Log every kind of play

Everything on this page happens on one screen. Learn the run play and the pass play and you've got ninety percent of a Friday night. The rest is here for when the rest of the game happens.

The game screen

Top to bottom:

• The score bug: both crests, both scores, and the quarter buttons underneath.
• The current drive: which drive it is, how many plays, how many yards, where it started and where the ball is now.
• ADD PLAY: the big button. You'll hit this one forty times.
• Quick actions: Kicking Game, Penalty, We Scored, They Scored.
• SCORING: every score in the game, and what the try was.
• PLAY LOG: everything you've entered, newest first. Tap one to edit it.

If ADD PLAY isn't there, the game is marked final. Reopen it from the menu to keep entering plays. When the game starts, tap Mark live so the app knows it's on. See marking it live.

How the app talks about the field

Every spot is written from your team's point of view, in the words a coach already uses:

• Own 35 is your own 35.
• 50 is midfield.
• Opponent 42 is their 42.
• Touchdown! is the end zone you're driving toward.

In the tighter rows of the play log these shorten to O35, 50, P42 and TD. The app uses the same words everywhere, including the export, so a spreadsheet reads the way the screen did.

A run play

Five taps and a save.

1. Tap ADD PLAY.

2. Formation. Tap the chip. They're in the order you set in the playbook. If you're reaching past three rows for your base set, go reorder them.

3. Play. Tap the call.

4. Direction. Left, Middle or Right. You pick it here every time instead of building it into the play's name, and that's what lets the app tell you later that you run right on 3rd and short.

5. Ball carrier. The grid opens on Key players, your starred handful. When a lineman comes up with the ball, switch to Full roster with the control above the grid.

6. Spot the ball. See below. It's the one control worth two minutes of reading.

7. Tap Save. You're back on the game screen with the drive updated, ready for the next snap.

A pass play

Same as a run, except the app asks who threw it and what happened. Pick a play whose type is pass and three extra fields show up.

1. Passer. The app suggests whoever threw the last pass in this game, so a quarterback who plays the whole night is already selected. Tapping the suggested player keeps him. It doesn't deselect him.

2. Result. Four buttons:

   Result	Then the app asks	Spot the ball at
   Complete	Receiver, the app reminds you if you skip it	Where he was brought down
   Incomplete	Target, optional	Leave it at the line of scrimmage
   Interception	Target, optional	Where the ball changed hands
   Sack	Target, optional	Where he was dropped, behind the line

3. Name the target on an incompletion. It costs one tap, and it's the only way the app can tell you who you're throwing at as well as who's catching.

Spot the ball

You'll use this on nearly every play, and it's laid out so you don't have to look down for long.

• Four quick buttons cover most snaps in one tap. On a normal play they are No gain, -5, +5 and +10.
• The slider is coarse. Use it to get near.
• The − and + steppers are exact. Use them to land on the yard.
• The big number above the strip is the gain, not the yard line, because the gain is what you're actually deciding. It goes red when the play lost yards and green in the end zone.
• The field strip underneath shows where the play started and where it ended, with your own end zone on the left, the way you're facing it.

The quick buttons change with the job. On a kick they become 25 / 30 / 35 / 40: the distances a high-school kicking game actually produces. On a return they become No return / 5 / 10 / 20, and they run the correct direction for whoever is carrying it.

A touchdown has its own button on the form, Touchdown!, so you never have to drag the slider to the end of the field.

Down & distance

The app tracks it for you and shows it at the top of the Add Play form. Tap it to fix it after a penalty, a replay of down, or anything else the app couldn't have known.

Down and distance only describes the play. The app never overrules you with it and never refuses a play because the numbers look wrong. If you set 2nd & 4, that's what the record says.

A touchdown, and the try

1. Log the play as normal, and either spot the ball in the end zone or tap the Touchdown! button on the spot picker.

2. Save. The game screen shows a prompt: "Touchdown on play #23 · Add the points and the try". Tap it.

3. The scoring sheet opens with the six points already filled in and the scorer suggested from the play. Confirm the scorer, and whether it was a run or a pass.

4. The try. Three choices: PAT (1 point), 2 Point (2 points), or No try. Then how it was attempted (Run, Pass, Kick) and whether it was Good or No good.

A field goal and a safety are complete as they stand. The app does not ask for a try on either.

The kicking game

Punts, kickoffs and both returns go in through one door: Kicking Game on the game screen. Pick which of the four it was, and the form asks only for what that play needs.

Punt

A punt is a scrimmage snap, so it carries a down and distance (4th & 8) like any other play.

1. Punter: who kicked it.

2. Kick direction: left, middle, right.

3. Kick traveled to: where the ball was caught, picked up, downed or went out. This is what measures the punt: from your line of scrimmage to here.

4. Returned to: their new line of scrimmage. Leave it where it landed if there was no return. The app carries the landing spot forward for you, so an untouched punt takes no extra taps.

Punt into the end zone and leave it there and the app reads it as a touchback, not a 20-yard return: the ball is placed on the 20 by rule, nobody carried it, and the return is recorded as zero. The punt's net (distance minus return) is what appears in your kicking stats.

Kickoff

Same shape as a punt, minus the down and distance: a kickoff is not a down. Kicker, direction, Kick traveled to, Returned to.

Under the drive rule this app uses, the kickoff is what closes the drive. Score, then log the kickoff, and the drive is properly finished. Skip it and the drive is left hanging open. That's why the game screen offers you the kickoff the moment a score goes in.

Punt return and kickoff return

Learn this part once. It's the part that's easiest to get wrong. A return has three separate spots, and each one means something different.

So return yards are measured from the catch, not from their snap. Measuring from the snap would credit your returner with every yard the other team's leg produced, which is what makes kickoff-return numbers look backwards in a spreadsheet.

1. Returner: who brought it back.

2. Set where the ball reached you.

3. Set where it was returned to. The catch spot follows into this box until you move it, so a fair catch or no return takes no extra work. Leave it where you caught it.

Penalties

There are two ways in, for two different moments.

A flag on a play you're already writing down

Inside the Add Play form, under Flags, turn on Penalty. Say whether it was On us or On them, and whether it was Accepted. That's it.

A flag with no play attached

For a dead-ball foul or a flag between snaps, use the Penalty quick action on the game screen. It asks who it was on, the type, accepted or declined, and where the ball ends up, then LOG PENALTY.

Bad snap

It's a switch inside the Add Play form, under Flags. It's there and not on the game screen because you only know it was a bad snap once you're already writing the play down.

Ending a drive

Most of the time you do not have to do anything: a touchdown, a punt or a kickoff ends the drive on its own. When it ends some other way, use Drive ended with at the bottom of the Add Play form. It offers four endings, and the drive continues unless you pick one. The app sets the others itself: touchdown, field goal, punt and interception.

• Turnover on Downs
• Fumble Lost
• Safety
• End of Half

Points that didn't come off a play call

A punt returned all the way, a pick six, a field goal, anything they scored: none of these have a formation or a direction to log. Use the two quick actions:

• We Scored: opens the scoring sheet on a return touchdown, with the try, and no play call to fill in.
• They Scored: the same for the other side. Their points, their try.

The prompts

The game screen watches what you enter and offers the next step, so you don't have to remember it. Each prompt is a card you tap. It shows up once and then gets out of the way.

On that last one the app asks instead of deciding, because only you know which flag it was and which way it was taken.

Undo, edit, delete

• Undo: on the Last play card. It's the fastest fix for a play entered by mistake.
• Edit: tap any play in the play log. You can edit everything, including the kicking-game fields. Tap a punt in the log to go back and add the punter you skipped.
• Delete: from the same place. Every play after it is renumbered and re-spotted automatically, so deleting play 12 of 40 doesn't leave you with a broken game.

Two coaches, one game

Everyone on your staff can enter plays into the same game at the same time, on their own phone or iPad, and every play shows up on everyone's screen as it lands. A common setup is an assistant entering plays on an iPad while the coordinator keeps Coach's Read open on a phone.

None of it waits for a signal. Plays save on the device the instant you tap Save and sync when the phone finds a bar. If two coaches both enter a play while out of signal and end up with the same play number, the app fixes the numbering when they reconnect. It sorts that out afterward instead of checking with the server on every tap, because a play clock doesn't wait for a server.