Additional Game Planning Considerations

When you prepare for an opponent there are some areas that you need to consider to be more prepared. You are always going to look at personnel and tendencies on both sides of the ball. You are going to look at what they do and who they do it with to determine your game plan. There are a couple of additional considerations I would recommend you look at. 

Snap Count

How do they snap the ball? Do they give a verbal command or do they use a clap? Do they go on the center? Is there a tip when the ball is going to be snapped? Once you determine their snap count, you want to have your scout teams simulate this snap count in all of your group and team periods. While your defense is going to watch the ball, you want them to hear in practice what they will hear during the game. 

If you can have scouts be a at a game in person, this is something to have them listen for. Have them get where they can hear the snap count during pregame. 

Penalties

Do they have pre-snap penalties? When our offense prepares we want to see if they jump offsides. If so, we want to figure out what we can do to get some free plays and free yards. Does their offense get pre-snap penalties? Is there a tendency with their pre-snap penalties? Is there anything we can do to help get them to start behind the chains?

I also want to look at whether they are a team that has a tendency to be chippy. Do they get 15 yard penalties? Have they had unsportsmanlike conduct penalties? I might talk to another coach who played our opponent to get some insight into this. This allows us to prepare our players through the week to not respond. The response always gets a penalty. We want to make sure we don't get stupid penalties that will cost us valuable yards. There are some teams that like to bait opponents into penalties. 

We had one team I hated to play because they weren't very good and they were even less disciplined. They would hit guys after the play and didn't seem to care if they got a penalty. Prepare your guys when you play teams like this to make sure they focus on playing the play and not the extra stuff after the whistle. 

Tips and Giveaways

Are there different tips that opponents give you that tell you what they are going to do? We played a team once whose QB would have his feet staggered if it was going to be a pass and his feet were parallel if it was going to be a pass. Our OLB's could see his feet. Our boundary backer's job was to say Eagle if he saw staggered feet and Dog if he saw the feet parallel. 

Another team we played had a receiver who would pull on his gloves if a play was going to be a pass. He did it every single pass. If he didn't pull on his gloves, it was a run. Another team had their tackles in 2 point stance on pass and 3 point stance on run. 

One year we played a team who loved to run a gap exchange blitz with the nose and an inside backer. It was going to be very difficult to account for. After watching a lot of film we realized the nose guard tipped the stunt. He would put his foot back to the side the backer was going to be stunting. We showed this to our guys and came up with a code word our center would communicate with the guards. We had our scout team run this stunt in inside run and team periods, as well as during our indy time to practice communicating and executing our adjustment. We were able to account for the nose and backer early in the game and hit some big plays. They didn't run this stunt after the first quarter. 

Not everyone is going to tip what they do, but finding one or two things that you can use to help your players is valuable. One key to this is to only give a tip if you are sure. If you are not sure, don't give the tip. 

Kick Operation Time/Protection Weakness/Block Point

We always wanted to time how long it took for a team to execute their punts, extra points, and field goals. We also charted their kick point on punts. Where does the ball come off the foot in relationship to the snap point? This helped us to prepare our guys to block kicks. Knowing where the block point will be is important. 

Along with this is finding the protection weakness Everyone has a weakness in protection. They have someone who doesn't execute at a high level. From there, we can attack that weakness and work to the block point. By timing their kick operation ,we can determine if we can beat the protection weakness and get to the block point in time to have a chance to disrupt or block the kick. If we can't get there because they have a fast operation, we will most likely set up a return. If we know we can get to the block point, we will go after at least one punt. 

If you have in-person scouts, you want them to get to the game 90 minutes early if possible so they can watch all of pre-game. You want them to see the specialists and look for potential weaknesses. Watch who can't catch kicks. Then see if guys that can't catch kicks are on the field during kicks. You can then kick to them and give yourself a chance to get the ball back. 

Things You Need to Make the Officials Aware Of

This often goes hand in hand with penalties. We played a team whose defensive backs played press man and would hold receivers down the field. We saw it on film and asked the officials to watch for it during the game. Another team had an issue with high-low blocks. We made sure to make the officials aware of this. Once you let the official know, play football. Don't let the fact that it may not get called every time throw you off your game. 

Additional Points

• 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. 

These are a few important areas you can look at to help prepare as thoroughly as possible. You want to give yourself the best chance to win the game. 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. 

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. 

1. Get injured guys healthy
2. Extra tutorial time
3. Improve fundamentals like blocking and tackling'
4. Install a new wrinkle or trick play
5. 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

Being prepared for your opponent is a big part of winning more games. 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 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/ 

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. 

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. 

1. Screens
2. Change Up Your Snap Count/Freeze Calls
3. 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/ 

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. 

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. 

 

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?

Great coaches are able to find a way to maximize the success of their teams, regardless of talent. How good you at developing your players to the best they are capable of being its the true measure of a coach. 

A while back I put together some thoughts on Winning With A Talent Deficiency. I also recorded those thoughts on my YouTube Channel: 

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. 

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? 

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

Installing Post-Snap RPO's

Installing Pre-Snap RPO's To Get Your Skill Guys More Touches

Building An Elite System of Gameday Communication

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/1520447485

I 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:

http://www.amazon.com/Using-Multiple-Tempos-Create-Explosive-ebook/dp/B01ATOL46A/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

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.