reasons. First of all, Coach Chuck is new, and since he is new, he doesn't know the experienced players from the unexperienced. So when it came time to put an offense together, he picked seniors and black kids. That didn't annoy me or anything...especially since I didn't get to play offense for even one down, and when I really was better then half the kids out there. Most of the black kids he picked are new to football and/or to our program, so they didn't know what they were doing. Also, he coached 10 years as a coach for 10 year-olds, so his playbook is just about pathetic. It is so basic that it is frustrating. We have talented wide-receivers, since almost all our offense for the past 8 years as a team has been passing, it seems so imprudent to swtich to an all-running offense. 50-50 would be great. Looking at things now, the real way we are going to win games is through defense; just don't let the other team score.

Sissy-Ball - Man, the other thing that bugged me was that we couldn't hit them. Gosh! Two-hand tag in football?! What is that?! By the end of the practice, I wanted to take every single one of those kids' heads off. If we had played a real game in pads, that team wouldn't have even scored. But they did, and more then us, for the next thing that ticked me off. Some of us (including myself)tackled them anyway, when it could possibly be confused with tripping over their feet and falling on them...heh.

Cheating - Techically, the other team wasn't, but as far as the practice goes, they were. You see, 7-on-7 is a game where you only pass. The offense starts at the 50 yard line, and has ten plays to score as many times as they can. Each time you score, you start back at the 50. Now, in a real football game, like when teams can run the football as well as pass, safteys (the centerfielders of football) start 10-12 yards back off the line of scrimmage so that they can have a head start on a wide-receiver who might go deep but still be close enough to the play if the other team runs. So, Westminister Catawba (the other team), knowing that we couldn't run, played their safteys 20 yards back, giving them a huge advantage. Also, a linebackers first read in a game is run. That means that they should take a step forward, expecting the run. Did their linebackers do that? Heck no. They backed up without even thinking. Just little things like that make a HUGE difference, especially when our coaches wanted us to play the game like we would for real. Na...it wasn't frustrating or anything...

We "play" them again Tuesday and maybe next Thursday. Hopefully we can change some things, get some pads, and have fun. Got to leave for practice in about 20 minutes. I'll keep you posted.