Last week I talked about formation terminology and a couple
of ideas to make it more efficient for you. This week I want to talk about your
play call terminology.
The first thing that I believe in is that under no circumstances
should you have one set of terminology for your “regular” tempo plays and then
another set for your 2-minute drill. With the popularity of no-huddle offenses
now, this point may be moot for many of you, but not everyone has jumped on
that bandwagon for any number of reasons. Coordinating and practicing a
no-huddle offense would take an entirely separate set of posts, so for now I’ll
address teams that utilize a more traditional tempo.
“Back in the day” the normal play call terminology was something
along the lines of “32 Lead” or “23 Power” for a run play and “612 Z Go” for a
pass play. Even numbers to the right, odd numbers to the left.[1] That was the
norm, and the way almost everyone did it. That style of terminology still has merit – it is easy to remember and can help
inexperienced players. However, it does make things more difficult for you if
you either need to audible or run a no-huddle offense in the last two minutes
of a half or game. You can’t very well call out “32 Lead” on the line of
scrimmage and not expect the defense to know exactly what you’re talking about.
So instead you come up with a coded system that is only for your “hurry up”
package. This results in two inefficiencies: you limit what you can run in your
hurry up package, and you have to set aside practice time to practice under
that set of terminology.
The challenge then, is to come up with a system that your
players can remember and your opponents cannot decipher. These fall under two
groups: A numeric system, or a code word system.
In a numeric system, you use numbers (obviously) almost
exclusively. The best one that I’ve run across in my 23 years of coaching was
used by Homer Smith, one of the most brilliant coaches in my opinion, who ever
lived. It was used at Fountain Valley High when I was there and became second
nature to the players after awhile. In a nutshell, a typical play call would
be, “Doubles, 11-2” – in this case, it is [Formation], [Play] [Direction]. The
number is pronounced as “Eleven two”, not “one twelve”. At FVHS (and UCLA,
where Smith coached), the first number, if odd, was a run and if even was a
pass. The second number was the direction of the play if a run, or the route
combination if a pass. If it was a pass, the first number denoted the pass
protection used. A typical pass play may have been “Spread, 4-22” ([Formation],
[Protection] [Route combination]).
This system is very flexible, but does take some getting
used to. Of course, I can always explain it in detail if asked.
The “in vogue” terminology today uses code words to denote
plays. In this system, seemingly random words are used to denote plays and
direction. A sample would be, “Doubles North Bob”. In this example, Doubles is
the formation, North denotes the direction and Bob is the play. With this
particular team, the use of any direction (north, east, south or west) meant
the play was to the left. If it were just “Doubles Bob”, then the play was to
the right. Other teams use hot (left) and cold (right) and then others may use
a single code word to denote left, with nothing meaning by default to the
right.
There are almost limitless ways to use this type of system.
One team I know uses cities and states for run or pass. Other teams use
team/city combinations (i.e., “Oakland” or “Raiders”) either for plays
themselves or play AND direction – Oakland would be a specific play to the
left, Raiders would be the same play to the right. Still others may use cars
(“Chevy” and “Camaro”, or “Honda” and “Civic”).
As with organizing your formations so that your players can
remember them, the same type of care must be put into the plays themselves –
even more so, because you will have more plays and variations than you do
formations.
Next week, we’ll look at how to actually install an offense.
[1] I
once had a head coach I worked for use even numbers to the left and odd numbers
to the right, solely because everyone else did it the opposite way. I’ve worked
under a lot of systems, but I never got those plays right!
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