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. 

 

Winning With A Talent Deficiency

What do you do when you have a talent deficiency? This is a situation that most coaches will face at some point in their career. Sometimes you face this a few games a season, and sometimes you are going this every single game. What do you do? How do you handle this situation? 

No two programs are in the same place, and this will look different depending where you are, and what stage you are in with building your program. What remains consistent are the five keys to winning games when you are at a talent deficiency. 

1. Play Mistake Free Football
2. Play Together As A Unified Team
3. Win The Takeaway Battle
4. Make Big Plays On Special Teams
5. Shorten the Game

Play Mistake Free Football

When you are at a talent deficiency, your window of opportunity and margin for error is going to be smaller. Every time you make a self-inflicted wound, you shrink your margin for error. Teams with a lot of talent have much more room for errors and can overcome mistakes. When you have less talent, you don't have room for mistakes. 

What we are talking about are things that take zero talent. We are talking about lining up right, stepping with the correct foot, not committing pre-snap penalties, not jumping offsides on defense, and the like. Coaches need to make sure their are 11 guys on the field, not 10 or 12. These are things that take zero talent. Do the things that take zero talent really well and you will win more games. 

Play Together As A Team

This is so important. Everyone has to do their job, and only their job, to the best of their ability. They have to trust that the other 10 guys will take pride in their job every play. They have to trust that their teammates will give great effort. They have to trust that their teammates are going to be where they are supposed to be, when they are supposed to be there, doing what they are supposed to do. They have to trust their teammates will line up right and play with great effort. 

When you are at a talent deficiency, you have to convince your team that the whole team playing together is much stronger than the sum of the parts. This is the definition of Synergy, and is a vital part of playing above your ability level. Guys have to be bought into each other, care about each other, and be willing to sacrifice for the success of the man next to them and the team. 

Win the Takeaway Battle

First and foremost, you have to have great ball security. You have to practice ball security and emphasize it everyday. If you want to win a game you shouldn't win on paper, you need to take care of the football. It takes zero talent to have great ball security. 

You have to emphasize turnovers in practice. You have to have a period where you work on takeaways. When you are at a talent deficiency, stealing possessions is key. If we can finish three more possessions than our opponent, we increase our chances to win. Takeaways also create a short field. This gives us a better chance to score. 

Early in my career we beat a team we were supposed to lose to by 30 points, according to the papers. We forced 5 turnovers in the game. 2 were pick 6's, and two of them we returned inside the 10 yeard line. We only had 5 first downs, but we won the game 36-34. We couldn't move the ball against our opponent, but we were able to score because of the short field. 

Make Big Plays On Special Teams

Special Teams will win you games you shouldn't win, and lose you games you shouldn't lose. We want to make sure we are really good in punt protection. We want to make sure we don't kick the ball or punt the ball to their good returners. We want to make sure that we get vertical on our returns and then try to find daylight. We want to field every kick cleanly, so we don't give up hidden yards. 

The big one with this is blocking kicks. Blocking kicks are huge factors in beating teams you shouldn't beat. In the game I talked about earlier, we also blocked a punt, which gave us the ball inside their 5 yard line. This led to a short touchdown. The difference in the game was when we blocked their first extra point and returned it for two points. It was a huge momentum shift after they had gone up 13-0. 

Practice blocking punts and extra points. Find out who your best kick block guys are and help them improve that skill throughout the year. Blocking kicks is huge for winning games you shouldn't win. 

Let me also add that onside kicks can help you steal a possession. Find their weakness and install an onside kick to exploit it. You don't have to kick a traditional onside. Find the space in their return alignment and kick to that space. DO NOT KICK TO THEIR STUD RETURNER! I have made this mistake, and it rarely turns out good. There is nothing wrong with a pooch kick that won't be returned. They will start at the 25 or 30, and that is a win. 

Field Punts! There are hundreds of lost yards each game because coaches don't teach their guys how to catch a punt. 

Shorten the Game

This is a big key, and can help you beat teams when you are less talented. You can control when you snap the ball and how much time runs off the clock between plays when you have the ball. If you are a huddle team, take a little more time before you send the play in. 

A lot of guys tell me that tempo is a big key to what they do. Tempo is the great equalizer, but it can also be a double edged sword. If you are going 3 and out, your tempo will do more harm than good. But there are ways you can strategically use tempo. 

You can go fast and snap the ball, which keeps the defense on their heels. They are going to tend to be more vanilla. You can also bluff the snap, where you make it look like you are going fast, but you don't snap the ball fast. When you say your snap count, or clap, they might jump. Take the free 5. When you signal the play, you can also signal another bluff snap. This might get them to jump. 

Another thing to do is to bluff the snap, then signal in a whole new formation and play. Your guys now will get lined up and execute the play. The defense just made a call and now they have to adjust. This is a great way to run clock while using the concept of tempo.

If you huddle, you can use what we called 6 seconds. We would tell our guys six seconds from clap to snap. That means we would clap when we said ready break, sprint to the line, and call our cadence quickly. This is especially effective with unbalanced sets where the defense has to recognize surfaces, eligibles, and backfield sets quickly. 

When we were at a talent deficiency, we wanted to find a way to keep the game close in the fourth quarter. If we were within one score, our opponent might tense up. They suddenly are worried that this team they are far superior to was playing with them. 

Find ways to shorten the game, which will give you chance to win the game in the fourth quarter. 

Everyone Must Believe

Sun-Tzu says Every Battle Is Won Before It Is Fought. You have to prepare to the point that your players believe they have earned the right to win. Saying we are going to win is not enough. You have to convince your players that they have done everything it takes to win the game in preparation, and they have earned the right to compete. 

You also have to believe in each other. You have to believe the guy next to you is capable. The players have to believe in each other, and they have to believe their coaches will put them in the best position to be successful. The coaches have to believe in the players, and that the players will do things above their ability. The coaches also have to believe in each other. They have to believe that their colleagues will coach at a high level in preparation for the game and during the game.

If your players believe in each other, believe in their coaches, and believe they have earned the right to compete, they will believe they can win the game. If they believe, they increase their chances of winning. If they don't believe, they will lose. Henry Ford said, "The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can't are both right." The question is, which man are you? 

If you do these 5 things and you believe, you increase your chances of winning against a superior opponent talent wise. If you don't do these things, or you lack belief you can do these things, you won't have a chance. 

When you go into a game where you are at a talent deficiency, take the focus off the ability of the players. Focus on taking care of the things you have total control over, and build that belief in your players. 

I know we didn't talk about scheme, and scheme matters, but I wanted to focus on the things that every coach can do, regardless of talent level or what scheme they run. The biggest thing about scheme is finding ways to get your strengths attacking their weaknesses. If they are a team that flies around but has bad eye discipline, use reverse and misdirection. If they like to time up blitzes, change your snap count. To attack personnel, find the guy they are hiding, and attack him with your best guy. Everyone is hiding someone. 

Let me add this... Preparation and Organization

Being prepared for your opponent is a big part of beating people who are more talented than you are. If you want to be more prepared each week, I highly recommend you check out my game and practice planning resource. I spent much of my career as a coordinator. I was an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator, and coached at both the high school and college levels. I have made available all of our game and practice planning resources that helped us win more games. These have everything you need to be more prepared. They are editable and customizable, and are available as an instant download.  https://sellfy.com/p/AndN/ 

It includes everything from a scouting report template, to weekly practice plans and scripts, 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! This helped us be able to be prepared to attack the defense and put more points on the board. It also helped us be much more efficient and targeted on the weekends when we were game planning. 

The Team You Are Watching on Film Is Not The Same Team You Will Play This Week

As you put your game plan together for this week's opponent, I wanted to give you something that hopefully will help you to be more prepared, and that you can use very week this season. This is a premise that is vital and can keep you from losing games to teams you should not lose to. 

The Team You Are Watching on Film is Not the Same Team You Will Play Next Week. 

When you watch film of the opponent you are getting ready to play, you are watching the most recent version of them. You are not watching the future version of them who you will see after another week of practice and preparation. They are going to add new wrinkles. Just like you are working to correct mistakes, they are going to correct mistakes. They are going to have a key guy back from an injury. They are going to be a much better team than they were last week. Hopefully you are also going to be a much better team than you were last week. 

It is very easy to get caught up watching a team on film and thinking, "these guys shouldn't score a point on us." Or, "we should score 50 on these guys." I have been there and done that, and it almost never works out well. Statements like this lead to disappointment. Elite coaches expect to see the best version of the team you are going to play, not the worst version. Are you preparing for the the version of the team you saw on film last week, or the version of the team you will see this week? 

Have you ever walked away from a game when you got beat and said, "what just happened?" If you haven't, you never want to. There is no worse feeling. Every single time it came down to our attitude towards our opponent. We were arrogant, and arrogance will always get you beat. 

Most games are won or lost before they are ever played. One team is hungry, works hard, and believes they are going to win because they have earned it. The other team is overconfident, goes through the motions, and believes they are entitled to win. They believe the other team is going to lay down for them. Which won do you think has a better chance of winning the game? This is the recipe for upsets. 

I see it most when people go from being hungry to fed, or when they go from being the hunter to the hunted. You fight so hard to reach a goal, and you forget the hard work and the mentality it took to get there.

Beyond the scheme you are preparing this week, what are going to do to prepare your players to practice with a champions mindset? How will you develop their hunger to strive to become better every single day? Players are going to play scoreboard football, where they look at what your next opponent did against other teams. They will compare scores. Don't ever let yourself get caught up in this. You have to instill in your players and coaches that what they did against this team or that is irrelevant. It should not affect your preparation one bit. 

As you begin to prepare for your game this week, keep these things in your mind and focus on being the best version of you, and being prepared to play the best version of your opponent. 

Game And Practice Planning Resource: If you want to be more prepared each week, I highly recommend you check out my game and practice planning resource. I spent much of my career as a coordinator. I was an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator, and coached at both the high school and college levels. I have made available all of our game and practice planning resources that helped us win more games. These have everything you need to be more prepared. They are editable and customizable, and are available as an instant download.  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! This helped us be able to be prepared to attack the defense and put more points on the board. It also helped us be much more efficient and targeted on the weekends when we were game planning. 

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... 

What Are You Going To Do About It?

At this point your season has ended, and unless you won a championship, chances are your season didn't end the way you wanted. Every year around this time I would visit with my dad who was a retired coach. I would tell him all the things that went wrong, and he would always say the same thing. "What are you doing to do about it?" He didn't phrase it as a question, as much as a declaration that you need to grow and adapt.

As you come out of your holiday break, there is something very important every coach needs to do. You need to take a very deep dive into your program, and decide what you need to do to make it become the best it can be. You need to do this without pride. You need to look at things without letting your emotions or your ego get in the way. 

At the end of each season, I made a list of things that kept us from being our best. This list focused on the following areas: 

• On the field
• Schematics, Personnel, Situational Awareness, Play Calling
• Were we putting guys in a position to be successful? 
• Were we prepared for the situations we faced? 
• Practice
• Organization, Practice Schedules, Install Schedules, Scripts, Time on Field
• Game Day Operations
• Travel, Itinerary, Pre-Game, Pre-Game Warm-Ups, Coach to Coach and Coach to Player Communication, Box Logistics, Workflow, Half-Time Operations, In-Game Adjustments 
• Off-Season
• Program, Logistics, Set-up, Strengths, Weaknesses
• Are we getting guys out of their comfort zone?
• Are we getting stronger, faster, and more explosive?
• Spring Ball
• Organization, Set-Up, Practice Schedules, Install Schedules, Field Set-Up
• Returning Personnel
• Evaluate Personnel, Rate On Board, Who Are Dudes, Who Could Be Dudes, Best Leaders, Position Changes
• Character, Leadership, and Program Culture
• Define our current culture, character level of athletes, how will we improve leadership?

The hardest part of this process was looking at things and not justifying mediocrity. Ultimately, this is how you find the weaknesses in your program that are holding back the success of your team. This brings us back to the question, "What are you going to do about it?"

Once you identify areas of weakness, you need to build a plan to attack these areas of weakness. Depending on where you are as a program, you may have several weaknesses. It is difficult to attack them all. One thing to caution is to be careful that you don't treat the symptoms without treating the disease. During the season you are often going to apply band-aids to stop the bleeding. The off-season is the time when you can go through chemotherapy and treat the actual disease that impedes development.

What I mean is this... Often there is a deeper issue that causes problems within multiple areas of your program. Poor leadership can affect the effort and attitude of your players. This affects their learning. You might focus on improving your meetings and how you teach concepts, but this will only treat the symptom. You have to find the disease within your program. If you treat the disease, the symptoms will go away. 

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.

3 Keys to Being A Champion

Winning is not something that happens easily for any program. Regardless of how much talent you have, it is very difficult to step out on the field and be a consistent winner. There are three keys-- three things you need to build a championship program.

1. Talent
2. Championship Mentality
3. Unconditional Love

Talent

Everyone agrees that talent is key to winning a championship. But talent is just a starting point. Talent is important, but what is more important is maximizing the talent you have. If you have a group of talented athletes but you don't develop them mentally and physically, you will underachieve. Too many coaches blame a lack of success on not having enough talent, and too many coaches who have a lot of talent don't work to develop that talent to the play at elite levels. 

The one key factor, regardless of the talent on your roster, is to coach players to be their best. Are you coaching to the level of the talent on your roster, or are you coaching to make the most out of the talent on your roster? Our job as coaches is to make the very best out of what we have. 

The weight room is a great equalizer. A great strength, speed, and conditioning program can help to develop the players you have. There is no substitute for strength, and no excuse for a lack of it. 

Building a program goes far beyond talent. 

Championship Mentality

A championship mentality does not just happen. It is something that must be developed on a daily basis. Everything you do either builds a championship mentality, or destroys a championship mentality. Building this mentality is a process, and it is a process that takes time. There is no such thing as waking up one day and all of a sudden you are mentally tough and focused.

The process starts with your expectations. Your expectations will give you a focal point for your standards. Bill Walsh said you have to act like a champion before you can be a champion. Your standards then drive your accountability. This is simply what you will allow and what you won't allow. What you permit is what you promote. If you permit people to be late, you are promoting lateness. If you allow people to loaf in practice, you are giving everyone permission to loaf. 

When you hold people accountable to your standards and meeting high expectations, you are setting them up for success. When you allow them to perform below your standards you are setting them up for failure. Here is the key: you do not know when success will show on the scoreboard. But building success in the details of your process will lead to success on the scoreboard.

Accountability is something you must constantly be striving for. Accountability is not easy, because it requires difficult conversations. No one wants to hear that they are not doing something right or doing something well. No one wants to face consequences. But it is through these difficult conversations and consequences that success is developed. 

The first thing you must do is define what you want your mentality to look like. Then you must train your people on how to live with that mentality. Our definition for mental toughness is simple.

Mental toughness is the ability to face adversity and failure with a positive attitude, and without a loss of enthusiasm, effort, and faith in the process. 

You must teach mental toughness as part of your championship mentality. When things get difficult, you have a choice. You can blame, complain, and make excuses. Or you can stick to the process and fight for a solution. It is very easy to blame others. It is very easy to complain about how things aren't fair. It is easy to make excuses about why you aren't performing. Those are things that mediocre people are very good at. Mediocre teams are some of the best at justifying why they are mediocre. 

Championship teams and organizations are willing to persevere through adversity. When things are not going their way they focus on doing things right. They don't blame others. They don't make excuses. They simply get better. A few years back we had a corner who was matched up with a big time receiver. The receiver ran by him on a vertical. Our corner came to the sideline and didn't make excuses. His position coach told him he was so worried about getting beat that he didn't move his feet. He walked through his speed turn on the sideline. The next possession the receiver tried to run by him, but the corner did the little things right with his feet, played the ball, and knocked the pass away. He found a way. 

You can't wait to teach championship mentality during the season. You have to build your mentality from January through July. Every single day you are either building a championship mentality, or you're not. The weight room allows you to instill high standards, and hold athletes to those standards. Your speed and conditioning program allow you to push your athletes beyond what they think they can do. 

A championship mentality doesn't guarantee you will win a championship, but it gives you an opportunity to play at the highest level possible. 

Unconditional Love 

Unconditional love is what bonds everything and everyone together. Many young people today never experience unconditional love. They don’t know how it feels to have someone love them without conditions. Unconditional love means we love you as much on your worst day as we do on your best day. We don’t love you because you are a good player, and don’t stop loving you when you get in trouble. 

It is important to understand that unconditional love means we are going to hold you accountable. Because we love you we are going to make sure you are accountable to meeting our standard. This is where a lot of coaches fail. They don’t hold players accountable for not meeting the standard. Or, you won’t hold them fully accountable. This often happens with really good players, and I would guess we have all been there. We have to hold them accountable if we are going to be our best as a team, and if we truly care about the player. It hurts to hold someone accountable, I get it. But it hurts the kid more when we enable them. 

Taking this a step further, everything you do as a coach is going to impact your athletes far beyond the football field. What skills are you giving them that will help them be more successful in life? Are you teaching them values they can use to be better leaders? Are you teaching them about accountability? Are you teaching them how to persevere? Regardless of your record on the field, the impact you make on their lives off the field is what will be lasting. No one can remember who won the third game of the season three years ago. But everyone will remember the impact you had on their lives as their coach. 

Never sacrifice winning for making a positive impact. If you win games but enable kids, you did not do your job as a coach. If you won’t hold your best players accountable, you will do two things. First, you will make the kid think the rules don’t apply to him, and second, you will begin to erode your culture. 

Sometimes a kid has to fail to learn a lesson. Sometimes they have to face a consequence that is painful. David Diaz, who I worked for at Columbus High School, was a master at accountability. It didn't matter if you were the running back with 30 offers, or you were the 3rd string guard who rarely played. You were going to be held accountable. Every single guy was held to a high standard, and there is a reason so many guys who played for him went on to be successful. 

Does talent matter? We all know it does. But there are plenty of talented teams that don't do very well, and many less talented teams that exceed expectations. You can't always control the level of talent you have in your program. But you can control your development of that talent. You can control how you develop the mentality of your team. You can control the love you have for your players, and the love they have for each other. 

I would challenge every single coach reading this to coach to make an impact. People always ask how the team is going to be. My good friend, Blake Sandford, used to say, "I will let you know in 20 years." The hard work we put in with our players will show when they are grown men and face adversity. Did we give them the tools they need to be great fathers and husbands? Did we set high standards and hold them accountable? Did we get them to see the greatness they have inside? Were we able to help them bring that greatness out? 

Don't measure yourself as a coach solely by the scoreboard. Your value as a coach goes far beyond what you teach on the field. No player will thank you in 10 years for teaching them how to double team block, or to run a slant route. They will, however, remember the lessons you taught and the values you helped to instill in them. 

Preparation Resources

As you prepare for the upcoming season, I wanted to make available our game planning resources for you! These helped us to have one of the most explosive offenses at every level I have coached. Coaches from some of the top high school programs in the country use these documents to prepare. Coaches at more than a dozen BCS programs have also downloaded these documents to help them in their preparation.

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!

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.

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/

 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

If you want to learn more about installing RPO's, I wrote a book called Installing Explosive RPO Concepts Into Any Offense. I wrote it for iBooks, which includes cut-ups to reinforce the application of these concepts. In the book I give you a systematic process for installing 2nd and 3rd level RPO's. Coaches at all level of football tell me this is a game changer! The book can be found for iBooks here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959

The iBooks version can be viewed on any iPhone, Mac, or iPad. It is a game changer in book technology! This book will give you everything you need to build RPO's into your offense!

If you don't have an apple device, you can order the paperback version! It is available on Amazon!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1520447485

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. 

Follow me @coachvint on Twitter! 

I hope you found something in this post you can use with your program! Good luck with your program.