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General Offense Discussion / Re: Direct snap troubleshooting - too high
« Last post by gumby_in_co on Today at 02:05:45 AM »So lessons learned, now that the season is over.
We tried several kids at snapper over the season.
1) "L" was our snapper for most of the season. His snap was put together like a Rube Goldberg device. Every aspect had a key word, a technique or a "trick". If any one of those parts failed, the snap was doomed. He was horribly inconsistent. We'd get "too high" fixed, only to get "too far left" for a day or two out of the blue. We'd invent some contraption to fix that and we'd get "roll on the ground." That wasn't his main problem. Once we got all of his mechanics fixed, we discovered that he simply had "off days". These were days when the snapping side of his brain was pre-occupied with being sick, too hot, too cold, too bored, too mad, too sad, too . . . anyway. We fired him after the last regular season game because he simply wasn't the guy.
2) "Z" was happy go lucky and willing to please. He was the complete opposite of "L". All he was ever told was to fix his stance and "snap the ball". If the snap was too high, we'd tell him "bring it down a bit". Unfortunately, he lacked fine motor skills and was also inconsistent. We fired him the first practice after the last regular season game.
3) "B" was the biggest kid on the team. Big body, big hands. However, he could be a complete basket case. He asked if he could try snapping, so we let him. He was doing okay that practice until he got tired of it and "punished" us by snapping the ball all over the place. He even admitted to doing it on purpose because he wanted to play defense at that moment. Fired.
4) "J" was a blocking back and MLB. In game 2 when both C's were hitting around 30%, he rolled his eyes at me and asked, "Coach, can I please go snap the ball?" I had him do a few practice snaps and he was passable. Mahonz is always quick to point out that the kid played C as a 1st grader, but when I asked him, he had only snapped to a QB under C. Anyway, he got the job in week before our playoff game. He did fine in the playoffs.
The lesson learned is that getting the right guy is the most important thing. I've written thousands of words on what I look for in a C. We simply didn't have that kid on the roster in the first half of the season. It was still Sesame Street in pads. Just after the half way point, lights started going on for kids. It was at that point we should have looked for the right guy. Hind sight.
We tried several kids at snapper over the season.
1) "L" was our snapper for most of the season. His snap was put together like a Rube Goldberg device. Every aspect had a key word, a technique or a "trick". If any one of those parts failed, the snap was doomed. He was horribly inconsistent. We'd get "too high" fixed, only to get "too far left" for a day or two out of the blue. We'd invent some contraption to fix that and we'd get "roll on the ground." That wasn't his main problem. Once we got all of his mechanics fixed, we discovered that he simply had "off days". These were days when the snapping side of his brain was pre-occupied with being sick, too hot, too cold, too bored, too mad, too sad, too . . . anyway. We fired him after the last regular season game because he simply wasn't the guy.
2) "Z" was happy go lucky and willing to please. He was the complete opposite of "L". All he was ever told was to fix his stance and "snap the ball". If the snap was too high, we'd tell him "bring it down a bit". Unfortunately, he lacked fine motor skills and was also inconsistent. We fired him the first practice after the last regular season game.
3) "B" was the biggest kid on the team. Big body, big hands. However, he could be a complete basket case. He asked if he could try snapping, so we let him. He was doing okay that practice until he got tired of it and "punished" us by snapping the ball all over the place. He even admitted to doing it on purpose because he wanted to play defense at that moment. Fired.
4) "J" was a blocking back and MLB. In game 2 when both C's were hitting around 30%, he rolled his eyes at me and asked, "Coach, can I please go snap the ball?" I had him do a few practice snaps and he was passable. Mahonz is always quick to point out that the kid played C as a 1st grader, but when I asked him, he had only snapped to a QB under C. Anyway, he got the job in week before our playoff game. He did fine in the playoffs.
The lesson learned is that getting the right guy is the most important thing. I've written thousands of words on what I look for in a C. We simply didn't have that kid on the roster in the first half of the season. It was still Sesame Street in pads. Just after the half way point, lights started going on for kids. It was at that point we should have looked for the right guy. Hind sight.