At the end of each season, there were a number of things that helped us to use the season as a catapult for future success. No matter how good or how bad the season went, we were going to need to analyze what we did, how we did it, and who we did it with. We were then going to find areas we could target for improvement.
In my 20 plus years as an offensive coordinator, I found there were 10 things that I had to do at the end of each season. I call this the end of season analysis. This was developed early in my career and evolved over time. These 10 things gave us enough information to use to improve as coaches, and helped our program to improve offensively.
1. Run a Self-Scouting Report
The first thing I did was run a self-scout report. I analyzed our formations and personnel groups, down and distance tendencies, run/pass tendencies, field zone tendencies, and time remaining tendencies. I also broke down our first 3 play calls for each game. While we ran a self-scout report each week, I wanted to look at it after the season as well. One thing I looked for was how well we scouted ourselves during the season, and find where I was tendency heavy.
2. Make Cut-Up Lists
After our self-scout report, I made cut-up lists. I made lists by concept first. Next I made cut-ups by formation. Then I put together a red zone cut-up, goal line cut-up, and a backed up cut-up. I then put together down and distance cut-ups. Then we made a cut-up of sacks and negative plays. I wanted a cut-up of turnovers. I also wanted a cut-up of positive plays, touchdowns, explosives, and momentum plays. I did this so I could go through and watch things in groups. Then would mark good and bad plays. These would be watched later by our staff to talk about changes we needed to make in our teaching.
3. Watch Every Play From the Season
One of the most valuable things we did was watched our cut-ups of every play of the season as a staff. We did this nearly every year. It typically required early mornings and some evening work to get everyone together. We would talk about each play call, evaluate the call, and talk about what was good and bad about the execution. While we do this, we will take notes on things we need to work on as we begin to prepare for the upcoming season. We also take notes on what defenses did against us, and adjustments they made.
4. Make Notes On The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
I make a list of what we did well, didn't do well, and things we need to make changes to for the upcoming year. I will make a list of everything from concepts to techniques. I will look at everything on a very detailed scale, drilling down to the small details so we can correct things and improve.
5. Share Notes With Staff
This builds off the previous two. I am going to visit with each staff member and share my notes. I am going to get their feedback and observations as well. I want them to share with me their thoughts on their position groups, the concepts we ran, what we did well, what we didn't do well, and areas we need to improve.
6. Personnel Evaluation
This starts with each staff member ranking their returning players. We will build our depth chart for the coming year and talk about personnel strengths and weaknesses. This helps us to tailor our off-season preparation and training regimen. We will talk about position changes, and who can fill vacated holes. This is a very important aspect of our continual improvement. As we evaluate personnel, we talk about our concepts and what fits the guys we have returning.
7. Staff Evaluation
Every offensive coordinator should have an evaluation process. This begins with a self-evaluation. I am going to ask the offensive staff members to answer a variety of questions about me as a leader, while having them also evaluate themselves. We then are going to sit down and talk about our observations and have a very honest conversation. There are times when we might need to make some tough decisions. One important aspect of these meetings is learning the goals of each staff member, and finding ways that I can help them grow. I also offer them an opportunity to help me to grow.
8. Practice Evaluation
Evaluating our practice schedules and format is an important part of the evaluation process. This is when we can make adjustments and figure out how we can maximize the time we have on the field. We will make adjustments each year based on our evaluation of the previous season.
9. Evaluate the Game Planning Process
This is something every coach should do. How well did we prepare each week, and what changes or adjustments do we need to make to our process? We are going to look at everything we did on the weekends and during the week to see how we can improve.
10. Evaluate In-Game Communication
This is an area that often is overlooked, and it results in chaos on the headsets. We have a specific communication process and are systematic with how we communicate during a game. At the end of the season we are going to evaluate our processes and see how we can improve.
If you do what you always done, you will get what you've always gotten. It is important that you take time to evaluate every aspect of your season. When I was a defensive coordinator we went through the same process. We were able to find holes in our scheme and in our teaching, and then formulate a plan for improving in each area.
A big key to this is eliminating your ego. You can't do a self-analysis while worrying about your feelings. We look at this from the outside looking in. We want to be objective, and not ever justify mediocrity.
The amount of time you spend evaluating is an investment that will provide big returns. These ten areas can provide you huge benefits as you begin to prepare for the upcoming season.
I also put together a video taking you through these processes.
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.
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.
When I was a defensive coordinator we adapted this to our defensive preparation!
Last year I made my recruiting webinar available online for parents and prospects. This has hours of valuable information that will help you with the entire recruiting process. This has thousands of dollars of valuable information. For less than the cost of attending a college camp, you can learn everything you need to know to increase your chances of earning a college athletic scholarship! Click the link below to take advantage!
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