This guide walks through a whole game in the BreakAway app, in the order you will actually do it. Each step links the BreakAway U lesson that shows it on screen, and most of those videos run under a minute. Read it once before the game, then keep the lessons handy for the plays you only see a few times a season.
You do not need to know football to do this. You tap what you see. The app guides you play by play, and statting is free.
What you need
- A phone or a tablet, on iOS or Android. Most people use a phone.
- The BreakAway app. Statting is free: the app, the game center, stat cards and leaderboards cost nothing.
- To be at the game. You have to be there to stat it. Anyone can follow it from anywhere.
- No signal worries. The app works on field signal, is offline safe, and syncs when you reconnect.
- A 5v5 or 7v7 game, in a rec, club, high school or adult league.
1.Set up your roster once
Add each athlete once, with their jersey number, and the roster is there for every game after it. You never repeat this. If a number or a name is wrong later, tap the player to fix it. At a BreakAway event your roster is already loaded, so you can skip this step entirely.
If someone else is going to stat, add them now. Staff is a tab beside Roster: add a name and an email or a phone, then pick the role that decides what they can do. Stat Keeper is the one that matters on game day. Group Admin has full control, Data Entry is for combine events, and View Only cannot edit.
Managing your roster (0:54). Open the lesson Lessons for this step
2.Create the game
Pick the opponent, set the day, time and place, and the game lands on your schedule ready to stat. The field number and the format sit under More Options. Do this before game day so the only thing left at the field is pressing start.
Creating a game (0:33). Open the lesson 3.Run a practice game first
Before your first real game, stat a practice one. It is a full game you can stat start to finish, with the same screens and the same buttons and nothing on the line. It is the fastest way to stop hunting for buttons when the real snap comes.
While you are there, take the tour of the statting screen so nothing surprises you at kickoff.
Getting into a practice game (2:12). Open the lesson Lessons for this step
4.Start the game and share the feed
Start the scheduled game from Events. Before kickoff, pick how you will stat it: Key Moments (scoring plays, sacks and interceptions), Basic Play-by-Play (every play, with yardage, field position and penalties) or Olympic Level (the most detail, adding targets and pass breakups). Then choose who has the ball first, and flip the field so it matches your sideline.
Then send the game feed out once. Everyone who cares is on the play by play live, from the sideline or from a hotel room three time zones away. The game center is open to anyone with the link.
Key Moments is the fastest of the three. It records scoring plays, sacks and interceptions and nothing else, so most of a game needs no input at all. Statting with Key Moments? Skip steps 5 to 7 and 10. You only log touchdowns and extra points (step 8), interceptions, sacks and safeties (step 9), then halftime (step 11) and the end of the game (step 13).
Starting a scheduled game (0:46). Open the lesson Lessons for this step
5.Log a completion
The completion is the most common play in flag football, and it is logged outcome first. Tap Comp, pick the receiver, pick the defender who made the flag pull, then drop the ball on the spot where the play ended.
It gets faster as the game goes. The passer is remembered after the first completion, and receivers you have already used sit in Recent, so it is one tap instead of hunting the roster.
You never add up yards. Every Comp and Rush ends with you dragging the ball to where the play ended, and the app measures from the line of scrimmage and does the arithmetic.
Logging a completion (0:44). Open the lesson Lessons for this step
6.Log runs and incomplete passes
A rush works the same way as a completion: who carried it, who made the flag pull, and where she stopped. Drag the ball to that spot and the yards are counted for you.
An incomplete pass is one button, Inc. The QB is asked for once per game and filled in for you after that, so most incompletions are a single tap.
Logging a rush (0:40). Open the lesson Lessons for this step
7.Credit the flag pull
The flag pull is the signature flag football stat, and it is the one your defenders care about. Every completion and every rush asks who made the flag pull, on the defense's roster.
Credit one pull per play. There is no assist in flag, and inventing one makes season totals meaningless.
Logging a flag pull (0:44). Open the lesson 8.Log touchdowns and the extra point
TD is its own button under the field, next to Flag and INT. Tap it, name who scored, and the scoreboard moves for everyone on the feed.
After a touchdown the conversion opens on its own. Choose 1-Point or 2-Point, say if it was good, how it happened and who scored.
Recording a touchdown (0:38). Open the lesson Lessons for this step
9.Log interceptions, sacks and the rarer plays
An interception logs the takeaway and the return, including a return for a touchdown.
Sacks are not on the outcome grid. Log one from Other: the QB, who made the sack, and where the ball ended up.
The Other sheet is where everything off the grid lives: the rarer plays (Sack, Safety, Bad Snap), the quick fixes (Move the ball, Change possession) and Share game link. Move the ball puts the ball on the right yard line without recording a play, and Change possession hands it to the other team the same way.
Logging an interception (0:32). Open the lesson 10.Log penalties
A penalty can be its own play. Tap Flag and log who committed it and how many yards.
When the flag belongs to the play you just logged, attach it to that play instead of starting a new one. The app shows where the ball will be before you log it.
Logging a penalty (0:32). Open the lesson Lessons for this step
11.Handle 4th down and halftime
4th down ends one of two ways. Punt with one tap, and possession flips with the other team starting at their own 5. Or go for it, and if the play comes up short the app closes the drive as a turnover on downs and hands the ball over at that spot.
At the break, move the game to the second half with the Halftime button.
Handling 4th down (0:41). Open the lesson 12.Keep pace when you miss something
You will miss things. That is fine, and the app is built for it. If you did not see who caught a pass, skip the receiver, finish the play, and fix it later from the feed. If you missed the flag pull, skip it to keep up with the game, then come back and credit it by editing the play.
If you cannot see the other team's players, tap Don't track on their flag pull prompt. It stays off so you can keep pace, and naming one of their players turns it back on.
Tapped the wrong thing? Every play lands in the feed as you log it, and the newest one carries an Undo, so a mis-tap comes off in one press. Undo only reaches the most recent play. For anything further back, open the play from the feed and change the play type, the down, the yardage or the athletes on it. Nothing is locked once it is logged, during the game or after it.
And if you have to step away from the statting screen mid-game, the Continue button on Home takes you back to the exact play you left.
Skipping a receiver (0:38). Open the lesson 13.End the game and send the stat cards
Finish the game with End Game, then notify every athlete so their post-game stat card is waiting for them. Each kid gets a personal stat card for every game, plus a stat page and season totals, and the record stays on their profile across teams, seasons and events.
Ending the game and sending stat cards (0:36). Open the lesson
Paper or the app?
Paper still works. A scorebook and a pencil cost nothing, never run out of battery, and plenty of games have been kept that way for years. If all you need is the final score, paper is fine.
Where paper falls short is everything after the whistle. Somebody has to add up the yards and the totals by hand, nobody who is not standing next to you can see the game, and the sheet rarely makes it into a season record anyone can find again.
The app does that part. You mark where each play ended and it counts the yards. Family who could not travel follow the play by play live. Every athlete gets a stat card for the game and season totals that stay on their profile. Statting is free.
The tradeoff is real: you need a phone with charge for the whole game, and a few minutes learning where the buttons are. That is what the practice game and the lessons in this guide are for.
Running the whole event
Running a league or a tournament rather than statting one team? The Leagues & Tournaments lessons cover the web side: creating the event, importing your schedule and teams, building pools and a bracket, and setting who can create and stat games.