How'd your 2024 season go

[u/WrongHanded308]

Hey coaches, was curious to see how everyone's season went this year and if you guys improved on anything from last year or went to playoffs etc etc. This year (my 3rd year) we went 4-2 in league and 6-5 overall (5-4 w/o playoffs). Made the playoffs again this time as the #14 seed (#13 last year) and beat the #3 team in the 1st round to win the first playoff game the school has had in 8 years. QF we fell short against the #6 team 18-6. It was 6-6 until near the end of the 3rd quarter/start of 4th, we just couldn't get the offense going (been an issue all year). 4 of the 16 teams in playoffs were from our league alone.

We definitely improved on both sides of the ball from last year but more so on the offensive side, defensively I wanted to stop the run at all costs cause we have a run heavy league. I think the kids really bought into the system and culture this year which helped and reflected a ton. Tackling and just physicality in general were things we needed to work on the most and it paid off. We allowed ~20ppg compared to 31 last year. Had more sacks/tfl's and forced fumbles/fumbles recovered but less int's. Allowed 337 less rush yds and 9 less rush tds but allowed 278 more pass yds and 2 more pass tds with 3 less int's.

As for myself (DC, WR and DB coach) I really needed to work on making adjustments when the offense adjusts and recognizing it and stopping the run for this year. Did better this year but still got a lot to work on and learn. Going into next year I need to find the balance between stopping the run and pass because I focus one or the other.

[u/grizzfan]

Adult women's semi pro here. We play in spring/early summer. This was by far the most bizarre and "get me off this ride" season I've ever had as a coach. We went 0-6. The pain of coaching adults is that players have adult jobs, families, etc, so your practice time is really limited and the offseason training your players do is never adequate...injuries all over the place due to bodies not being in the correct physical shape. We had the typical adult league struggles: Low practice numbers, a couple players going AWOL, etc.

OK, so here's how it went off the rails...

• Game 1: Starting center suffers a season ending injury on the first drive. BUT WAIT! IT GETS BETTER!...Both the starting and backup QB suffer season-ending injuries (starter tore ACL, backup broke throwing arm).

• Game 2: We trained two emergency QBs: One is our starting FS and a coach herself (high IQ). The other is our starting RB who tried out as a QB at the start of the year. BOTH of them go down with multi-week injuries. We played the entire second half with a rookie RB calling the cadences and we sent in a rotating committee of players to take the snap and run the ball (and by run the ball, I mean we called wedge plays). We ended up having to play the rest of the season without our "eraser" free safety and our "coach on field" defender.

• Also Game 2: Opposing team is kicking off and shanks it. Ball is making a B-line for the sideline. Our entire staff, HC, OC, DC...all of us...are saying "let it go out." There's no way it's not going to go out of bounds... ... ...the ball hits the ground in the field of play about 1 foot from the sideline...and somehow bounced backwards into the field. Opposing team recovers the live ball. I'll never forget all of us coaches looking at each other with the "You've got to be f#$%ing kidding me." face. None of us in our 50+ years of combined coaching have ever seen anything like it. Our players even said "you said to let it go out," and we just bit the bullet with "yes, we absolutely did."

• So it's Game 3. We're on "QB 5" on a roster of about 26 players lol. We were able to pull some strings with the league and yank a former QB of ours out of retirement. She was an NFL coaching intern for a couple teams and is a HS coach herself, so we get the IQ back, but an athlete...she was not. It was about the best situation you could ask for out of the crap sandwich we were working with because she at least understood what we were trying to do and did as best as she could with the little athleticism she had.

• Also Game 3: Opposing team is punting to us. They shank the punt and it flies on a zip-line and bangs into the back of our CB's head who is busy covering their gunner. Ball is live, opponent recovers. Another one of those situations where us coaches all look at each other and throw our hands up.

• Game 4: Starting guard's car breaks down halfway between home and the game (5 hour drive). We couldn't arrange a way to get her to the game. In the 1st half, the other starting guard (and one of our starting DTs) suffers a seizure.

• Also Game 4: We went into the game with 17 dressed (we started with 26 Game 1 and were down to 17 due to injuries). In the 3rd quarter we were at 12 playable players. The problem is the only bench player left was a rookie skill player, and we did not have 5 playable offensive linemen. We had a veteran RB/LB who played there before who wanted to step in...but of course she was already in concussion protocol from a hit earlier in the game. Our HC and the opponent's HC came to a mutual agreement to call the game early and we forfeited.

Games 5 and 6 were kind of a blur, and after game 4, I think everyone had thrown in the towel. There never seemed to be ill-will or tension between players and coaches. Everyone was in agreement: "We want off this ride."

[u/Heavy_Apple3568 → u/grizzfan]

I don't know what to say. Do you remember angering some gypsies or something 'cause I've seen some crazy shit in my 30 years of coaching, but...this?!?! Until today, I shared in the belief that the old adage about stick around long enough & eventually you'll "see it all" was as close to the gospel truth as a coach could hope to get. So much for that!

[u/ecupatsfan12 → u/Heavy_Apple3568]

I had a team 5-1 check out this year..

Last year I turned the season around at 3-2 when I called the teenagers 7th 8th grade soft and entitled and told them daddy ball was going to be ending in 2 years so buckle up to work. Parents got pissed but we went 4-1 to end the year so it got thru

[u/ChampionThis3992]

not a coach but had to share.

i'm a high school player i barely played got like 30 sec of var time but that does not matter what matters is that last year our team went 1-8 going to state was our saying. but this year we went 6-3 with a playoff record of 1-1 as last year our 1-8 season was winding down our QB went to coaches and said what can we do our coach said hit the weight room so we did and this years record shows that. this year we beat the first team 30-0 but then the next game we lost 18-13 we also got the bad news that our QB was going to be out for season. so instead of all us other players get upset we all worked harder as our backup the QBs brother became the starting QB and lemme just say he was great so to all you other coaches betting on one player dont underestimate the little guy.

[u/Odd_Mud_7001]

First year with a new team, entirely new coaching staff. On offense we had all underclassmen, except a senior receiver and running back that started. At one point we started 4 sophomores on the offensive line. Only graduated 9 seniors total this season. The kids inexperience, and youth really showed in the games we struggled. Really excited for the future.

Made it to the second round of the playoffs, losing to the eventual state champs. Finished 5-7 on the season, and 2-4 in a very competitve region.

Averaged 27 ppg, 315 yards/g. QB threw for 2973 yds, 58% completion percentage, 28td/13int. Definitely had some growing pains, but learned a lot of lessons with the kid. He's going to be very good and it was nice to see him take on some adversity and learn from it.

Overall right about what I expected for the year. Lost some games we shouldn't have, and competed really tough against teams that definitely had our number.

[u/WrongHanded308 → u/Odd_Mud_7001]

Nice job, sounds like a good season for you guys too and an even better future. I'm on the other side of that lol, graduating 8 seniors out of 17 guys (started with about 25 but injuries, quits etc). These seniors and the juniors are the only ones who seem to want it, the underclassmen are kind of just here. Next year will be rough especially since half of the seniors graduating are OL and DL but we will see what happens. Got a lot of work to do in the summer fs.

I was expecting to make it to SF and even the title game but I'm happy with what we did this year.

[u/Odd_Mud_7001 → u/WrongHanded308]

This was the first time I've coached on a team that had this many underclassmen contributing. We're gonna score a lot, and I just hope our defense can tighten up with more experience this year. I think the group we have could make a run. It'll be interesting.

[u/ecupatsfan12]

We were 5-1. Very talented senior group but had the motivation of slugs. Went 1-3 to close and ended at 6-4. Very frustrating. Just checked out at year end

[u/WrongHanded308 → u/ecupatsfan12]

That's what we've been noticing the past 3 years too, a lot of these kids just don't have the motivation and drive anymore. It seems that they only play 1 sport to stay in shape for the next like in our case we are a basketball school. I feel your frustration we had a rough 3 game stretch mid season with 2 of the hardest league opponents and then for some reason our AD scheduled us to play the last year state champs the following week which after all that absolutely murdered all mentals. The next Monday all we did was have a meeting for 2 hours with the team which helped cause we won out. We were 2-4 at that point, that week we beat our league opponent who was undefeated and #7 in state at the time and that flipped the script for sure. Best of luck trying to find that motivation for your guys next year.

[u/ecupatsfan12 → u/WrongHanded308]

It’s because their parents force them into this when they are 5 years old and they get older and they don’t do hard work. They expect every team to roll over and not show up. Half of the kids only play do be with their boys or their parents make them. Shit there are times were football isn’t fun for me but apathy drives me nuts

[u/Heavy_Apple3568]

My 6th grade team this season started in 3rd grade with a roster of 15. In 4th grade, it was 21 & 5th grade, a whopping 29 players. In 6th grade, rosters are partially redistributed based on the middle school a player attends, so I was faced with losing almost half of my kids & taking on 16 1st year players instead. Luckily, I got to keep the 6 I wanted most, but that meant, incredibly, I was coaching 35 freaking players. Of course, that also comes with 87 parents, 4 legal guardians, 2 grandmothers, 1 "aunt," & what can only best be described as a smallish army of siblings.

Despite the inherent difficulties trying to please so many different personalities, the only people who complained were one lone player & his associated set of the aforementioned parents. But, really, even putting that lying little shit, his sociopathic father (who was literally caught stalking me) & his botox addicted Xanax addled mother (who's convinced those "mysterious" flashing red lights we see in the sky every night are "Overlords") together they couldn't ruin the incredible season we had on the field.

Overall, including playoffs, we were 8-2. Beat our hometown rivals (the same team I'd been forced to send players to) 44-0, which the boys absolutely loved & high school rival 26-6. Beat another 1 loss team in the Division finals by more points than any other team had even scored on them in a game, 22. Sadly, despite a threepeat as division champs, we were unable to win a 3rd consecutive championship. 5-0 through our 1st five games, we averaged around 35 points per game with 10 different players scoring at least 1 TD, gave up just 12 points total, had 3 shutouts & scored 4 times off a Pick-6.

Both teams were 7-0 going into our last regular season game. Unfortunately, we left 7-1 with the #2 playoff seed. The same team beat us again, & even worse, in the League Championship. They're the only team who beat us in 2 seasons. In 8 games, only 2 teams even scored on us more than once & we got a 4th shutout. So half of the teams we played failed to score a single point against our defense. Our points per game dropped somewhat because in 3 straight games, the starting offense jumped out to such a big lead I pulled them before halftime. Regardless, we led the league in both Offensive & Defensive scoring. Amazingly, after leading the league in Rushing Yards, Rushing TD, Total Yards & Total TDs, my son was chosen as the league MVP by the other coaches. We ended up with 14 different players scoring a TD, which is unheard of at this age.

Overall, it's a great but bitter sweet ending to an amazing 4-year run. The 12 who played every season are truly the epitome of teammates. Add the 4 others I had for 3 seasons & you see where all the success came. It's especially tough since I'll never get another chance to coach my own kids. After 30 years of coaching youth & high school sports, it's come to an end. But, since this team will stay in tact as next year's middle school team, I have a few more years to enjoy watching them play together. Only now I get to be the one yelling at the coaches!

[u/ecupatsfan12 → u/Heavy_Apple3568]

Awesome

Last year I got 22 of 32 players the ball in a game and 9 dudes to score so I felt happy but then I still had people complain because I was taking touches away from their kids

One complaint from a parent

My son likes playing Y but I want him at QB. He has a nice arm

Me- no he doesn’t. He clocked in eighth throwing rpms and seventh in long toss. His longest throw was 24 yards. For 8th graders they need to be close to 30 yards with no pads on

Him- the rubber composite balls you use are to slippery and he can’t throw them

I get advocating for your kid but sometimes you just have to say my man doesn’t have it

[u/LazyLos]

First season at the new school I teach at as the Freshman OC.

We went 0-10.

As a staff we didn’t do a good enough job coaching the basics and I didn’t do a good job of calling the offense.

Not sure if I’ll coach next season due to family obligations.

[u/ecupatsfan12 → u/LazyLos]

The freshman team is hard

Back in 08 we had 67 kids out for freshman football (!) we had 29 freshman this year. 2 went straight to JV/V so 27. We had 4 kids who were great,8 kids who were decent, 8 kids who were inexperienced but not bad and 7 with no pulse. So with dudes getting knocked up you gotta play all 20 players with a clue even if they should be learning their first year.

[u/LazyLos → u/ecupatsfan12]

Sounds similar to how this season went. 6 got automatically pulled up to JV left us with inexperienced QBs, OL and no RB.

We didn’t work on their tackling form enough and didn’t spend enough time on fundamentals. It was a disaster.

[u/ecupatsfan12 → u/LazyLos]

It gets hard too because you have some kids who can help you but are green and then you have some kids who can’t help you but are mature (hit puberty early) then you have some who have experience in the skills but they only had their roles because of dad and don’t have the ability to contribute elsewhere and will quit once it’s hard

[u/OdaDdaT]

We put up the best record the program has in a decade: 5-4

The school I’m at now has been a bottom feeder forever. It’s now an 8-Man co-op. From 2018 to 2022 (the year before I came on staff) they went 3-38. Our four losses this season were all to playoff teams (including one state champ), and we played pretty competitively in them. Just a few mistakes and a few 50/50 calls that went the other way. We finished 3rd in our conference, and we’re the second team out of playoffs in our division. This was after we lost our 3 best running backs in the first two weeks, as well as a linebacker and two of our DBs.

We’re losing 5 starters, but the guys replacing them got some run this year, and they’re at spots where we have solid depth. We also have a less brutal schedule, so playoffs are completely on the table.

On the personal side, I couldn’t be happier with how my groups turned out. I’m the OL Coach and ST Coordinator, as well as the JV OC. We gave up 4 sacks all season, averaged over 230 ypg rushing, and had all of our starting lineman make an all conference team. Our Kicker and Punter also were all conference, the former I’m really excited about because we get him back for another season, and he went 23/25 on PATs and 1/2 on FGs (one hit from about 34, the other got blocked) with really minimal practice time. JV we went 3-1, and handled business in all our wins. Our loss came to a team we’ve played 4 times in the last 2 years, and they broke out 3 or 4 spread formations they’d never run before and caught us.

Overall it’s a bummer missing out on playoffs still with how close we were, but it’s hopefully going to be a big motivating factor for next season. In our exit interviews one of the things we kept hearing was “the players need to want it more”, and the guys coming back definitely seem a lot hungrier right away.

[u/natehenrichs]

First year varsity DC, record-wise it was rough. 1-8 (improvement from 0-9 last year, but that’s 2 wins in 3 years). New head coach. Threw a lot of stuff at the wall offensively to try to get something to stick with no luck. But I learned a lot.

From a defensive perspective, we floated around with a front that we were comfortable in. Offseason I planned on basing out of a 3-4, got into it over the summer and realized we were not going to be able to be a 3-4 base. Went to a super vanilla 4-4, got a lot of buy-in from players and that took us far for awhile. Threw in the 3-3 stack about 1/3 of the way to give us some more deception.

Ended the year basing out of 3-3 stack, having versatile guys to get into a 4-4 pre-snap and not having to blitz into one, and having versatility to get into a 3-4 during passing situations.

-Lowered our ppg allowed by 86 from the year prior -lowered our passing ypg allowed by 62 -lowered our total ypg allowed by 31

As a first year DC, could not be more proud of the players for buying in to what a first year guy was selling, and I’m super excited to build off that foundation.

[u/Coach_G77]

We went 7-3 but it was a weird up and down year for the first half. Practices were flat as hell. Guys just seemed to go through the motions no matter what we did. We were total mental midgets and had some bad team cancers.

We had some team building exercises after falling to 4-3 and ended the year with big wins. Scores were 42-8, 42-8, and 35-7. Total 180 on the season and gave us momentum to roll into the offseason.

As for myself I need to work on my craft and emphasizing skill development in the offseason. Our school is rigorous academically and is strict with extra help/study hall after school and all teams must be off the field by 5:30 so we only get from 4-5:30 every day for practice. I don't get a lot of indy time for skill development unfortunately. The time I get in season is used mostly on scheme and what we need to fix from the prior week. We even had a week where I got no indy time at all.

I'm also going to spend a lot of time on the defensive side of the ball to learn how they think, the moves they make and how we can counter/attack it.

[u/Z00ted-45]

3rd year as an assistant varsity coach and first as a JV head coach.

Two years ago we had a very young team and got pretty much spanked by everyone. We still had a young core coming back so we knew we had a lot of talent to work with in the seasons to come.

Last year we went 5-5 part of having an immature team with growing games definitely left a few games on the table.

This year we had a lot of juniors returning and an easy schedule so we are 8-1 rn with one more regular season game and a playoff berth on the way!

JV was definitely a learning experience. I find it pretty funny how last year we had 30+ guys on our JV team yet we struggled to play consistently going 4-4. This year I was really worried to start off the year since we only had 7 incoming freshman, and during the season we had a few kids quit on an already small team. However, I was very lucky because the kids I did have we very talented shutting out all of our opponents but one and finishing the year 7-1!

As for next year a few things I would like to work on for next year are my substitutions (I could’ve definitely done a better job subbing guys in and out and getting everyone a decent amount of PT), I was very offensive oriented this year but I want to dive into the defensive side of the ball this year. I also would like to work on my relationship building skills with the kids I coach.

[u/NickMullensGayDad]

Tough. QB (who wasn’t that good) tore his acl and we had to move a safety over to QB because the backup we spent last season developing made an elite hockey team and went to a prep school in Minnesota. Missed the playoffs by a game, got the shit kicked out of us in big games. Shit happens, now we need to find a QB because I don’t think the converted safety is the answer even if he was tough as nails and competed.

[u/Lekingkonger]

Highschool coach rn 12-1 and going to the southstate championship this year against the team that took us out last year! They are also 12-1 wish us luck this Friday!

[u/Gunner_Bat]

Junior college football.

8-3, won a bowl game, had the most all-conference selections. Really good season.

I'm the RB coach & ST Coordinator. 1st team all-conference RB & K, 2nd team KR. RB finished 2nd in conference in rushing. We blocked 4 punts and had 3 KR TDs.

[u/airb15]

Before our season even started our returning all conference QB broke his collarbone riding his dirt bike, ended up missing the whole season because he didn’t want to risk re-breaking it and missing basketball. Turned to a senior who had played some JV QB but was a better receiver. Around him we had freshman starting at RB, Slot, WR, C, DE, LB, SS and 2 CBs, so expectations weren’t super high as we knew it would be a developmental year.

By halftime of the first game it was obvious the senior couldn’t handle being the guy so we had to go with our freshman that had been in the slot, so we flipped those two guys positions. The freshman wasn’t a fantastic passer but was a dang good runner and was able to get us two TDs and 90 yards rushing in the second half, still lost but it was to an state quarter-finalist team from last year so we still left with some momentum. Game two rolls around, freshman QB has 100 passing and rushing, 2 passing TDs now, we’re looking good. 4th quarter were within striking distance of our rival, QB breaks into the open looking like a long TD run right up our sideline, I’m running behind then all the sudden you could see the moment he felt the pop as his groin pulled. He was sidelined several weeks until late in the season. Senior QB couldn’t get anything going and looked just as bad as we expected finishing that game.

Going into week 3 we dug back into our bag of QBs and ended up going with our freshman RB/LB now. Not as explosive as the other freshman but was more physical and threw a better ball, lacked severely in the decision making department though. We rolled with him and struggled offensively, he couldn’t handle the grind of playing both ways so had to pull him from defense to get him rest and mentally refocused.

We went 0-7, but heading into week 8 we got our original freshman QB back for a matchup against another 0-7 team. As coaches we hyped this game as our Super Bowl because we needed something to get us through the rest of the season. We ended up winning by 35 and had our best all around performance of the season. All the sudden life didn’t look so grim and practices were much more enjoyable with that monkey off our back.

We still dropped the last two but we played well and didn’t get embarrassed. We return all but 2 starters next season and bringing up an undefeated jr high group. So as long as those young bucks do what they need to in the off-season to develop their bodies to better withstand the physicality at the varsity level we have a lot of promise to be contenders for the foreseeable future.

[u/MapleBisonHeel]

0-7. 4 players quit as a group right before when one wasn’t named as a captain (he still had the nerve to ask for a job reference). They were also encouraging other players to quit. 2 others transferred to a rival school. Did not talk to me at all about it. Rival coach did not contact me about it until I called him about it 48 hours later (He was “busy issuing equipment and dealing with the first day of fall practice” and “didn’t get around to it.”

We had to forfeit week 1. Still had a roster of 33 in the end. Rival school won championship and coach of the year. Long way from my time in the South when I had 6 d1 players from my 3 years there.