Discipline and Penalties

One of the things that hurts teams most is a lack of discipline. A lack of discipline will lose you games you should win. Disciplined teams do the things that take no talent really well. How well does your team do the things that take zero talent? 

 

Two issues that display a lack of discipline that will lose you games are:

 

Pre-Snap Penalties

Pre-snap penalties are drive killers on offense and drive extenders on defense. There is nothing more frustrating than having a 3^rd and 3 become 3^rd and 8 because someone moved before the snap. Defensively, think about how it’s 3^rd and 3, and now your opponent gets a free first down because someone jumps offside. It is hard enough to win football games without having pre-snap penalties. Pre-snap penalties should be extremely rare. Don’t ever justify pre-snap penalties. Instead, find the cause and make them happen. 

 

In an analysis done of NFL games, offensive pre-snap penalties resulted in fewer drives ending in points. When the defense jumps offside, the chances the offense will score is greatly increased. Pre-snap penalties are 100% within your control, and come down to discipline and focus. 

 

Dead Ball Penalties

Dead ball penalties will get good teams beat by teams they should lose to. Think about how many times you get the ball carrier to the ground, only to have a player push an opponent after the whistle. Instead of 2^ndand 12, it’s first and ten and your opponent is closer to the end zone. There are times when you play through the whistle that you might get an occasional 15 yard penalty. I am not talking about those. I am talking about the reactionary penalties where a player does something out of frustration. 

 

When an offensive team gets a 15 yard penalty, they greatly reduce the chance they will score. This also changes the field position. Conversely, when the defense gets called for a personal foul or unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, they greatly increase the chance the offense will score. They also give up field position.

 

Like pre-snap penalties, dead ball fouls like unsportsmanlike conduct and personal fouls are completely under your control. 

 

The Biggest Mistake Coaches Make With Accountability

In my coaching career I have made more mistakes than most. It would be impossible to count the number of mistakes I have made, unless you had one of those NASA supercomputers. Some mistakes I made were bigger than others. 

Today I am going to focus on one of the biggest mistakes you can make that leads to mediocrity. Often coaches don't realize they are doing this, and they don't understand the impact this mistake has on your program. Coaches are very competitive and driven, and want to be successful. The programs that have consistent, sustained success are the programs do not make this mistake.

Everyone focuses on talent with the best teams, and yes, talent matters. But there are plenty of talented teams that underachieve every single year. You might play some of them. Hopefully you aren't one of them. What we are going to look at today has the potential to destroy your program. 

As we look at this, let's focus on two things that you must do. First, you must build relationships with your players. Great relationships are founded on Trust and Unconditional Love. Second, you need to have standards of performance that are clearly defined. If you don't have clearly defined standards, how does anyone know what to do? This seems like a simple question, but many programs don't have clear standards. They have implied or inferred standards. They don't have a standards that help to reinforce their identity. They talk about things, but they don't live them. They live in the world if "ish." Everything important needs to be clearly defined. If you don't have standards, you will not achieve at high levels. 

Now let's get to that one thing... This is what happens at so many programs. What is that one thing...

Inconsistent Accountability to the Standards

Once you have your standards, you need to consistently hold people accountable to the standards, and do so on a consistent basis. You won't tell them what they want to hear, you will tell them what they need to hear. John Wooden said coaching is "correcting someone without causing resentment." This is where trust and consistency are important. Trust and Consistency are foundations of coaches building strong relationships. Most resentment comes from players not trusting that their coaches. They don't trust their coaches because of inconsistencies in correction and accountability. 

There are three ways coaches are inconsistent with their accountability... 

Balancing Relationships With Accountability and Discipline

One of the most difficult things a coach must do is balance relationship building with building accountability and discipline in your program. There are coaches who are powerful relationship builders, and other coaches who are very good at building and developing discipline. The truly elite coaches are able to develop a perfect balance between the two, knowing when they must be more relational, and knowing when they must build discipline through accountability. 

You have probably heard coaches referred to as strong relationship builders. Their players will run through a wall for them. This is a powerful testament to the ability of these coaches to reach athletes. Building relationships is important to being a successful coach and running a successful program. One of the pitfalls of relational coaches, however, is when they struggle with holding their athletes accountable. They especially struggle with holding their best athletes accountable.  

When you build relationships but don't have accountability, you basically have become a "friend" to your athletes. They already have friends, and so do you. Kids don't need a friend. They need someone who will challenge them, and bring out the best in them. This doesn't happen through fiery speeches, or from coaches jumping around and being excited. 

Here are the six issues that come from coaches being relational, without having accountability. 

• Your athletes will make undisciplined mistakes.
• Your athletes will quit when they face adversity or get behind.
• Your athletes will not know how to respond to coaching.
• They won't understand what is happening when someone holds them accountable. 
• You will lose to people you shouldn't lose to from a talent standpoint.
• You will have more players quit during the season. 

How many of you have seen this at some level within your own teams? I have been a part of programs where you have great relationship builders, but the program lacks standards and accountability. Everything you do matters. You are either developing accountability, or you are developing entitlement. There is no in between. You can't talk people into being disciplined, and you certainly can't develop discipline and accountability by being a "good" guy. 

I also was in a program that was led by someone who didn't do a good job of building relationships. He thought that discipline was developed by being a jerk all the time. His players feared making a mistake, which made them robots on the field. They also were miserable and often quit in high numbers. Program retention struggled. Being too far on one end of the spectrum will lead to failure.

Strike A Balance

The key is strike a balance between relationship building and setting standards and holding people accountable to the standards. When a program has a very relational head coach but lacks discipline, you will only go as far as your talent will take you. You will not have consistent mental toughness. You will be really good when things are easy to moderately difficult. But when we faced someone who was mentally tough and more together as a team, you will lose all of your self-discipline. You will find yourself with a group of veteran players who hav a sense of entitlement. They know they wouldn't be held accountable, and this will lead to losing some games you should have won. You have to be continue to build strong relationships, but you also have to love your players enough to set boundaries and hold them accountable. 

The ultimate goal is for every single player in your program to develop self-discipline. But before people can develop self-discipline, they need to have someone hold them accountable to develop that discipline. 

So What Do You Need to Do?

Correcting this imbalance isn't easy, but is also not rocket science. It is actually very simple in theory, but difficult in that relationship builders have to get out of their comfort zone. Relationship builders struggle with making people uncomfortable. They want to please people and make them happy. In itself, this is not a terrible thing. But when you don't have a balance with standards and accountability, you limit the potential of your team. The hard part about this is that you are going to have to be willing to change, and change is hard. I recommend having a mentor who is strong in this area that can help you go through this process. 

First, you have to have a set of standards that are unwavering. You set clearly defined standards and expectations that will raise the level of the performance of those in your program. You need standards for the classroom, weight room, and on the field. Your standards are not going to adjusted to the individual, because they don't rely on ability. These standards all are things that take zero talent. What do you stand for? If you stand for nothing, you will fall for everything. Your standards are bigger than football. Your standards will carry people through life. The best part about your standards, is they take zero talent or ability.

Some examples of academic standards would be: 

Championship Discipline, Accountability, And Leadership

Have you ever finished a season and been disappointed that you underachieved? One of the biggest disappointments in my coaching career was feeling like we didn't meet our expectations for our season. There is nothing worse than knowing you didn't have the success you thought you would have. I have talked to a few coaches the last couple of weeks that are frustrated with their seasons went and the directions of their programs. They feel like they are lacking discipline, leadership, and accountability. They have stupid penalties, turnovers, or mental mistakes that cost them football games. As I look back on the biggest disappointments in my coaching career, the biggest reason we underachieved was a lack of discipline, leadership and accountability tops. It was rarely a lack of talent.

Having a lack of talent is something that is often out of your control. Unless you are a program that recruits, you can't control the genetics of the athletes in your program. When we struggled because of a lack of talent, I could deal with that. When we had a lack of talent, however, we tended to exceed expectations. What is frustrating is when you have talent and fall short of expectations. 95% of the time this comes down to discipline, leadership, and accountability. 

Discipline, leadership, and accountability are three things you have complete control over. If you are a head coach, you set the standard for the level of each of the these three things. Discipline and accountability come down to the standards and expectations you set, and what you are willing to tolerate. What you tolerate from your best players will lead to the level of discipline and accountability for everyone in your program. And when someone doesn't meet that standard, do you hold them accountable? Do you have a system to teach them what they did or didn't do that went against the standard? Ultimately it is about changing behaviors.

More than once this year I have seen several very talented teams lose football games to teams with inferior talent because they lacked discipline. In my 25 years of coaching, I was a part of three teams that lost to teams much less talented. I watched several games this year where I saw teams with superior talent lose to inferior competition. How can this happen? If you have more talent, aren't you supposed to win? There is a reason there are a bunch of very talented teams that lost 6, 7, and 8 games this year at all levels. 

First, it happens because you allow it to happen. You control what you allow and what you expect. You set your standards and expectations. You control the level of accountability to your standards. As a head coach you are ultimately in control. You set the tone for the entire team. You are the one who ultimately sets that standards for your team. You are the one who controls the level of accountability for your team. 

If you are going to set standards, and you had better set standards, you must be willing to hold every athlete to the standards you set. If you aren't willing to hold your best players to the standards, then you are going to lose trust with the team. You are going to have players that might outwardly act like they are bought in, but they are going to be frustrated with any lack of accountability. You will have the same frustration with coaches on your staff. They may outwardly be bought in, but inwardly they will be frustrated. If you don't have complete trust built up with everyone in your program, they will tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. 

Let's get to 3 important keys I'd like to focus on. First: If your best players are not being held accountable off the field, they will break your heart on the field. 

I have seen his first hand, and it something that is frustrating because you have complete control over it. When you let a guy get away with being a jerk in the school building, or getting in trouble in class, he will break your heart on the field. When you allow your most talented players to be un-coachable and unapproachable in practice, they will break your heart on Friday night when you play good teams. Have you set clear expectations for your team, and are you willing to hold everyone accountable to these expectations? 

When you have two sets of standards, one for the guys who are hard to coach, and one for the guys who are easy to coach, you will lose when you play someone who is inferior to you in talent, but has a higher level of discipline and accountability. They will not make undisciplined mistakes that cost teams football games. They will not get 15 yard penalties that will extend drives. They will not get penalties on third down that end drives for your offense, and extend drives for your opponents. They won't get 15 yard penalties that negate touchdowns. They won't have breakdowns in eye-discipline. They won't stop playing hard when they get behind. When one standard becomes optional, all standards become optional. If you are inconsistent with your accountability, the players you do not hold accountable will not know how to handle real adversity when it hits. 

Let me add loudly: NEVER JUSTIFY SOMEONE NOT MEETING THE STANDARD

That is so important that it had to be in all caps. Once you start to justify negative behaviors, you are allowing yourself to accept mediocrity. Everything we are talking about today has nothing to do with ability or talent. Do not justify mediocre behaviors or habits unless you want mediocre results. If the standard is important, everyone should be expected to meet the standard. If the standard ins't worth holding everyone accountable, get rid of the standard. Once one standard because optional, all standards become optional. 

Second: Head coaches, listen to your assistant coaches when it comes to discipline. We had a situation one year where we wanted to bench two of our most talented players on offense. We wanted to take playing time from them. They weren't practicing well, and they were becoming a cancer for the team. They were lazy in drills, and that was carrying over to the game. The offensive staff was in agreement that these two players needed to be benched. The head coach initially agreed, but then relented. The players were not held accountable. While they made big plays at times, they also did not play up to the level of their talent. More importantly, they were a distraction far more often than they were making big plays. Instead of setting the standard, they were the negative example. 

3 Keys to Consistent Accountability

Championship Level Accountability

Coaches that enjoy consistent, long-term success at an elite level have one very important secret to their success. These elite coaches are not accidentally successful. Success didn't just happen. They understand that success and high level performance comes from consistent, intentional accountability from everyone in the organization.

Consistent Accountability comes down to three principles. First, you have clear standards of performance. Your standards are clearly laid out and everyone in the organization understands the standards. Second is consistent accountability to the standards. Every single person is held accountable to the standard. Third, you care enough about people to have difficult conversations.

Clearly Defined Standards

Your standards must be clearly laid out, and everyone must understand and know the standard. If they know the standard and understand it, they will know when they don't meet it. The problem lies when they think they met the standard, but didn’t, and it wasn't clearly defined. This is when you, as a coach, have to teach the standard in a different way. The greatest teachers know that not everyone learns the same way. Most people tend to be visual learners, but others are auditory. A good percentage of athletes are a combination of visual and kinesthetic learners. This means they have to see and do before they learn a skill.

I once heard a coach say, "telling isn't teaching." Just because you tell someone something, doesn't mean they learned it. How many times have you heard a coach say, "well I told him." That is not coaching. That is telling. And that should never be our excuse. How do you know they learned what your are teaching? You have to obtain feedback. Instead of asking if they understand, ask them a question with a specific answer. If you told them to arrive by 2pm, don't say, "do you understand?" Replace that with, "what time do you have to be here?" If they say 2pm, you know they learned the expectation.

When you teach, you need to have coaching points. The business world calls them bullet points. What are your buzz words that kids must learn? This helps them to remember, retain, and recall information.

If your players don't know the expectations, how can they meet them? You cannot assume something is understood by everyone if you haven't laid it out clearly. You most likely will have to repeat the standard over and over again. But if you never define the standard, don't be upset when your players don't reach it.

Consistent Accountability

Every single person must be held accountable to the standard. There are two things I see in organizations that destroy trust. First, some athletes are held to the standard while others are not. And second, the standards change based on which coach the athlete is with at that moment. 

If you hold one person to the standard but you don't hold another person accountable, you are going to be frustrated. Your team is going to be frustrated. If you have a standard that says no one will wear earrings in the weight room, and you allow one athlete to wear earrings in the weight room, tomorrow you will have 5 people wearing earrings in the weight room. Permitting is promoting. Now you have lost the standard. You have two choices. You can either reteach the standard and tell the athletes you are going to hold them accountable and actually do it. Or, you can get rid of the standard. The best way is to consistently hold people accountable to meeting your standard. 

A standard that I see consistently violated on average teams is the "no one walks off the field" standard. You go to their practice, and you see guys walking off the field. Then you watch them in a game, and guys are walking off the field. If your standard is that you jog off the field, then hold guys accountable to the standard. Teach them the standard in practice. Don't wait until games to try to teach a standard. Do a drill in practice where they have to jog off the field. Remember, what you permit, you promote. 

The second issue comes when one coach holds an athlete accountable and another does not. I see this a lot with parallel squat. One coach is making sure athletes get to parallel, while another coach accepts a squat that is above parallel. There needs to be consistent accountability from coaches for standards of performance to mean anything. Each coach must be clear on the standards and hold athletes accountable. 

Care Enough To Have Difficult Conversations

A sure fire way to show an athlete you don't really care about them is to allow them to not meet the standard. I have seen this at a lot of programs and it always involves guys that are considered really good players. Coaches must be willing to hold their best players accountable. If you don't, you not only hurt the program, but you hurt the kid. When you let things go with your best players, accountability is lost for everyone. 

Nick Saban talked about how special his team was this year. It was special because his best players were accountable to the standard and led others. When your best players are your best people, you will have something special. But a big part of this came from those players having consistent accountability. They were held accountable to meeting the standards, every single day. They were coached with intentionality. 

Players will rise or fall to the level of accountability to the expectations. If you have high expectations and high accountability, you will have a high performing organization. If you have high expectations and low accountability, you will always fall short of your expectations. 

Players want structure and accountability. They want someone to care about them enough to set high expectations for them. They also want someone to care enough about them to hold them to those expectations. The biggest reason coaches don't want to have these conversations is that they don't want conflict. Listen, if you don't want conflict then don't be a coach.  Go be a gardener. But you don't have to confront mediocrity in such a way that causes a lot of conflict. There are athletes who will test you. "Will coach really hold me accountable?" When they know you will, they will rise to the level of the accountability to the standard. 

Players want you to see the best in them. They want you to love them enough to hold them accountable and push them to be their best. 

Meeting The Standard

If someone doesn't meet the standard, it is usually because of one of two reasons. First, they didn't understand the standard of performance. Second, they know there are no consequences and the act will be ignored. This is often when we say the athlete doesn't care. No, they care, they either don't think you are going to hold them accountable, or they are going to test you. Inconsistent accountability is a mistake a lot of coaches make. They have inconsistent standards. The standard changes from athlete to athlete and coach to coach.

Our standards must be consistent and unified across the coaching staff and everyone in the organization. The standard can't change from one day to the next. This confuses our athletes and isn't fair to them. It will also lead to failure. If the athlete doesn't clearly understand the standard, reteach it. The second reason is simple. Hold them accountable. Care about them enough to hold them accountable to meeting the standard and being their best.

As you prepare for your season, begin to evaluate your accountability. Do you have clear standards of performance, and are you holding your athletes consistently accountable? Do you care enough about your athletes to have difficult conversations with them?

I wish you the best as you prepare your team for the upcoming season. I hope this has given you some actionable ideas for your program. Clearly define your standards, and have a consistent, high level of intentional accountability with your players. It will make a difference in your program while having a positive impact on your players.

And remember, it doesn't matter how much or how little talent you have to hold athletes accountable.

Additional Resources:

A few years ago I was speaking at a clinic about our game planning and an FBS coordinator asked me after the talk to go through what we do. I shared with him our offensive game planning resource and he used it through the spring. He emailed me back that it was a game changer. It was an honor to have him use these documents. After speaking at clinics and hearing that more coaches didn't know where to start, I decided to make these available.

Here is a link to my offensive game planning documents: https://sellfy.com/p/AndN/ 

It includes everything from a scouting report template, to practice plans, to a two-sided color call sheet, and more! Each of the nine documents are fully editable and customizable! Order today and start preparing for your first game right now! At one time this was $99, but it is available right now for less than $13!

Here are a couple of screen shots to show you what our call sheet looks like: 

This shows you a small portion of it. It is a fully editable, customizable two sided call sheet. It gives you the ability to better organize and be prepared on game day. It helped us to be better play callers on game day. There are eight other fully customizable documents! Some of the top high school programs in the country use this, as do several college programs!

When I was a defensive coordinator we adapted this to our defensive preparation! 

Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/ These are what we used to post 6 shutouts when I was a defensive coordinator. Defensive coordinators at all levels of football are using this. Again, it is less than $13 right now!

And finally, I put together a special teams resource. This has everything you need, included drill tape, practice tape, and game footage. It includes teaching presentations and scouting forms just for special teams! https://sellfy.com/p/tJwz/ This helped us to build dominating special teams! 

I wanted these to be available at a very reasonable cost. These can help you to be more successful on the field and more efficient in the office! 

 Last year I got hooked up with CoachTube, and put together three courses for offensive football coaches. I put together two courses on RPO's, and a course on Building An Elite System of Communication. All of these courses will help you to score more points! 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

All three of these courses are detailed, with everything you need to be more explosive and to score more points. 

The course on communication gives you a detailed approach to your gameday communication. I give you a system and a process to improve the quality of conversations, leading to improved play calling on game day. This course has received outstanding reviews from coaches at all level of football. A coach with multiple state titles told me this course helped them to be much more efficient and explosive this season. 

My two RPO courses take you through a systematic process of installing RPO's into your offensive system. RPO's put the defense in conflict, forcing them to defend all 53 yards of width and all 6 skill players every single play. I not only give you a system, but I teach you the methods to develop your own RPO concepts. 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

New Book

Over the last several months, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote a new book about faith and purpose. The book is available as a paperback on Amazon, and as an eBook for the Kindle App. The cool thing about the Kindle app is that you can read the book on any device. I invite you to read it, and discover the power you receive when you make a decision to walk with the Lord. Here is a link to the book: Finding Faith

Since publishing the book, I have received numerous texts, calls, and emails, from people who are going through similar trials and tribulations. They were feeling many of the same things I was feeling. The found comfort in the book. They also found they had a desire to change and to live better. They wanted more joy. 

I would invite you to read the book and discover the possibilities that God has planned for your life.

Tackling Accountability

When I was a defensive coordinator, we adopted an attacking style of defense where we put enormous pressure on the offenses we faced. One key to our success was being very good tacklers. The season before we gave up 40 points a game and missed countless tackles. To improve our defense, we knew we had to tackle better. We spent a lot of time teaching and practicing tackling. One of the most important things we did was emphasize a measurable form of accountability for our tackling. 

Accountability For Tackling

We wanted everyone in the program to be accountable to our tackling success. To do this, we wanted to quantify the impact of a missed tackle We began to chart yards after contact. How many yards did the ball carrier gain after we made contact with them? We then came up with a simple system to hold players accountable for missing tackles in a meaningful way. 

We came up with a very simple system. For every yard we gave up, we would have sprints every day at the end of practice the following Monday through Thursday. If we gave up 100 yards after contact, we had 100 yards of sprints at the end of practice. We broke these down into 10 yard increments. We then would add 5 yards for every missed tackle. If we missed 20 tackles, we would have another 100 yards of sprints. 

When we introduced this to the players, we explained to them why we were doing it. Was it going to hurt? Yes. But what really was going to hurt was losing a game because we failed to get the ball carrier to the ground. We wanted to exchange some pain in practice to avoid the disappointment of losing because we didn't perform. 

Once our players understood the "why" of our tackling accountability, they bought in 100%. They wanted to be successful, and they understood that accountability was a big part of success. When kids understand the why of what you are doing, and the benefit of doing it, they are going to jump in full speed. 

As we talked to our players about tackling, we showed them film of good and bad tackles. One thing that we saw repeated was what we called "assumption tackles." An assumption tackle is where you assume your teammate is going to make a play, so you slow down your pursuit of the football. We coached them to never assume the tackle would be made. Your job is to be in a position to help on the tackle. The more tacklers we could get to the football, the more of a chance we would have of getting the ball carrier to the ground. 

It seems simple. Everyone runs to the football. But it is human nature to be average. It is human nature to take the easy way out. When the ball carrier is stopped, players have a tendency to stop. We had to teach, coach, and drill our guys on not assuming someone else would make the play. Do your job, pursue the football, and play full speed until the ball carrier is on the ground. 

If a guy misses a tackle and you are in position to make the play immediately, he may not gain any yards after the missed tackle. But if you slow down because you assume, the ball carrier is going to gain more yards after a missed tackle. 

The Results

In our first scrimmage we saw major improvement from the season before, but we still struggled with missed tackles. We had 22 missed tackles, and gave up 105 yards after contact. For the yards after missed tackles we had 105 yards in sprints. We added 5 yards for every missed tackle. That was another 110 yards in sprints. We had a total of 215 yards in sprints in 10 yard increments. We always rounded up, so the 215 became 220. This meant we had 22 ten yard sprints to end practice. It wasn't fun. We didn't enjoy it. But like most things we don't enjoy, we learned. 

In our second scrimmage we made huge strides. We missed 14 tackles and gave up 56 yards after contact. We had guys encouraging each other to make tackles. We started to see our effort increase. On the third play of the scrimmage we had a guy miss a tackle, get up, and pursue the ball as it cut back across the field. He ended up getting a missed tackle and a solo tackle on the same play.

 In our first game of the season, we missed 10 tackles and had 35 yards after contact. Because we tackled well, we posted a shutout. In fact, we didn't give up a first down until the 4th quarter. We continued this trend through the season, posting 6 shutouts and giving up 6.8 points per game. 

As we went through the season, we found our tackling greatly improved. Each game we gave up less and less yards after contact. Because we tackled well, we gave up very few first downs. Because we weren't giving up first downs, teams were not able to score as many points against us. We also were able to get off the field faster, meaning we were fresh late in the game. In fact, we had 9 games where we didn't give up a point in the second half. 

Tackling Is More Than Accountability

I credit our accountability as a big part of our success, but we also became much better at teaching tackling. We changed everything we did as far as tackling goes. We changed our tackling drills, our tackling circuit, and our tackling mindset. A big part of tackling comes down to playing with great leverage and angles, and being in the right position to make a tackle. We also spent time in the weight room building our core strength and hip flexibility, as this is vital to tackling. 

Defense comes down to lining up right, playing with great effort, tackling, and creating takeaways. If you don't tackle, your defense will not ever be good. It is frustrating when you miss tackles. When you build your defense and your practice plans, make tackling an emphasis. Go through your film and determine where you struggled to make tackles, and figure out how to fix your tackling. Then, add some sort of quantifiable way to hold your players accountable for their tackling on the field. 

I wish you the best as you prepare for the upcoming season. If you are looking for some resources that will help you in your preparation, I have put together some things that coaches at all level of football are using with their programs. Not only will these help you be more organized, they will save you valuable time on the weekends. 

Additional Resources:

A few years ago I was speaking at a clinic about our game planning and an FBS coordinator asked me after the talk to go through what we do. I shared with him our offensive game planning resource and he used it through the spring. He emailed me back that it was a game changer. It was an honor to have him use these documents. After speaking at clinics and hearing that more coaches didn't know where to start, I decided to make these available.

Here is a link to my offensive game planning documents: https://sellfy.com/p/AndN/ 

It includes everything from a scouting report template, to practice plans, to a two-sided color call sheet, and more! Each of the nine documents are fully editable and customizable! Order today and start preparing for your first game right now! At one time this was $99, but it is available right now for less than $13!

Here are a couple of screen shots to show you what our call sheet looks like: 

This shows you a small portion of it. It is a fully editable, customizable two sided call sheet. It gives you the ability to better organize and be prepared on game day. It helped us to be better play callers on game day. There are eight other fully customizable documents! Some of the top high school programs in the country use this, as do several college programs!

When I was a defensive coordinator we adapted this to our defensive preparation! 

Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/ These are what we used to post 6 shutouts when I was a defensive coordinator. Defensive coordinators at all levels of football are using this. Again, it is less than $13 right now!

And finally, I put together a special teams resource. This has everything you need, included drill tape, practice tape, and game footage. It includes teaching presentations and scouting forms just for special teams! https://sellfy.com/p/tJwz/ This helped us to build dominating special teams! 

I wanted these to be available at a very reasonable cost. These can help you to be more successful on the field and more efficient in the office! 

Over the last several months, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote a new book about faith and purpose. The book is available as a paperback on Amazon, and as an eBook for the Kindle App. The cool thing about the Kindle app is that you can read the book on any device. I invite you to read it, and discover the power you receive when you make a decision to walk with the Lord. Here is a link to the book: Finding Faith

Since publishing the book, I have received numerous texts, calls, and emails, from people who are going through similar trials and tribulations. They were feeling many of the same things I was feeling. The found comfort in the book. They also found they had a desire to change and to live better. They wanted more joy. 

I would invite you to read the book and discover the possibilities that God has planned for your life.

 Last year I got hooked up with CoachTube, and put together three courses for offensive football coaches. I put together two courses on RPO's, and a course on Building An Elite System of Communication. All of these courses will help you to score more points! 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

All three of these courses are detailed, with everything you need to be more explosive and to score more points. 

The course on communication gives you a detailed approach to your gameday communication. I give you a system and a process to improve the quality of conversations, leading to improved play calling on game day. This course has received outstanding reviews from coaches at all level of football. A coach with multiple state titles told me this course helped them to be much more efficient and explosive this season. 

My two RPO courses take you through a systematic process of installing RPO's into your offensive system. RPO's put the defense in conflict, forcing them to defend all 53 yards of width and all 6 skill players every single play. I not only give you a system, but I teach you the methods to develop your own RPO concepts. 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint