Frequently asked questions

About XO Gridmaker

What is XO Gridmaker?

XO Gridmaker is a football coaching workspace for designing plays, organizing playbooks, planning practices, running the team, reviewing game film, and taking the plan to the sideline. It works on phones, tablets, and computers, with printable wristband cards when you need paper.

Who is it for?

Flag football, youth tackle, middle school, and 7v7 coaches — plus anyone who coaches their own kids at the kitchen table. It was built by a coach for coaches who want a faster alternative to slide software, whiteboards, and napkin sketches.

How is this different from drawing plays in slide software?

XO Gridmaker understands football. Players have positions, routes are route trees, formations are formations — not just shapes. That means the app can animate plays, keep them legible at any size, share them as live pages instead of static images, and feed structured data to Coach Cal so its suggestions are grounded in real X's and O's.

Pricing & plans

Is XO Gridmaker free?

Yes. The free plan includes one active team with up to 8 plays, the full editor, calendar, a roster of up to 12 players, unlimited parent access, printable call sheets, and 10 Coach Cal prompts. Team Coach supports up to 3 active teams with unlimited plays and players, assistant-coach collaboration, wristbands, Game Mode, practice plans, and Coach Cal with a monthly usage allowance. Archived seasons do not count toward the active-team limit. See the pricing page for current plan details.Yes. The free plan includes one active team with up to 8 plays, the full editor, calendar, a roster of up to 12 players, unlimited parent access, printable call sheets, and 10 Coach Cal prompts. Team Coach supports up to 3 active teams with unlimited plays and players, assistant-coach collaboration, wristbands, Game Mode, practice plans, and Coach Cal with a monthly usage allowance. Archived seasons do not count toward the active-team limit.

Can my whole staff use one Team Coach plan?

Team Coach includes 3 collaborator seats — enough for a small staff. Beyond that, extra seats are $3/seat/month, billed to the head coach. If an assistant already has their own Team Coach plan, they don't count against your seats — they ride on their own subscription.Team Coach includes 3 collaborator seats — enough for a small staff, and you can add more seats for a larger staff. If an assistant already has their own Team Coach plan, they don't count against your seats — they ride on their own subscription.

What's included with Team Coach?

Everything in the free plan, plus up to 3 active teams with unlimited plays, unlimited players, assistant-coach collaboration, Game Mode, wristbands, practice plans, playbook history, and Coach Cal — the AI coaching partner — with a monthly usage allowance. Archived seasons do not count toward the active-team limit. Film Room is available separately as an optional Team Coach add-on.

Plays, formations & print

What formations and play types does it support?

Both offense and defense, across 5v5 flag, 6v6 flag, 7v7, and 11-man formations. You can draw routes, blocks, motions, and zones. Formations and route semantics are preserved as structured data, not just lines on a canvas.

Can I print wristband-sized play cards?

Yes. Playbooks have a print view designed for wristband cards and sideline sheets. Plays scale cleanly so the drawings stay readable at small sizes.

Can I export my plays?

Yes — you can print playbooks and export the page to PDF from your browser. Individual plays can be shared as links that render cleanly on any device.

Does it work on the sideline?

It runs in the browser on phones and tablets, so you can pull up your playbook during a game without installing anything. Most coaches design on a laptop and reference on a phone at the field.

Is there a mobile app?

Yes — XO Gridmaker is available as a native app on iOS (App Store) and Android (Google Play), with offline playbook downloads for the sideline, Game Mode with screen-keep-awake and optional GPS venue tagging on game sessions, native sharing through the OS share sheet, and the same play-design editor as the desktop experience. Every feature also runs in any mobile browser if you prefer not to install.

Sharing & team

Can I share plays with players and parents?

Yes. Every play and playbook can be shared by link. Players and parents don't need an account to view — they open the link on any device and see a clean, animated view of the play.

What is Game Mode?

Game Mode is a sideline-first view included with Team Coach. Open a play full-screen, tap the field to run motion and the snap, then tag the outcome with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. When the game ends, save the session with score and notes — your call log becomes data you can use to see what's working and refine your playbook between games.

Devices & Paper Mode

Paper Mode is the e-ink-optimized Android experience for coaches who want a focused digital playbook on the sideline.

What is Paper Mode?

Paper Mode applies a high-contrast, low-motion display profile and opens Paper View — a focused football playbook for searching saved plays, reading notes, tapping through animation, sketching a blank play, and entering Game Mode. Supported BOOX readers are detected automatically in the Android app, and the full app remains available from the avatar menu.

What tablets are recommended for Paper Mode?

A tablet needs to run the Android operating system and have access to the Google Play Store so you can download and install XO Gridmaker. At this time, the only e-ink tablet we have tested is the BOOX Note Air5 C. Other Android e-ink tablets may work, but we do not recommend a specific model until we have tested it.

Does an e-ink tablet need Google Play?

A tablet needs to run the Android operating system and have access to the Google Play Store so you can download and install XO Gridmaker.

Does Paper Mode work offline?

Yes, after the Android app has synced the playbook. Paper View is part of the app's offline playbook workflow, so saved play diagrams remain available when the field has weak service or no signal.

Can I draw plays in Paper Mode?

Paper View is primarily for reviewing and calling saved plays. A coach or editor can also create a blank play and use a pen-first canvas with prominent Clear and Save actions for a quick sideline sketch. Switch to the full app for the complete editing workflow.

Film Room — private team video review

Film Room keeps game and practice video beside the team, schedule, and playbook it belongs to. Coaches can break down a full game, teach from the exact frame, and control when finished film becomes visible to approved team members.

What is Film Room?

Film Room is XO Gridmaker's private football video-review workspace. Upload individual plays, a batch of short clips, or one continuous full game; mark and trim play segments; pause or frame-step; add timed visual coaching notes; create clips; and discuss specific moments with your team.

Can Film Room break down an entire game?

Yes. Upload the full recording once, mark each snap with built-in pre-roll, and drag either edge to correct the start or finish. Each play opens independently for review and annotation while timeouts, halftime, and other gaps stay out of the play list.

What can I add while reviewing film?

Pause or frame-step to the coaching moment, then draw freehand or add a point, arrow, circle, or wrapping text box. Save the markup with a timestamped note and choose the exact start and stop for how long it stays visible. Notes can be edited, resolved, filtered, searched, replied to, and shared with a link that opens on the marked frame.

Is Film Room private?

Yes. Uploads begin as coach-only drafts and are not public. A team owner controls who can upload, whether athletes can view and comment, whether downloads are allowed, and whether team members may create external links. Secure playback links expire quickly, and external sharing can be turned off at any time. If a video includes capture time and GPS, Film Room may match it to a game or practice on the team calendar when only one event fits; exact coordinates stay owner-only and out of playback.

Can players and parents see Film Room video?

Only when the team owner enables athlete viewing and a coach explicitly shares the film. Until then, the upload stays a coach-only draft. A team owner can separately enable secure external sharing; turning it off immediately invalidates existing external links.

How much does Film Room cost?

Film Room is an optional add-on for Team Coach, which is $9/month or $99/year. Film Room HD is $15/month or $149/year with 25 stored hours and playback up to 1080p. Film Room 4K is a separate base plan at $25/month or $249/year. It uses the same single 25-hour library, with up to 10 hours preserved in 4K and the rest in HD. Eligible first-time Film Room customers can choose HD or 4K for one 7-day free trial total. A card is required, and the selected plan starts automatically after the trial unless canceled first. Optional 25-hour blocks add HD capacity only and cost $5/month or $49/year.Film Room is an optional Team Coach add-on with 25 stored hours included. Paid Film Room plans and trials are unavailable in the app.

What happens to my film if I cancel Film Room?

For a personal Film Room trial or plan started through checkout, Film Room stays active through the end of the trial or paid billing period when you schedule a cancellation. Once access ends, uploads and playback stop, but we hold that film for 30 days in case you restart. Restart before the exact deadline shown in Film Room and the deletion is canceled. If you don’t, the video and its playback copies are permanently deleted after 30 days. A failed payment does not start this clock while payment recovery is in progress. Film paid for by a league follows the league’s subscription.

What happens when I reach the Film Room storage limit?

Film Room shows warnings at 75% and 90% of stored capacity. At 100%, new uploads pause, but existing film remains available. XO Gridmaker does not automatically charge for more capacity or delete video; remove film or choose an additional capacity block when you are ready.

Where can I learn how to use Film Room?

The Film Room Learning Center guide walks through privacy setup, individual-play and full-game uploads, play breakdown, annotations, clips, comments, and team sharing. The video will be added to that same page after the final YouTube recording is published.

Coach Cal — your AI coaching partner

Coach Cal is the AI assistant included with the Team Coach plan. It knows football, knows your playbook, and can do real work — generate plays, review your playbook, plan practice, and answer the questions you'd otherwise text another coach about.

What is Coach Cal?

Coach Cal is the AI coaching partner included with the Team Coach plan. You chat with Coach Cal in the app — about a specific play, about your whole playbook, or about coaching in general — and it answers using a curated football knowledge base plus the actual contents of your playbook (when you give it permission).

What can Coach Cal actually do?

Coach Cal can: generate full plays from a description, draft a whole starter playbook for a variant (5v5 flag, 6v6 flag, 7v7, etc.), review your existing playbook and call out gaps or weaknesses, suggest counters to a specific defense, propose practice plans built around the plays you already have, adjust your playbook to your team's skill level, and answer coaching questions grounded in age-appropriate fundamentals.

Can Coach Cal really create plays for me, or just give advice?

Both. Coach Cal can write plays directly into your playbook — formations, routes, motions, tags — that you can then edit by hand in the same editor you'd use yourself. It's not a chatbot wrapper around screenshots; it speaks the same structured-play format that the editor uses, so generated plays animate, print, and share like any other play.

Does Coach Cal know about my playbook?

Coach Cal can be scoped to a specific playbook so it sees the formations, plays, tags, and notes you've created. By default the chat is general-purpose; when you open it from a playbook page or toggle the playbook scope, it pulls in that playbook's contents so suggestions are grounded in what your team actually runs.

Does Coach Cal work for my age level and football variant?

Yes. The knowledge base has age-tier-aware content (8u flag through middle school and high school) and is segmented by variant (5v5 flag, 6v6 flag, 7v7, 11-man tackle). When Coach Cal answers, it weights advice toward what's appropriate for your level — practice templates, drill suggestions, and play complexity all adjust.

How much does Coach Cal cost?

Coach Cal is included with the Team Coach plan at $9/month (or $99/year) — no separate AI subscription. A monthly Cal usage allowance is included.Coach Cal is included with the Team Coach plan — no separate AI subscription. A monthly Cal usage allowance is included.

How is Coach Cal usage measured?

Usage reflects the work Coach Cal performs, not the number of messages you send. A quick coaching question uses little capacity; generating plays, reviewing a full playbook, or analyzing an image uses more. Most coaches will not see a meter during ordinary use. If you approach your monthly allowance, Cal shows the percentage used and you can add more capacity or wait for the allowance to reset.Usage reflects the work Coach Cal performs, not the number of messages you send. A quick coaching question uses little capacity; generating plays, reviewing a full playbook, or analyzing an image uses more. Most coaches will not see a meter during ordinary use. If you approach your monthly allowance, Cal shows the percentage used and you can wait for the allowance to reset.

Can Coach Cal help me plan practice?

Yes — practice planning is a first-class capability. Coach Cal can build practice plans with timed blocks, parallel activities (Skill / Line / Specialists), drill suggestions tied to the plays in your playbook, and equipment requirements. You can save the result as a Practice Plan inside the playbook.

Can Coach Cal review my playbook for weaknesses?

Yes. Ask Coach Cal to audit your playbook and it'll surface things like: "you don't have a counter to Cover 3," "your two short-yardage plays both attack the same gap," or "you're missing an underneath option from this formation." It can then propose specific plays to fill the gaps.

Are my conversations private? Is my data used to train an AI model?

Your chats are tied to your account and only visible to you. Coach Cal sends your messages to OpenAI or Anthropic (whichever the site administrator has configured) to generate responses; both providers' API terms forbid training on customer data by default. We don't share your conversations with anyone, and you can delete a thread from inside the chat. See the Privacy policy for the full list of sub-processors.

Which AI model is Coach Cal built on?

Coach Cal runs on top of large language models from OpenAI and Anthropic (Claude). The active provider is selected by XO Gridmaker — we choose whichever model we've found to give the best football answers at any given time. The football-specific knowledge base (KB chunks for fundamentals, formations, drills, game management, practice templates) is XO Gridmaker's own, layered on top of the underlying LLM.

Getting started

How do I get started?

Browse the example playbooks to see what's possible, then create a free account and start a playbook. Most coaches have their first play drawn within a couple of minutes. When you're ready for unlimited plays, team features, and Coach Cal, upgrade to Team Coach for $9/month.Browse the example playbooks to see what's possible, then create a free account and start a playbook. Most coaches have their first play drawn within a couple of minutes. The Team Coach plan adds unlimited plays, team features, and Coach Cal when you're ready.