Building A Defensive Call Sheet To Dominate

After being an offensive coordinator for 7 years and enjoying a lot of success, I switched over the the dark side and became a defensive coordinator. I was coaching at a program where we coached both side of the ball, so I was well-versed in the potential of our defensive players. We made the transition from a 3-4 defense to the Odd Stack. The biggest area we had to transition was on our preparation. 

As an offensive coordinator I had a very detailed call sheet. I decided to adapt this to defense. This article will give you a couple of ideas that will help you build your call sheet to dominate your opponents. Our call sheet helped us post 6 shutouts while giving up just 6.8 points per game. We made the deepest playoff run in school history. 

Our number one goal on defense was to get the ball back. That was the premise for everything we did. We could get the ball back one of four ways.

1. They score. This was the worst way to get the ball back.
2. We get a turnover on downs. This was good, but often meant they had driven into our territory and went for it on fourth down.
3. We could force a punt. This was good, as it usually meant we stopped them on their side of the 50.
4. We got a turnover. This was best as it meant we created momentum, and often would have great field position.

When we built our call we focused on a couple of areas first. We wanted to make sure we knew who their playmakers were, and when they went to them. One week we faced a team that had a great receiver they would go to every time it was 3rd and 4 or more. We knew we had to take him away. We scripted a couple of calls that were designed to take him away and disrupt timing. Below is an example of this column:

Depending how many playmakers our opponent has, we may use 2, 3, or 4 of these columns. Typically we are going to have 2 of these columns, because most teams have 2 playmakers. Some teams may have 3 or 4, but most teams have 1 or 2. Usually each of these guys are go to guys in specific situations. 

In addition to stopping playmakers, we needed to stop what our opponent did. It is important you enter the data into your video program. It only takes a few minutes to do a game, but having the data will give you what you need to build a championship call sheet. We wanted their run/pass percentages by personnel, formation, and down and distance. Once we know what they did, we can build a call sheet designed to stop them. 

The next column I built was our opponents personnel groups and run pass percentages, followed by the calls they made most often, and what we liked to call against this group. I used these typically on first and 2nd down situations. I had a coach telling me personnel, down and distance, and run/pass percentages. I would then make my call based on the call sheet. We were using concrete data to make calls. Below is an example of what this section of my call sheet looked like:

Most teams are very tendency oriented, and I wanted to know what their tendencies were from each formation and personnel grouping. I also wanted to be reminded of screen downs. We had calls built in to take away screens against teams that were screen heavy. I also wanted to know if there were certain personnel or formation keys that tipped us to what our opponent would do. The stars * are the calls they make most using our terminology. The numbers are the calls I like against these personnel groups. This way I am not trying to guess what to call. I am not smart enough to do that. 

The backside of my call sheet is designed with down and distance situations. We list each situation by hash, put our opponents run/pass percentages, and then list our favorite calls. Typically we will have 2 or 3 calls we list. Breaking this data down by hash helps us to be very targeted. Some teams will be 60% run on 3rd and short, but if they are on one hash that might be 80% run, and in the middle might be 40% run. This is important because it helps us make the best call in each situation. 

Here is an example of 2nd and short. You can see that our opponent tends to run more in the middle and right hash, but they are more balanced on the left hash. I can now make better calls based on the hash. 

Each section of our call sheet gave specific info that helped us to be able to take away what our opponent wanted to do and who they wanted to do it with. Using this data will help you make better play calls that are more disruptive to the offense. 

We called our call sheet an in-game info sheet because it contained a lot of necessary data that allowed me to call our defense quickly and efficiently. I had a communication coach relaying information to me based on this sheet. We felt like this helped us to put our kids in a position to be successful. A good defensive call can help your players to be able better do their job. We ended up with 6 shutouts and beat some teams we shouldn't have beaten. We were able to play very well on defense. Adding these columns might benefit you as you build your call sheet this season. 

There is much more to our call sheet, as we also had calls by field zone and down and distance. I also had a section called the Big 12, which consisted of the 12 things they do that makes up 90% of their offense. I talk more about that here. As far as generating the data, Hudl gives you some great reports. But if you want to take your data to another level, check out this post I wrote: http://coachvint.blogspot.com/2023/07/defense-game-planning-keys-to.html

Many coaches tell me they want to build a call sheet, but they don't know where to start. Many have asked about my call sheet, and I decided to put together a packet of every single document we have used to prepare on defense. This has everything we used, including our 2 sided color call sheet. You will be more prepared on defense and will be able to dominate your opponent! You can click here to learn more: Defensive Game Planning Resource You can order it now and download it instantly! For a limited time, it is one sale using the link above! It is completely editable and customizable. This resource is available for instant download! 

If you are looking to improve your preparation, take a minute to check out this resource packet.

Additional Resources for Coaches:

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

Installing Post-Snap RPO's

Installing Pre-Snap RPO's To Get Your Skill Guys More Touches

Building An Elite System of Gameday Communication

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

A few years back I published a couple of iBooks that can help your program with X's and O's. The first is on Installing RPO's into any offense. Here is a link to the iBooks version: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959. The ibooks version includes explanations, diagrams, and video clips embedded!

If you don't have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can order the Amazon version for the Kindle. It has everything except the embedded video. You can order it here: http://www.amazon.com/Installing-Explosive-Concepts-Into-Offense-ebook/dp/B01B12YSCG/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I also wrote a book on Tempo. It will greatly help you build a multiple tempo system with simple communication that will allow your kids to play with confidence. It also had over an hour of video clips! You can order the ibooks version here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1075902270.

Order the Amazon Kindle version here:

http://www.amazon.com/Using-Multiple-Tempos-Create-Explosive-ebook/dp/B01ATOL46A/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

 

Defense Game Planning: Keys to Dominating Preparation

In my career I was lucky to have had an opportunity be an offensive and defensive coordinator, and to spend time at the high school and college levels. I worked with some great football coaches who were masters at preparation. I wanted to give you a couple of things you can use to be more dominant on defense this season.

We had one goal on defense. That was to get the ball back as quickly as possible. There are four ways to get the ball back. 

We wanted to do everything we could to get the opposing offense off the field and to get our offense on the field. One of the most important factors in doing this was being prepared. 

The first key to preparation is to have good data. We never went a game without entering data on our opponent. If coaches share the responsibility of entering the data, you can knock out a game in less than 15 minutes. 

If you are a young coach who has the responsibility of entering data, take the responsibility serious. The data you enter is going to be the difference between knowing what a team will do and not knowing.

Once we enter the data, we then focus on the two keys to stopping our opponent. 

We want to stop their dude, and take away what is is that they do. We want to make sure that they aren't going to beat us with their best player or their best play. If they are going to score it is going to have to be with someone else running something else.

The data we enter is going to give us two things. First, it is going to give us tendencies. A tendency is something done 65% of the time. I want to know what it is they do most frequently. We are going to look at down and distance tendencies, field/boundary tendencies, personnel tendencies, field/zone tendencies, backfield tendencies, and formation tendencies. We will first look at run/pass tendencies for each of these.

Below is an example of run/pass tendencies for 3 games. This is from a company called Recon Sports

All we did was take the data we were already entering, upload it to Recon, and we had beautiful reports that helped us to be better prepared. Instead of spending hours with pen and paper, and filtering and sorting excel spreadsheets, these reports were ready to give us the tendencies we needed. This helped me to know what defensive calls would be good in certain situations, and what calls might not be as good.