This has been a really busy week, with our preparations for
the big game against Kansas City. They have a ton of weapons on offense –
fortunately for us they look an awful lot like us, so it’s not like we have to
prepare against completely foreign plays. But usually preparing against great
athletes is tougher than preparing against different plays. Of course, we have
some people of our own, and that’s what will make this game such a great one!
*****
Many of you have been asking for camp updates. Please be
assured that everything is still a go for November 15-16, with informal events
that Friday night as well. Please understand that right now our focus is solely
on advancing to and winning the National Championship. Once our season ends,
then our focus will go 100% to finishing up the camp details. We were able to
do a lot of the groundwork already, and at the latest, when the season ends
August 2 we’ll still be three and a half months out.
*****
I get a chance tomorrow to help out a friend of mine by
teaching, and that’s always a good thing. He’s the president of a youth league
and coached my son, Travis, when he played. He’s also been a big supporter of
the Surge. So when he was appointed as president, I wanted to do what I could to
help out. So he’s got five or so OL coaches coming out tomorrow and I’ll go
over some thoughts with them and hopefully give them some value. It’s always a
little nerve-wracking to present yourself as a kind of an expert – at least it
is for me – but I never like to pass up an opportunity to become a better
communicator and teacher, so we’ll give it a go.
*****
I did want to give you some sort of “nuggets of knowledge”
this week, so I’m borrowing this from the website www.footballscoop.com. If you haven’t
been there before, you owe it to yourself to check it out every once in awhile
at least. They have great articles and videos, plus have absolutely the latest
info on who is coaching where, from the NFL to D-I college, to the collegiate
lower levels, all the way down to high school.
So from there, please find 17 Bullet Points of Lane Kiffin’s
Coaching Philosophy. Now, I’m not much of a Kiffin fan. However, I’m also smart
enough to see that he’s pretty right on with these points, and if it makes you
better, you shouldn’t really care who the info came from. Here you go:
The 17 bullet points
of Lane Kiffin's coaching philosophy
It doesn't have quite the impact of Martin Luther's 95 theses, but
former USC head coach and current Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin
laid out 17 bullet points of his coaching philosophy on Wednesday night at the
Angelo Football Clinic.
Other than his father, the two coaches that most influenced Kiffin are
his former and current boss - Pete Carroll and Nick Saban. They are very
different in almost every way, Kiffin said, but they both have an answer for
everything. He recalled a time at Saban's house following USC's disappointing
2012 season when he asked Saban 32 questions about how Saban runs his program.
Over the next three hours, Saban thoroughly answered every question in typical
Saban fashion.
Without further ado..
1. Be a team guy.
2. Be a good listener.
3. Take corrective criticism.
4. Discussion is good. Arguing is a waste of time. Discussion helps the team improve. Arguing
exists only to prove who is right.
5. Be totally organized in the meeting room. "If the players show up and I don't have
the film ready, that tells them that I don't respect them and don't respect
their time.
6. Don't waste time on the field.
7. Be on the details. Stress the little things.
8. Be accountable to your fellow position coaches.
9. If your head coach gets on a player and you hadn't explained
it to him, take up for your player. He'll respect you for it. Kiffin was big on this, and all player-related
issues. For example, if a wide receiver does not make the proper sight
adjustment and the head coach and coordinator jump on him for it, his wide
receiver coach may be tempted to join them in hopes of looking good in front of
the head coach. Terrible idea. "You just lost him for the day,"
Kiffin said. Instead, "say, 'that's my fault, coach, we'll haven't been
over that yet but we will after practice'," said Kiffin.
10. Stay positive. It can be a long season, so stay upbeat.
11. Don't get in their face. Be demanding, but in the right
way. Kiffin said he used to mother(blank) players after mistakes, but
doesn't anymore. "He didn't want
to drop that pass, he wasn't trying to drop that pass, so why would I (blank)
him for it?"
12. Be respectful to the down-the-line players. Carroll taught
him this one by always playing catch with a reserve players during breaks in
practice. When he and Steve
Sarkisian asked why, Carroll told them small acts like that can swing the whole
locker room in the coaching staff's favor. The starters buy in by default since
they're the ones that suck up all the playing time, but winning the down the
line players over pushes the whole team forward.
13. Do not put players on the board to draw up plays. The ones that aren't good at it, Kiffin said,
know they aren't good at it and, when they inevitably draw up 10 players
instead of 11, get humiliated by the rest of the room.
14. Be honest with the players. Don't BS them. "Don't build a player up into something
he's not."
15. Never tell a player he's going to play and then not play
him. What happens here is
two-fold, Kiffin said. If you tell a safety he'll play in the third series,
then fall behind 14-0 and fail to play him, A) that player knows you don't
really trust him and B) he's probably told his parents he's going to play, and
now you've got an issue on your hands with him.
16. Take it one year at a time. Sign on and don't look back. Whether you're at a place you like or a place
you don't, make the best out of it and learn something from it.
17. Have a passion for coaching. Don't punch a clock. Carroll taught him this one. He created an
atmosphere of "want to" versus "have to"; players and
coaches were excited to show up for work at six in the morning. You're going to
be there anyway, so why not make it fun?
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