Expectations & Review

While watching one of the women’s games this past weekend, I realized there is an interesting difference at the semi-pro level between the women’s and men’s game, and it lies in the expectations of coaches. When talking about plays/system/scheme I’m starting to believe that coaches in general overestimate what male players can do and underestimate what female players can do.

To be sure, at the elite level of the women’s game, this isn’t the case at all. I know staffs from across the country who are extremely demanding of their players, and if you looked solely at their schemes they are every bit as complex and advanced as their male counterparts. But at the “regular” level of the game, there just seems to be so much of the same ol’, same ol’ and I *know* the players are capable of more! You see teams lined up in an “I” formation probably 90% of the time and running three plays out of it. Or Double Wing teams….which is OK, if you look crisp. I do wish teams would remember that we’re in the entertainment business. Boring can be OK if you’re winning, but if you’re boring AND losing, you won’t have a fan base for very long.

Me personally, I probably tend to overestimate on both sides what my players are capable of. I always think I’m going to install a bunch of stuff, and then have to dial it back a little. The difference is that my female players will never say, “Oh, we can’t do that” whereas my guys will. With the women, I have to look at what our results are and what the reality is out on the field, and then dial it back. With the guys, they’ll flat out tell me something isn’t going to work before they even try it. In that respect, I definitely prefer the women’s approach – “OK, cool – let’s do this” and then trusting me to adjust. I think that with the guys, they’ve grown up thinking about the game certain ways, and those high school or JC thought patterns tend to stay with them. When they’re presented with something new, only those with adaptable personalities are able to go with it.

Anyway, I’m not sure why there is a difference, it just seems to me that there is. One other thing I’ve noticed is that men don’t seem to have the ability to do things at a learning tempo – it’s like they’re afraid to look like they’ve lost at anything. They don’t see the big picture – that we’re trying to learn a new concept or new play, and might have to run it a bunch of times in a row to get it right. 

Sometimes it’s OK if you have someone from the same side of the ball as the opposing player. But if it is an offensive drill and you’ve got defenders over there (or vice versa), you can forget about a learning tempo. It is flat out competition. And I can see the guys’ point (sometimes) – they’re out there to compete and make each other better. I get that. But in order to get better at something, you usually have to start out doing it slowly and make a few mistakes along the way. That’s why these last few weeks with the Nighthawks in no pads were so valuable. At appropriate times, guys were flying around making plays. But at others we were able to get some stuff down before stuff starts happening really fast – like next week in pads!

***

Over the last couple of weeks in the women’s game, one score stood out to me above all others: Portland beating Seattle handily (40 to 0). That signals a sea change in the Pacific Northwest, where for the last few years Seattle has reigned supreme. I’m not sure if this is a result of Portland improving *that much* after the merger, or of Seattle dropping off. Quite honestly, right now I’m thinking there is a bit of a drop off in Seattle, because I saw their 13-0 score over the Tacoma Trauma and was surprised by that. However, the Fighting Fillies and the Shockwave combining forces had to have made them better. Either way, Portland is the team to beat up there, and if they truly did improve that much, then the War Angels had better look out.

Speaking of the War Angels, looks like they’ll finally play a team worth playing this week, when they face the Sin City Trojans. Both teams are at 3-0, and the Trojans haven’t been scored on yet. I’m going to pick the War Angels by a comfortable (28+) margin.

There’s been some debate about which team is better, the Chicago Force or the Dallas Elite. I don’t know for sure, although right now I’m leaning towards the Elite. However, in looking at remaining schedules, the Force also play the Divas, they play Boston AND they play Pittsburgh. If Chicago gets through their schedule unscathed, then I think the tide turns towards them. The Elite aren’t likely to be tested again until maybe when they play the War Angels, and even then I think they have way too much speed for Central Cal to handle. There’s some talk about the Elite’s game this week against KC as being a big one. I’m sure they’d love to hype it as that, but I’m not seeing it as close.

Over in the IWFL, there have been a couple of rating systems that have teams other than Utah as #1. Obviously these people have never watched football in their life. Sure, Utah’s strength of schedule may stink, but in the IWFL, saying someone has a strong schedule is like saying Doc was the tallest of the Seven Dwarfs. Utah remains a Top 10 team in the nation – not just in the IWFL, but in the WFA as well. Too bad we won’t find out how good they are.

High Expectations

First, a Super Bowl review…..Obviously I was wrong about the outcome of the game. Denver’s defense was way too much for the Panthers to handle. I’d heard that Carolina was going to run (or should run) Newton 15-20 times this game in order to keep Denver’s defense guessing. Well, whether their original plan was to do that or not, I have no idea, but it sure seemed like they needed to do more of it. I think Newton only had maybe 5 designed runs in the game. In the pregame show, they even acted out one of the Panthers’ trademark runs – counter read left with an option to the right. I saw them run it once during the game. They had success early with an option, but never really came back to it. A couple of times it looked like they had the option pretty open, but either Newton didn’t read it or it wasn’t a play that allowed him to read. I don’t know…..not sure what the plan was. I would’ve liked to have seen more of what got them there.

Same thing with screens and rollouts…..something, anything to take some pressure off of not only Newton, but the OL. The tackles were highlighted the most, but I saw breakdowns at LG and C as well. They hit a nice screen early to the TE, but never came back to it. It was almost like OC Mike Shula had them in his First 15 script, but then forgot to look at what worked.

Anyway, congratulations to the Broncos and Peyton Manning on a fine career. I hope he walks away now with his head held high. Also a shout out to former Aggies Gary Kubiak and Von Miller!

*****

I’ve been contemplating the Nighthawks’ upcoming season and also talked very briefly with a women’s coach about their team. The Nighthawks are in our second year, and the women’s team is in their third year. The Nighthawks’ expectations are through the roof and them women’s team is still on the upswing.

What is the main predictor of success in either the men’s or the women’s game? The answer is simple: practice attendance. The success that the SoCal Scorpions had from 2005-07 and the Surge had from 2011-2014 had a lot to do with commitment from the players to be at practice. In 2015, the Surge had a striking drop in practice attendance percentage. “Other things” just kept coming up for a lot of people. As a result, a team that had a lot more talent than the 2013 team ended up with the same 9-2 record. We always say that family and work come first as priorities, but football has to be *a* priority. It doesn’t have to be the top one, but it has to be on the short list. Players and coaches have to stop finding excuses for not being at practice, and instead find ways to get there. For years, we prided ourselves on a 90+% attendance rate. This year it was probably down to 75%. That’s good enough for a winning record, but when your expectations are to compete for a national championship, it’s not going to work. On the men’s side, the 2012 National City Bears were pretty good in that area, and we won a league championship in large part because of the commitment from players.

Practice Attendance goes hand-in-hand with “buy in” from the team to what the coaches are teaching. Not too long ago on the women’s side, it didn’t take much to get buy in from the players. They were so new that they didn’t know any better, and had no exposure to other staffs and ways of doing things. We were fortunate that with the Surge we had a very solid, experienced staff of teachers. Players that came from other teams generally were pleased with how they were now getting coached when they came over to us. The biggest thing with female players is that they want to know “why” they have to do things. As long as you can articulate that to them, they’re good with it. But if you take the “because I said so” approach, they will tune you out in a heartbeat.

On the guys’ side, buy in is a little trickier. Guys have usually been coached by a lot of different people. They may be very set in their ways and resistant to change. They may think they’re too good to be coached (in fairness, some of the female players are getting that way now as well). I firmly believe that it is the coaches’ job to create that buy in….even if the players are the ones that ultimately have to decide whether the team is more important than their ego.

As an Offensive Coordinator, I have to show each position how the offense will benefit them. In my personal philosophy, that means showing how a balanced offense opens up opportunities for everyone to be successful. There are trade-offs, to be sure: Wide receivers need to block in the run game for the RB’s. But when defenders become focused on stopping the run, it opens up opportunities for the WR in the passing game. RB’s may have to pick up blitzes in the pass game, but that also increases their receiving yardage opportunities via screens. Offensive linemen get the benefit of defenders not knowing what is coming next, so play slower. I sell the mantra of “making the defense play with doubt” a lot.

So when you talk about team expectations, take into consideration more than just what your raw talent will get you. Is it better to have “Athlete A” who is about a 90 on the talent scale, but only shows up when he feels like it for practice and consistently misses assignments during the games, or “Athlete B” who is a still solid 75 on the talent scale, but attends every practice, gets in sync with his teammates and rarely makes a mental mistake? I know who I’m taking.

Our “buy in” starts this Saturday at tryouts….I’ll talk about it next week.

One Born Every Minute

Those readers of a certain age may well remember the old saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” In today’s post, those suckers are football coaches who don’t know the rules, and who don’t at least sometimes prepare their teams for those weird moments that come up every so often, usually to their detriment.

Obviously, the latest example is from Monday night. The Lions’ Calvin Johnson was about ready to score a go-ahead TD in the last seconds of the game when Seattle’s Kam Chancellor punched the ball out before the goal line. The ball was headed towards the back line, when a Seattle LB helped it go out of the end zone by batting it. The ruling on the field was that it was a touchback, and Seattle got the ball on their own 20. As it turns out, this was “illegal batting” just like you would see maybe a punter do when he drops a snap in his own end zone. He doesn’t want to give up a touchdown, so he bats it out of the end zone and accepts the safety. In this case, because Detroit had possession of the ball, the penalty for illegal batting should correctly have been giving the Lions the ball at Seattle’s 1 yard line, first and goal. Might have made a big difference in the outcome.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say I know all the rules. I’ve screwed up plenty of times, as have coaches I’ve worked with and coached against. But I do make an effort to at least go over in my head situational items such as the above and how to prepare the team for them. Almost immediately after Monday night’s call, one of the New England Patroits tweeted that Bill Belichek knows the rule, because they’ve practiced that exact situation before.

Had an interesting occurrence in the Bears’ game Saturday night (we won, 25-0, to get our league record to 8-1, 9-2 overall). The Ravens were punting, and they shanked the punt horribly…..like for negative yards. But one of their players very alertly picked it up since it hadn’t crossed the line of scrimmage and took off. Fortunately for us, we tackled him short of the first down, and took over. That was the second time that has happened in my career – the other was either in 2005 or 2006 against the Houston Energy, and that time the Energy player DID gain a first. Believe me, I’ve known that rule from that point on!

Usually all it takes is one time for something to happen to you, and that rule will be imprinted in your brain forever. One of the things I run in to all the time are the differences between NCAA and NFL rules. The Surge plays by NCAA, the Bears by NFL. So sometimes I have to think really hard about the situation before I go to a ref. (Funny side note…..my very first high school game as a coach, in 1991, I was down on the sidelines near the end of the first half and watched the clock go right past the 2:00 mark. I started hollering about the 2 minute warning…..yeah, the other coaches no doubt thought I was an idiot.)

Part of the preparation you can do as a coach is make sure you speak with the officials before the game. You can bring up things like how they will interpret certain rules (doing that saved us from running an illegal play in Dallas), or maybe what you’ve seen the other team do on film that perhaps breaks some rules. We noticed once that on screen passes, our opponent’s RB was consistently in front of the LOS when she caught the ball, with OL downfield. You better believe we brought that up in pregame talks, and we did get a call that way.

***

We’re just over a month out for the RS Football Camp – time to book your flights if you need to, and reserve the hotel rooms if you need one! The Facebook Event page is here, and it has all the info you need! The coach-to-player ratio is really high, so no matter what level of player you are, from raw rookie to Team USA member, there will be instruction available!

The visiting coach list is pretty much set. In addition to members of the Surge staff, we’ll have the Head Coach of the Seattle Majestics, Scott McCarron; the Offensive Line Coach of the Dallas Elite, Billy Hughes Jr.; the Defensive Backs and Speed Coach of the Elite, Angel Rivera III, and the former DC of the Surge, former HC of the West Coast Lighting, and current defensive coach of the Phoenix Phantomz, Nate Benjamin. We may be announcing one other coach soon as well.

We’re looking forward to seeing you!

The Big Time

One of the very best words of wisdom I’ve ever received in my coaching career came from the late, great Bob Cope. Coach Cope was a long time DC in the SEC and Big 12, along with being a HC at Portland State. At a coaches’ clinic in, oh, I don’t know….the late 90’s sometime, myself and three other high school coaches sat down to talk to Coach. At the time, I only thought about how these words applied to coaches, but have also come to understand that they apply to players as well. Here they are:

“The Big Time is wherever you’re at right now.”

Let that sink in for a minute……Coach went on to elaborate that no matter if you were on your way up, on your way down or perfectly content where you’re at, the Big Time is there too. He said that too many coaches “save” their efforts for when they are back in the Big Time, noting that sometimes they feel lower levels of play are beneath them, and more importantly, beneath their best efforts.

I don’t know if I ever felt that way before I heard that phrase, but I can guarantee you that I’ve never felt that way since. I’ve tried to approach every team I’ve coaches with the same enthusiasm, energy and attention to detail. I once coached my 9-year old son’s winter ball baseball team – purely a developmental thing. I brought sort of a football staff mindset to it though, in that the coaches I had, I assigned to specific areas of the game, infield, outfield, pitching, hitting, etc., and then asked them to concentrate on those areas during the game. Also, I handed out practice plans before each practice so that we were all on the same page. One of the parents said, “Isn’t this a little much for a 9 year old team?” (Please note that my “football approach” only extended to organization, not to intensity or competitive fire.) My response sort of stunned her, “Do they deserve any less than my best only because they’re 9?” She said, “I’ve never thought about it that way. Thank you!”

Since hearing those words of wisdom from Coach, I’ve coached in maybe the most competitive high school division in California (Southern Section, Division I), won two national championships with women, won a league championship with grown men and given youth clinics to as young as 8 year olds. In each case, my focus was the same: do the job to the absolute best of my abilities, no matter the level of play.

As a coach, I think you owe your best to your players, and more importantly, to yourself. You never know who is going to be impressed by your work. As Coach Bill Muir said, “You add to your résumé every day you go to work.” In addition, I don’t think you’d ever want to look back at a season or career and think, “Man, I could’ve done a better job if only I did my best.”

For players it is much the same way. I’ve heard players say over and over again, “Oh, it’s only semi-pro” when it comes to showing up for practice or studying their playbook. But then the team loses a close game and they say, “Man, we’re too talented to lose like that.” Well, no – you’re not. You may be physically gifted, but that doesn’t mean you’re a talented team. Football is much too complex and team-dependent for that. This isn’t basketball where one player can take over a game, or baseball where the pitcher can be dominant all by himself. In football you’re only as good as your least-talented player. And if your physically gifted players are making mistakes because they haven’t put in the effort to learn their assignments, then you as a team are going to suck. Period.

If you want to be part of a Big Time team, then you have to be all-in for that. If you’re on your way down the ladder of playing levels, then show the guys who are on the way up how it is done. If you’re on the way up, then take in all you can to make yourself better. If you’re content where you’re at, then you still know damn well that winning is a lot more fun than losing, so do your part to make some great memories in the time you have left.

The Big Time is a great place, no matter where you find it.

***

The 2^nd Annual RS Football Camp has had a great response in the last week. I’m looking forward to seeing the new faces who’ve said they’re coming out. We’ve got more people from the Central Cal area, from LA, Arizona and from Vegas than we had last year, and I’m excited about that.

Please remember to note on the Facebook Event page your name, team, position and t-shirt size. That’ll put you into our “confirmed” status, but also remember that only those who pre-pay are guaranteed t-shirts. You can do so via PayPal to kmring@cox.net.

Thanks!

Combatives

One of the hallmarks of the Pete Carroll legacy at both USC and Seattle is competition. The idea of competing every day is ingrained throughout the entire team and reinforced at each practice in some form or fashion.

I think that there are a couple of interpretations and uses for combatives in the women’s game. One use would be some limited martial arts training – understanding how to break holds and control arms is highly useful.

For instance, when in pass pro, my offensive linemen are trained to use their elbow as a pivot point. When a defender on a pass rush comes in and slaps at their wrists or forearms, we simply rotate around the elbow and repunch. But if the defender understood that the elbow controls the arm, they would attack the elbow instead of the wrist. Once they have control of the elbow, they can move the entire arm pretty much wherever they want and even dislodge the blocker’s balance point. Taken in the extreme, this would be Reggie White’s famous “hump” move, where he would hit the OL’s triceps with a cupped hand and just lift them up over the OL’s head.

To counter those sorts of moves, the OL has to be adept at either “short setting” on her punch (not extending the hands out all the way) or as soon as she feels pressure withdrawing the affected hand and repunching. One of my mentors, Brent Myers (currently at Weber State) taught his OL to set with their hands down low, near the rib cage and concentrate on punching the DL in their rib cage. He feels that it opens the OL up to fewer pass rush moves – it is awfully hard to rip when the hands are held that low, and it is harder for the DL to dip under them as well. Myself, I haven’t quite bought into that strategy, but I’ve always kept it in my back pocket for an occasion where it might be useful.

The point is, you have to drill these kinds of automatic responses, which looks an awful lot like a martial arts lesson. There are coaches out there, namely Mark Miller (https://coacheschoice.com/m-325-mark-miller.aspx) (who I’ve actually taken lessons from), former Steelers All Pro OL Tunch Ilkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunch_Ilkin) and others who teach martial arts concepts to teams. Once you understand it as a coach, then you have to instill those abilities in your players via drill.

The other interpretation of combatives would be competitive drills. I’m sure when I say that most coaches immediately think of things like Oklahoma drills or bull in the ring, or some other “toughening” exercise.  What I’m thinking about is a little more out of the box….if you had a relatively light standup bag, for example, you could have two players grab hold of it any way they wanted. The whistle blows and basically, it is whoever ends up with it is the winner. You could have a time limit – or not. You want to see who has a competitive, never-give-up spirit? That’s one way to do it.

You can also do the same thing with a towel taped at both ends and in the middle. Each player grabs an end, and whoever ends up with it wins. I remember seeing a TV spot when the University of Texas was in a bowl game a couple of years ago, and they were touting the training methods of their strength coach. What he had was a sanitized, fancy version of my taped up towel. And the announcers were going crazy about it. I said, “Shoot, I was doing that in 1992.” So think out of the box a little on those types of things.

I do believe that “some” of the old stand-byes still have merit. The Oklahoma drill for example, is good, IF it is done in the correct way! Too many defensive coaches want to set it up where there is one blocker, one ballcarrier and two defenders. To me, that is fundamentally unsound, because you’re running the ballcarrier into an unblocked defender every time. Who does that by design?  A much better barometer of your defender’s ability to shed blocks and still make a tackle would be to have 3-on-2 – two blockers and a ballcarrier versus two tacklers. Or even better, how one university (I want to say it was Clemson) sets it up: you have an OL and a DL together at the bottom (narrow end) of a V-shaped cone formation. About five yards back, you have a FB/RB and a LB paired up, and then out in the wide side of the V you have a WR and DB paired up. Thus the ballcarrier starts in a confined area, and as s/he gets more yaradage s/he also gets more room to play with. Also, the blockers who are responsible for those areas get a more realistic look at the amount of time they have to hold their blocks. I think that is a great drill.

When I drill my OL as a group, I’ll do what I call “King of the Hill”, and basically it is just that – two OL driving at each other, with one important change: I only put their helmets about 6” from each other. I’m not interested in them looking like a couple of mountain goats butting heads with the attendant risk of injury. I’m more interested in them developing quick hands and keeping their feet moving. Each rep only lasts about 5 seconds, especially if they start turning around each other or go straight up – then I blow it dead immediately. No sense in getting bad form as muscle memory!

So those are my thoughts on combatives in modern football. This weekend I’ll be out in Las Vegas at the Glazier clinic. The plan is to talk next week about some of the things I picked up at the clinic, so who knows what it’ll be?

Thanks again for reading!

New Year's Resolutions

For players:

I WILL carry the ball ALL THE WAY over the goal line before I start celebrating!

When I score a touchdown, I will recognize the other 10 people who made it possible.

I will NOT be caught smiling at any point after being called for a stupid personal foul that kills (or extends) a drive.

If I am a teammate of a person who gets called for a stupid personal foul, I will NOT go up to him/her and say anything along the lines of “it’s OK”. No, it’s not. Stop doing stupid things that hurt the team.

If I claim to “love the game” I will show it by having a true passion for the game, instead of only passion “for” games. That means taking seriously practices, workouts, film study and chalk talks.

If I’m getting coached, I will NOT say, “That’s what I did.” No, you didn’t. If you did I’d be patting you on the butt instead of chewing it out.

I will not talk to anyone else when a coach is talking to my group or the team. Basic respect and courtesy.

For coaches:

I will be organized in my practices and drills. Indecision and looks of confusion erode trust of the players.

When I coach to correct, I will give specifics. Telling a player to simply “hit someone” doesn’t help (unless the player really didn’t hit anyone, which does happen).

I will praise publicly and criticize privately whenever possible.

I will not discourage questions, and will gladly answer in detail. However, the players have to know there is a time and place for everything. Generally speaking, 0:20 left in the game, and down by 4 is not the time for lengthy discussions.

I will admit I whenever I was wrong.

I will listen to players’ suggestions. It may not be feasible to act on all (or any) of them, but if they’ve taken the effort to think them through, then you have the responsibility (and give them the courtesy) of listening. There is no faster way to have players tune you out than to have them think you don’t listen to their concerns and ideas.

I will not talk to anyone else when another coach is talking to my group or the team. Basic respect and courtesy. We demand it from the players, we should demonstrate it as coaches.

Happy New Year – may 2014 bring you and your team enormous personal and professional success!

A Christmas Wish

My intent is to keep this short…dunno how that’ll work! First of all, for everyone who celebrates Christmas, I hope you had an awesome one!

Here are my football-coaching related wishes for you and the sport:

For both players and coaches (especially at the men’s level), I hope you treat the game as your personal “big time”. I had the pleasure of sitting down with 3-4 other high school coaches to talk with Bob Cope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Cope) about 18 years ago. He talked a lot about the business of the profession, and the one thing that stuck with me is this, “The Big Time is wherever you’re at right now.” I hear a lot of players (almost always men and some coaches) say things like, “It’s only semi-pro.” That drives me crazy. Why do it if you’re not going to put 100% into it? Heck, I coached my son’s 9-year old winter baseball team one year. I brought a football coaches’ perspective to the practice. I had a plan, I assigned areas of responsibility for my coaches, I made sure the practices were upbeat, organized and fun. One of the parents said something about “a lot of effort for a Little League team” and my reply was, “Do they deserve any less than my best just because they’re 9?” It’s the same thing at whatever level you’re at – semi-pro, women’s, high school or youth. Those athletes who are busting their butt for you (or the coaches if you’re a player) deserve your best. I hope you bring it each and every practice.

For coaches, may you not run boring offenses. If you do, please win. Especially at the women’s level when we are trying to attract fans, there’s nothing worse than running a boring offense and losing. Winning cures everything, so if you can be dominant with boring, OK. Otherwise, remember that we’re in the entertainment business.

Along those lines, please don’t underestimate what your players are capable of doing and learning. Stretch their limits and you’ll be amazed.

Finally, may you never stop learning. I’ve been going to coaching clinics each year since 1991. But what impressed me was seeing Herb Meyer, who holds the San Diego Section record for wins, sitting in the front row and taking notes until the day he retired. Coach John Konecki of the Chicago Force (also two-time Team USA coach and Illinois high school state champion) and I bounce ideas off each other, despite the very real possibility that we’ll be opponents in 2014. Nick Saban recently invited Lane Kiffin down to Tuscaloosa to evaluate the Alabama offense.

There’s always either something new to learn, or a new and better way of getting something done, or teaching it to your players. When it comes to helping your program, it doesn’t matter where those ideas come from.

That’s it – it’s time to settle down for the Bowl Season, which is my favorite time of the year, where teams pull out all of the stops. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in 2014.

The Process

Recently on 60 Minutes there was an episode about Nick Saban. Now, I don’t particularly like Nick Saban. I know one coach (who is in the NFL now) who worked for him and absolutely hated it. I know he had an offensive coordinator who couldn’t wait to leave – so much so he voluntarily took a position coach job at another school. There are stories about Saban discouraging the administrative people in his office from making eye contact with him, lest it make him feel like he has to make small talk with them. Heaven forbid…..anyway, suffice to say I’m not a fan. I respect his results, of course – he’s doing something right on the field, but at what cost? There’s gotta be a human cost there somewhere.

But it was with interest that I watched the segment. The narrator talked about what Saban calls “The Process” and how he wrote it down 12 years ago. Imagine my surprise when what the narrator started to describe sounded like it came straight from one of Coach John Wooden’s books!

One of the main tenants of Coach Wooden was that it wasn’t so much about what the opposing team was doing, but what your team is or isn’t doing. He felt that as long as you did your job to the best of your ability, as close to perfect as possible, that winning would take care of itself. Coach was famous for his lack of interest in scouting opponents – even when it wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it is now, he steadfastly didn’t do it, preferring instead to concentrate on doing that which would make his own team better at what they did.

This was the heart of the segment on Coach Saban. His fanatical attention to detail, his upbringing in West Virginia and the lessons taught to him by his father, Nick Sr. But I’m not sure you could find two diametrically opposed personalities in coaching – Wooden and Saban. Now, from what I’ve read, Coach Wooden may have been a bit more prickly then is generally assumed, and the 60 Minutes segment made Coach Saban look almost human, so nothing is always exactly as it seems.

I’ve always attempted to style myself after Coach Wooden. I like to praise in public and chastise in private (unless it is just with the OL – then I don’t mind pointing out errors, because maybe then someone else won’t repeat them, but I hardly ever want the rest of the offense to ever have a reason to disparage the OL – it happens enough from the fans and others not in the know). I like to think that I’m demanding, without being a dick about it. If the same mistake is made multiple times, then sure – voices are going to be raised. But my normal style of coaching is to explain, demonstrate and then break down the technique or idea into parts. If mistakes are made then, I try to lace the correction with some humor.

Where I need to improve, I think, is in my standards. Some of my players may be thinking, “You mean he’s going to be pickier???” But yes – in a sense. I need to be more aware of basic fundamentals at all times. Pointing out when knee bend isn’t achieved, or when pad level could be better. There must still be room for praise – players need it, when it is deserved. Empty praise is quickly seen through, and that praise will mean more when they know they’ve earned it. But gentle, firm correction is essential. Degrading, yelling for no reason, and personal criticism is the last resort of a poor coach, in my opinion.

It is a process, that is for sure. No matter what I think of him, Coach Saban is getting results with his, even if he may have stolen it from one of the greatest coaches of all time. But what am I complaining about – so did I!

Coordinating an Offense - Part 3

The last two weeks I've talked about your terminology and how it can impact your players’ reaction times and efficiency when it comes to running either an up-tempo offense all the time, or just when you are in a hurry-up situation. This week I’d like to touch on the nuts and bolts of actually installing an offense.

I believe that when installing an offense, you have to work backwards from your first game. You generally know when that is, and since you also know when your first practice is, you can create an installation calendar listing each practice. This literal calendar can be an invaluable aid in keeping you organized and on top of the progress your offense makes.

Prior to creating your installation calendar, you and the rest of the offensive staff should have a discussion regarding the philosophical direction of the offense. Make sure you’re all on the same page (including the head coach, if s/he’s not part of the offensive staff) as far as what your expectations are in both personnel and scheme.

I think it is important to note that no matter what your own personal philosophy of offense is, you may need to alter it to suit your players’ abilities. I can remember my first year as an offensive coordinator, in 1999. I’d taken over a men’s semi-pro team and had come straight from the high school ranks. I thought that the West Coast style of offense the high school ran would be fine for a bunch of grown men. I was wrong! Fortunately, it didn't take me very long to realize it, and we were able to make the switch over to an option-based system with drastically simplified line rules.

Once you decide on the direction of the offense, then you need to establish what your “go-to” play will be – what play will you use to set the tone for a game? That should be the first play you install, the first one you run during your very first team session. In past years for me, it has been the inside zone run, the outside zone run, the counter, a four verticals pass and a fly sweep. Each of those, depending on the team, was the “go-to” play for the year. The team knew, and had confidence in, those plays and knew that when the going got tough, they could execute that play and have a better-than-normal chance at success.

After that, after setting the tone, then you need to work the rest of your offense in. I normally group the plays by concept, so that the progression flows for everyone, and they can see, understand and retain the plays better. For example, in the pass game, if you start with your 4 Vertical concept, then install all the variants off of that. One year, my four vertical was called “Roadrunner” and then we had “Coyote” and “Acme” off of that, so those plays were installed right after Roadrunner. I would try to avoid installing more than one concept per practice.

Same thing for your run game – if you start with the inside zone, then install all of your variants of that before going to your counter gap concept plays.

Make sure that when you’re installing your base offense that you run them from all of your formations, unless you specifically decide not to run a particular play from a formation. That’s OK – there may be a perfectly fine reason to not pair a formation with a play. But 90% of the time, you should be able to run your base plays from all your formations.

I use a “ready list” spreadsheet to keep me on track. I start out with a Master – usually one from a previous year, when you have every play, every formation and every variant listed. Then I make a new sheet (tab) and mark it for the first practice – eliminating 95% of the Master. Then for each successive practice, I add to it what will be new for that practice. I normally pass those out to my QB and let them know that they are responsible for knowing assignment and formation for everyone else (maybe not the OL in the run game, but they should know the pass pro basics and the overall concept of the run plays). Obviously, not all the play/formation combinations on a ready list will make it to a team practice script, but the practice scripts are made from the ready list.

I’d be happy to send you a sample of what I’m talking about – just hit me up in the comments, on Facebook, Google+, Twitter or via e-mail.

That should get you started down the right path!

Pre-Snap Checklist for the Offensive Line

This particular checklist is courtesy of Bob Wylie, a long-time NFL offensive line coach with the Bears and Raiders, among others. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Wylie) I've fleshed some of the points out based on my experience.

When your offensive line hears the play call in the huddle (or on the LOS), what is the first thing they think of? (Hopefully not “Oh no – they’re running right behind me!”) What is their thought process about how they’re going to get the job done? Have you drilled their initial steps well enough that they don’t have to think about them?

Here’s their checklist:

Who do I have to block? Whether you block man, zone or by rule, the first thing going through your OL’s mind should be who s/he has. No matter if they think “DE”, “LB”, “inside gap” or “end man on the LOS”, they have to know and process that answer quickly.

What can the defense do to me in this picture? You need to teach your players to understand defenses and defensive looks. A defensive end who is normally outside is suddenly tighter with an OLB outside on the LOS…that should alert the tackle immediately to the possibility of an inside slant by the DE. Does this picture cause an adjustment that was talked about in practice or on the sidelines? Who’s likely to have contain, and who likely doesn't?

How will I get it done? Once the OL knows their assignment and understands what the defense is showing by alignment, then it becomes a matter of execution. Execution comes in two parts – assignment and technique. Assignment in this case doesn't really mean “who do I block” – that’s already been covered. It means more along the lines of “who is going to do this block with me, if anyone?” If I’m a tackle, am I going to do it solo, with the TE or with the guard? If it’s a pass play, do I have help from anyone? If so, from where? My inside or my outside? Is it the guard sliding to me, or is it a RB chipping from the outside? 

Knowing those answers will impact what the correct first step (technique) will be. An incorrect first step will mean you’ll be “playing behind” from the snap (please refer to my last post about assumptions you can make, and the dangers of playing against a better athlete). After that first step and first punch, then drilled responses to defensive action takes over - you're out of the checklist phase.

Homer Smith emphasized the importance of the QB having a mental checklist similar to that of a pilot. While the offensive line doesn't have quite as much to think about as the QB, I strongly believe that the use of a pre-snap checklist each and every play will help curtail “accidents” after the snap.