2015 RS Camp Update

Hi all – sorry about this week’s post being late. Between living in a hotel due to some house plumbing issues and being absolutely slammed at work, it’s just not as easy to write right now!

So, OK…this post is all about our camp, coming up on November 14-15, at Santana High School in Santee, CA. Saturday morning, registration starts at 8:00, and we’ll be on the field at 9:00. We’ll break for lunch from 11:50 until 1:00, then be back on the field until 5:20. Sunday morning, we’re on the field at 8:30, with lunch from 12:10 to 1:20. Sunday afternoon will be our competition period, with the OL and DL getting after it (everyone else is encouraged to watch, as it will be the only thing going on) and then the “skinny people” will have a competitive 7-on-7 session after that, that the OL/DL is encouraged to watch and cheer on their teammates. We’re scheduled to be off the field at 3:30.

The cost of the camp is $40, and pre-pay is available through PayPal, to kmring@cox.net. Prepayment is the only way to guarantee yourself a camp T-shirt. The prepayment deadline is November 07, and that is also the last day we can issue refunds.

Here’s a brief look at the coaches we have lined up, and there still may be minor changes:

Mike Suggett, San Diego Surge Head Coach – Coach Suggett has been involved with women’s football in San Diego since 2001, making him one of the longest-tenured coaches of the women’s game in the country. He is truly one of those coaches who can do a good job at any position and in addition to being a head coach, he’s also been a coordinator in all three phases of the game. His role at the camp will largely be with the Running Backs.

Mark Ring, San Diego Surge Offensive Line Coach – I’ve been an offensive line coach for 25 years. Unlike Coach Suggett, I’m pretty much “just” an OL coach, along with being an Offensive Coordinator. I’ve also coached defensive line, running backs, and been a Special Teams coordinator & Head Coach, but the offensive line is my passion and what I’ll be doing at the camp.

Carrie Suggett, San Diego Surge QB Coach/Offensive Coordinator – our “other” Coach Suggett has been the Surge QB coach for four years now and the OC for the last two. Being a teacher for her livelihood, she does a great job coaching QB’s of any experience level and getting advanced techniques explained in a simple manner. She’ll be with the QB’s in the camp.

Nate Benjamin, Phoenix Phantomz Defensive Coordinator – Coach Benjamin is an almost 30-year veteran of coaching. He’s been the Defensive Coordinator of both San Diego’s national championships in 2007 and 2012. He is also the former head coach of the West Coast Lightning. I’m almost as excited to coach “against” him at the camp as I am to coach with him again. We’re both competitors, so I’m sure our OL/DL sessions will be fun ones! In addition to doing the DL at camp, he also has a couple of LB sessions.

Scott McCarron, Seattle Majestics Head Coach – I don’t know Coach McCarron well. I only met him in 2013 at the championship game, and then again in 2014 at our playoff game. What I *do* know is that he coaches the heck out of his defenses! In 2014 he gave us fits with his pass defense schemes. He’ll be doing a little bit of everything at the camp – some DL sessions, a couple of LB sessions and a couple of DB topics. We’re excited to have him!

Angel Rivera III, Dallas Elite Defensive Backs Coach – Coach Rivera is outstanding….that’s all you really need to know. One of the very best DB coaches I’ve ever seen. In addition to his DB work, he’s also going to have an exclusive time to do some speed and agility training that will be beneficial for all. He’s been both a friend and a competitor since 2012, and we’re very glad he came back this year.

Bobby Hosea Jr., Carson Bobcats Head Coach – Coach Hosea was the Head Coach responsible for the Pacific Warriors turnaround last year, pushing them up the ladder from also-ran to playoff contender in just one year. We’ve given him an exclusive time frame to teach/coach/install his own heads up tackling system that promises to raise the safety level of the game without sacrificing effectiveness. We’re looking forward to seeing what he has to offer, and are grateful for his presence.

Wesley Williams, former San Diego State Wide Receiver – Wes is one of my players who will do a great job with the WR at camp. Wide Receivers that have “been there and done that” at a high level know all the tricks of the trade in terms of getting initial separation, setting up their routes, and being a physical receiver. I think the players will enjoy their time with Wes.

Will Harris, San Diego Surge Linebackers Coach – Coach Harris has also been the Surge Head Coach (2013) and the Defensive Coordinator. He’s been instrumental in our aggressive defenses over the years and has often become the “heartbeat” of the team. His sessions with the linebackers promise to be intense, high-energy and fun!

That’s our staff for this year – we’re very pleased with this group of teachers we’ve assembled and thankful that those who are out of town are volunteering their time to travel down to us. In the coming days/weeks once the topics are finalized for everyone I’ll send out the schedule (I actually have to finalize the titles for mine!) and people can try and plan for what they want to attend. Schedules will also be available at the camp in hard copy.

It’s getting close – don’t miss out on the fun!

Unbelievable (and a Camp Update!)

So….just when I thought I’ve seen it all, I get news on Friday that my men’s team folded. I’ve seen plenty of teams that struggle go down in the middle of the year, but this is the first time I’ve seen a 10-2 (9-1 in league) team fold on the brink of the playoffs. The stated reason is financial difficulties….guess they didn’t budget very well. (NOTE: Now the word is that we haven’t folded, but have given up our practice field and home field. We’ll also have to drive ourselves to games {instead of having a bus] and may have to pay referee fees…oh, and apparently my QB has been kicked off the team…..so in effect, our owners are no better than Rachel Phelps, the team owner in the movie Major League.)

I really don’t care about the owners – I’d been very leery of them ever since my second year with the team, in 2012, and in 2013 when I was the head coach, I saw how they really operated. But I came back this year because of the head coach, Winston Martin, and a core group of offensive players who believed in me as much as I believed in them.

Our early struggles offensively were well documented, but as I’ve also said, over the past four games we’ve averaged 33 points per game as we’ve gotten more comfortable with the system. So I was really looking forward to seeing what we could do in Year 2. I feel like we’re running about 75% of an offense right now – maybe even a little less.

I’m not done with this level of play, just done with shady owners…..hopefully we’ll all be able to find someone who knows what they’re doing next season and will be able to keep the core of the offense together.

***

The good news is that now I’ll be able to attend the Surge end of season banquet. I was going to miss it in favor of our last regular season game up in the “wonderful” High Desert area of Southern California. 3 ½ hours to play against a team that may or may not be able to fully field a team, but I wanted to try and ensure that we had home field advantage, so you do what you gotta do.

Also, now I can finally focus more on our camp in November. We had some sad news – Coach Billy Hughes from the Dallas Elite had to pull out of coming. I’m always sad to not be able to see a friend. Our other visiting coaches, Angel Rivera, Scott McCarron and Nate Benjamin are still on board and we’ve got a full schedule planned out.

What these new offensive line sessions I’ve been added to will allow me to explore, is some of the more technical details that normally I may not get to. Last year Coach Hughes and I each did sort of our own versions of “Offensive Line 101” with him focusing on the run game and me on the pass game. We both really focused on the basics. I’ll certainly do that…probably do a “Run Game 101” and a “Pass Game 101” in two sessions, but then I think we’re going to get to the 200, 300 and 400 level courses over the rest of the camp. I’m excited, and I think it’ll give a bit of a spark to even veteran OL.

We still may add another guest coach, so stay tuned!

With the camp fast approaching, we’d like to let you know of a pre-payment deadline of November 7, so that we can print all of the t-shirts we’ll need in time for the camp. Please remember that only those who are pre-paid can be guaranteed a camp shirt. Payment can be made through PayPal, using KMRing@cox.net as the payee. Cost is still only $40!

If anyone is coming in Friday evening, and either needs a ride out to the hotel from the airport or wants to hang out for dinner and great football talk, just let me know!

By Any Means Possible

This past week, my men’s team, the Bears, took on another 8-1 team in the Inland Empire Meerkats (yeah, I get that a meerkat is part of the mongoose family, but it’s gotta be like the red-headed stepchild. Not very intimidating of a name). Anyway, they were 8-1 for a reason – they had a couple of very electric playmakers on offense. One we knew about, and pretty well shut down, and one we didn’t, but found out about in a hurry – he ran back the opening kickoff for a TD and then scored on a quick pass of about 80 yards.

Anyway, we won 30-12 (extra points seem to be an extreme luxury in this league, as none were scored). The way we did it is what is noteworthy. I can’t remember running this much by choice in a long, long time. I’m a big proponent of making the defense “play with doubt” and really prefer to be balanced in my play calls. But although we completed a few key passes, our efficiency wasn’t where it needed to be. So we ran the ball…..and ran…and ran. 

We might have thrown 2 passes in the 2^nd half. But we controlled the clock, and after only a 12-6 halftime lead, we opened up the game. A defensive scoop ‘n score gave us breathing room at 18-6, and then we took it from there.

As usual, there was something I wish I hadn’t done, and that was at the end of the first half. We were pretty much backed up around our 15, but I thought we could go down and score. We had one time out, and so did they. Well, two incomplete passes left us looking at 3^rd and 10 with about 50 seconds left. My HC was looking at me like he didn’t like me very much at that moment. So we ran the ball on 3^rd, got about 5 yards and I was thinking, “What an idiot….they’re going to call time out, and we’re going to have to punt from not only backed up, but to #15.” Except they didn’t call time out….and we watched the clock wind down, and we got out of there. I post stuff like this to help others avoid the same mistakes I make….and they’re subtle (usually), but still – if I want to be a great play caller, those are areas in which I need to improve.

Now….for the “meat” of this week’s post, I want to go back to one of my early posts, which fits in with this week’s theme of “doing what needed to be done” to win. This was titled “My Favorite Offense” from December 2013:

***

Every once in awhile I’m asked what my favorite offense is. My license plates read “WC OFNSE”, so that could be a clue but in reality, the answer is simple: the one that works for that team, that season.

I’ve worked for 11 different offensive coordinators, and have been one myself five (note: now 6) different seasons. In that time, as a coordinator I’ve employed the following offenses: Wishbone, Power I, West Coast, Shotgun Spread and Fly.

I’ve got to say that right now, if the personnel is right, I really like the possibilities with the shotgun spread. You can do almost any variant you want out of it – you can have a varied passing game, you can run option, you can run any type of perimeter run game and you can have a power-based run game.

The key is recognizing and adjusting to what your players can do. Let me invoke one of Homer Smith’s quotes, which has stuck with me for years: “It’s not what you know, it’s what your players know.”

My first venture into the world of coordinating was with a men’s semi-pro team. I’d just finished a five-year stint at Fountain Valley High, under the watchful eyes of Hank Cochrane, who continues to be one of my heroes, although he would slap me silly for saying that. I figured that these players were grown-ass men and could handle a “high school” offense. Boy was I wrong…. At FVHS, we used four different pass protection concepts, with two variants in two of them, for a total of six protections. I simplified that down to one for these guys, and they still couldn’t comprehend it (a half slide protection). In Week One, we gave up eight sacks. I’d gone entire seasons at FV without giving up eight sacks! In Week Two, we beat up on a horribly overmatched team. Then we had a bye week, and our QB disappeared – just left. No one knew where he was. Anyway, the combination of an offensive line that apparently had very little experience in pass pro and having to break in a new QB pretty much eliminated a standard drop-back passing game.

So – what to do in a bye week? I had a speedy receiver that had played QB in Jenks, Oklahoma. He’d had experience in running the Wishbone. So I talked with him, found out what he was comfortable with, then set about figuring out ways to get the OL on the same page. Long story short, out of an eight team league, we ended up being the #2 scoring offense.

The following year, same team, completely different personnel.  That was the Power I team. I had a tailback that played at Alabama, and a huge offensive line. My QB had a little mobility and a strong arm for play action passes. At the end of the year, we were again the #2 scoring team, and beat the #1 team 35-14.

Each year of my coaching career, my outlook and preferences have changed. I’d evolved into a shotgun spread guy ever since about 2010. Last year, I went into the (2013) season thinking that was what we were going to run. However, when a combination of inexperienced receivers and quarterbacks raised its head, we were forced to adjust once again. This time, looking at our OL (extremely mobile, but a bit undersized) and our running backs (nice blend of speed and power) and what the receivers could do (they could block their asses off!) we settled on running the Fly offense, out of shotgun. I visited with Mark McElroy from Saddleback College (and who coincidentally followed me at my first coaching gig, at San Clemente High) and got his concepts down for the run game. We kept as much of our current terminology as possible, including the entire passing game, to keep the transition down. So then, all it became was a different play call mix, not a whole new offense.

The results were mixed – we averaged right around 40 points a game on offense, but we went 9-2, which was our worst finish in a couple of years. My feeling is that we were too dependent on the outside run game, and when we weren’t physically able to block defenders at the point of attack, we suffered. So if it was scheme or ability, either way we didn’t get the results we wanted.

This season (2014), we have an experienced QB coming back. My vision would be to keep what we ran last year, but instead of running the Fly motion 80% of the time, run it about 25% of the time, and then re-incorporate the rest of the shotgun spread run and pass game we had before. But again, as a coaching staff we have to look at what we can and can’t do, and be willing to adjust from there.

In closing, as a coordinator you can’t be so tied to your preferred plays or system that you lose sight of the fact that it is still about the team’s success. Remember, it’s not what you know, but what your players know.

***

See you 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 Century Mark

This will be my 100^th post…..not sure what I expected when I started, but this has been fun, as well as being a mental challenge. Sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be much to write about and sometimes it seems to be a bit of a grind. I definitely feel for those who write professionally and on deadline! Even though I do this for fun, I still feel a responsibility to do one each week, and get it out on time. So far, I haven’t experienced a group of angry villagers with pitchforks (as Union-Tribune columnist Nick Canepa would say) knocking down the door in protest. I actually don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

Now that I seem to have picked up a few more readers (based on the little lines on the viewing chart), I may go back and re-post some of the early posts, where I was really heavy into X’s and O’s. That’s still my favorite subject, so if anyone wants more of that, just let me know!

***

The Saga of the Bears continued last week, when we faced a very formidable Riverside Redskins team. I knew their reputation of winning on defense, with a basic, grind-it-out offense, so I was thinking it would be one of those 14-7 games. Especially when all I had at practice last Thursday was 2 OL, 1 QB, 2 RB, 1 TE and 1 WR (who wasn’t even going to be at the game). Anyway, the Redskins came in tied with us at 6-1. They left 6-2, as we rolled to a 36-0 win. Although all of the points were put up by the offense, our defense put us in a lot of great spots as they forced 5 turnovers.

We actually used the 2^nd half as a practice, when I installed some pistol-concept plays. I’d resisted doing it a little, as I didn’t want to really change the scheme up front, so instead I decided to keep the blocking the same as on our backside read stuff, and just use the B (fullback) as either a lead block on our inside zone, or as a fill blocker when we ran counter. Also tried to get him out on a playaction. It’s a work in progress, but when you’re installing stuff during a game, you sort of take what you can get…..and yes, that’s something I’ve never done before, installing whole new concepts in the middle of a game. Only in semi-pro!

This week, I know my QB isn’t going to be at practice, so it’ll give us a chance to work on my “Plan B” stuff with my #2 and #3 guys (who are starting WR).

***

For a long time, I’ve used the mantra of “football is football” no matter what the level, no matter if it is men’s or women’s. I have found one instance where that isn’t true, and it has to do with the raw speed guys have. With the women, we’ve developed a “blitz beater” package that is automatically tagged on the backside of our pass routes. It is very simple – the QB receives the (shotgun) snap, and looks for a blitz on the first two steps of her drop. If she gets it, she hits one of the blitz beater routes. If she doesn’t, then she’s hitting her third step while her eyes shift to the playside route combination and she hits that. With a little practice and reps, it becomes a very smooth process.

It doesn’t work with the guys…..by the time the QB makes his read on the backside, determines there’s no blitz (or what it is disguised as), and comes back to the playside, the playside route windows have come and gone. And my QB is a smart guy, who played four years collegiately. It seems the reason that our Surge QB can process that read and still have time to come back to the playside while the routes develop is a case of the relative speed – their eyes/brains function at the same rate, but the foot speed of the men gets them into the routes so much faster than the women.

So I’ve adjusted. I slide our protection away from the call, and generally keep in a RB to block/release on the playside. When I do free release the RB, at least now the QB’s backside is covered and he can see pressure coming at him, AND has the RB as a quick checkdown. I’d always wondered why a simple solution like we use on the Surge (and it really is brilliant – I didn’t come up with it, our HC Mike Suggett did back in 2010) wasn’t being used collegiately or in the NFL. Now I know!

Doing it that way, with the RB checking, it also sets up our screens and draws a bit better. 

All in all, I think this is a better solution, and most importantly, it makes my QB more comfortable. In the end, when it comes down to your comfort versus your QB's comfort, I think you really ought to look at "is this a battle I want to fight?" Sometimes, yes, it is. Other times, not so much. This ended up being one of those times. Our points have skyrocketed since I made the adjustment a couple of weeks ago, during our bye. So has our completion percentage.

Keep your eye on the Big Picture and divest your ego.

Progress

My men’s team (the SoCal Bears) was back in action this week, travelling up to Moreno Valley to play a team that was just behind us in the standings. When we pulled up to the complex two hours before the game, there was *no one* there. Like, one kid sitting outside the locked gate, and that was it. He was clearly the last kid getting picked up from a Pop Warner game. We saw a beautiful field turf soccer field, with nice lights and everything. Unfortunately, the adjacent football field looked like a malnourished pasture. Dirt field, lines only every 10 yards, and virtually no room on the sidelines, the edges of the end zones (lined with concrete) and fences right behind the goal posts, so that recovering kicked balls was an adventure. The lights were, um….basic. Fortunately, with a 4:00 kickoff, we weren’t too worried about the lights, although the game behind us was really, really dark.

Anyway, the Good Guys came out with a 41-0 win. All the scoring was done in the first half. We started with a running clock in the 3^rd, we got one possession, in which we started experimenting with things and ended up in a 4^th and 25 or so, and then the game was called early. No idea why, but it was fine with me. Our first drive of the game was 4 or 5 plays, and resulted in a TD. On the ensuing kickoff, their returner took the ball out of the endzone briefly, then went back in and took a knee, resulting in a safety. That’s a great example of making sure your players at all levels understand the rules! We then took that kickoff and scored in another 3 plays, and that was that. I think we had a blocked kick for a TD, and an INT for a TD as well. But the offense was clicking, and had our best production of the season.

The result wasn’t as heartening to me as the process – the guys that were there (we had 30 by game time, from a roster of 48), came together like I hadn’t seen before and simply did what needed to be done. There was no complaining about calls, or touches, or playing time. The run game ground out yards, along with some key plays, and the pass game was both efficient and explosive. Just a very solid win and a great example of what can happen when players put the team first.

***

I went out and scouted a player Friday night. He goes to the local high school, and he and his parents have high hopes for his college potential. They’ve expressed interest in having me work with him during the offseason, so I wanted to get a feel for how he played. I haven’t done a lot of individual scouting, so it was fun to put together a detailed report on just one kid, and focus on him during the game. He does have some potential, and is only a sophomore. It’ll be fun to see him develop.

***

Interest in the RS Football Camp continues to build. It is getting to be that time when airline tickets are in a good place at a little less than two months out, so it’s probably time to book! Please remember that only those who pre-pay will be guaranteed a camp t-shirt, so feel free to do so via PayPal to kmring@cox.net. The cost is only $40….I confidently defy you to find better value for your money anywhere, considering the level of coaches who will be there – coaches that are very successful in the women’s game, experienced in coaching women to a high level of play.

***

I saw where Alabama has recruited 5 QB’s in the last four years – one 5 star, two 4 stars and two 3 stars. They’re starting a transfer player. You can tout recruiting all you want, but there still has to be player development. We see that at all levels. I’ve seen teams full of all-star talent go by the wayside in both the men’s and women’s game.

It’s a TEAM game….I know that great players have made me look a lot smarter than I am over the years, and I’ve also seen teams with great players (as I mentioned above) fall short in the coaching department. And sometimes, at our levels, it is ownership that is lacking. There’s levels to this stuff if you want to be successful!

Until next week!

Continuing a Theme

After watching more football this weekend (I had plenty of time, as my men’s team picked up a forfeit), I wanted to revisit one of the things I talked about last week, the set of the offensive line in pass pro (and some in the run game also). This is a re-post of my “It’s All in the Feet” blog from November 27, 2013:

“Among the offensive line at the men’s and women’s semi-pro level, there is a perception of an almost universal weakness – they can’t move. A lot of times, that is true – they can’t. Perhaps you may remember one of my earlier posts where I talked about assumptions, and that one of them was that the OL were the worst athletes on the field. That will largely remain true, but too often I see OL that “could” move if they were taught “how” to move.

Now, we’re not talking about “dancing bears” here. We’re talking about efficiency in footwork. Making sure that each step gets a result. When an OL coach watches his players do a rep or run a play, s/he should be watching from the feet up. After all, the feet will move before the hands ever make contact, so why wouldn’t you watch the feet first, then move your vision up the hands?

Probably the single phrase that my guys and gals get tired of hearing from me is, “Gain ground with your first step!” Even if that step is supposed to be lateral, they’d better be doing more with it than stepping in place or stepping under themselves.

How often have you heard a coach say, “Oh, we can’t run that counter play – the OL will never get there.” Before you throw all those pulling schemes into the trash, make sure you find out *why* the OL isn’t getting there. I can promise you that more likely than not, when they’re pulling, they’re stepping under themselves.

Same thing on pass pro – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen tackles get beat quickly because they’re not gaining any depth on their kick slide (and really, *if* they kick slide is an issue too). But since they don’t get any depth, they have to turn out quickly against the defender, and that in turn gives them a soft shoulder to attack. It all snowballs into a sack, and it all starts from not getting depth on the first step.

When we practice pass pro, we do an awful lot of it without our hands – just getting our feet into position. Bobby Knight stresses the same thing in basketball, by playing with “your hands in your belt” – he says that “defense is in the feet” and really, pass pro isn’t too much different than defense in basketball. I find that the focus of simply “hitting someone” is overemphasized, and the skill set it takes to be a truly great pass protector is rarely practiced.

I believe that by spending more time looking at your OL’s feet and continually correcting inefficient steps, not only will you be able to run more varied blocking schemes that keep the defense playing with doubt, but that your pass pro will improve as well. And when that improves, your QB’s confidence will soar and your passing game will become much more dangerous.”

***

Most of those things haven’t changed….and one thing I want to add, is the awareness by an OL of what position a DL is in. Here’s an example: I was watching my Chargers play, and their OL did a great job on slide protection to the left. Everyone, including the DL, was going to the left, and the entire right side was collapsed down, giving QB Philip Rivers a nice clean window. However, the RT got a little aggressive (or greedy as I call it) and gave his DE a way out to the right, spinning off the RT and getting to Rivers for a sack.

You see this happening a couple of different times – the above was one, and then you see it on upfield speed rushes….the tackle will get great position on the DE, force him upfield and then “get greedy” and try to drive the DE instead of simply shielding him off. When invariably happens in that case is that the DE uses the tackle’s momentum against him and spins back inside for a sack or pressure. The OT *has* to know where he’s at on the field in relation to the QB and understand that the DE isn’t a bad player and won’t settle for just being driven upfield without countering.

In addition to awareness, I think an OL also needs to pay attention to his center of gravity. In the martial arts, there is talk of how a non-Asian person walks with a center of gravity somewhere up around their chest – if not in actuality, then in their own mindset. Asians, however, tend to walk with their center lower, where it physically is – just a couple of inches beneath their belly button. Translating that to OL play, my players have heard me say many times, “lead with your hip!” when moving laterally. If your hip is the leading part of your body (maybe not literally, but again, in your mind) you’ll find you have much better balance and change of direction. If not, if your center is up high in your mind, then you’ll tend to be top-heavy when attempting to redirect, and you’ll find that DL will be more able to get you out of balance when clubbing your shoulder. Leading with your hip also helps guard against getting “greedy” as mentioned above. Try it!

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Interest in the November camp continues to build! We’ve got a much better variety of teams being represented this year.

I see that the Portland teams have merged….I think that is great. I hope there will be room for all coaches from both teams, although sometimes that can be a challenge, merging staffs. Hopefully they’ll make it down to San Diego in November as well, to work with and against some of their Seattle sisters.