Looking Back at 300 - Part 3 Riding High

Entering the 1996 season with Fountain Valley, I finally felt like I had a clue as to what I was doing. I had my practice routines down, my drills were crisp, I knew what adjustments to make within our offense and my guys started knowing what I was going to say before I said it. In February, I had a definite game-changing experience: listening to Coach Mike Sherman (Texas A&M OL coach) present at a coaches’ clinic. He was SO organized, so meticulous and so thorough that I just felt like I had to know more. I went up to him after the presentation and let him know how much I enjoyed it. He simply said, “Well, why don’t you come out and visit this spring?” Fortunately, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Fountain Valley had a very accomplished Booster Club. That spring, my assistant OL coach went to Nebraska, our QB coach went to Colorado, our DC went to Washington and I ended up going to A&M.

When I walked into Coach Sherman’s office a few weeks later, he “assigned” me a GA, Jason, and told me he’d meet me for lunch. Jason took me down to the film room and asked me what games I’d like to see. I picked out a few, settled in and started taking notes. I then met with Coach for lunch, and we went over everything I saw that morning, and answered all my questions. Then we went into the OL position group meeting, and then out to practice. I was pretty much “in the huddle” for everything, and ghosted alongside Coach Sherman the entire time. After practice, I was invited to dinner with the entire staff. Head Coach RC Slocum was extremely gracious with his time. The next morning, I had breakfast, and then reported back to Jason, and the sequence repeated itself that way for five days.

For those who wonder why I’m still a very passionate fan of Texas A&M, that’s the reason. I fell in love with the place when I was there, and have been fortunate enough to make two more visits back for game days. It’s on my list to go to again, for sure. But more than that, the time spent with Coach Sherman really changed my way of coaching, especially in terms of organization. Those habits have stayed with me ever since, and I can’t thank Coach enough for taking the time he did with me.

Moving into the fall, I knew I had probably the best offensive line in Orange County, which was saying something considering the competition. The left tackle I talked about in 1994 was now a senior and ended up being 2^nd Team All State. I got a transfer right tackle in, who ended up being All County. My guards and center were solid enough that they too, received scholarships.

We beat the hell out of arch-rival Huntington Beach Edison, 35-12 and capped off the year by winning the Sunset League championship, beating Anaheim Esperanza High 29-22. Unfortunately, we ran into La Puente Bishop Amat in the playoffs, and their Notre Dame-bound receiver/returner Joey Geatherall. They ended up winning 32-26 as Geatherall returned both a punt and a kick for TD’s.

Going into 1997, I had to start over with my OL. I only had one returning guy who had a lot of playing time, and that was at left guard. They were all smaller, as well (with the exception of the LG). With that, I learned about another key part of playbook construction from Offensive Coordinator Hank Cochrane (who taught me so much over the years): Have a system in place so that even if your personnel changes, your plays don’t need to – just emphasize a different part of the playbook.

Our players in 1996 were set up for power. We ran a ton of I-Backs, straight ahead inside zone, Iso’s and Counters. Our passes were mostly straight dropbacks and play action. In 1997, the playcalls became more of the outside zone, speed option variety, and a lot of the pass plays were sprint-outs, which suited our changing player traits on the OL, as well as at QB and RB.

We managed another last-minute victory against Edison, winning 19-17. In the playoffs, we again experienced the downside of playing in the Southern Section. We faced mighty Long Beach Poly in the first round, and it wasn’t pretty. They probably had five or six guys faster than our fastest guy, and their four DL collectively outweighed my five OL by 100 pounds. The final was 40-9.

In 1998, my youngest son, Travis, was born and we moved the family back to San Diego in September. I became a “game night” coach for Fountain Valley that year, driving up for the games only – I couldn’t quite let myself give it up! The guys who were there were still “my guys”, at least in my mind. My assistant, Scott Wilford, took over for me and was an extremely capable coach in his own right. He ended up coaching at Saddleback College, so he obviously knew his stuff.

One of the early highlights that year was playing at Bloomington High School. They were coached by noted Double Wing guru Don Markham, and had been held under 30 points only two or three times in the 90’s. We added to that by beating them 35-26. Against Edison, we beat them for the fourth straight time, 42-28. “My” 4-1 record against them is something I’m still rather proud of – that’s just how much the rivalry means.

Unfortunately, by now you probably know how the season ends….by facing Santa Ana Mater Dei and a QB you may have heard of – Matt Leinart. We ended up losing 30-14, and that also ended up being Coach George Berg’s final game, as he retired soon thereafter. I was pretty sure after that season that it wouldn’t serve anyone to keep making the drive, but Coach Berg’s decision made it easy – my time at Fountain Valley was over.

It is safe to say that my time as a Baron was the most important period in my coaching development. I can’t even begin to list the things that Coaches Berg, Cochrane, O’Connell and Puga taught me. I will always be a fan of FV. Blue Pride!

Next Week: A different level.

A Look Back at 300 - Part 2 Learning to Swim

This is the second in a series of a look back at my first 300 games as a coach. You can read Part 1 here.

Last week I talked about my nerve-wracking initial days at Fountain Valley High (1994), from being thrown into a deep playbook with entirely new concepts, to actually being held accountable for knowing the same, was a new experience. Now, as always having been the self-aware type, as I mentioned last week, I knew I was the weak link as the Assistant OL Coach. The guy I reported directly to was Jim O’Connell, the OL Coach and DC. I like Jim – I like him a lot, “now”. Back then he scared the crap outta me. He’s a great coach, is an unbelievable technician, but he probably looked at me and thought, “I’m trusting my OL to this guy?” Fortunately, our relationship changed dramatically one day when we were talking about the offense and what I did or didn’t know about it. I flat out told him that he intimidated me, for whatever reason, or whoever’s fault, that’s just the way it was. He was truly taken aback I think, and that’s when our dialogue got a whole lot better.

Well, it turned out to be a good thing that I spoke up and opened the lines of communication, because towards the end of the summer session that year, Coach Berg pulled me aside. He said, “OK, you’re The Guy.” I asked him what he was talking about, and he said that Coach O’Connell had just taken the DC job at a brand new school in South Orange County, Aliso Viejo High. The Grand Plan of having me learn the offense and the realities of competing in one of the most competitive divisions of high school football in the country evaporated. As Coach Berg said, I was The Guy now.

I had a senior-heavy crew who were technically sound, if a bit undersized. However, they knew they knew more about the playbook than I did. Winning their trust was a season-long effort. Two games I vividly remember: Week 4, we were playing Anaheim Servite High. They are an all-boys Catholic school, and an extremely well-regarded program. They’d been in our league in the past, but had fallen down a little and got bumped down to Division V this year. They weren’t happy about it. We were the first former Sunset League team they played. Their Coach, the recently retired Larry Toner, ran an unusual flex defense that featured full-man slants, loops and twists. They held us to -27 yards rushing in a 21-7 victory. After the game Coach Toner sarcastically said, “I guess they’re right. We *don’t* belong in the Sunset League.” That comment really stung, and caused me to seriously re-evaluate my place in the coaching community. I got the chance to meet Coach Toner several times over the years I was at Fountain Valley, usually during a film exchange or something, and I love the guy. I’d gladly work for him, but that one hurt. Fortunately, we were able to bounce back the next week, beating up on Orange County #5 Huntington Beach Marina 35-0, and I felt a little better about myself.

One other thing – I learned what a rivalry truly was. Sure, there were “rivalry games” at both San Clemente (Dana Hills High) and at La Quinta (Fountain Valley Los Amigos High), but *nothing* like Fountain Valley vs Huntington Beach Edison! I can remember walking onto the campus at 7:00 AM on a Saturday morning after a game and seeing dozens of volunteers already at work putting up banners that would eventually almost completely blanket the school. There were times in the past that they played this game at Anaheim Stadium, and drew crowds of 30,000. Unfortunately for us, we weren’t very good in ’04, and Edison was. They beat us “a whole lot to not very much.”

The second game I remember also gave me a life-long coaching lesson. It was Week 10, and we were sitting at 4-5, not going to the playoffs (but hey, after three consecutive years of 2-8, this was a bit of improvement). We were playing Anaheim Esperanza High who was coached by twin Orange County coaching legends – HC Gary Meek and DC Bill Pendleton. Coach Pendleton ran a form of the Bears’ 46 defense. As with Servite’s flex, this was the first time I’d seen the 46. I had a sophomore starting at LT. He would turn out to be a very talented player, but not as a sophomore. We gave up, I don’t know…maybe 8 sacks in the first half. It was ugly. We go in at half down by a bunch and I get my guys together and just started lighting into them – ripping them up one side and down the other. When I was done, my senior center, Bryan Erickson, looked up and said, “OK Coach – you’ve told us what is wrong. Now tell us how to fix it.” Quite honestly, I was taken aback by his calm, direct nature. And he was 100%, absolutely correct. All I was doing was yelling – I wasn’t coaching. I’ve lost contact with Bryan, but I thank him every so often for reminding me what is important.

Going into 1995, I started feeling a bit more comfortable in what I was doing. No longer were the concepts completely foreign, and I actually started “thinking” in the terminology. I had a full off-season with my guys in the weight room (yes, I once again took an active role in that), a full spring practice season, and a full summer camp experience. It’s amazing what can happen in a true year-around program. The seniors who were brought up under Coach O’Connell were gone and the guys who became leaders started believing in me. We formed a pretty tight bond.

Three games of note that year: Week 1 and Week 11 were against the same opponent – Los Angeles Loyola High School. We lost both of them. They ran the most vanilla 3-4 defense I’ve ever seen. Their roster wasn’t filled with future collegiate players, unless you count Ivy League guys – they were just solid high school players. But they made zero mistakes and missed few, if any, tackles. The game to remember though, was the Edison game. Edison has won five out of the last six meetings, and we were tired of it. We went out to a big 21-0 lead, and watched it waste away, eventually trailing 22-21. With 2:43 left, we started our drive. My right tackle, Travis Ault, gave up consecutive sacks. I had pressure to “get him out of there” but I knew he could do it. On 4^th and 24, we completed a “12-9 Deep Lock” for 25 yards. With only 19 seconds left, we hit one last completion in the end zone for the win. You can read the recap from the Loa Angeles Times here. It was a feeling unlike any other I’ve had playing or coaching football (to that point in time). Playing in front of 13,000 frenzied fans was a new, exciting thing. I wanted more!

Next week: Riding High

Women's Recap & Off-season news

The two main women’s leagues wrapped up their season last weekend. As expected, the Utah Falconz dispatched the Minnesota Vixen 49-6 to win the IWFL league championship. I really do hope Utah and the WFA can work out whatever differences they have to get the Falconz in with the rest of the best teams in the country. If not, go ahead and pencil in the Falconz as 2017 league champs as well. And maybe 2018, 2019 and 2020.

OK, speaking of the WFA, fans were treated to another great National Championship game there. In a repeat of last year’s finale, the DC Divas came from behind to beat the Dallas Elite, 28-26. Dallas went up early 12-0 and at that time it looked like déjà vu of the regular season’s Week 2, where Dallas beat DC by 21. However, it is tough to beat a good team twice in the same year. When I was talking with one of my former players just before the game, I said I had no idea who would win. And it turned out to be a great game. I cannot congratulate the Divas enough – coming back after being down early is always a tremendous accomplishment, and I’m happy for my friends in the organization.

I also feel bad for my friends within the Elite. Back-to-back trips to the championship game in your first two years is a great feat (the Surge did it as well; losing to Boston in ’11, then beating Chicago in ’12) but in final games, it is absolutely gut-wrenching to watch it slip away.

The good news is that the Women’s Game is getting more and more press and exposure each year. A play from the Minnesota/New York playoff game even made the ESPN SportsCenter Top 10 recently. Some American players are heading overseas the lend their expertise and leadership, and some coaches are going to, to help out national teams. The 2017 World Games might be interesting next year!

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Speaking of the off-season, as you may have thought, there is no RS Football Camp this year. With no player or coach base to start from, there wasn’t much reason to ask everyone to travel here. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities this fall/winter!

Coach Scott McCarron of the Seattle Majestics and I both attended one of LeCharles Bentley’s offensive line coaching seminars (unfortunately not at the same time – that would have been fun) this spring, and I owe him a trip since he came down to the RS Camp last year. We’ve talked briefly about maybe doing something up there this off-season, if for no other reason than to drill his OL in the new system and drills we picked up.

Additionally, I’m available for weekend trips anytime after November 19, until pretty much the 1^st of March. Whether you want your OL tuned up, whether you want to install a new offense, meet with your coaches, do a special teams clinic, or anything else you can think of, I’m game. As far as cost, it’s a lot cheaper for me to come to you and coach 30 people, than it is for 6 or 7 of your team to come to me. You could blend the cost into your team fees and barely have it register (about $25 per person for a group of 30, all inclusive, and assuming a plane trip).

Anyone that is interested, I’ll be happy to send my résumé and we can discuss exactly what you’re looking for. Everything is tailored to your team. Anything from just a nudge to get you over that “one last” opponent to getting your team of rookies ready to go, I can help.

What I’m even more excited about is the start of a weekly off-season Big Person camp. It’ll start either late December or right after New Years – I’m flexible on that. The goal is for “any” adult offensive lineman, male or female, to work solely on stance, body movement and biomechanics in a non-contact, learning environment. The cost will be “Free-99”. My main goal, of course, is to get my Nighthawk OL coached up and better than ever in stuff that I just don’t have time to teach during the season. The secondary goal is to get any and all female OL to a great level on the basics. More on that after the Nighthawk season is over.

Finally, the Nighthawks have a big game this weekend against the Riverside County Disciples. You’ll hear all about that next week!

Catching Up & A New Season

Hi All – there really hasn’t been that much to write about lately, so I didn’t want to just talk to hear myself talk, you know? But here are some thoughts on what has happened, what will happen, and what is happening now:

What has happened: The women’s seasons are coming to an end. In the WFA, it will be a repeat of Week 2, in which the Dallas Elite faced the DC Divas. The road to the championship had some surprising moments, at least for me. In their latest game, the Central Cal War Angels went to Dallas and came very close to knocking off the Elite, losing only 34-28. That was a heck of an effort by the War Angels. I didn’t expect it to be that close. I thought that Dallas’ speed would overwhelm Central Cal. So hats off to the War Angels players and staff!

The other, bigger surprise for me was Boston knocking off Chicago in a relatively low-scoring affair. After Boston lost their QB to injury in the last meeting with Chicago, it turned ugly for the Renegades in a hurry. They then squeaked past Cleveland and headed for a rematch with the Force. I figured the game would be in the 35-14 range for Chicago. Instead, the Renegades came out on top 17-13. That was truly a gutsy effort by Boston!

So now – what happens this week in the National Championship? I have no idea. DC turned around on put up 47 points on that same Boston defense the next week. They’re eager to prove their Championship last year was no fluke. Dallas defeated the Divas rather forcefully in DC in Week 2, but the close win against Central Cal concerns me (it is entirely possible that Central Cal was much better than I thought they’d be, but all of their other games tracked as I thought they would, so no surprises). I do believe it will be a great game.

Over in the IWFL, in the pre-season I thought it would come down to the Utah Falconz and the New York Sharks. I was right about the Falconz, and the Sharks almost made it – the Minnesota Vixen came out of seemingly nowhere to have an undefeated season, and defeated the Sharks in the semi-finals.

Utah rolled through their schedule, surprising me only once, when they beat the Carson Bobcats only 38-0. I thought it would be 49-0. To be fair, I was only one TD off – I didn’t realize Utah doesn’t have a kicker. I said in preseason that you could crown Utah the champion right now, because no one would come within 28 points of them, and I stand by that. Utah has unfinished business, after losing in last years’ league championship to Pittsburgh, who is now in the WFA. Minnesota surprised me by beating the Sharks, but the Sharks aren’t the Falconz, and this game isn’t in Minnesota.

Finally, what is happening: My team, the San Diego Nighthawks got off to a pretty good start this Saturday, hosting the California Cowboys.  The Cowboys are a first-year team, but they have some veteran players. We may as well be a first year team, as all but one of the coaches are new, and about half the team hasn’t played together before. Going into the game, I knew nothing about the Cowboys, except that they beat a Vegas team the previous week 41-0. So that’s always fun, having no idea what your opponent will do. Our first two plays lost a total of 15 yards (including a false start in between). You gotta like that, coming out of the gate and practicing those plays specifically, only to have it blow up in your face. But no one panicked and our 4^th snap gained us a 1^st down.

Looking back on the film and my call sheet, we stayed really basic, especially by my standards. Used motion only twice, and went unbalanced only once or twice. We killed them with a TE screen that got them out of their stacked box look, and the downfield passing game remained open all night. My starting QB was 11/17, and we got all three in the game. We were able to play everyone in a 38-0 win.

Certainly, there is work to do. I wasn’t happy with our run game, but early on a lot of the credit had to go to their defense, who seemed determined not to give up yards on the ground. Football is all about adjusting, and for the most part I was happy about how we did that.

I did have my customary “week 1” brain fart though…..just before the half I thought we were on 2^nd down when we gave up a sack, with about a minute left (scoreboard wasn’t working, so had to rely on the chain crew). So I called timeout. Turns out, that was third down, with 4^th now coming up and I’d just stopped the clock for them (they had no timeouts). We punted, and held them, but I was still mad at myself.

Our next game is on the 30^th, versus the Riverside County Disciples, a team that has been playing since the spring. They should be pretty good and I coached against their DC last year, so have a little bit better idea of what they’ll likely do. Fortunately for us, they have a pretty tough game this week so won’t have a lot of time to get ready for us.

I’m sure I’ll write something next week, at least about the womens’ championships and some possible off-season activity. See you then!

Coaching Them Up!

This past weekend was a great one – I had the chance to put into practice everything I learned two weeks ago from LeCharles Bentley and his staff. A friend of mine asked me to come out to his high school and coach his players up a bit. It’s a new staff, and the program had run onto hard times, only winning a couple of games each year for the past few seasons.

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect – I was told to “oversee” the OL during Indy, 1-on-1’s and team during the Friday afternoon practice, and then I would have them for four hours Saturday morning all to myself. When I got there, there were two other OL coaches there, and one was pretty much running everything. So I decided that since they were going into a competitive period (1-on-1’s) and then team, that I would hang back a little on Friday and just take notes about where they were at in terms of skill development. I didn’t want them to have to think not only “who” to block, but also “how” to do it in competitive drills.

Remember, this is a new staff, so none of the coaches were holdovers and they’d only had 4 practices with them. Given that, they didn’t look like they’d been coached much in previous seasons. One of the OL coaches is a young guy, and very enthusiastic. I’m convinced he’s going to be very, very good. He just has to develop his teaching patterns. Just as offensive linemen need to develop movement patterns to be efficient, coaches need to get their teaching patterns down so they can be efficient as well. This young guy isn’t quite there yet (but he’s way better than I was at the same stage of development). The older OL coach is more of an “attitude guy” – he’s very good at getting the kids to play with a proper attitude and to go out there and kick butt.

The kids themselves were great. They may not be great football players yet, but they are A+ human beings. As I mentioned, their technique was very raw, to the point of it was always a bit more of “how can I survive this play” rather than “how can I dominate this play”. So on Friday, I just took notes and offered some general suggestions to guys when I had the chance.

Saturday morning was different. They were all there either early or right on time. I’d developed a practice plan to take them through everything, that extended (in outline form) to five pages (!). Being that this is the first time I’d gone through this progression as a coach, and not knowing what pitfalls there may be, I wasn’t sure at all of how it might time out.

As it happened, we got through everything in almost exactly four hours. And let me reiterate – these kids are top-notch. I’d give them a water break, and they’d sprint off the field to an area a little ways away where the water was. By the time I got over there, they were saying, “OK guys, let’s go!” They really wanted to work and get better.

Some of the transformations were remarkable. The right tackle was a kid who sort of hopped into his pass set and opened up almost completely by his second step. We took a “before and after” video of him, and the results were staggering. A (soon to be) senior guard was coaching the other kids up before too long – he’s a smart guy, and was taking in everything and was able to repeat it back to me and the other players. They had two freshmen kids, one of which had never played football before, and they ended up being two of the stars of the camp. I could go on and on about how much fun I had coaching these guys, and how much I’m looking forward to watching their continued development over this season.

LeCharles just announced on Monday that the next Coaches Seminar is going to be July 16-17. I would strongly suggest that any OL coach who wants to make his guys better attend. I’ll be back in 2017 for sure. You can register here. You can thank me later.

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In the WFA game of note this week, Chicago beat up on Boston 50-something to 18. I was expecting a much closer game, maybe even with Boston winning, I understand that Boston’s outstanding QB, Allison Cahill, went out with a season-ending injury. At the time, I think the game was close, and my guess is that then not only were the Renegades missing a whole bunch of offense, but also probably were a bit emotionally deflated, which is understandable.

With that result, if there is any difference in the Final Four other than DC, Chicago, Central Cal and Dallas, I’ll be shocked. I’m still fairly certain that Dallas will be the finalist from the West, and less certain that DC will be from the East.

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On the men’s side, my Nighthawks have landed in a new league, the Southern California Football League (SCFL). This league is a quantum leap up in competition: The California Raiders were undefeated last year, the So Cal Coyotes have won a couple of national championships*, the Inglewood Blackhawks have won some, and the San Diego Thunder had a run on the national scene at late as the late 2000’s. Throw in a virtual All Star team in the Las Vegas Trojans, and there are very few gimmes on our schedule.

All in all, I couldn’t be happier – these are the types of games you sign up for as a coach, the types that for whatever reason we didn’t get often in the women’s game, at least until the playoffs.

*For my female game readers, national championships are a bit different in the men’s game. First of all, there are over 600 men’s teams across the country, so having one national champion is pretty much not going to happen. Second, there are several “national championship” tournaments put on in December/January. Fortunately for us, our league is recognized as one of the most competitive in the country, so our league winner will get an automatic bid to a national tournament.

Into Pads & WFA Review

Things are starting to heat up in the Nighthawks camp – we went into pads last week. After seven weeks of one-a-week practices without pads, we started our 2x a week sessions which will last at least until the season starts in July, then we’ll reevaluate. As might be expected, the guys were itching to really get after it, and they did!

From an offensive standpoint, I’ve seen that I need to make some adjustments in which formations I run the counter out of – the defenders are just too fast, and I don’t want to automatically put my QB in a keep/run situation there. So in order to keep everything else consistent, I’ve just got to tweak the formation list a little to keep them honest.

Another nice surprise is how quickly the guys have picked up on the five man pass protection. I thought there might be more communication issues than there has been so far. I imagine that as the defense dials up more sophisticated schemes, we’ll have to keep adjusting upwards, and that’s OK.

It is also clear that our run game will have the ability to be a game-changer, and that was without one of our better backs even taking a rep. All in all, I guess you can tell I am pretty happy after the first week.

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This week I’m very excited to be heading over to Phoenix on Friday night to attend LeCharles Bentley’s OL Performance coaches’ clinic. LeCharles, as he puts it, “stays in his lane” when it comes to teaching OL technique. He keeps scheme out of it, and concentrates on the biomechanics, which don’t change – the body works how it works. Over time, I’ve seen him make some incredibly detailed adjustments which can make a big difference. I’m looking forward to going over, bonding with some fellow OL coaches (I know at least a couple of top San Diego high school guys will be there) and bringing back some knowledge that’ll make my guys better.

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I may have mentioned that I’m working with Dual Threat Athletics here in town. I had a young (11-year-old) OL out last week, who’d played for one year previously. I have a battery of initial drills that I put everyone through just to see where they’re at, and then I build the rest of the session off of those. This young man, once he got into what was his stance, I knew that whoever he played for before, there probably wasn’t an OL coach on the staff. And that’s OK….there may be a guy designated as such, but the chances of an experienced OL coach being at the youth level is relatively slim. Anyway, we worked for about an hour and I gotta say that at the end of the session, he looked like an honest-to-goodness Offensive Lineman. His Dad came up to me afterwards and said, “(My son) learned more today than he did all last season.” It is for experiences like that, that I coach.

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OK, a look around games of note for the WFA the past couple of weeks:

For better or worse, I called a couple of games billed as “big ones” correctly two weeks ago – Dallas beating Kansas City by 40 (I said “it wouldn’t be close”) and then the Central Cal War Angels beating the previously unscored upon Sin City Trojans 58-6 (I said, “War Angels by a comfortable (28+) margin”).

I have to give credit also to the Pittsburgh Passion – they really look like they’re stepping up into the upper stratus. Their game this week against Boston will tell if that is true or not. I’m going to go out on a limb and call this one for Pittsburgh, by 10 or less. That game seems to be the only one of true nationwide interest.

I think for now, the debate as to which team is #1 is settled – I think it is clearly Dallas, until/unless someone knocks them off. After beating DC on the road in Week 2, then having DC go up to Chicago and beating the Force in a nail-biter, the Elite seem to be truly that.

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Until I get into the Nighthawks’ season (or something else interesting pops up) I may not post for another two weeks. I’ll be out in Las Vegas in two weeks to conduct an OL mini-camp for a high school there, and will catch the Trojans vs. Pacific Warriors game. I’m definitely looking forward to both! Catch you later! 

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.

WFA - IWFL Opening Weeks

Thanks for all those who asked about missing last week’s post – there wasn’t one. In past years since I’ve written this blog (almost 2 years now), I’ve always had games with the Surge around this time, so had plenty to write about. This year is a little different, since we’re just gearing up for the start of practice with the Nighthawks. Since I didn’t have a lightning bolt of inspiration last week, I didn’t want to put a bunch of words together just to do it, you know? Anyway…..

Two weeks ago, in Week 1 of the WFA, the games all went the way I expected them to, except for one: The Indy Crash pulled off what I would consider a pretty major upset when they beat the Cleveland Fusion, in Cleveland. The Fusion were my dark horse pick to break into the elite of the WFA National Conference, so we’ll have to see exactly how that plays out from here on out. Great job Indy!

This week, there were a couple of games of note: The Kansas City Titans versus the St. Louis Slam, and in the Big Rematch, the Dallas Elite, who travelled to the DC Divas in a very rare cross-conference regular season game. Also out West, you had the Central Cal War Angels taking on the Pacific Warriors.

The shocker, at least to me, was the 40-19 Dallas victory over DC. I’m not so surprised by an Elite victory, but by 3 TD’s, in D.C.? That was the shocker…..I never thought a team as proud as the Divas would get rolled like that on their home field, especially in their first big test after their national championship win over the same Elite. Gotta hand it to Dallas – that was a heckuva win.

The Titans, as I expected beat the Slam. My opinion only, which means zilch is that I wish the KC/St. Louis split never happened. When they banded together in 2014, they were pretty damn good.

Also as I expected, the War Angels took out the Warriors. The War Angels, interestingly enough, seemed to pick up more former Surge players than anyone else. Well, they may be tied with the North County Stars of the IWFL, whose high number was to be expected.

Interesting to me was the Seattle Majestics final score of 13-0 over the Tacoma Trauma. If I remember correctly, Seattle has dominated that series in the past. Seattle has yet to be scored on, and with them missing one of their leaders on defense, Holly Custis, much credit has to go to coach Scott McCarron.

The Boston Renegades beat Cleveland 28-7. I was looking for the Fusion to take that next step this season, but opening up 0-2 isn’t helping them much.

Over in the IWFL, the game that got my attention was the Carson Bobcats going up to Sacramento and beating the Sirens 30-6. Apparently the Bobcats didn’t pick up as many of the Pacific Warriors as I originally thought/assumed, so to take a pretty much new team and go up to Sacramento and win is a tall order, and impressive. When we went up there in 2013 it wasn’t pretty at all! That sets up what hopefully should be a good game this coming Saturday of the Bobcats versus the NC Stars. I’m looking forward to seeing that especially because two of my former Surge OL are playing for the Stars.

****

With the Nighthawks, our OTA’s (basically non-padded, once-a-week practices) are going well. I’d say we’ve got about 80% of the offense installed and are just getting reps on it. We had 7 OL at practice last week, and I can’t remember the last time that happened with the guys. Everyone is looking to push each other to get better, and even injured guys are coming out and taking mental reps so they don’t get too far behind. That’s the sign of a team that is willing to put in the work.

The backs and receivers are out there getting their reads down, and just trying to play as fast as possible. All of those reps are going to come into play once we get the pads on early next month.

***

Finally, because I figured that I don’t have enough to do, I’ve started working with Dual Threat Athletics as an Offensive Lineman specialist/trainer. They’ve got a pretty good skill position program set up already but are looking to expand into all positions. It’s time that some of the big kids get some love too, you know? The one-on-one training sessions I’ve been doing with the local high school OL have been going really well – he’s going to be pretty good, so now it’s time to get more OL out there. So far, I’ve gotten pretty good at coaching 9^th & 10^th grade WR how to stalk block!

Humbled

This will probably be a quick post….really not a whole lot going on right now. My choice of title comes from a couple of followers I picked up over time on my Twitter feed (@kmring). There is at least one NCAA D-I OL coach among my followers (Brent Myers from Weber State, who has helped me a lot over the years, whether he knows it or not, and is an extremely nice guy), and now LeCharles Bentley, who runs OL Performance World who I’ve talked about a lot on here just followed me. So *now* I’m nervous! And humbled, and honored……I mean, I’m just a guy plugging away trying to get better and help those around me. I’m no expert and don’t have all the answers. Over time (25 years), I’ve learned plenty of what not to do, and have been around some pretty good coaches who have been free with their time – LeCharles figures to be the next at his coaches’ clinic in May, which I’m extremely excited about.

I know that sometimes I talk about things that others don’t agree with, and that most of the time, when I talk about the women’s game or the semi-pro game, it just doesn’t jive with “best practices” at the high school, collegiate or pro levels, mostly due to practice limitations. Technique is technique (although LeCharles has pointed out some differences in the women’s game which are very valid, and I didn’t realize), and scheme is scheme. But what we can get done in one or two practices a week is the wild card. Now that I’ve garnered another high-powered follower, just that alone will help keep me on my toes. Hopefully I don’t step on my….tongue….too often!

***

One thing that did happen last week was the NFL changing the chop block rule. Now, maybe I’m just dense but I always thought that all chop blocks were illegal. I know now that that wasn’t the case and that some were OK. It is just that I never taught any of the legal techniques, being as how I thought they were illegal. Heck, I hardly ever even cut anyway. In the women’s game, it has to be done on first movement, and in the men’s game, well, they just generally don’t do it for a variety of reasons. So I never put that much effort into teaching or drilling it.

However, it is good to know that some techniques are still good to go. There was a SB Nation article that outlined things pretty well. You can see it here. So don’t despair OL of the world – most of what you do is still OK!

***

Speaking of the women’s game, some of the teams will open up their seasons this weekend. In the WFA, in the West, I think it’ll come down to Seattle and Central Cal in the Pacific, and Dallas and Kansas City in the Midwest. I think in this case it’ll be a repeat of 2013, with Dallas beating Central Cal. I just don’t see any “surprise” teams improving enough to beat those four.

In the East, no doubt it’ll be Chicago, Cleveland, Boston and DC in some form or fashion. I’m not discounting Chicago at all, but as I’ve done in the past with Boston, I figure that until the champ is knocked off, they’re still the champ, so DC it is until proven otherwise. I’d love to see Cleveland have a “next step” type of season, and who knows, maybe Pittsburgh can ride their IWFL championship and vault into the Top 4 in the East. I like what they do, but they’re going to have to prove that they can beat Boston, DC, et al before I can say they’re one of the elite.

In the IWFL, for me it is Utah. Period. There’s really no one else in the conversation, and it’s sort of sad that anyone can say that at this point of the season.

I’d like to wish all of the former Surge players well this year. As far as I can tell, there are some on the NC Stars, the Carson Bobcats and the Central Cal War Angels. Best of skill to you all, and have fun!

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.

Fewer Barriers

Last week came the announcement from the Buffalo Bills that they were going to hire Kathryn Smith as the first full-time Assistant Coach in the NFL. As a Special Teams Quality Control Coach, she won’t be spending that much time in an “on the field” capacity, rather she’ll contribute her personnel evaluation skills, her film breakdown skills and other analytical skills. I applaud this hire, as she’s put in her time and worked her way up the ladder. Although her apparent lack of playing experience (none that I heard of anyway) will likely limit her to behind-the-scenes opportunities, I don’t have a problem with that either – I talked recently about the “talent pyramid” and how players can fall outside of it for any number of reasons. Well, the same thing applies to coaches. In any case, I wish her well and that her position is a lasting one that truly opens the doors for others.

Speaking of others, I’m once again going to say that someone in the NFL or college ranks needs to give Lori Locust a look. As a former player and one who has successfully coached men for more than a few seasons, she can flat out coach and her upside isn’t limited by a lack of playing experience. She’s “been and done”. You need a Defensive Quality Control person, with a specialty in the DL and can also help out on ST? She’s your answer. Contact me for her info (legit inquiries only).

***

On a slightly different note in the women’s game, I recently saw a Twitter video from a team with the caption, “You play like you practice”. This is a true statement, I think…..the problem was, what they took pride in (“We play low!”) was also potentially very dangerous. The video showed players in three-point stances coming out of it under a makeshift chute, made of bags. My issue with the video is that each and every player they showed was ducking their head downwards to get “low” under the chute. If they truly play like they practice, then on their second step their heads are going to be at a very dangerous angle when making contact. I mentioned to the team via Tweet that they might want to be careful about that, but as of yet hadn’t received a response.

Playing low is very desirable, but that doesn’t come from your head ducking, it comes from bending at the knees and sinking your hips. It’s tough to do, too, which is why it needs to be repped into the hundreds and thousands of times. Your eyes should always stay up, looking at your target. That is true in both tackling and blocking.

I also saw recently a high school team working with a new product, called the ShadowMan tackling dummy. I think this is a legit product – I loved it. You may have seen the Dartmouth demonstration last year with their robotic tackling dummy (or now a retail product from Rogers Athletics). This is similar to that, but a lot less expensive (I hope). This is a tackling dummy tied with some sort of leash to an actual player. The player runs forward, getting conditioning work in for sure, and then the tackler comes in and tackles the dummy. They’re now able to practice full speed tackling against a moving opponent, without being in pads. I think that is fantastic. The only issue I had with the video is that again, the players came in with their heads down.

I know that USAFootball is all in on getting the head out of tackling and I agree. What amazes me is that this is a “thing” all of a sudden. One of my mentors, Bill Williams, has been teaching this style of tackling since at least 1992 (I say that because that is the first year he exposed me to it – I really have no idea how long he’s been teaching it). He’s done camps and clinics all across the country. I think his problem is that he only marketed his tackling methods as “effective tackling” rather than “safe tackling” as everyone is doing now.

I’ve seen other people mirror what Bill teaches, but none of them are as good. You can find out more about Bill at www.billwilliamsfcpga.net.

***

There were a couple of interesting games this past weekend in the NFL, if you didn’t hear.  :-) The AFC title game was darn good, with twists and turns coming down to the last second. 

I must say that I’m definitely a fan of the NFL XP distance – it’s really put an element of doubt into the outcome and force coaches to be much more strategic in their thinking. I certainly wasn’t a fan of New England’s OL play….I wonder how much they miss retired OL coach Dante Scarnecchia about now**? I vividly remember two examples: One was of their LT, Vollmer and his first steps not gaining near enough depth against a speed rusher, and him having to turn out of square way too soon. On the other side, the NE RT was having a ton of trouble with Von Miller (who wouldn’t?), but their solution was to bring in a backup as an extra OL. OK, great – I figured they were going to double Miller. Oh no, instead they had the backup, who was fresh off the bench and cold (figuratively and literally) block Miller one-on-one. Hey, New England….if your “starting” RT couldn’t do it, what made you think a backup could? Not a fan at all…..and it showed up in the final score. If the Patriots could have kept Brady upright and mobile just a little more there may have been a real different outcome. Just sayin’……

On the NFC side, well, if you turn the ball over 7 times, you’re not going to win, period. I think Carolina was going to win anyways (although I was rooting for Arizona), but when you make mistakes against a team as good as Carolina is that 30 point margin is going to show in a hurry. On the bright side, maybe now I can find a good deal on a Kangol hat…..

**On Monday it was reported that New England OL coach Dave DeGuglielmo has been fired. I never like to see anyone lose their job, but football is very much a results-orientated business. At all levels, of course, but obviously with all the money at stake in the NFL, that talent pyramid is very narrow indeed.

End of an Era

Just before last week’s blog post came out, the San Diego Surge announced that it was going to take a year off to regroup and get back to a competitive state. For the Surge, that means either Elite 8 or Final Four status – levels that we reached every year since 2011. In five seasons, the Surge made three national championship appearances (2011, 2012, 2014) and winning one (2012). In 2015 we made the Final Four, and only in 2013 did we end up at the Elite 8 level. That’s a pretty good run, and I’d put only Boston’s two national titles up over our record in that same time period.

In my opinion, women’s football is way too costly of a sport to do at a recreational level, so I applaud the Surge ownership for being willing to take a step back.

So, in the spirit of nostalgia, I thought I’d count down my Top Six Favorite Surge games:

2013 Season Opener: We played the Pacific Warriors on the road in Week One. We were breaking in a new, inexperienced QB along with a lot of rookie WR. But we had a very solid OL and an outstanding WR/RB. It was my year as the offensive coordinator, and we learned quickly that we weren’t going to be able to run our typical Surge offense. So we settled on a Fly Sweep-based attack that played to our strengths. Calling plays in that offense required a lot of patience…you had to be able to accept consistent 4-6 yard gains. That may not be a problem for some people, but we were used to a lot more lightning-strike types of plays. But we did have our fun that game: First play was a play-action pass for a nice gain, we hit them with a hook-n-lateral for a key first down, and then scored the clenching TD on a “fake WR screen and go” the play after they jumped on a WR screen that was nullified by a penalty. Final score 28-14 Surge.

2011 American Conference Championship: 2011 was the first year of the Surge, breaking away from the SoCal Scorpions. We were pretty loaded with talent, but we weren’t sure exactly how much. The season was rife with blow-out wins so we weren’t really tested. The Dallas Diamonds came into town full of optimism – they were very talented and had a great legacy themselves. In addition to winning a few national titles in the early-to-mid 2000’s (the Scorpions put an end to that in 2007), they went and won another one in 2008. The Diamonds were itching for redemption and completely believed they could pull it off. Unfortunately for them, they had absolutely no answer for our overall team speed. We probably had the four or five fastest people on the field. I honestly forget the exact final score, but I want to say it was in the 41-14 range.

2011 National Championship: This game was far from my favorite, but it was valuable. Going up against the Boston Militia was an eye-opening experience. Remember that we were coming off a big win against a team that we thought was pretty good. Our confidence was high. Boston was big, fast and athletic and on top of that, extremely well-coached. They basically ran a version of the “walkaround” defense where maybe only one or two players have their hand in the dirt and the others just sort of wander around presnap, never giving you a good read on who was coming and who wasn’t. The final score was 34-19 for the Militia. The reason the game was so valuable to us is that it gave us a laser-like focus going into 2012. We decided as a staff that if all else was equal, we were going to implement a play, or drill or scheme that would help us beat Boston – that was the only thing that mattered to us.

2014 National Championship: Again, we faced Boston. The reason this makes it into my Top Six is solely because it was a National Championship. How many players or coaches can say they’ve even been in one, let alone three in four years? We were OK on offense, except for one thing: fumbles, early and often. We definitely had depth issues though, and ran out of gas on defense. Although we put up 35 points, it wasn’t nearly enough. Final score Boston, 64-35.

2012 American Conference Championship: This game was, to us, simply a repeat of the previous year’s American Conference Championship versus Dallas. To Dallas though, it was something much, much bigger. They were flying high once again, having averaged well over 60 points a game. Their head coach did a remarkable job of hyping his team and players. And they definitely had some horses on offense. But in 2012 we were absolutely stacked – 48 players, no one playing both ways (well, one exception for this game), and just real, real good up front on both sides of the ball. Yes, they scored more than anyone else did on us up to that point, but it was only 20 points…..we scored more on them then they’d given up all year – 48. And yes, we enjoyed that victory very much.

2012 National Championship: This was a no-brainer, and really for any fan of women’s football, this should at least be in their own Top 3 (even for a Chicago fan) because it was just that good of a game. Playing in Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field was an event in itself. That year, in addition to being the OL coach, I was also the ST Coordinator. We ran back the opening kickoff for a TD, then scored twice more to take a 20-0 lead. However, the Force was very, very good as well. They stormed back to take a 26-20 lead. Eventually they pushed their lead out to 9, 36-27 with about 3:00 minutes left in the game. We converted a 4^th and 12 by about 6”, and then the next play was about a 60-yard TD catch and run. With the extra point, we were down 36-34. Chicago got the ball, and our defense stiffened and we were helped by a dropped pass on 3^rd down. Chicago had to punt and once again special teams came up huge – we returned it for a TD. We missed the 2 point conversion, so were up 40-36 with about 1:30 left. Yet again, ST came to the fore, as we pinned the Force on their own five yard line. As it would turn out, we needed every yard we could get, as Chicago started methodically marching down the field, completing four straight passes to get down to about our 20 with :17 on the clock. They tried one more, and we picked it off to seal the victory. What a game.

But beyond the scores, and other games, the best part of this whole thing is, as always, the relationships you develop. That’s what I’ll miss and be looking forward to when the Surge comes back. 

National Championship & Other Thoughts

Monday night was a great college football game. For whatever reason, I enjoy college ball so much more than the NFL version. Normally I root for teams that I either feel an allegiance to (SDSU, Texas A&M) or to coaches who have helped me out over the years (changes as jobs change). I don’t particularly like either Nick Saban or Lane Kiffin, but I certainly respect Coach Saban’s process, not to mention his results. So last night, I went purely SEC rooting.

Last week I picked Alabama in a close one, mostly due to their Big Game experience and Coach Saban. I was glad to see that special teams played a huge part in the outcome, with one of the best-executed onside kicks I’ve seen, and a nice kickoff return for a score. 

Special teams matter! I thought that overall, Clemson outplayed Alabama…I mean, the things that Deshaun Watson did to that formidable Tide front seven….and the even worse abuse of ‘Bama’s offensive line (their poor RT must be having nightmares still). But in the end, the Tide can smile because fortunately for them, football is a whole team game.

***
Looking at the NFL playoffs, again you saw an instance of where special teams matter (Minnesota/Seattle). I have no idea how much the laces affected the kick, I don’t know how much the wind did, and I don’t know if the kicker simply shanked it. In any case, I’m not sure there’s another example in all of sports where you go from almost certain joy to deepest despair in such a short amount of time as you do when a kicker misses a chip shot field goal. I mean, on a Hail Mary type of pass you have hope that it’ll work, but I’m not sure you really “expect” it to, you know? On a 25-yard field goal, you pretty much expect it to go.

And don’t let anyone tell you that character doesn’t matter in football either. We probably all saw the Bengals absolute implosion Saturday night. Right now, I’m thinking that players who show a history of undisciplined behavior aren’t the ones you want to lean on when the pressure builds – they don’t know how to handle it. I see that all the time at my level of coaching. Guys that have a ton of talent but can’t control themselves on or off the field, and wonder why they never got a shot at a higher level of play.

I try and tell young guys that the “talent pyramid” gets narrower and narrower the higher you go, and there’s not room for everyone. Guys fall outside the pyramid for all sorts of different reasons. Your job as a player is to make sure that the only reason you fall outside is lack of talent. You can improve your technique, you can have a perfect attitude, you can be the best student of the game (or have the best grades in school) ever….but at some point, you’re probably not fast enough, not big enough or just not athletic enough – all genetic things out of your control. If you let yourself fall outside the pyramid for things you can control, then it’s on you, and you alone. Deal with it, learn from it and move on.

***
Finally, my men’s team, the San Diego Nighthawks, picked up a new coach that might just change everything for us this year. Our new Passing Game Coordinator is former Texas A&M, former Viking and former Panther WR/QB Jason Carter. Coach Carter was most recently the head coach at La Jolla High.

His hiring points to a couple of things: First, it ensures that our WR’s and QB’s will get as much detailed coaching as our OL traditionally has. That just wasn’t something that I was able to provide the skinny guys. Right there, we’ve gotten better! 

Second, and most importantly to me, is that I’ll now have a living, breathing example of how exactly to install and implement a true no huddle, up tempo approach. I’ve never been on a staff where anyone else has actually done that. I’ve read books, I’ve gone to lectures, I’ve asked other coaches how to do it, but I think until you actually experience it for yourself, you’re not quite sure of how it’ll all go down. So even if we have Coach temporarily (I hope it’ll be at least a couple of seasons), I plan on learning as much from him as possible.

And that’s part of the key to success…..divest yourself of your ego, coaches, and don’t be afraid to hire people who may be better than you at some phase of the game. I gave up some control I didn’t have to as the OC in order to get better, and make our team better. Whether you do that for a season, or for a weekend mini-camp, the end result is that you and your team will be better for it.