This and That

Or, to borrow from my friend Mikal Black, “scattershooting” after this first week of collegiate football……

First of all, I’d like to announce three coaching confirmations for the RS Football Camp….one is a popular returnee, OL coach Billy Hughes Jr. of the Dallas Elite. Coach Hughes does a great job with his OL and has a real knack for communications and getting his players to remember what he’s trying to get across. I’ve very excited that he’ll be joining us again this year!

Our next confirmation is a “rookie” to us, but he should be well-known among those in the know of the women’s game, and that is the Head Coach of the Seattle Majestics, Scott McCarron. In our quest to bring the best available coaches in, Coach McCarron enthusiastically accepted our invitation. Anyone who has played the Majestics know that they are a classy organization from top to bottom, and that their defense in particular is a tough, physical bunch. We are very much looking forward to sharing the field with Coach McCarron.

Finally (for this week anyway), Coach Nate Benjamin will join us from the Phoenix Phantomz. Coach Benjamin is very well known to us on the Surge staff, as he’s been coaching with us off and on since 2003. He was our defensive coordinator both years that San Diego won national championships, in 2007 and 2012. In addition to his long tenure in the women’s game, he’s also coached for almost 20 years at the high school level, including San Diego powers Lincoln, Vista and Point Loma. Most recently, he was the head coach of the West Coast Lightning before moving to Arizona with the Phantomz. It’s always a good time when Coach Benjamin joins us on the field, and I think that the OL/DL competitions will definitely be ramped up now!

Those three coaches join the already announced Angel Rivera III, the defensive back coach of the Dallas Elite. Coach Rivera is hands down one of the best I’ve seen at his position. He was with us at last year’s camp, and I know the players I spoke to can’t wait for him to be back. In addition to his DB coaching, he is also an expert on speed and agility training.

We plan to have more coaches announced soon, so stay tuned!

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Was watching my favorite college team Saturday night, Texas A&M. They have a phenomenal young defensive end, Myles Garrett. He’s fast and strong….but mostly really, really fast off the ball. However, as so often happens, when the announcers were describing his play and the problems he caused for the left tackle across from him, they ignored the problem the LT created for himself. Some OL coaches disagree with me on this, and that’s OK, but the easiest adjustment to me would have been to put the LT in a two-point stance. Now, I get that that may not be your preference from a philosophical standpoint – you may want to continue to emphasize the advantage and power you get in your run game from a three point stance. I get that, I really do. But when you’re in the middle of the game, and your kid is just getting abused (not to mention the abuse your QB is taking), why not try something different? Put him in a two-point every play….it isn’t like he was exactly driving Garrett off the ball in the run game either. But especially once you compare the amount of times that you ran at Garrett to the number of times you dropped back to pass, I think you can see where the main point of emphasis should have been.

The other thing the LT did, was flat set (as Coach Jim McNally would call it, an “Angle A” set). He set out on Garrett at about 15-20 degrees, more than once. There’s a time and place for that, and I teach it as well, but when you’re getting beat by speed isn’t the right time. You normally use a flat (or short or jump) set when you need to get on a stronger player quickly, before he can get enough momentum to bull rush you. Or, maybe he has a signature move he wants to make on his third step and you want to short circuit that. OK, great – those are all appropriate uses for a short set. But when the DE is just running past you….man, you gotta gain some separation and buy yourself some space to give yourself a chance.

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Finally, in the “been there, done that” category…..I saw where Penn State gave up 10 sacks to Temple. One of them against a TWO man rush. Penn State’s OL coach is very highly respected – Herb Hand is a good coach. I have no idea what the main breakdown was, but it is a good thing for all of us to remember that sometimes, “those days” happen to even the very best coaches.

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All right…NFL opens up next week, and my men’s team has a game as well……let’s see what this week brings! As always, thanks for reading – I appreciate it!