01Before You Start

XO Stats replaces the midnight stat cleanup with live, verified Game Tracking. Before your first snap, know the three surfaces, how your account gets set up, and who does what.

Three Places You'll Work

Keep the lanes separate. The app is built for speed under pressure. Admin is built for prep and review. The website is the support door.

Concierge Setup — Your Team Is Ready

New programs don't build everything from scratch. XO Stats uses a concierge setup: your program claims the team, we provision the account, and your staff logs in with access already tied to the right team. The Stat Keeper should never be fighting account setup at kickoff.

Roles: Owner and Member

Access is simple. Each team has an owner (usually the head coach or program admin) and members (staff and Stat Keepers). That's it — there are no separate "statistician" or "team admin" role tiers to configure. If someone needs access, route them through the owner or the claim-your-team path.

02Building Your Roster

The roster is season infrastructure. Build it once, use it every week. Clean roster data makes every pass, run, tackle, kick, and return easier to record.

Adding Players in the App

1. Open the Roster tab from the home screen.
2. Tap Add a Player.
3. Enter name, jersey number, and position. Save.

Mid-Game Quick Add

Discover a missing player during the game? The player picker inside every play flow includes an add-player path. Add the name and number, finish the play, and move on. Fix the position later in Admin.

Opponent Rosters

If your opponent uses XO Stats, their roster will appear during the game. If they are not an XO Stats user, their roster will include a number placeholder that can be used during the game.

Bulk Roster Upload

Upload your roster via CSV or Excel file to add the roster in a few clicks.

03Scheduling Games

Games start from the schedule. Your Stat Keeper should open the app on Friday and see the right game waiting.

Creating a Game

1. Home screen → Schedule tab → Add a Game.
2. Set the date and time.
3. Pick the opponent.
4. Set the game type (pre-season, regular, post-season).
5. Set home or away. Save.

Why Home/Away Matters

The schedule is more than a calendar. Home/away and field direction feed the engine that computes field position, drive direction, and yardage for every play you enter. Get the setup right and the math is right all night.

04Practice Mode

Practice Mode is the first assignment. Full sandbox, demo teams, nothing saves to your program. Do not wait for third-and-eight on Friday to learn the screen.

Launching It

1. Open the Settings tab.
2. Tap Start Practice Game.
3. You'll land at a coin toss between the demo teams TEAM A and TEAM B.

The Confidence Checkpoint

Before running a real game, your Stat Keeper should complete every item below in Practice Mode:

• Set the coin toss and field direction, then log a kickoff.
• Record a run, a completed pass, and an incomplete pass.
• Record a penalty.
• Score a touchdown and log the PAT.
• Make a deliberate mistake, then fix it with undo.
• Check the live stats tabs.
• End a quarter.

05Gameday Kickoff

The first live chain in the game record. Slow down for one minute and get it right — everything downstream builds on it.

Coin Toss and Field Direction

1. Open the game from the schedule.
2. Set who is kicking and who is receiving.
3. Point the field arrow in the direction your team is driving. The engine needs to know which way the ball is moving to compute yardage correctly.

Recording the Kickoff

Log what actually happened: the kicker, where the ball landed, and the outcome — returned, fair catch, touchback, out of bounds, downed, or onside.

The Post-Kickoff Board Check

After the kickoff saves, the game board takes over. Before the first offensive snap, verify three things:

• Possession football points at the right team.
• Down and distance reads 1st & 10.
• Ball spot matches the field.

06The Four Buttons

Four buttons carry the whole game:

• Run
• Pass
• Special Teams
• Penalty

Pick the button for what happened first and most clearly. The app asks the football questions after that.

Run

Any designed rush or scramble. A sack also starts here in the record — sacks count as rush attempts.

1. Tap RUN and pick the ball carrier.
2. Drag the ball or tap + or − to where the play ended. The app computes the yardage.
3. Tag anything that happened with the outcome bubbles: TD, Penalty, Fumble, Safety, Touchback, Bad Snap, Kneel.
4. Attribute the tackle (optional, especially for the other team). Save.

Pass

Any dropback: completion, incompletion, sack, or interception.

1. Tap PASS. Pick the passer and the receiver (or target).
2. Mark the result with the result chips — Complete, Incomplete, INT, or Sack — and the spot where the play ended.
3. Tag outcomes as needed (TD, penalty, fumble after the catch).
4. Save. The ledger, drive, down & distance, and stat totals update instantly.

Special Teams

Kickoffs, punts, field goals, and PATs all live behind one button. Pick the kick type, then log the outcome:

Returns prompt for the returner and the end spot, so return yardage lands on the right player.

07Scoring

You never type a score. Points appear because a recorded football event earned them. That protects the record — and protects you from math mistakes under pressure.

Touchdowns

Record the touchdown through the play flow: tag TD on the run or pass that scored. The app adds the six and moves you to the try.

The Try: PAT or Two-Point

• PAT kick: pick the kicker, then Good / No Good / Blocked. Thao #99 drills it — the app adds one.
• Two-point try: record the conversion as good or no good. That's the whole call — the app adds two on good, zero on no good.

Field Goals

Special Teams → Field Goal → kicker → Good / No Good / Blocked. Three points on Good, automatically.

08Turnovers

Turnovers are where most stat crews fall apart. In XO Stats they're two guided flows — fumble and interception — and the app handles possession, drives, and down-and-distance for you.

Fumbles

1. Record the play as normal (Run or Pass) and tag the Fumble bubble.
2. Enter who caused the fumble (if applicable).
3. Who recovered & if there was a return.
4. Save. If the defense recovered, possession flips and a new drive starts automatically.

Interceptions

1. Tap PASS and pick the passer as usual.
2. Drag the ball to where the INT occurred.
3. Pick the defender who made the INT.
4. Save. Possession flips; the pick and return yards land on the defender, the INT lands on the passer.

09Penalties

XO Stats records accepted penalties — the ones that actually moved the ball. If a flag is declined or offsetting flags wash out, nothing changed on the field, so nothing goes in the record. Track the game as it stands after the referee's signal.

Standalone Penalty (Between Snaps)

False start, offsides, delay of game, encroachment — flags with no play attached.

1. Tap PENALTY on the four-button pad.
2. Pick the penalty from the searchable list (or the common-penalty shortcuts).
3. Set which team committed it and the player if announced.
4. Confirm the enforcement spot. The app moves the ball and resets the down and distance correctly.

Penalty During a Play

When a flag comes during a live play that stands (holding on a completed pass, facemask on a run), record the play first and tag the Penalty bubble in the flow. The app walks you through the flag and the enforcement on top of the play result.

10In-Game Corrections

Mistakes happen at full speed. Fix them the moment you see them — the sooner you correct, the less there is to unwind.

Undo Last Play

Fat-fingered a save? Tap the undo arrow on the Last Play card on the game board. The engine rolls back the score, spot, down, and stats that play created. Then re-enter it correctly.

11Offline & Reconnect

Stadium Wi-Fi dies. Cell coverage drops in the bowl. Your job doesn't stop — and neither does XO Stats.

How Offline Works

• Every play saves locally on the device first. Tracking never depends on signal.
• When the connection drops, a cloud-off icon appears on the game screen. That's your indicator — keep tracking exactly as before.
• When signal returns, the app syncs automatically. No button to press, nothing to re-enter.

12Quarters, Halftime & Overtime

The clock and quarter transitions are one button each. Overtime has presets so you're not configuring rules at 10 PM.

Ending a Quarter

When the quarter expires, tap End Quarter. The app rolls to the next quarter and resets the clock. At halftime, the same flow carries you into the third quarter, where you confirm the second-half kickoff direction (teams switch ends).

Overtime

If the game is tied at the end of the fourth quarter, the app moves to the overtime start flow. OT rules come from presets in Settings → Overtime Rules — set them before the season, not during the game:

Your state association's format may differ — check the presets against your rulebook and pick the match. You can also adjust the starting yard line.

Timeouts

Tap the dedicated TIMEOUT button on the game board (next to END QUARTER) — pick the team, and the app decrements their remaining timeouts on the board (and on the live scoreboard).

13Live Stats

Stats aren't a separate chore after midnight. They're the byproduct of disciplined Game Tracking — building live, every save.

Team Stats

The Team Stats tab shows both teams' totals updating as the game moves: score, first downs, rushing yards, passing yards, total yards, turnovers, penalties, and more.

Player Stats

The Player Stats tab breaks the same play record down by player, across categories: passing, rushing, receiving, defense, kicking, kickoffs, punting, and kick/punt returns. When Kirby #5 hits Presley #7 for 40, both stat lines move before the next snap.

14Game End & Reports

Final horn, box score ready. This is the payoff for staying disciplined all night.

Ending the Game

End the fourth quarter (or the deciding OT period) and the game finalizes. The complete play record becomes the final box score — no export step, no rebuild on Sunday morning.

Generate PDF Report

At halftime or at the end of the game, the PDF button in the top right corner of the screen can instantly generate a box score — instantly shareable via text, AirDrop, email, or even printed.

The Seven-Day Edit Window

After a game is finalized, you have a fixed seven-day window to make corrections — fix a misattributed tackle from film. After seven days, the record locks as the verified account of the game. That lock is what makes these Verified Stats: numbers built play-by-play as the game happened, then sealed.

15The Admin Dashboard

admin.xostats.com is the desk side of XO Stats — setup before the game, review after it. Here's the map.

Your Team's Tabs

The Schedule view is its own top-level page in Admin — manage the season calendar there.

16Troubleshooting

Fast answers to the situations that actually come up on Friday night.

17Live Scoreboard & Share Link

One link. Parents, fans, and staff who can't be at the game follow the score live — no login, no app install.

Sharing the Game

1. Open the game in the Admin Dashboard.
2. Open the game's scoreboard view and copy the share link.
3. Post it wherever your community lives — team page, booster group, text thread.

Anyone with the link sees the live scoreboard: score, quarter, clock, down and distance, possession, and timeouts, updating as your Stat Keeper tracks the game. No account needed.

18Advanced Situations

The plays that separate a good Stat Keeper from a great one. None of them require anything you haven't already learned — just the right combination.

Two-Point Conversions, In Depth

After the TD, choose the two-point try instead of the kick. The record is binary: good or no good. The app doesn't track the internal mechanics of the try (who ran what, a fumble on the attempt) — call it good or no good by the referee's signal and move on. Two points on good.

Safeties, In Depth

• Ball carrier tackled in his own end zone: Run flow → Safety bubble. Two points to the defense, free kick coming.
• Punt snapped out of the end zone / punt-play safety: Special Teams → Punt → Safety outcome.
• After any safety, the scored-on team free-kicks. Record it through Special Teams like a kickoff.

Bad Snaps

A snap sails over the QB's head: use the Run flow with the Bad Snap bubble. If it turns into a scramble for the loose ball, the recovery flow handles who came up with it — including a defensive recovery for a score.

Kneels

Victory formation gets its own bubble in the Run flow. Tag Kneel so the negative yard doesn't read like a broken play in the self-scout.

Onside Kicks

Special Teams → Kickoff → Onside outcome, then record who recovered and where. Possession follows the recovery automatically.

Overtime Variants

Chapter 12 covers the presets. The operational note: set your OT preset before the season starts. If you reach a tied Q4 with the wrong preset, you can still adjust the starting yard line in the OT flow — but the parking lot is a bad place to read a rulebook.

AGlossary

BFour-Button Quick Reference

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CSupport

• Help & guides: xostats.com/help
• Account or access issues: your team owner, or the claim-your-team path at xostats.com
• Bulk roster load & new-program setup: contact XO Stats through xostats.com — concierge setup is included
• During game week: reach out before Friday. Setup problems are solvable on Tuesday; they're painful at 6:55 PM.