Winter League Flag Football

Winter league flag football is starting up on the westside. I got my step-son signed up for this league. It also looks like I will be coaching again, only thing is it's a 4on4 league with a 5 man roster. Well hopefully, this will tune him up for the Let-it-Fly tournament in February. For that tournament, I will be entering a team in the age 15 bracket. I can only put six on the roster. Right now i am gathering some individuals from the YMCA in this age and going to put them in the tourney.



Recently I have been doing alot of research about flag football leagues. There are quite a few leagues in Jax, but nothing like the great leagues up north. The one I have found so far:


Adult

• Jax Beach Parks and Rec runs a winter league, I think its the inaugural league. They run a 7v7 league
• Creek Athletic Association runs a 4on4 , so far i only saw for winter
• JAXPAL runs a 7on7 league during the summer and fall
• UNF runs a 4on4
• Jacksonville U also runs a 4on4

Youth

• First Coast YMCA run the NFL Youth Flag Football leagues 5v5
• I9 Sports have three leagues, i think its also 5v5
• Creeks Athletic Assoc runs a winter league that is 4v4, pretty competitive and a nice layout of the fields
• Westside Flag Football runs a winter league, 4v4. 2nd yr in existence
• JAXPAL runs a spring and fall season 5v5
• Upward Flag Football league is run by First Baptist of Jax. I think they only offer Spring.

Over the next several weeks I will look at leagues that are in play and provide insight, competitiveness, and entertainment value.

2007 Fall Season 3

Fall season started around Sept, of course the main core of the team was back, however I gained four new players. This season there was only five teams in Clay County YMCA competition. It seemed Barco wanted to do their own thing this time around. So five teams in total for the U15 league, three from Oakleaf and two from Dye-Clay. Eight game season with playing everybody twice in regular season. This time for the play book I ended up with 26 plays including one "cheesy" play, I'll explain that one later cause it worked like a charm. So here how the season went:

Spartans 45 Oakleaf #2 18

Spartans 27 Dye-Clay #1 14

Spartans 40 Oakleaf #2 20

Spartans 28 Dye-Clay #2 12

Spartans 48 Dye-Clay #1 24

Spartans 42 Oakleaf #3 6

Spartans 48 Oakleaf #3 9

Spartans 48 Dye-Clay #2 6

The final standings for the regular season were as follows:

Spartans 10-0

Dye-Clay #1 5-4

Oakleaf #2 5-5

Dye-Clay #2 3-6

Oakleaf #3 1-8

Playoff games were held in one day, we received a bye so that the 4th and 5th seeded teams played each other.

Semi-Final Game

Spartans 41 Dye-Clay#4 19

This game was decided in the first half. The Spartans were up 27-0 at the half, in the second half I worked in another QB. One thing i did note was the coach didn't come out to shake my hand after the game, oh well.

Championship Game

Spartans 55 Oakleaf #2 32

This game was unbelievable. The kids were hot and tired from the first game, actually both team were and later on it did played a factor in the game. This game went back and forth on scoring in the first half, the halftime score was 25-20 and the Spartans were down. Now these kids was never down to anybody at all during the season and this made them think that they were going to lose. Start of the second half we had the ball, my step some threw an interception and they ran it back for a TD. Now the kids were sweating big time being down 32-20. The next series of plays were a dropped pass and a mis-exchange on the handoff, so 3rd down to get to the first down marker. I saw in all the kids eyes that they were going to lose, so I called a time out and got them focused. The next play, a TD strike and then the kids felt it that they were going to win. The defense held them down, two back-back INTs and 3-n-outs, the other team didn't score another point. What a come back for this team, the parents and friends on the sidelines(at least 50) were going nuts. They were even doing the wave. It was an amazing season, I look forward to the spring season 2008, however I will be losing my start QB and grooming another one.

2007 Spring Season 2

After winning the fall 2006 championship, everyone was excited about NFL Flag Football at the YMCA. I had alot of requests for spring season. Pretty much the whole team came back with the exception of two player due to age. However, we ended up with seven players on the team.

Spring season is kinda different, no playoffs during the spring just regular season games. Which I found out with the weather in NE Florida, the storms can be a problem. Well with all the preparing, I drew up 24 plays for the season. I bought two play wrist bands for the players. One was for the QB, he pretty much had 18 plays on his wrist and 6 were played on the #1 WR. I know play calling can be a problem in the huddle, if you had played organized ball before its easy to say "curlzip/post/out/center slant on two" but i drew up the plays on the wrist band and color coded the routes for everybody to understand what they are doing. It was easy for me to call in the plays, for instance I would say "red 10" and the QB would look at play #10 and the WR "red" route is where the ball was going. It also worked out when changing players in and out of the game.

So the spring season, we were the team to beat. Again nine teams in the Clay County YMCA U15 league. Three from Oakleaf, Two from Dye-clay and Four from Barco. So here how the season shaped up:

Spartans 41 Oakleaf #3 6
Spartans 20 Oakleaf #3 7
Spartans 26 Dye-Clay #1 15
Spartans 34 Barco #1 42
Spartans 63 Barco #2 21
Spartans 55 Oakleaf #2 19
Spartans 66 Dye-Clay #2 14

We ended the season 6-1 tied for 1st place overall. The Spartans played the Barco #1 team in which both teams were evenly matched. However most of the games played during the spring season I had only five players for a game so during that game The Spartans were very tired. It went down to final seconds as we blocked a pass in their endzone and ended up dropping it in the final seconds. great game On to the fall 2007 season

Season One

Lets start at the beginning about the Oakleaf Spartans Flag Football. We moved out from the city into this new community development called Oakleaf Plantation in Clay county. My stepson, Tyler, who was 14 at the time, couldn't play tackle football at the local high school due to enrollment policies. So we looked took to Flag Football at the local YMCA in Oakleaf. Oakleaf YMCA is fairly new and with the idea of him playing NFL Youth Flag Football and me coaching should be no problem.

So I decided just to be an assistant coach, but as things turned out nobody wanted to be a head coach so I was urged to take the position by the Athletic Director. I figured no problem should be easy, I played all kinds of sports(softball, flag football, baseball and so on) but never got into coaching so I gave it a shot. If you have never played or coached NFL Youth Flag Football its played with 5v5 with a ten person roster.

Ok first season was the Fall season of 2006. I was coaching a U15 team, ages ranged from 13-15 yr olds. The schedule called for us to play eight regular season games plus the playoffs. There were a total of eight U15 teams playing at the Clay county YMCAs. Two at Oakleaf, three at Barco and three at Dye-Clay.

So here is the scores for season one: FYI I inserted my stepson at QB after game four.

Spartans 22 Oakleaf #2 28

Spartans 06 Dye-Clay #1 19

Spartans 14 Barco #1 73

Spartans 29 Oakleaf #2 33

Spartans 73 Barco #2 14

Spartans 68 Dye-Clay #2 21

Spartans 77 Dye-Clay #3 14

Spartans 39 Barco #3 43

So we ended up with a 3-5 record and all teams were seeded in the playoffs. Spartans ended up being seeded 6th. However the whole team was clicking on offense and defense going into the playoffs.

PLAYOFF GAME#1

#6 Spartans 33 #4 Dye-Clay #3 29

This game went down to the wire, we ended up coming back and scoring a TD within the final 30 sec.

PLAYOFF GAME #2

#6 Spartans 48 #1 Barco #1 21

We totally dominated this team on offense. I remember how badly they beat us before but that was when my stepson was out of town and not at QB. Also the #1 seeded team was undefeated.

Championship game

#6 Spartans 42 #2 Dye-Clay #1 29

This game went back and forth on scoring. We were up 36-29 with one minute to go and the other team was driving down to score. Lets just say there was a little excitement with this game. The other team was down to their last down and on our 10yd line so they needed to score. Of course the defense step up and pulled the flag just about the 2yd line . So the game was wrapped up, we had 30 sec and i told the kids to just run the clock out. Just hand the ball off and the game would be over. Nah, not to these kids, the QB did a WR lateral and the WR threw it all the way down field to the open WR for a score. Talk about rubbing it their faces. But hey, this was the first Championship that Oakleaf YMCA had won. Clay County U15 Champions...onto to the Spring Season