As scrimmages across Texas and the country kick off, I wanted to talk to you about how you win your scrimmage. Every year we had one or two scrimmages depended on when we started practice.
Scrimmages are extremely beneficial to your program. My favorite part was having the opportunity to compete against another educational institution. Instead of beating on ourselves, we got to physically compete with someone else.
The first thing I ask as we begin preparing for a scrimmage, is what do we want to take away from this scrimmage? What do we need to learn about our team? This comes down to two things:
- Who
- What
This leads us to our definition of winning the scrimmage. The scrimmage doesn't matter for your district standings or for your state playoff seeding. It doesn't count towards your win-loss record. Your scrimmages are about getting good work, evaluating your players and scheme, and coming out healthy.
It doesn't matter if we scored more times than our opponent, or if we busted off a bunch of big plays. What mattered most to us was having an opportunity to evaluate ourselves, and coming away from the scrimmage healthy.
Evaluating Our Team
I mentioned previously we were going to evaluate the who and the what.
Who do we need to see compete to evaluate on our team? What concepts do we need to focus on during this scrimmage?
The Who
We already know who are top guys are. There are always going to be some guys that are returning and proven. You already know what they can do. I wanted these guys to get some work, but they weren't the focus of our scrimmage. My focus was wanting to see the guys who we needed to evaluate further.
There were some guys who looked great in shorts and a t-shirt, and did well in our controlled practices. But could they compete against someone else? These were guys that I wanted to get some reps to allow them to compete for playing time.
The second aspect of who was building depth. I wanted to know who we could count on to provide us depth during the season. I wanted to give some guys an opportunity to compete in the scrimmage and earn further opportunities.
We also wanted to look at where we have guys playing. Scrimmages sometimes alerted us when we had a guy playing out of position. We often shuffled a few players around after our scrimmages based on our evaluation. We might want to look at a couple of guys at other positions. We would work them in a different position in practice, and then let them know we planned to get them reps in the scrimmage at the new position.
The What
When we talk about the what, we are talking about concepts. We are going to focus on our base formations and concepts in our scrimmages. We want to figure out where we need to improve on our techniques, and what schematic adjustments we need to make. in the first scrimmage we were going to keep things very simple. We wanted guys to compete and be able to play with confidence.
We also had to match our what to our who. In most scrimmages we would go alternating series of 10 or 12 or 15 plays. We wanted to make sure when our two's went that only ran concepts the two's could handle. I didn't want to sabotage the two's by confusing them. Often the two's did not get as many reps in practice.
Scripting
We are going to script our scrimmages both with what we will run, and who will be in during that aspect of the scrimmage. There are certain concepts we want to see, and certain guys we want to see with the ball in their hand. There is nothing worse than wanting to evaluate a running back, and then when he is on the field he doesn't get a touch. Or you want to evaluate a receiver, and when he is on the field there are no passes called.
By scripting our concepts and who was in the game, we were able to make sure we got the ball in certain guys hands. We also made sure that if we were evaluating two guys at the same spot, that we split reps with the 1's. That made for a much better evaluation against like competition, playing next to guys of the same ability.
Above is an example of our scrimmage script. We knew there would be times when we would be in a down and distance situation that didn't work for the script. I would then call something that was comparable. We used the script as a guide, but we weren't so rigid as to say we couldn't deviate if we needed to. The key here was scripting who we wanted on the field to evaluate guys in the ways we needed.
If we were going to go a live quarter or half, we would then treat that live quarter or half like a game. We would have our call sheet built and script openers. Then we would treat it like a game. Our call sheet would be more limited, as we would stick to our base concepts.
Defensively we would script the same way. We would adjust as we needed, but there were certain things we wanted to see with certain guys. We would script our personnel to make sure we saw who we needed to see.
Here is what to avoid. Don't let your ego get in the way of your development. Don't let wanting to score more points that your opponent keep you from seeing you who need to see, and seeing them do what you need them to do. Focus on evaluating your team and resist the urge to want to simply score more points than them. Scrimmages are very meaningful, but if you lose focus on why you are scrimmaging, they become meaningless.
Who do you need to see compete? What do you need to see them doing?
And then, come out healthy. Don't go into the scrimmage with fear, but don't risk losing your best guy for the season so you can "win" a scrimmage that doesn't count for anything.
I will leave you with this. A lot of guys tell me they need to build confidence, and they have to score more than that other team in a scrimmage. Listen, I get that. But at the end of the day, does that help you with a better seed?
Confidence is internal. You need to build that mentality with your players. Your belief in yourself has nothing to do with what others think. They need to understand that we are there to compete and evaluate.
I wish you the best as you prepare for this season!
Check This Out! If you are looking for specific resource you can use to help you be more effective with your game planning and more explosive on offense, check out my offensive game planning packet at
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.
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 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!
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.
Books
I published a couple of iBooks that can help your program with X's and O's. The first is on Installing RPO's into any offense. Here is a link to the iBooks version:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959. The ibooks version includes explanations, diagrams, and video clips on multiple RPO Concepts. It will give you a simple process for implementing them into your offense.
If you don't have an apple device, you can order the paperback version! It is available on Amazon!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1520447485I also wrote a book on Tempo. It will greatly help you build a multiple tempo system with simple communication that will allow your kids to play with confidence. It also had over an hour of video clips! You can order the ibooks version here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1075902270.
Order the Amazon Kindle version here:
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment