Three Keys to Eliminating Chaos on the Headsets

One of the biggest challenges for play callers is making a play call when you have chaos on the headsets. I am sure no one reading this has ever had this problem. 

Yes, I was being sarcastic. Everyone who has coached a down of football has had chaos on the headset. Football is an emotional game with a large group of people invested in the success of the team. 

How many times did the chaos on the headsets make it tougher to call a game? How much better would you be if you could eliminate chaos and have your coaches focused on their individual job during the game? It's hard to call the touchdown play when you have chaos on the headsets. 

I speak at several coaching clinics each year, and this is the most popular clinic topic I talk about. Every single coach who attends this session tells me this is the topic they took the most out of. 

I am going to give you three keys from my clinic talk to help you eliminate some of the chaos on the headset. 

1. Have Clearly Defined Roles
2. Have a Communication Plan
3. Have a Game Plan and Call Sheet

Have A Communication Plan

When I first became a coordinator, we had chaos on the headset. It was mayhem. If the play went well we all screamed and cheered. If a play went bad we all yelling about who screwed up. We had to get a play call in and we were still talking about the last play. This went on for an entire season. I complained to my head coach. He said, maybe you should tell guys what you want. What an innovative thought.

Too often, we assume everyone is going to know what you want to them to do. We think that everyone magically end up on the same page. No one will be on the same page if you haven't given them a plan. You have to be intentional in everything you do if you want to be elite. 

We evaluated the strengths of our staff. We then discussed this as a staff to make sure everyone was in the best place to ensure team success. This might mean you put a guy upstairs that has been on the field. It might mean you move a guy from the box to the field. 

Our plan was broken into three parts. 

1. Who is in the box and who is on the field?
2. What is each coach watching?
3. What is each coach saying?

I was our OC and QB coach. I had been on the field calling plays, but I moved to the box. Our OL coach stayed on the field. Our WR coach moved to the field from the box. Our RB coach was going to be on the field. We had a JV coach who would be with me in the box charting plays. 

We had specific things each coach was watching for. We had what we called our "batting order" for who would speak and what they would say after each play. This coach says this, then this coach says this, then this coach says this. We worked under the rule that less is more. 

We had a specific language we used. If one coach says we have an under front when we have a 1-5 technique to the tight end, but another coach calls that a field eagle, then we can't have elite communication. I put a simple terminology sheet together that would help me as a play caller understand what each coach is saying. 

We had a procedure for how we communicate between series. Our players and coaches knew where to go and what our process would look like. This helped us to be better at making adjustments and greatly improved our coach to player communication. You have to have a plan in place. 

We practiced our communication in the office before we ever put the headsets on for a game. We would pull up a quarter of a game and go through two or three series, practicing our communication. If the first time you ever put the headsets on is when your first game starts, you are setting yourselves up for failure. 

Have Cleary Defined Roles

If no one knows what they are supposed to do, how can they do what you need them to do, when you need them to do it? Every coordinator should define the roles of each of their coaches. You should define these roles on paper. Each coach should then be given these roles, in writing. You then should discuss what each coach's role is during the game.

Each coach had a role that defined exactly what they were supposed to be looking at during the game. Each coach had a specific thing they were supposed to say between plays and during plays. This eliminated any confusion. Our OL coach was watching the box. Our receiver coach was watching near side secondary. Our RB coach was watching the linebackers. The JV coach next to me was watching far side secondary and charting plays. As the OC I was watching the big picture. 

Because each coach knew their role, we eliminated much of the confusion. 

Have A Game Plan and Call Sheet

This was a big piece of reducing chaos and being more efficient with our communication. We built a game plan with each coach being involved in putting together part of the plan. Each coach was filling in certain areas of our call sheet. On gameday, each coach had a copy of the call sheet. We discussed the call sheet on Sunday and made sure every single coach understood the game plan.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we would have a live period that was mostly unscripted. We would put the headsets on and practice our communication. We would work through different situations, just like it was a game. This helped us find where we needed to make adjustments to our call sheet. We would almost never add anything to the call sheet, but we would take some things away.

This shows one area of our call sheet. We had the defensive blitz percentages and the percentages of man coverage they play in each situation. We then had a small menu of plays we liked. Every coach was on the same page and coach anticipate what the next call would be. If you don't have a call sheet and you don't want to create one from scratch, check out my Offensive Organizational Resource. 

Adjust this to Your Staff

Your plan has to fit your staff. When I was in the Bronx, we did not have a lot of coaches. We had to adjust the plan to fit the size of our staff. When I was in Texas, we had many more coaches, so we could break things up further. You have to determine what fits your staff and put a plan in place. 

If you have a chance to see this talk at a Glazier Clinic, come up and introduce yourself. If you haven't, I have put together an on-demand session on CoachTube on Building an Elite System of Gameday Communication. The price is also dropped for a limited time. You will have lifetime access to this session, and it includes some in-game downloadable! 

Coaches tell me this session on CoachTube helped them to greatly reduce chaos on the headsets and score more points! 

If you want to incorporate simple RPO concepts to get your skill guys more touches, I have two additional video courses on CoachTube. Installing Pre-Snap RPOs to Get Your Skill Guys More Touches While Protecting Your Runs and Designing and Installing Post Snap RPOs to Create Explosive Plays.  This will help you score more points while getting your dudes touches! If you want to save a few $$, here is a link to get all three videos at a huge discount! Coach Vint Bundle Deal

Earlier I mentioned our Call Sheet and gave you a link to our Offensive Game Planning Resource. This includes editable and customizable templates for you to use with your team to be more organized and score more points! 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 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. 

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, templates, and scouting forms just for special teams! This helped us to build dominating special teams! 

Three Keys to Playing at a Fast Tempo on Offense

People ask me at clinics how we were able to snap the ball over 30 times in a quarter. A few years back we had several games of over 100 snaps and averaged 92 snaps a game for the season. How is it that we are able to get the ball snapped so quickly? What are we doing that is allowing us to play so fast? The answer lies in three keys.

1. A Repeatable Process of going from one play to the next. What I mean is, we have to have a system for them to go from the end of one play to the beginning of the next that never changes. We don't always play fast, but our process never changes.

The Process:
When the play ends, our players are hustling to the ball while looking at the sideline. A coach is communicating the tempo. If he is communicating that we are going Nascar tempo, the players are also getting a play call. When we play at Nascar tempo we are going to use a one signal call. In this one signal call the players are getting the formation and the play. Our signal can be anything we want.   The key is that it must be one hand motion that can be communicated quickly. When our players see the nascar tempo and hand signal, they sprint to the line. Once everyone is set the quarterback calls for the snap. Our goal is to snap the ball 12 seconds following the end of the previous play.

If the signaler is giving them our signal for normal tempo, the players are getting a formation and play signal. Once coach signals play and another signals formation. The players are moving quickly to get lined up and run the play. The extra signal adds 4 seconds to the process. Our goal in our normal mode is to snap the ball 16 seconds after the previous play ends.

2. Simplicity- You have to have a simple way to call your plays. We use one word/one signal calls for our fastest tempo. We don't have play calls that have more than two hand motions in our normal mode. The shorter the signal, the faster the process. It also allows your players to process information quickly and not get jumbled down.

Our signals are essentially stimulus response. Coach signals this, I do that. It is a way of simple memorization that allows our kids to be able to process quickly. We can build tempo calls into each game and change them week to week if we wish.

3. Organized Call Sheet- This is vital to being able to make quick decisions during games. There is no perfect call sheet, but you want your call sheet to be organized in such a way that you can quickly find what you are looking for. Our call sheet is divided into sections, with each section serving a purpose. We build scripts for each down and distance situation that might come up. These scripts are based on our scouting report. If an opponent brings a 5 man pressure 42% of the time on 2nd and 6 to 10, we are going to have a screen scripted for the at situation. If our opponent drops 8 on 2nd and long, we are going to script a draw. Our call sheet is easy to follow and gives us a chance to quickly call plays. We have additional sections as well to meet our most important needs on offense. Below is  a screen shot of the section of our call sheet covering down and distance scripts.

We script everything in practice as well. This allows us to make sure we get everything covered. Our scripts in practice our taken from our game call sheet. These are put together on Saturday and Sunday as we prepare for our opponent. We are highly organized in our approach, which helps us to practice faster during the week, and play faster on Friday Night. Our call sheet was a nightmare to create. It took several hours to build onto an excel document. Ty Palmer, who I worked with at Seminole High School, helped me to improve the formatting to what you see today. He helped me convert it from Microsoft Publisher to Excel.

Tempo Is A Weapon
What I mean is, playing fast is good. Having the ability to snap the ball in 6 seconds is really tough to stop. But if you don't get first downs, it can be really hard on your defense. And if all you do is play really fast, defenses can catch up. Mixing up your tempo is really, really good!

Final Thoughts:
Just because you can play fast doesn't mean you should. Playing fast is in vogue right now, but it is not the best thing for everyone. If your defense can't stop anyone, then you might use tempo to score a lot of points. If you have a really good defense, the goal on offense should be to put them in a good position. Use tempo as a weapon and change speeds, and do what is best for your team.

Building The Call Sheet
If you want to save several hours building your own call sheet, I have made available and offensive game planning packet. It includes 9 editable and customizable documents, including my two-sided color call sheet! This call sheet will help you be more organized and will help you score more points!

The packet includes everything from install scheduled to weekly and daily practice plans. It will help you to prepare for the upcoming season, and to prepare for each game you play. You can order this packet by clicking here: Game and Practice Planning Packet.

I also wrote a book on Tempo that might give you some great insight into running a multiple tempo system. The book I wrote will take you through a detailed, systematic process of building tempo into your existing offense. Here is a picture of what coaches are saying:

The iBook version for the iPad, iPhone, and Mac contains over an hour of embedded video! I give you a systematic process to build tempo into your offense. I show you multiple ways to communicate your concepts, including sign boards! Here is a link to the iBooks version: Coach Vint's iBook on Tempo

It is also available on Amazon if you have an Android or Windows device. You can find it here: Coach Vint's Book on Tempo on Amazon.

Additionally, I wrote a book on RPO's. In my RPO book I describe in detail a systematic process to install RPO's. I go over first level, second level, third level, and multi-level reads. I show you how to scaffold the install and build a system that will fit what you are already doing. 

Here is a picture of the cover with some quotes from other coaches on the book:

 

Here is a link to the iBook version of my RPO book: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959

If you have an iPad or iPhone, buy the ibooks version! If you have an android or PC based device, I have a Kindle version for sale on Amazon. Here is a link to that version: Kindle Version of Coach Vint's RPO Book on Amazon. The kindle version has everything but the video.

I hope you found this information valuable!

 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