- Catch all kicks. This is so important. When you let a punt hit the ground you are going to give up field position. Every 10 yards you give up is another first down you need to have to score.
- Prepare for Pooch Kicks. Prepare your kick return team for returning pooch kicks. Coach your guys on when to fair catch the kick. If a team like to pooch kick, put a dynamic returner where they kick the ball. Don't waste him lined up deep if they don't kick deep.
- Look for times you can kick an onside kick. Do they have a large area of green grass? Kick the ball to that grass. If their front row guys leave early, practice a surprise onside and call it.
Coach Vint
Sharing thoughts and insight on football, leadership, and the game of life
Sunday, October 6, 2024
Additional Game Planning Considerations
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Winning The Bye Week
One of the most important weeks in everyone's schedule is the bye week. Depending on the size of your district and how your schedule is structured, your bye week may come at a different part of the season.
Depending on when your bye week falls during the season, what you do that week may have some nuances. But for the most part there are a number of things you want to do during the bye week, regardless of when it falls. In my career we have had the bye week as early as week 3, and as late as after our last regular season game.
During my coaching career we tended to make the most out of our bye week, but we also lost some bye weeks as well. Not only did we lose, we got blown out. Before I get to that, let's talk about winning the bye week.
There are 5 main things you can do to win the bye week each season.
- Get injured guys healthy
- Extra tutorial time
- Improve fundamentals like blocking and tackling'
- Install a new wrinkle or trick play
- Build Depth
During the bye week we want to make sure we give guys that are banged up a chance to rest. This goes hand in hand with #5 on the list, building depth. During our bye week we wanted to give our key guys who are most involved enough work to improve, but we wanted to rest their legs. This meant we could give some backups more reps, while also putting the focus on some guys who we would like to see prepared for a bigger role.
We want to spend some time getting guys into tutorials to make sure we don't lose anyone to grades. Our bye week usually came near the end of a grading period, which allowed us to get guys into tutorials for opportunities to improve their grades. Just about every coach has some guys who need extra academic attention to be successful.
We spend a lot of practice time fixing ourselves. We take our areas where we need to show improvement and we focus on those during the bye week. We are going to dedicate time to things like blocking and tackling, and getting off blocks. We are going to work on ball security, catching the football, and all of the fundamental skills we might find we are struggling.
We are going to install something our opponents have not seen. Usually we are going to put in a trick play or two, and a new wrinkle off something we have had success with. We are going to make sure to call any trick plays we install early in the first game out of our bye week. We also might install a new formation or formation variation, which again, we will run early in the game.
Now that we have talked about things we do to win the bye week, let's talk about losing the bye week. I learned some hard lessons, and I am hopeful that sharing some of these will help you to avoid the same mistakes I made.
Getting A Player Injured in Bye Week Practices
I have learned this lesson the hard way. One year we had a bye week before our last game of the season. This was going to be for a district championship which would determine seeding for the playoffs. We lost our running back during what was essentially a walk through period. We didn't have shoulder pads on as we were practicing in T-Shirts and shorts. He bumped shoulders with another player and injured his shoulder. This forced us to evaluate some things. We always wore shoulder pads after this during our bye week practices. Losing your best offensive player is not something you want to do during the bye week.
Having Guys Fail Classes
There are few things worse than players not being eligible because they failed a class. This is why tutorial time is important during the bye week. We want to give them time right after school to see teachers for classes they are struggling in. This goes a long way towards helping your players improve their academics, while also building good will with teachers.
Not Focusing on Fundamentals
Every single game of every single season we see breakdowns on film. I have yet to have a team every play a perfect game. There is always something fundamental you can focus on during the bye week. If you aren't tackling well, spend some time working on where your breakdowns are occurring. You can do much of this with very controlled drills.
Unfortunately, we have lost a few bye weeks over the years by focusing more on scheme than fixing our fundamentals. Make a list of fundamentals you need to improve and then prioritize that list during your bye week.
Recharge Your Batteries
Depending on when you have your bye week, you have to find time to recharge the batteries. Football is a long season, and the by week is an important time to not only prepare physically, but you have to recharge mentally. Typically we are going to have a shorter practice each day, and might even give the players a day off. If you give the players a day off, let your coaches get home for dinner on that day.
We know the work has to get done and there are a lot of theories on how to get the work done. The one thing I wish is that I had been more intentional with how I spent my bye week. It's okay to turn the lights out a little bit early during the bye week to let guys spend some quality time with family.
Have A Plan
If you are a head coach or a coordinator, you should be planning your bye week in the weeks leading up to. Write down the things you need to work on and begin to prioritize what is most important. The week leading up to the bye you should have an outline of what the week will look like. Have your practice plan mapped out the week before. Then, you can make any adjustments as you get into the bye week.
The bye week is an important week in your schedule. Treat it with intentionality, and make sure you have a plan to make the most out of your bye week.
Let me add this... Preparation and Organization
Saturday, September 21, 2024
The Quarterback Dilemma
One of the biggest mistakes I made as an OC that I see offensive coordinators make is their personnel at the quarterback position. You get to put 11 guys on the field, and you need to put your best 11 on the field. Too often we get caught up thinking we have to play a "quarterback" at the quarterback position. If your quarterback is not one of your best 11, then he does not need to be on the field.
If you have a kid playing quarterback that doesn't throw well or run well and doesn't put any pressure on the defense, you need to evaluate if he gives you the best chance to win. We have all had quarterbacks who were great leaders that maybe didn't throw well or run well, but your team was it its best when they were on the field.
But if you have a kid on the field that doesn't run well or throw well, and the defense doesn't have to account for him, then you might need to look at playing a different kid. Then you need to adjust your system to fit your best guys being on the field.
Adapt To The Skillset
If you are an air raid team and you don't have a quarterback that can execute air raid concepts, you have two choices. Put a kid at QB who can execute those concepts, or put one of your best 11 at the quarterback position and build your offense to their skill set. The same is true for any offensive system you might run. Great offensive coordinators are able to find a way to get their best 11 on the field where they can capitalize on their skillset. Adapt your play calling to the strengths and skills of the guy taking the snaps.
QB Touches The Ball Every Snap
Your quarterback is the only player who is going to touch the ball every single play. If you have a kid who can do dynamic things, then it is okay to snap him the ball. I understand that not every kid is capable mentally of the responsibility of communicating the play and taking a snap. But if you are struggling on offense and your QB is putting any sort of pressure on the defense, you might consider changing who is taking the snap every play.
Who gives you the best chance to win the football game? Who is the guy you can put at quarterback that can increase your production numbers?
It might be that you don't have a quarterback who gives you the best chance to win, or it might be that your starter is injured. Your backup may be a great kid, but does he give you the best chance to win?
We went through this a couple of times in my career. We had a kid who had come through our system as a QB. He spot played as a 10th grader, and then was ready to take the starting job as a junior. He worked hard and did everything right. Three games into the season we were struggling to score points. We were doing our self-scout analysis and realized we had most of our explosive and productive plays when we were in our wildcat personnel. We went back and watched all of our first three games and looked at the data. The data said we were averaging 4.4 yards per play with our QB taking the snap, and 8.2 yards a play when our "wildcat" was taking the snap.
We made a decision to retool our offense to give our wildcat the majority of the snaps. We already were a read based offense that had elements of misdirection. We decided to do more of that with a better athlete taking the snap. He had a decent arm, but he was not going to be able to throw us down the field making progression reads. We set up our pass game with more "him" balls. A him ball is where I tell the QB to throw to "him," or a specific player. That took pressure off the QB.
Building Concepts
We ran inside zone, outside zone, counter, and power. We built our concepts to play off each other as a series. We ran outside with the back in a sidecar position. To complement this, we ran counter off of outside zone action with the QB carrying the ball. This was simple for our guys to execute, but stressed the defense. Below is our QB counter concept.
The QB is going to ride the back as the back accelerates through the mesh. The QB is going to pull the football get downhill. The guard is pulling to kick, and the Y or H back is going to wrap to the PSLB. This is a very simple concept. We can also wrap the guard and kick with the Y. The linebackers cannot fly on flow as they must read the guard.
We then built a boot concept as a play action component off the QB counter. When the safeties added themselves to the box, we were able to take advantage of space. The blocking looked the same, with the BSG pulling to account for the unblocked edge player. The QB is going to sell the OS Zone fake to the back, take one step as if he is pulling to run counter, then gain depth and width.
He was going to have a two man read, looking at the flat first, then the crosser. The key was the timing of the routes and the QB understanding the timing. If the QB does not have the flat or the crosser, run.If you have a kid who can run the ball well that can take snaps, it puts a lot of pressure on the defense. Even if he doesn't throw particularly well, you can build concepts into your pass game that simplify things. We used sprint out and boot concepts where he had a simple high-low read. If the read wasn't there, he could run. We would throw fast screens as an extension of the run game, and would throw hitches and verticals.
The big thing I want to get you to think about is simple. Do we have our best 11 on the field? Are we married to a system, or are we married to production?
This is just a small example of a simple way to put together a series. There was more too this, but this is how it started. As you begin to look at what you are doing and put together a package for a more dynamic player, build off what your kids already know. Take that prior knowledge and build a simple series of plays that complement each other.
Importance of Preparation
One of the biggest parts of our success was our preparation. You have to do a great job of game planning for your opponents which will greatly improve your play calling ability. 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/
Saturday, September 7, 2024
Screens, Shots, and Snap Count
When you are going to play against an aggressive defense, you have to use their aggressiveness against them. Turn their identity into your strength. There are three things you can do to take advantage of aggressive defenses.
Snap Count
I am going to start with #3, snap count. When we play an aggressive defense that is timing the snap count, I am going to adjust our snap count. We are going to go on different cadences to slow them down. We want to keep them from being able to time up their blitz and jump our snap count.
When we were under center, we would go on two and three, as well as on set and on a color. When we were in the gun, we would go on a clap. Sometimes we would go on two claps, or something we called scatter.
In addition to slowing down the defense, we also would get them to jump. If you are a gun team, I would suggest adding a freeze call. The freeze call means that we are going to line up without a play called. We are going to clap, and if the defense jumps, we are going to snap the ball and get a free play with the receivers running verticals. If we complete it, great. If not, we take our free five yards. In NFHS rules you don't get the free play, so you take the free five.
If they don't jump, our QB says easy, easy, look, look, and we signal in the play we want to run. This gives our coaches a chance to look over the defense and call a play we like.
Against an aggressive defense we will work to get them to jump multiple times a game. We will take a free five anytime we can get it. We will also do this anytime it is 3rd and less than 5 yards. This can give us a free first down. If you are not doing this, you are missing an opportunity.
You have to drill your center to snap the ball when the defense is in the neutral zone. This is a big key so you can get the free 5. Now, tell your guys to play the play, because occasionally the flag doesn't come out.
One thing I like to chart is how many times a defense jumps offside, and when they tend to jump. This is going to help me know if there are certain downs and distances where they are going to be more susceptible to jumping offside.
Screens
When defenses are going to bring 5 and 6 man pressures, we want to be able to attack the space they create. We want to throw our screens into green grass. Often this means throwing the screen into the area vacated by the blitzers.
We want to make sure the QB has a chance to get the ball out, and get players in a position with leverage to block remaining defenders. We use fast screens, which are catch and throw to the perimeter, and slow screens, where we draw the rush and have a player work to a vacated area.
Our fast screens are typically bubbles and what we call quicks to the #1 receiver. Our slow screens are going to me tunnel screens to detached receivers, and slip screens to backs and tight ends. Below is an example of a slip screen vs. a 5 man pressure with the Mike blitzing.
A big key to success with your screen game is who is catching the ball. A player who can make people miss in space will create more explosives. A physical player who is going to be hard to tackle is great for shorter yardage situations. We want to throw a lot of screens, especially if we have a good athlete in space to get the ball to. This also makes defenses less likely to bring pressure.
Shots
When teams bring pressure, they are often going to play man coverage. We want to take advantage of the best matchup we can get and take a shot over the top. We are going to get the ball out quick, and make the throw 26 to 32 yards down field. One big mistake coaches make is trying to throw the deep ball off a deep drop. The longer the QB has the ball, the more the chance he will get pressured.
We want to take shots down the field every single game. We want to know when we are going to get press coverage and take advantage of it. Even if we don't complete the shot down the field, we have forced the defense to defend space. This opens things up for our run game.
A big key to your pass game is getting the ball out when you face pressure. Work to design concepts that get the ball out of the quarterback's hand quickly. Taking vertical shots allow us to do this.
When you face aggressive defenses, you have to find ways to turn their identity into your strengths. Get them out of their comfort zone.
- Screens
- Change Up Your Snap Count/Freeze Calls
- Take Shots Down the Field
A big piece of this is preparation. You have to do a great job of game planning for your opponents which will greatly improve your play calling ability. 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/
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 3rd and 3 become 3rd and 8 because someone moved before the snap. Defensively, think about how it’s 3rd 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 2ndand 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.
Sunday, August 25, 2024
What If You Were Dominated In Your Scrimmages?
As fall camp begins, everyone is excited. The players are excited, the coaches are excited, and the fans are excited. Everyone has an extra bounce in their step. Coaches in Texas just finished their scrimmage or scrimmages, and are preparing for their first real game. The first real test for their teams. Coaches in some states have already played their first game, and other states are a week or two away.
Scrimmages give you an opportunity to answer questions about your team. Until you have a chance to hit someone from another school, you don't really know your team. Remember, winning a scrimmage is about everyone staying healthy, building some depth, finding where you need to improve, and learning what your team does really well. Sometimes scrimmages don't go as we planned.
I talked to a coach today that had two really bad scrimmages. They have several seniors, but only a handful were starters last season. They have some young guys providing depth who are very talented, but are still developing. They scrimmaged two elite programs and struggled. They couldn't move the ball with any consistency on offense and they gave up several big plays on defense.
They open their season with a perennial powerhouse and he is worried about the confidence of his players. After the second scrimmage they were mentally drained.
How do you handle this as a coach? When things are going well everyone has confidence. But how do you handle when things go really poor? How do you handle when you aren't meeting expectations?
Four Thoughts
First, find areas you did well. There is always something that went well that you can build off. Find things to show your players that will build confidence in what they are capable of.
Second, when something didn't go well, look at the fundamentals. Did we step with the proper foot? Were our eyes in the right place? Did we use the proper technique? Show your players film and talk about how you will use this to grow. As you prepare your practice plan, include time for your coaches to reteach your players to develop these fundamental skills.
Third, evaluate who your dudes really are and who you dudes aren't. Someone you didn't expect to step up has done something to grab your attention. Someone you thought would be a dude wasn't as good as expected. What personnel changes do you need to make? What can you do as you prepare for week one to make sure your best players are in a position to be successful? Everyone loves a tall safety, but maybe that guy is a better outside backer. Maybe you have an outside backer that should be playing with his hand in the dirt.
Fourth, what schematic adjustments do you need to make? I am not talking about installing a new offense or defense. I am talking about adjustments to your current scheme to help your players be more successful.
One example of this is when we had a very young offensive line. They were not able to win off the ball consistently and hold blocks. They were going to get better, but we had to help them. We adjusted our read concepts to make sure we were reading defenders where we had little chance of a good block. We also used some misdirection to slow the pursuit of the defense. We needed them to be less decisive to help our offensive line.
We also realized if we could get the ball on the perimeter where we had to block less players, that we could have some success. This took pressure off our offensive line. We spent time with screen concepts to get our guys the ball in space.
Defensively, we had struggled with getting blown off the ball. We could not sit in our base against the better teams we would play. We made some adjustments to create some gap exchanges that gave us a chance to disrupt our opponents.
As you prepare for that first week, you need to ask yourself where you want to be when district starts and when the playoffs start. What do you want to have installed? What are your goals for your non-district schedule? Of course you want to win all your games, but what do you need to accomplish in non-district to prepare for your district schedule? What do you need to do to prepare to make a deep playoff run?
Monday, February 19, 2024
Coaching Is Bigger Than Wins and Losses
I was talking to a good friend and coach who I worked with during my career, and we were talking about what we really do as coaches. After our conversation, I felt there is some valuable information coaches need to know if they want to excel in this profession.
First, wins and losses matter. If we don't win enough games, or we lose the wrong games, or don't win the right games, we are going to need to find new employment. Coaches want to win games and work hard to do so. I don't want that to get lost in the message today. Winning games matters.
With that said, the wins and losses are the least of what we do as coaches. The most important thing we do as coaches is the impact we make on our student-athletes. And that impact comes from what we do with our platform each day to equip them with the tools and skills they are going to need to be successful in life when they leave our program.
We have an opportunity to use a sport as the avenue or conduit to teach life skills that our student-athletes will be able to use every day of their lives to be successful. If we only use our platform to win games, we will miss an opportunity. Through our coaching, we can develop their ability to work as a team and unite diverse groups to achieve a common goal. We can develop their sense of self, responsibility, accountability, teamwork, trust, mental toughness and resilience.
Our coaching will either have a positive impact on our student-athletes, or it will have a negative impact. It will never be neutral. We are either teaching them skills to be successful, or we are teaching them skills that will mire them in mediocrity. No matter how many games we win or lose, these skills can and should be taught, developed, and nurtured.
We are either developing a sense of empowerment, or we are developing a sense of entitlement. The key is the standards you set, and the level you hold your people accountable to those standards. Are you willing to hold your best athlete to the same level of standard you will hold a lesser athlete? Are you consistent with your accountability?
The quickest way to divide your locker room is to have one set of standards for one group of players, and a different set of standards for another group of players. This destroys the ability of your team to perform at its highest levels on game day. It also develops entitlement in one group of players and resentment in another.
I have seen this very problem destroy teams and lead them to completely under achieving on the field. More importantly, it will lead them to underachieving in life. Everything you are doing with your team as far as standards and accountability will become a part of their character. You will not necessarily know if you have been successful with them until well after they leave your program. But everything you did as a coach will make an impact. The impact you make is up to you.
Here is the best part of all of this. If you focus on the impact, you will win more games. You will win games you shouldn't win and you will rarely lose a game you shouldn't lose. If you don't set high standards and have high accountability, you will lose games you shouldn't have lost to teams with less talent.
I challenge you as you prepare for the upcoming season to examine your standards and accountability. Are you consistent with your standards? Are you holding everyone accountable, or only certain players? Are you developing a sense of empowerment, or are you developing a sense of entitlement?
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!
A while back 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.
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.
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Using a SWOT Analysis With A Struggling Offense
There is nothing more frustrating for an offensive coordinator than not being able to move the ball consistently. It is frustrating when you can't get first downs to keep the chains moving. You want to give your defense a chance to rest, while also controlling field position. Ultimately, you need to put some points on the board.
When you are struggling on offense you have to look at why you are struggling. This is where I recommend a SWOT Analysis for coaches. SWOT stands for:
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Opportunities
- Threats
This is a tool that has been used in the business world for decades, and also can be a powerful tool in sport.
Listen, if you are struggling on offense I can tell you that I have been there. I have been in situations where we couldn't buy a first down. The SWOT analysis helps you to figure out what you are during currently, and what you need to change and adjust to improve. This is a valuable tool used in the business world that is also a valuable tool for coaches to use.
At the end of the day you have two choices. You can keep doing what you have been doing and get what you have been getting, or you can make some adjustments and strive for a better, more desirable result.
Before we perform the SWOT analysis, we are going to answer some overarching questions:
- Are you doing simple things that it takes to be successful on offense?
- Communicating the play to the unit, then QB/OL communication pre-snap
- Lining Up Right
- Base fundamentals- Eye Discipline, footwork, etc
- Are you getting your best players touches?
- Are your taking advantage of space?
- Are you running into a loaded box?
- Is there a particular front or coverage you are struggling with?
- Are you running your identity concept?
These questions will give us some background information we will use for our SWOT analysis. Great leaders Analyze, Adjust, and Adapt.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths and Weaknesses
The first thing we are going to to is talk about our strengths and weaknesses. We are going to look at our personnel strengths and weaknesses, our concept strengths and weaknesses, our practice strengths and weaknesses, and our process strengths and weaknesses.
Personnel
With personnel, I want to look at our best players and our best position group. We are going to rank our offensive players from top to bottom with their position. Next we are going to rank our position groups. This helps us to determine our strongest and weakest players and position groups.
Is our offense designed to play to our strengths of our personnel? Are we doing things that ask too much of our weakest personnel or position groups? Are the best players on the field? Are we finding ways to get our best 11 on the field at the same time?
Then we going to look at our data. Are we getting the ball to our best players the most? If so, what is the result of their touches? Do we need to change how we are getting them or trying to get them the ball? If we aren't, what do we need to do to get them more touches? Are we taking shots? This is a big one. We want to take a couple of shots each week.
I like to look at each player and look at their average yards per touch. Sometimes the really good athlete isn't as good with the ball in his hands, and the guy we think isn't as athletic is actually more explosive. We are going to look at that to determine if the right guys are in the right places, and the ball is getting to them in the best ways for us to gain the most yards.
Concepts
This is a great segway into our concept analysis. We are going to again look at the data. What concept has been our most effective? Who is the personnel involved in that concept? Do we have better personnel to execute that concept? What concepts are not effective?
To determine effectiveness you need to have a metric. I look at average yards per play, negative plays, and explosive plays. We want a run concept to average 5 yards, with less than 5% negative plays and 15% explosive. With pass concepts we want to average 10 yards per play with less than 5% negative plays and 25% explosive. For fast screens we use our run metrics, as these are an extension of our run game. We look at each of our concepts and then rank them. Then we look at how many times we called each concept.
Here is an example of an analysis on our run and pass concepts. You can do this with Excel, or you can use a report to find this information. We use Recon Football to generate this data.
Are we calling our most effective concepts most? If not, why? How can we adjust our play calling so we call our best concepts more often? Do we have the right guys getting the ball?
If we see that we have a bunch of negative concepts, we are going to figure out why. What do we need to do to fix those concepts? Is it a personnel issue, a practice or drill issue, or is it an issue that we can't fix. If we can't fix it, we are going to scrap the concept.
In the image above we can see that when we call a run, 35% of our runs result in a pass. This is because we use pre and post snap RPO's. I can see that we need to look at some concepts in our pass game to figure out why they are less effective. Is it a formation issue or a protection issue? Is it a scheme issue or a coaching issue? What adjustments can we make to improve these concepts? How can we coach them better?
Saturday, September 2, 2023
Win More Games By Eliminating Lost Yards on 4th Down
There are some things I saw this week that cost teams football games. Teams lost games they should have one because they didn't gave away too many yards. The most under coached area of football at the high school level is punt return. Most teams spend 5 minutes a weak coaching their punt returners, and the only time their punt returners catch kicks is during pregame.
If you want to win more games, and beat people you shouldn't beat, you have to find areas where you can excel. Coaching your 4th down defensive unit will help you win more games. Not coaching your fourth down unit will lead you to lose more games. It is most glaring in seasons where you might not have as much talent or experience on the field. That is when the lost opportunities on 4th down.
One of the biggest areas of lost yards is letting punts land and roll. Every ten yards the ball rolls is another first down your offense has to get to score. Last night I watched a team force 6 punts. One punt they fielded and started at their own 38. They ended up kicking a field goal. The other 5 punts they didn't field. Four of them the ball rolled anywhere from 15 to 30 yards. One of them was shanked and only went 20 yards. Overall, they lost 124 yards from punts rolling. They lost the game 28-10 because they lost the field position battle.
The most difficult part of this is most coaches don't even realize the yards they are losing on 4th down, and the affect it has on the game. Every time you let a punt land, you give up an average of 12 additional yards. That's a first down. That also shortens the field for your opponent's offense when they get the ball back. If you start at your own 20 and go three and out, you are punting from inside your 30. If you start at your own 35 and go three and out, you lengthen the field for your opponent. Don't give away free yards.
Too many coaches treat 4th down defense as an inconvenience. Because of this, they give up yards that negatively affect field position, which affects them on offense and defense.
Let's talk about how to make your 4th down defensive unit become a strength rather than a liability.
1. Practice Catching Punts
Break this into 3 parts. First, have your returners work technique with a coach coaching them. We are going to teach them how to properly catch a punt, throwing them the ball from close distance.
Work on catching balls kicked to you, kicked to the side, and kicked on the ground. Teach your players how to circle the ball and field a punt that is bouncing. Teach them how to recognize you have space. Do this with a coach throwing the ball, 15 to 20 yards from the players.
Second, have a coach throw or punt to the players from 30 to 35 yards away. Start with the punts going to the returner. Then to the side, then short, then over their head. Move up if you have to. When you do this drill, have the returners not catching the punt aligned 10 yards from the returner on either side, as if they are cover guys. Have them moving towards the returner, but never getting within 3 yards of him. This gets your returners used to catching the ball in traffic.
Third, have your punter punt the football to the returner. During the first two drills, your punter is warming up and your snappers are doing their snapping drills. Then have them punt live, with your snapper snapping and punt team protecting. We don't have them cover. We have 3 guys downfield simulate the cover team. We want our returner to get comfortable catching kicks with guys bearing down on him.
Once our returner caught the ball, we wanted him to get vertical and make one guy miss. We wanted him to get 5 yards on every return. We told him to get five or six. This meant get five yards or six points. It all starts with fielding the kick. You can only return kicks that you actually field.
2. If you aren't going to invest time catching punts, then block every punt
If 80% of the times the ball is punted to you you are going to let it roll, then you might as well try to block the punt. But coach, I don't want to get called for roughing the punter. Then practice blocking kicks. You get roughing penalties because guys don't know how to properly block a kick, and what angle to take. You can teach them how to block kicks. If you want to block more kicks, check this out: Coach Vint's Special Teams Resource
Now, better than catching punts or blocking punts is this... Do Both. Really Well. We always had someone going for the block, even when we were calling a return. I never wanted to waste an opportunity to get a block. If they were lazy in protection, we were going to get the block.
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.
- Play Mistake Free Football
- Play Together As A Unified Team
- Win The Takeaway Battle
- Make Big Plays On Special Teams
- Shorten the Game
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Sunday, August 27, 2023
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/