New Year, New Action

I hope everyone had a great holiday season (realizing that some of you may still be in the middle of celebrating yours). After gorging on the buffet that is College Bowl Season (is there really any better time of year?) I’m ready to start getting down to the nitty-gritty of preparing for another season.

I left off in my last post referencing only a “men’s team” that I’m going to because at the time it wasn’t announced by the team itself yet. Now I can say that I’m with the San Diego Nighthawks. Our league is yet to be determined, but I’m confident that it will be a competitive one.

I’m beyond excited to get this thing going….I’ve been interviewing potential offensive assistant coaches, streamlining the playbook, reviewing film from last year and continuing to research ways to improve. One item that I picked up is a game planning system by Coach Keith Grabowski of The Coaches’ Edge (www.thecoachesedge.com). It is a spreadsheet system that allows you to plan out your practices, ensuring that you go into games with plays that you’ve actually practiced (quite a concept!). You put in your game plan, and it spits out practice scripts, wrist bands and call sheets. So far, I like it a lot. (Hey, if you buy it, or anything else on Coaches Edge, please refer them with my e-mail: kmring@gmail.com. I hear we get $10 coupons or something.)

In reviewing the film from last year, I think that some of the players weren’t aware they were being filmed, let alone that anyone was going to look at it! A lot of walking around, or stopping after an initial hit. That’s not going to cut it this year and I think we’ll have enough competition for spots that it will become painfully obvious to those who don’t put forth maximum effort how quickly they can be on the sidelines, resting, next to me.

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One of my other new ventures is taking on an individual high school offensive lineman for skill and technique development. It’s my first time in this non-team setting, so I’m very interested how it’ll play out. I met with him and his Dad this past weekend and I basically told them that they would be my guinea pigs – maybe that wasn’t the best angle to take, but I don’t know what else to tell them. I think they were expecting to get “sold” by me and I don’t even have a sales pitch. I just told them, “If you want to get better, I’ll help you get better.”

We’re going for half hour to 45 minute sessions. I think that’ll be plenty long enough – when you’re taking every rep, I think you’ll be pretty tired afterwards, even if my goal isn’t to kill you in a conditioning type of deal.

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On Sunday, the Surge is having their tryouts…..it’s gonna be really strange hearing about what went on, who showed up, etc. and not be a part of it. I will miss them.

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I can’t remember the last time I couldn’t think of an obvious frontrunner in the NFL. All three of who I think are the favorites (Carolina, New England and Arizona) looked extremely bad recently when faced with motivated opponents. I’ll tell you who I’m rooting for though: Arizona, followed by Seattle. Why you ask? Because of their coaches of course – that’s how I base all my non-Chargers rooting!

I recently saw the excellent “A Football Life” episode on Bruce Arians. Count me as a fan for sure. If you don’t know much about Coach Arians, I highly recommend it. You may become a fan as well. My Seahawks fandom isn’t because of Pete Carroll – he’s a good coach, and I do like him – but for my long time mentor, Pat Ruel. Pat is a great guy and I hope he can win another Lombardi Trophy.

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Who do you have in the college championship? I wasn’t sold on Clemson, but holy moly they looked good! However, I’m going to go with Alabama in a close one, just because of their previous big game experience, and I think that if you give Nick Saban enough time to prepare for you, you’re in trouble.

That’s all for now – have a great week!

Final Coach Spotlight & Camp Schedule!

All right! I’ve saved the best for last! Our final two coaches, Billy Hughes Jr. from the Dallas Elite, and kicking coach Luis Villagomez of South Bay Kicking.

Coach Billy Hughes Jr. came out of high school as a consensus Blue Chip recruit and orally committed to the University of Oklahoma. A coaching change there led him to transfer to Southeastern Oklahoma State. Coming out of college, he signed with the San Francisco 49’ers, and then continued to play professionally with the Barcelona Dragons (NFL Europe), the North Texas Extreme (XFL) and the Fort Worth Calvary (Arena).

He has coached in the women’s game for five years, starting out with the Dallas Diamonds, who made one national championship appearance and three conference championship appearances. Last year he was with the Arlington Impact in the IWFL, and this year he will begin his first year as an offensive coordinator with the Dallas Elite (WFA). Coach Hughes also assisted with the USA Football Women’s Team USA evaluation camp in 2013.

With his intimate knowledge of how the game is played at the highest levels, Coach Hughes will bring a great perspective to the offensive linemen attending the camp. He and Coach Ring have been eager to work with each other for some time, so these sessions are sure to be high energy!

Coach Luis Villagomez is making himself available throughout the day for the kickers among us. Coach Villagomez was a Top 100 high school kicker from National City Sweetwater High and then kicked in college at West Texas A&M and professionally for the Omaha Beef of the Arena League. In 2012 he started his own kicking school, South Bay Kicking where he has coached dozens of youth, high school and junior college kickers the finer points of high-level placekicking and punting. In addition, he has participated in two invitation-only NFL kicker combines.

Luis will be at the camp on Sunday for the kickers to work with.

Finally, the schedule for the camp has been released! You can find Saturday’s schedule HERE and Sunday’s HERE. Players are free to pick and choose which sessions they attend. No camp coach is going to tell you where to go or what to see (your own coaches, if there, may have different ideas). So if you play multiple positions, you have the opportunity to see coaches at each of your spots. The two truly competitive sessions will be the combined OL/DL session first thing Sunday morning, and the 7-on-7 session to conclude the camp. The plan right now is to have both of those sessions, as well as selected individual drill and class sessions, filmed. 

Outside of those two sections, the emphasis is on getting you better by exposing you to different techniques and scheme ideas. Some will work for you, some may not. But at the very least, you have exposure to them and can put them in your personal “tool bag” of techniques.

There is no over-riding “camp doctrine” – all of the coaches will coach what they know or what they currently do with their own teams. We all know that there is no “best way” of doing anything on a football field – otherwise everyone would be doing the same thing! So come in with an open mind – you will get out of the camp what you put into it.

I can’t tell you how much all of the coaches are looking forward to this. I’ve been having conversations with several of them and we’re all chomping at the bit to get going and make this a great event!

I’ll probably take next week off from the blog, so the next time I post will be the 19^th, after the camp and our first tryouts. I’m sure there will be a lot to talk about!

Who Am I, and why am I writing this?

Hi, my name is Mark Ring and I’m a 52-year old football coach from San Diego, CA. I’ve been coaching at the varsity level or above since 1991. My high school stops were: San Clemente, Westminster La Quinta, Fountain Valley & San Diego Point Loma. I’ve coached the following men’s semi-pro teams: San Diego Patriots, San Diego Stallions and the National City Bears. Finally, and most relevant to this blog, I’ve coached the SoCal Scorpions and the San Diego Surge of the women’s game.

Over the years I’ve been an offensive line coach mostly, but also a defensive line coach, an offensive coordinator, a special teams coordinator, a running backs coach and a head coach.

I’ve had the good fortune to win a national championship as an offensive coordinator (WPFL 2007) and as a special teams coordinator (WFA 2012). I also participated in another national championship (WFA 2011) and won a men’s league title as an offensive coordinator (CFA 2012).

So, that is who I am. Why am I writing this? Primarily just to pass along some of the tidbits I’ve picked up over the years. I’ve been blessed to work with a lot of great coaches, and gotten the opportunity to learn from an awful lot of them as well.

The vast majority of my topics are going to be on what I know best – offensive scheme development and offensive line play. But after each weekend’s games, there will be some items that I see that I’ll also comment on, and I hope that any ensuing discussions will be both lively and helpful to all.

Please feel free to drop me an e-mail with comments, suggestions or topics. Let’s have some fun!