A football game about coaching kids

First
Huddle
Football

Teach the game. Build the team.

Every team starts somewhere.

Play now Watch it move

This is the game, not a trailer. Every clip here was recorded from it.

What you do

You coach nine- and ten-year-olds who do not know football yet. Teach them, draw their plays, answer their parents, and take your city to the state final.

Six things you do in it

Pictures of the game, doing the talking

The teaching view. Marks show who is lost while the play runs. Afterward the game lists who, and why.
1

Teach kids who do not know football yet

Your kids stand and watch. They block the wrong kid. They forget where to go.

The teaching view shows who was lost on the last play, and why. Practice is where you fix it.

The play editor. Pick the tailback, draw his sweep, toss him the ball, then run it with kids who know it cold.
2

Draw your own plays

Pick a kid. Draw where he runs. Tell him what to do when he gets there.

The game checks the rules, runs your play against a defense, and tells you in plain words how it went.

A juke, pressed as the tackler arrives. The line after the play says what your press did.
3

Throw, cut, juke and tackle yourself

Take over a kid on any down. Throw to the receiver you pick. Cut, juke, stiff-arm, wrap up.

When your press decides a play, the game tells you so in one line.

Kofi's dad, from the fence. The coach sends an assistant over to stand with him.
4

Parents with real voices

A dad at the fence tells your corner to forget what you taught him. Now the kid has two bosses.

You have four answers. The grown-ups on the sideline speak out loud, and every one of them is for somebody.

A street in Miami. Four Mississippis, a throw, and a touchdown past the trash cans.
5

Football on the block

Touch in the street, tackle in the grass. Step on the sidewalk and you are out.

Captains pick sides. The rusher counts his Mississippis. You play until the streetlights come on.

A state final. The stands are full, and the announcer calls the play in a caption.
6

Your city, your team, a state final

Choose where you coach: eight cities, a small town, or out in the country.

Five Saturdays in your league. The best record plays for the city. The city's winner plays for the state.

The kids

What makes a kid

Thirty-six things are true about every kid on your team. You never see them as numbers. You find them out by watching him at practice and on Saturday.

His body

Changes as he grows.

  • Speed
  • Burst
  • Agility
  • Strength
  • Stamina
  • Coordination
  • Balance

His skills

Change with reps.

  • Ball security
  • Ball handling
  • Catching
  • Throwing
  • Snapping
  • Blocking
  • Getting off blocks
  • Tackling
  • Coverage
  • Footwork
  • Kicking

What he understands

Changes with teaching.

  • Find the ball
  • Hand-off or fake?
  • Own your gap
  • Run or pass?
  • Take an angle
  • What do I do next?
  • Hold the edge
  • Stay with your man
  • Guard your part of the field
  • The hand-off
  • Who do I block?
  • Run your route

His heart

Changes with how he is treated.

  • Confidence
  • Likes contact
  • Attention
  • Loves the game
  • Trust in coach
  • Bounces back
The YFL shield

The league

The YFL

Every team in the game plays in one invented league, the YFL: your league, then your city, then your state.

  • Owls
  • Rams
  • Hornets
  • Bulldogs

The sound

The league has its own songs

The songs that play in the game, on the bus, over the loudspeaker at the state final. Press one. Made with AI music tools.

Pick a songEleven songs
0:000:00

    Read it. Run it.

    The books

    Coach Larry's Playbook for coaches, and How to Play for kids at three reading levels. Every play in the book has a square: scan it and the game runs that play.

    Look inside the books

    Coming

    What is coming

    Also next: the announcer's voice. Today he talks in captions. The clips on this page have no sound.