The State of Youth Football Play Calling: Fall Season Halftime Report
Fall season halftime report
The State of Youth
Football Play Calling
Halfway through the fall season, youth football coaches are drawing and leaning toward the following strategies: Spread formation, Mesh play concepts and trick plays.
By Coach Ray Carroll · Plays drawn Aug 1 to Oct 9, 2026
RC Football · Halftime Report · Fall 202601
First-half box score
The stat sheet at the half
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Who's on the field
The ball is spotted where the coaches are
Share of coaches who drew in each format. Many coach more than one, so it adds up past 100.
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The call sheet
The plays coaches call most
Share of coaches who drew an offensive play naming the concept. Diagrams are our own illustrations of each concept.
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Formations
Everybody lines up in Spread
5v5 Spread: two wide, a slot, quarterback and back. Spread is the most-drawn formation in all four formats, and Trips is second wherever enough coaches drew one to rank.
5v5
43%
of coaches drew Spread
#2 Trips · 23%
6v6 and 7v7
75%
of coaches drew Spread
#2 Trips · 31%
8v8 and 9v9
55%
of coaches drew Spread
11v11
27%
of coaches drew Spread
#2 Trips · 10%
RC Football · Halftime Report · Fall 202605
Final cuts
What makes the playbook
Built a team playbook
29%
Coaches who moved plays they drew into a team playbook, our closest signal to a play that gets called on game day.
Formations and plays: share of coaches. Designed run: share of plays. Four Verticals makes the cut most.
RC Football · Halftime Report · Fall 202606
The route tree
Coaches throw it deep
5v5 flag
11v11 tackle
Each coach’s pass routes by type, averaged across coaches. Thicker line, more often drawn. Gold is the most-drawn route.
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Sideline requests
The routes coaches ask the AI for
- 1Out51%
- 2Post50%
- 3Go37%
- 4Slant36%
- 5Corner36%
- 6Flat34%
- 7Wheel30%
- 8Drag16%
Share of coaches whose requests named the route at least once. Outs and posts lead, ahead of the go route coaches draw most by hand.
RC Football · Halftime Report · Fall 202608
Matchup
Flag vs tackle
Flag
5v5
7-on-7
6v6 / 7v7
Tackle
11v11
Share of the typical coach’s plays. Gold marks each row’s highest. Tackle runs the ball most; flag lives underneath.
RC Football · Halftime Report · Fall 202609
Defense
76% of defenses are zone
Deep zones
43%
Underneath
48%
Where coaches put their zone defenders. Each box is that job’s share of all the zone assignments coaches drew, so the field adds up to 100%. Wider box, more often assigned.
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Calling it in
How coaches talk to the AI
Name a player
Requests that direct one player, like the slot on a wheel.
Under 40 characters
A quick instruction, not a paragraph.
Edit, don't create
Change a play the coach already has.
Asked for motion
Coaches who asked for motion or a jet.
RC Football · Halftime Report · Fall 202611
The gap
At the half: trick plays, not game plans
Asked the AI for a trick play
20%
Reverses, fakes, laterals, something to confuse the defense.
Asked to beat a coverage
8%
A play built for man, zone or a blitz.
Asked for a situation
6%
Red zone, goal line, third down.
Most coaches know the routes they like. Far fewer build a plan for the coverage they’ll see Saturday. Start with beating man and beating zone.
RC Football · Halftime Report · Fall 202612
How we counted
The fine print
Coaches, not plays
Every figure is a share of coaches, so one prolific coach can't tilt a ranking.
10-coach minimum
Nothing is reported with fewer coaches behind it.
No templates
Staff accounts, our play library, copies of it and any diagram three or more coaches saved unchanged are excluded.
Hand-drawn routes
Named by their shape: stem depth, break direction, climb or settle. Agrees with 87.5% of routes that carry a name.
Private by design
Aggregated and de-identified. No coach is quoted and no coach's play is shown.
The window
Plays drawn and AI requests made Aug 1 to Oct 9, 2026. "Made the playbook" means the coach added the play to a team playbook.
More detail on the methodology page. Free to cite and reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. Data as JSON.
RC Football · Halftime Report · Fall 202613
Draw a playbook that
doesn’t look like everyone else’s
See it live: rc-football.com/research
Cite as: RC Football, The State of Youth Football Play Calling: Fall Season Halftime Report, rc-football.com/research/youth-football-play-calling-halftime-report
RC Football · Halftime Report · Fall 202614