Week One in the Books!

Fortunately, the jitters I had last week were unfounded. The butterflies didn’t start going away until we were up 21-0 though. As far as my First 15 script, that is also about when I got through it. To borrow a phrase from the old “A-Team” TV show: “I love it when a plan comes together!”

The first play we ran was designed to show a look/motion that they would likely expect, and then run a different play. It went for 18 yards. The second play was designed to attack a specific position, and it went for a TD. I don’t tell you these things to brag, but to emphasize the importance of scouting and research when putting your game plan together. I also want to give a heavy shout-out to our quality control coach, Dan Tovar, who helped put the plan together. He’s our former head coach, who took us to the national title in 2007 and we’re lucky to have a coach like him who is willing to help out in the poring over of game film. Also, I must point out that I’m not the OC this year – that goes to Carrie Suggett, who has done a fantastic job of doing just that – coordinating the offense. This is her first go ‘round as an OC, so I’ve retained the playcalling duties, at least to start the game. All in all, we make a pretty good team.

My primary goal of a First 15 is to not only call plays that have a great chance of working well because of what we’ve seen on film, but also to ensure that we get a chance to see how a defense will align against our formations. Maybe our opponent has only played against I-Back teams, or worse, Double Wing teams and so we never get a chance to see how they align against a spread team. So there are certain formation/motion/play combinations that I want to use, but I don’t want to call it until I have a better idea (or confirmation) of how they’ll align. So I’ll call the formation/motion but pair it with a “safe” play. Heck, who knows – maybe it’ll work well anyway.

We had other goals in mind during the game as well, things I wanted to make my offensive line prove. So I went through a couple of series calling plays that made them do exactly that. Generally speaking, they did well. We also ran a couple of plays that we hadn’t practiced a whole lot, and it showed. At least then we were able to get it on film and can make corrections going forward.

One of the goals was zero sacks given up, and we accomplished that, even though our opponent had a very highly-touted DE that we were concerned about. She lined up three different places, over both tackles and one guard, and as far as I can tell had 1 tackle for loss – that’s it. The QB got hurried 4 times I think – twice because they didn’t read their blitz reads properly and then twice because one of the OL let her technique get away from her, which was totally correctable on film.

Our run game was huge for us. The goal for the OL was 150 yards rushing. and I'm sure we made that, but we haven’t done the final stats yet. If we didn’t it was my fault, since I called the plays. We did have some very short passes that went for big gains. The biggest thing for me was seeing usually three out of the five OL getting downfield and leading the way, sometimes even escorting the ballcarrier into the end zone after a big gain. That kind of heart and effort is something we stress, but sometimes can be tough to get out of an OL. I stressed it with my men’s team too, but it didn’t make much of a difference.

So this week, we travel a little to the north (Temecula) to take on an old friend. Nate Benjamin is one of the top defensive coaches around – he was the DC both times we won the national championship, in 2007 and 2012, so we know each other pretty well. I love coaching against guys like this because it really becomes a punch/counter-punch affair. Plus the winner gets bragging rights for a year! So now it’s off to look at some film and figure out what’ll work!