What Happens in Vegas.....

I mentioned the possibility last week of the distractions in going to Las Vegas to play a game. Well, turns out that that can be a very real thing! Look, by now many of you may have seen the final score of 54-12 and are thinking that I’m full of it. But we looked sloppy from the start through halftime. With 7:00 left in the first quarter, we’d run exactly one offensive play (which was an interception) and led 7-0 thanks to a punt return. We turned over the opening kickoff and then gave them a punt back as well. Just silly mistakes that aren’t normally part of our game, and certainly can’t be if we make it very deep into the playoffs.

The Sun Devils, as the Showgirlz did before them, played with a ton of heart. They certainly have some athletes and players who could be good. Their QB in particular took hit after hit and kept coming back until she couldn’t any longer. 

The thing that kills them, like so many other teams, is that their pass protection just doesn’t hold up. I don’t know whether it is scheme or technique (most likely a combination of the two) that is lacking. But I know this: pass protection is a learned skill, and people who aren’t necessarily good athletes can learn it and be great at it. Remember that generally speaking, on any team that is two-platoon, the offensive linemen are the worst athletes on the team. That has nothing to do with how good of football players they are, but in terms of pure athletic ability, the defensive linemen should be better athletes.

Here is what I wrote back in September of 2013 regarding how I work in developing technique and scheme (full blog here):

“…..there are three assumptions that I came up with all by myself. Going back to the bad scheme and techniques that I see from time to time, I formed these base assumptions back in 2005, after reflecting on the schemes of a fellow coach in 2003. I believe that if a scheme or technique passes these three tests, that it is truly fundamentally sound:

1.       Assume that the defender across from your OL is a better athlete than s/he is. Let’s face it, offensive linemen are usually the worst athletes on the team. It doesn’t mean that they’re the worst football players, but chances are they’re the worst athletes. So don’t ask them to do something they’re not capable of, especially against someone who is probably faster than they are.

2.       Assume that the defender across from your OL is the best-coached player in the country. It was this assumption that was actually the basis for everything else. My fellow coach left a playside defensive tackle unblocked on purpose – well before the read option days – and said, “She’ll never make that play.” Well, needless to say, in this particular game, she did, over and over again. As my 5-time All Pro left tackle, Katrina Walter, pointed out to me when I floated an unwise idea, “Hope is not a strategy.” So if your scheme depends on the other player doing something stupid, it’s probably not a good scheme.

3.       Assume that on the snap, your defender is going to do the ONE THING that you don’t want her to. So if you’re running in the B gap, assume that your defender is going to slant exactly the way you don’t want her to. Your first steps had better be able to counteract that threat. Those steps then need to be drilled over and over again.

That’s it…that is how I believe you should build your scheme and technique library, or tool box. If you always keep those three things in mind, chances are you won’t ever get too far astray from fundamental soundness.”

The Sun Devils have some potential up front. Their LT has a nice frame and long arms and they otherwise have some size – certainly more than my OL has. But they need tools. There is help available in the offseason – we have our camp in November or I’m always up for a road trip. What many coaches forget in the development of their passing game is that if their QB can’t get comfortable in the pocket, then nothing else matters. Until she gains some confidence back there, they’re going to struggle with better teams.

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I rarely highlight individual players in such a team sport as football, but this week I’m going to make an exception. As some people have noticed, Jessica Springer is on our roster. There are a lot of you who weren’t around back in the mid-2000’s when she was playing for the Dallas Diamonds. I first saw her in 2004. I remember seeing her on film, as the Diamonds were our last game that year, and thinking, “OK, she’s pretty good. Fast and strong.” I had no idea……I found out as soon as she busted through our line and our safety had an angle on her (Deuce Reyes, who was a Team USA member recently), and Jessica simply ran past her. She was by far the fastest player on the field, and the strongest I’m sure. At the time, she was 5’9” and about 220 and a nationally-ranked powerlifter.

Fast forward to 2015. She’s down to about 200 pounds. She’s still the strongest player on our team (one of our DL is close in the bench but I think Jessica has her by about 20 pounds) and she’s still really fast. I’m not sure that she’s the fastest on our team, because we have some pretty fast players, but it wouldn’t shock me at all if she were. 

Anyway, here was her line against Las Vegas: 4 carries, 151 yards, 4 TDs.

But even with all her accomplishments on the field, over the years and now, I wouldn’t have highlighted her here except for one thing: She would never do it herself. Her typical response when asked how she did in a game? “I was OK.” She leads purely by example, being usually the first one finished in each and every sprint or drill.   She’s not a “freak of nature” but rather a “freak of hard work”. She is confident, for sure – please don’t mistake that – but it is a quiet confidence, borne of having “been there and done that” for a lot of years. To top it off, she is a genuinely nice person – one that you enjoy being around. She’s a great teammate.

We are blessed to have her this year. Unlike some other people who said, “Oh, with her, the Surge is guaranteed to win it all”, I still don’t believe that. Football is way too much of a team sport to make such a generalized statement. But I can say that we are better than we were, both because of Jessica’s ability and more importantly, her attitude.