5 Keys to Offensive Success

Regardless of what system you run or what level you coach, there are 5 things you need to do if you want to be successful on offense. These five things make a huge difference in the level of success you will enjoy. 

Before I get into the five things you must do, I want to focus on perhaps the biggest mistake we make as offensive coordinators. One of the easiest ways to jack up your offensive game plan is to try to do too much. It is very easy to draw things on the board and come up with a million great ideas. Those ideas always look good on paper and on the board. Then you get into the game, and your players don't execute them very well. You find yourself scratching your head. How come this concept didn't work. 

When you add too much into a game plan, you are going to be frustrated. It is very difficult to be good at anything you do, because you can't rep everything. The most important thing you can do when you build your game plan is to cut things out. Find the best of what you like and build from there. 

Think about this. You are going to snap the ball somewhere between 55 and 75 times a game, depending on how fast you play, how much you throw, and how much time your opponent has the football. If you play fast, and you play a team that plays fast, you might get 85 or 90 snaps. If you play a team that runs the ball and eats clock, you might get 45 or 50 snaps. Even you get 80 snaps in a game, you aren't going to need to run 80 different plays. In fact, you are going to repeat things that are working, and cut things out that don't work. It is okay to run the same play back-to-back, and even three or four times in a row. In 1999 we ran I-Right 42 Iso 16 plays in a row. For 2 straight drives that is all we ran. We scored both drives. We had had an advantage on the right side of our line, and our fullback was better than their Mike. 

If you have something they can't stop, run it again and again and again. As you game plan, look for formations that give you leverage, numbers, and green grass. You may find that team lines up different than you expected to a set, and they don't have a force guy, or they are a hat short. Once you find this, exploit it. 

101 Pistol Option Plays is Now available in ibook Form!

It is amazing how far technology has come in the last 15 years! The technology that is now available has made vast amounts of information available for coaches at all levels. We have come a long way from the days of waiting 5 hours for 16mm film to get developed!

My first year coaching I went to the MegaClinic in Atlantic City and bought a video by Jerry Campbell, who would become a great mentor to me. Jerry's video was a VHS tape on the installation of the option game. I played that video so much I wore it out! In about 2005 I ordered my first instructional DVD. You were able to skip from chapter to chapter and more easily find information. I thought that was high cotton! Little did I know what the future held.

Several years ago I was asked to record my own coaching DVD's with Coaches Choice. We started with a set of 4, then did another set, and all of a sudden we had about 18 DVD's. Dr. Peterson, who owns Coaches Choice, asked me to write a couple of books on the pistol. In 2012 we released 101 Pistol Run Plays and 101 Pistol Option Plays.

Last year Keith Grabowski called me and told me he was writing his own pistol book through the ibooks publisher. When he completed it he offered me a chance to download it. It was amazing! He incorporated videos and power point slides into the book. Coach Grabowski opened the door to the future of publishing! It is also a great book! 

This fall, Dr. Peterson called me and said we were going to transform my two pistol books to the ibooks format. I was ecstatic. After seeing the finished product, I am very pleased. 

101 Pistol Option Plays is actually so large that it had to be converted into two ibooks. There is so much video that one book would be too large of a file! Part 1 contains more traditional option concepts like midline and inside veer. Part 2 contains option concepts from the pistol that are more spread oriented. A large part of the book is inside zone read, power read, and counter read. Each chapter has a detailed description of the schematics of the concept being introduced.

One of the greatest features of the book is the ability to incorporate film room walk throughs! I will actually talk you through concepts just like if we were in the film room! It is an amazing way to interact. 

The coaches film room allows the author to talk you through a concept, brining the film room right onto your iPad! 

The ability to incorporate power point slides and full color pictures really brings the book to life!

This is going to be an exciting clinic season as the way you purchase books and videos has forever been transformed! You can now get a book that you can take anywhere, as long as you have a mac or an iPad. That is the one drawback to the ibook format, is that right now it only works on iOS products. The great thing as that you can find refurbished iPad 2's, 3's, and 4's for very reasonable prices!

In addition to my pistol books, there are several other books available using this same technology. Gus Malzahn's book on the Fast Paced No Huddle is also available. Rich Hargitt has some awesome air raid books available on the ibook platform.

If you are looking for more information on the pistol, check out 101 Pistol Option Plays! It has hours of video and hundreds of slides and pictures to go along with the diagrams and descriptions of each concept. Here is a link to 101 Pistol Option Plays Part 1: 101 Pistol Option Plays Part 1

Part 1 focuses on traditional option concepts like midline and veer.

And here is a link to 101 Pistol Option Plays Part 2: 101 Pistol Option Plays Part 2 Part 2 contains more spread concepts including inside zone read, outside zone read, counter read, and power read.

101 Pistol Run Plays will be released in the next few days. 

This is a tremendous platform for coaches to research new concepts, and I am very excited to see what will come down the pipeline in the future!

A few months 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 on multiple RPO Concepts. It will give you a simple process for implementing them into your offense.

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