I was going through my books looking for something to read and saw some books that others might benefit from. These are books that have impacted my career as an OC. This list is not exhaustive, as there are many other books that really good. I hope you might find one or two of these helpful as you grow as a coach.
What is Open is a great book by Dub Maddox. Dub's R4 system gives you a method of communicating your pass game. It gives you a systematic process and universal approach to your game planning and play calling in your pass game. This helps you to "accelerate" decision making on the field.
Dub's follow up to What is Open is Adapt or Die. This will give you essentially a field manual for your pass game, tying together your drops, releases and routes. This will help you drastically improve your pass game.
Bobby Petrino is one of the top offensive minds in football, and Inside the Pocket is a comprehensive guide to the pass game and using the X's and O's on the field. This is like taking a college course in the pass game. Where Dub Maddox's books give you a way to communicate and accelerate decisions, Petrino's book walks you through a variety of pass concepts.
Brennan Marion is now the OC at Colorado, and early in his career he wrote the Go-Go Offense. Whether you run the Go-Go Offense or not, this will give you some great ideas and concepts you can incorporate within your own system. Brennan is an outside the box thinker who is one of the great innovators of offensive football.
This is a classic that has impacted thousands of coaches in football. The Bunch Attack by Andrew Coverdale will give you several ideas you can incorporate into your offensive system. This is a must have for your coaching library.
Rick Tricket is a great football coach and this is a must have for offensive line coaches and offensive coordinators. If you are new to line play, or you want to learn more about line play, this book is a must have to get a great understanding of the offensive line.
This is a very difficult book to find, but I highly recommend finding a way to purchase it. Tubby Raymond wrote the bible on the Delaware Wing-T, which is run by teams across the country. Many coaches have taken parts of Tubby's offensive system and incorporated them into their own.
Legendary New Jersey Coach Ed Sadloch just released his book on the evolution of the wing-T. Coach Sadloch is one of the most knowledgeable coaches in football, and I highly recommend his book.
Early in my career I read the Tiger Ellison's book. This will give you an education on the pass game based in the Run and Shoot. I highly recommend this book to expand your knowledge of offensive football and the pass game!
This is one of the first books I read when I started coaching football. The head coach I worked for, David Diaz, had this book on his bookshelf. Homer Smith takes you through the evolution of offensive football and how offenses adapted to defenses. I highly recommend every coach who wants to learn ball to read this book.
Some of My Own...
Using AI to Supercharge Your Offensive Game Plan!
AI can help you be more explosive on defense by supercharging your game planning! Imagine how much better of a play caller you will be if you know what the defense is going to do! If you know they are playing zone coverage, you can make a call to beat zone. If you know that they are going to play cover 3, you can call a cover 3 beater. Instead of guessing, you are going be able to call more touchdown plays! Using AI to Supercharge Your Offensive Game Plan will completely revolutionize your game planning! It will save you several hours each week!
This is available at a special price. That price will be increasing, so don't wait. This will give you everything you need to use AI. Whether you are a beginner to technology, or you are a technological guru, this will give you a huge advantage over your opponents. Instead of spending hours combing through reports, you can have all of your information in one place, allowing you to quickly make decisions and build your game plan. Use the code AI at checkout to save $15 for a limited time!
I built our detailed game planning process and documents from these principles. 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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
Today we are going to talk about three benefits to using fast screens in your offense.
First, is finding and utilizing space.
Second is getting your best athletes quality touches.
Third, is protecting your runs.
One of the biggest mistakes I make is not always taking advantage of space. A football field is 53-1/3 yards wide. As football coaches, we tend to only use 15 to 20 yards of width on any given play. We want to find where the defense is giving us space and then take that space.
We want to find ways to get your most explosive players the ball in the space we are taking. The more touches we can get our best athletes, the more of a chance we will have an explosive play. We want to get the ball to a fast guy. I talk about this a lot when I am at clinics and working with coaches. Are we getting the ball to our fast guys?
I want to give you one very simple way you can force the defense to defend the entire field, while giving you a chance to get your athletes the ball in space. This helps you protect your runs.
Have you ever tried to run the ball into a loaded box and not been able to have consistent success? If you are successful running the football, teams will load the box to stop your run game. Below is an example of of a defense loading the box to stop the run. We are in a 10 personnel set, and the defense has 7 players in the box.
It's a Math Issue
When you have 5 blockers, you can only block 5 defenders. We can account for the 6th player by reading him. But we can't block 6 with 5. We can't block 7 with 6. The math doesn't work. Unless you are a lot more physical than your opponent, you aren't going to have many explosive plays. And in many cases, you will have increased negative plays.
Improve the Math
If the defense has 7 in the box, they only have 4 players outside the box. That is a lot of space for 4 players to have to cover. Some math I like better is to play 2 on 1, or 3 on 2. We want to look at leverage, numbers, and green grass. In the picture above, we have green grass to the field.
Fast Screens
Fast screens allow us to get 2 on 1 and 3 on two matchups and take advantage of green grass. If we are in a twins set, the defense will play us with one up and one back typically. There will be a force guy and a drop guy. If we can get the ball to our either twin receiver quickly, and the other receiver can block the force player, we have a chance for 6 yard play.
6 Yards or 6 Points
We are throwing the ball to a receiver in space with a blocker leveraging the force player. If we do a great job of blocking the fast screen, we should be able to gain 6 yards. If we can make one guy miss, that 6 yard gain turns into 6 points. This is a great way to get your fast guys the football in space. Our fast screens provide our best athletes with opportunities for momentum changing plays.
Two Keys
There are two keys to making fast screens work.
Receivers Must Block For Each Others
QB Must Get the Ball Out
First, your receivers must be willing to block for each other. They must take pride in their blocking. If your receivers are not relentless blockers, fast screens are not going to be effective. Second, you have to get the ball out quick. Your QB has to get the ball out of his hands quickly and make the throw with some velocity. We equate the QB to a second basement turning a double play.
Multiple Ways
There are multiple ways to throw our fast screens to get the ball to great athletes on the perimeter. We can throw the fast screen to #1 as illustrated above. We can throw the bubble to our inside receiver. We can throw the ball to the back with fast motion out of the box, or from a stationary position on the snap of the ball. We can motion a player across the formation to change the math for the defense.
Attaching Fast Screens to Runs
This is something you can do at every level of football to protect your runs. Every time we call an inside run, we are going to attach fast screens to the call. If the defense gives us numbers in the box, we will execute the run. If the defense loads the box and gives us numbers on the perimeter, we will take the fast screen. This allows us to always protect our runs.
If you want a systematic approach to protect your runs with fast screens, I have a CoachTube Video that will give you everything you need to do this with a very simple approach. Our fast screens helped us to be more effective at taking space while creating more explosives in both the run game and pass game.
Instaling Presnap RPOs has helped coaches at all levels of football to score more points and win more games. If you want to have a simple way to throw for more yards and get your best athletes more touches, it gives you everything you need to successfully protect your run game while creating explosives in the pass game. I show you how to install fast screens and attach them to your runs, and how to practice your fast screens.
This has helped us to increate the number of explosives we have in the run game and the pass game. Because we are taking advantage of perimeter space, defenses tend to widen their alley players. This lightens the box and makes things easier on our offensive line. We also get more touches for our key skill players, and those are quality touches in space.
This simple concept will improve your run game and give your skill guys more touches.
I also wrote a book on installing pre and post snap RPOs available on Amazon as a paperback or as a Kindle Book. RPO Book on Amazon
If you have an iPhone or iPad, I have an iBooks Version of my RPO book, which includes video clips!
Using AI to Supercharge Your Offensive Game Plan! AI is not coming, AI is here!
AI can help you be more explosive on defense by supercharging your game planning! Imagine how much better of a play caller you will be if you know what the defense is going to do! If you know they are playing zone coverage, you can make a call to beat zone. If you know that they are going to play cover 3, you can call a cover 3 beater. Instead of guessing, you are going be able to call more touchdown plays! Using AI to Supercharge Your Offensive Game Plan will completely revolutionize your game planning! It will save you several hours each week! Instead of pouring over reports that aren't helpful to offensive coordinators, you can use AI to get your data, your way!
This is available at a special price. That price will be increasing, so don't wait. This will give you everything you need to use AI. Whether you are a beginner to technology, or you are a technological guru, this will give you a huge advantage over your opponents. Instead of spending hours combing through reports, you can have all of your information in one place, allowing you to quickly make decisions and build your game plan. Use the code AI at checkout to save $15 for a limited time!
Here is a video showing the power of AI!
You don't need to spend countless hours to figure out how to use AI. Use Using AI to Supercharge Your Offensive Game Plan and I will give you everything you need to start using AI right now! This is not a piece of software you have to renew each month or year. This is a resource that you will be able to use from day one. It includes access to the custom AI analysts I built! Remember to use the code AI at checkout! AI will help you get your time back on the weekends, while making you more prepared than ever!
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 offensive 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.
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.
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.
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 Analysisfor 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?
One of the most important thing you can do as a coordinator is your self-scouting report.
In my 20+ years as a coordinator, I evolved greatly in how I performed a self scouting report. In the early days of my career we did everything by pen and paper. I had legal pads filled with information and I had to do a lot of math.
After a couple of years we evolved into using Excel. Then video programs began adding reports that could give us some actionable information. From there we began using Recon, which transformed the data in actionable dashboards. The key word is actionable. You don't need data to have data. You want to have data that you can use and has meaning.
Everything we do has a purpose, or a why. We don't do things just to do things. Looking at our self-scout reports helps us to be able to find valuable information that benefits us greatly in our game planning. There are three things we will focus on today.
Our tendencies that opponents will find
Which concepts are most effective/least effective
Which formations/personnel groups have led to the most success/least success
Every defensive coordinator you play is going to look at data on your offense. They are going to look at your most recent games first. Most coaches are going to include at least 3 games of data in their scouting report, and many will include every game they can get for the season. I want to know our tendencies and find the same data the defensive coordinator is looking at. I want to see what he is seeing.
The defensive coordinator is going to prepare his defensive calls based on the data. He is most likely going to break it down by personnel group, down and distance, and field zone. He is probably going to look at our formation tendencies, trying to figure out what plays we run from each formation, and what formations we run from certain personnel groups. If we know what data he is seeing, we can then make adjustments to our game.
The first thing I run is look at our run/pass percentages for the last three games, as well as for the season to date. I am going to focus on the data for the last three games when we build our game plan. When the playoffs start I am going to look at our last 5 game tendencies and compare them to our tendencies for the season. Below is an example of an overview report for 3 games. This is from Recon Football, which saved us several hours each weekend with our data breakdown. Recon Demo
This gives us a global view of our play calls, and shows us our Run/Pass Percentages. Overall we run the ball 64% of the time. 1% of the time there was a penalty. The conversion rate is the percentage of plays that result in a first down. I then look at our run/pass percentages based on backfield set, field zone, down and distance, and formation. I also look at our play frequency to see what plays we called most. Looking at our data I can see some tendencies that we might want to consider. 3rd and 1-3 we are 100% run. We might want to look at play action or a boot concept. We have some formations that we are over 80% run. We might want to look at throwing some play action from those formations.
If I just looked at this data, I would have some actionable information. But I know our opponent is going to dig deeper. They are going to look at every formation we ran and put every play we ran from every formation on their board. I know that they are going to look at more specifics of what we do from each formation. I am going to dig deeper into our down and distance data and formation data. and look at how we can break some of our tendencies.
I am going to look at our formations to see if there are tendencies that might give away what we are doing. I am also going to look at our hash tendencies. I also like to look at our pass game and run game.
After we look at our tendencies, I am going to focus on our concepts. Which concepts have we had the most success with in the run game and pass game? I want to know if there is something we are doing well that need to more of, or if there is something we aren't doing well that we need to fix or do less of.
I can see here that when we are on the right has we don't throw short and intermediate passes into the boundary or middle of the field. This is something we need to look at. We want to know why this is, and is it something we can adjust? I look at what concepts we call the most, then I sort by completion percentage and average gain. I want to see what pass concepts we have the most success.
There are two things every man thinks he can do. Every man thinks he can run the BBQ grill, and every man thinks he can call offensive plays. Most people don't understand the preparation that offensive coordinators put into calling plays. They think its like Madden, where you click a button and the play is executed perfectly. Most people don't understand what goes into installing and building an offense, or the work that goes into preparation. Everyone wants to call the touchdown play, and hopefully I can give you some insight today that will help you all more touchdowns.
What I want to help you with today is being more efficient with your game planning, and ultimately, using your preparation to call more explosive plays. A lot of coaches I talk to and work with are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data that is available, and they get overwhelmed. That can be a difficult struggle when you are trying to prepare a game plan. There is so much data, that it becomes difficult to know what is important.
I talk to coaches who love my game planning resource. They love how it helped them to be more organized, but they sometimes struggle with the call sheet. They don't know what to put in the call sheet, or how to manage it during a game. That struggle comes from not having easily accessible data that you can easily understand. Data always tells a story, but there are times I felt I was illiterate.
A big part of great play calls is about having great data. I am going to make a much better play call if I know what the defense is going to do. If I know when they are going to bring pressure, I am going to make a better play call. If I know what coverage they are going to play on a particular down and distance, I will give us a better chance of calling the "touchdown play."
For several years I spent hours on end putting together excel spread sheets and trying to manipulate the spreadsheets to determine what a defense is going to do. In 2018 I ran into Danny Davis, who was a field artillery officer. He was taking data and analytics used in the military to make strategic decisions, and working on applying that to football. We got hooked up with him, and it revolutionized what we did. I want to show you how it saved us hours on the weekends, while giving us actionable data that helped us become more explosive.
The data we got from Danny gave me a very clear picture of what we were going to see from our opponent. We were able to know what front they were going to be in, what pressure they were bringing, where they were bringing it from, and what coverage they were playing behind it. It helped us call more touchdown plays, without having to spend hours putting the data together.
He built two dashboards for offensive coordinators that helped me to desegregate the data in a way that it made sense. It made it easier to understand what the data meant, and more importantly, gave us a much clearer picture of what the defense was going to do. No longer did I need to filter, sort, use VLookup, or any other excel function. I wanted to share this with you to help you to be a better play caller this season. If you want to schedule a demo with Danny, Click Here
Before I fill out my call sheet, we need to enter the data into our video program. We are going to enter all of the typical data, Down, Distance, Hash, Yd Line, Play Type, Result, Gain Loss, etc. We need that data to be able to build tendencies. The next part of labeling is we are going to add the formation, motion, and play name for every play run against the defense we are scouting. The reason we do this is we want to be able to look at what defense they played against each formation.
Once we label those three columns, we are then going to label the defensive information. We create some custom columns to get the data we need. We label the Front, Stunt, Blitz, Coverage, and then # of Blitzers. We then add some blitz direction data. To/Away is to the back or away from the back. Strong/Weak is strong or weak. Field/Boundary, is a blitz from the field or boundary. Those columns only get labeled if they blitz a second level player.
We divide and conquer to input the data, and we try to do at least three games. We want at least 180 plays if possible. The bigger the sample size, the more reliable the data becomes. Once we enter the data, we export the data to an excel spreadsheet from our video program and upload it into Recon. Once the data is in Recon, the magic happens.
This is what the Blitz Dashboard looks like, giving us a complete picture of the defense. This was from an opponent that we had broken down four games on. On the left we can see how many times they were in each field zone and what hash they were on, and we can see how many times they faced each down and distance situation. In the middle, we see their coverage and stunt percentages. On the right we see the number of times they brought 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 rushers. On the bottom right shows where the pressure came from. They are an odd front team who bases out of 1 high.
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.
This is the second installment on my series on How Much is Too Much? Today I want to talk to you about what it means to "fully install" a concept. One of the biggest issues we have as offensive coordinators is that we install a bunch of concepts, but we don't "fully" install them. We end up with a lot of play calls that are what we would say are good calls, but due to a lack of execution, they become bad calls. They aren't going to work against a particular defensive look, and we have limited answers in place. Bad play calls stall drives and lead to multiple three and outs. I have had plenty of these in my career, and many stem from trying to do too much.
A fully installed concept has the following 7 components
1. The concept base install
2. Blocking rules installed against each front you will see
3. Perimeter Blocking Rules and adjustments
4 Complementary Plays to take advantage of defensive answers
5. Play Action Component to take advantage of secondary support on runs
6. Route adjustments that can be made to attack coverage on passes
7. Reverse or trick play using the action of the original play
A full install is far beyond knowing the rules of a play, and your assignment. A full install of a play means that you can install that play, run it versus any front or coverage, and you have answers to the different adjustments defenses will make. When you have a concept fully installed, your players know how to adjust on the fly. They can change their path, their route, or their footwork. The back can adjust his path. The QB can adjust his read. Your players can make sight adjustments, and the coaches have complementary concepts that take advantage of defensive answers. You have to have answers for the answers of the defense.
Let's look at midline option when installed fully. When midline is fully installed, we could run it against any front and any blitz. We had built in answers to the adjustments defenses made. We had if/thens built into the play. We had easy in-game adjustments that allowed us to handle different things the defense might do. Our kids could sight adjust based on how the defense lined up. We were able to successfully run the play anywhere on the field, against every opponent we faced, and we were able to have consistency. It wasn't a feast or famine concept. We had complementary tags that helped provide us answers to what defenses did to take midline away.
If they lined up in two high safeties, our receivers did one thing with their blocking. If we got 1 high safety, our receivers made an adjustment. Our playside guard changed his path based on the alignment of the read key and the defensive front. Our tackle and tight end would adjust their blocking based on whether there was a down guy in the C gap.
From the box, I could see what the defense was doing to try to stop midline. We typically saw three things defenses would do. First, they would scrape exchange with the 3 technique and the Mike backer. Second, they would have the Sam fall-in on the quarterback. Third, they would have the backside inside linebacker playing fast over the top to take the dive. We needed answers to those three adjustments. If they reduced their front, then we had ways to answer that as well.
We had complementary tags to take advantage of their adjustments. If they scrape exchanged, we would run our give scheme. If the Sam fell in on the QB, we would run mid triple which we tagged Mid Pitch. If the Will was fast over the top, we would run follow opposite. If the 3 tech was fast upfield, we would trap him. Below is an example of midline with complements.
We also had four play action concepts we ran off midline option to take advantage of secondary adjustments. If the Mike was playing triggering fast, we would throw a pop to the TE. If the safety was screaming downhill, we would run a post. If the corner was playing pitch, we ran verticals. We also ran the TE on an arrow off midline action if the Sam was squatting.
How much is too much? This is the age old question of offensive coordinators everywhere. At what point do we have too much installed? Why does this even matter? Is there such a thing as too much?
The first thing I will say is that I never once thought we had too little installed. There never was a season where I said, man, we didn't have enough in our system. There have, however, been several seasons where we felt we had too much installed. And often, it showed on the field.
When you have too much installed, there are 5 things that you will find.
1. You never get good at anything
2. Your players can't execute at a high level
3. Your coaches struggle to troubleshoot during games
4. It becomes harder to call plays, especially the right plays
5. You don't have an identity.
When you have too much installed, it is hard to be good at anything. You will find that you become really good at being average. How many times have you called the perfect play, only to have a kid bust on assignments? This is going to happen at times, but it is going to happen far more often when you have too much installed.
I equate installation to a jar full of sand. Once that jar gets full, you put the lid on. You can't add any more sand because there isn't any room. When you add some more sand to the jar, you can't put the lid back on. If you do get the lid on, you risk the jar breaking. How many times have you overloaded your players to the point they can't execute? Everything you install has to be practiced. It has to be rehearsed. You have to be able to run it against any front. The more things you try to do, the less time you have to practice each thing.
Another big issue that comes up is troubleshooting. When you have too many plays in your playbook it makes it really difficult to troubleshoot. Your guys come to the sideline after a series, only to be overloaded with information. They are not going to be able to process that information. Your kids won't be able to make adjustments on the fly. If I am a receiver who has to adjust my blocking based on who the force guy is, I have to be able to determine if this is one high or two high. I have to know based on depth, eyes, and leverage if the corner is a force guy, or a deep zone dropper, or playing man. The more I have to remember, the harder it is going to be for me to make an adjustment and block the right guy. It is why we have receivers blocking no one. They are unsure. This happens all the time in games. Or, a guy will run the wrong route. An offensive lineman will step with the wrong foot. Having too much creates confusion and makes it harder to troubleshoot.
The hardest thing to do as a play caller is choose the right play to call when you have too much installed. You are looking at your call sheet, and it is just filled with information. There are really great things on your call sheet, and you can't pick what to call. Or, you can't find something you are looking for. You become indecisive. When you are indecisive you are not going to be as effective as a play caller. If you are targeted in your preparation, you will find yourself being a better play caller.
What is your identity? You have to have an identity concept if you are gong to be successful. What is the one play that you can run in your sleep when you need a first down? What is the one thing people must be able to stop if they are going to beat you? That doesn't mean you aren't good at other things, but knowing your identity and identity concept are vital for you to be explosive on offense. Your kids also feed into your identity. When you don't know your identity, they won't know your identity.
This is the big challenge coaches face each season, and each game week. How much is too much? It is going to be different for each team. What works for one team may not work for another. Some teams have a higher football aptitude. When a backup is in the game, your call sheet might be limited even further. The less they have to learn, the more effective they will be able to be.
As you prepare for the upcoming season, ask yourself these three questions.
Last year I got hooked up with CoachTube, and put together three courses for offensive football coaches. I put together two courses on RPO's, and a course on Building An Elite System of Communication. All of these courses will help you to score more points!
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.
Perhaps the most versatile play in football is the power play. With one blocking scheme the offense can give the defense a multitude of different looks. We are a power run offense despite being based in the gun. We want to be physical and have the mentality that we are going to run the football and create explosive plays. We want to manipulate space and force the defense to have to have to defend the entire field. This helps to open up the box.
We have two main goals on offense. First, we want to find the leverage point. We define the leverage point as the area we have an advantage on the defense. Second, we want to put as many defenders in conflict as possible. Rather than running a concept from one formation and giving the defense the same look, we want to give them the same concept from several different formations with multiple backfield actions. This is why we like the "power" play so much.
The first way we install the power is as the traditional downhill power play. Our frontside is going to block gap away. The center is going to block back, the backside guard is going to pull through the first window, and the backside tackle is going to dig out the backside B gap to hinge. The offensive line is leaving the frontside End Man on the Line (EMOL) unblocked. When we originally ran power in the 90's, we ran it to a tight end. We blocked down on the frontside, kickout out the end man on the line with the fullback, and wrapped the backside guard for the playside linebacker. Here is an example of the two back power play from pistol.
A couple of years later we decided to make an adjustment and change who we kicked out. To marry all of our different looks on power, we began to kick out the first defender outside the offensive tackle. Defensive ends and outside linebackers tend to be dominating players on defense. Because of this, we want to be able to put them in conflict to slow them down. If they know that when they get a down block they will get a kickout block, the will be able to anticipate the kickout and box or spill the player based on the defensive call. However, if the defender doesn't know who is kicking him, or if he is being read, or if he is going to be cracked, he is going to hesitate. It is through this hesitation that we gain a tremendous advantage.
Below is an illustration of power kicking the first player outside the tackle.
When we adjusted the blocking we had a simple rule for the running back. Our rule for the back was to hit the A gap until you can't. We wanted him to get downhill and stay inside the kickout block. Another variation is the have the QB open away from the play and mesh with the back. This forces the defense to hesitate slightly as they don't know if the point of attack is to the mesh side, or away from the mesh side. We can also offset the back to or away from the side we were running power.
Here is an example of Power kicking the C gap player.
Because we want to keep the EMOL guessing, we can exchange the assignments of the pulling guard and the kickout player. This is a great variation from two and three back sets. In the three back look, the frontside back will block the primary force player. The backside guard will pull and kick out the end man on the line, while the backside back will lead through the window. The quarterback can open to the play, or away from the play.
Another variation of this concept is the power read. The offensive line blocks power. The backs and receivers execute their assignments as if we are calling an outside run. Instead of kicking out the first man outside the tackle, we read him.
Below is an example of the power read play.
If the backside B gap defender is giving the offense a problem, they can make a GUS call, which means guard stay. Because the backside back can replace the puller, the backside guard can now protect the backside B gap. This allows the center and frontside guard to combo the nose.
The next evolution was to add RPO, or Run Pass Options, to the power play. By rule, if we call power, we will have quick game concepts to both sides. We will have a stop route to the single receiver side, and a now screen to the twins side. If the QB has no underneath defender to the single WR side, he can throw the stop route. If he has a two on one to the twins side, he can throw the now screen.
Adding this presnap read helps to protect the run. The defense has to honor our skill guys on the edge. If the defense wants to play press man, we can covert the stop routes to verticals. The QB then reads separation. If we get separation, the QB can pull and throw the vertical. If there is no separation he can give the ball. We can also give the quarterback a red light. That means he will execute the run regardless of what the defense does.
Below is an example of power with quick game concepts attached. The QB sees we have numbers to the twins, and throws the quick.
The great thing about power is that we can build any of our pass concepts into the concept. We can take advantage of anything the defense is doing to disrupt power. For example, if they want to creep a safety into the box, we can read the safety and run a post behind him. If the safety flat foot reads or attacks the box, the QB will pull and throw the post. If the safety bails or slow plays, the QB gives the ball.
Below is an example of power with stop routes to the twins side. The QB is reading the corner. If the corner bails, the QB will pull and throw, reading inside to out. If the corner does anything else, the QB will give the ball.
This barely scratches the surface of the new innovations of the traditional power concept. The power has been a successful concept for many years, and with new variations, it has grown to be one of the most versatile offensive concepts being run.
Using AI to Supercharge Your Offensive Game Plan! AI is not coming, AI is here!
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For these and many, many more concepts of the power and power read, check out my DVD on the power and power read from Coaches Choice. It will give you dozens of ways to put the defense in conflict while getting your best athletes the football in open space! The DVD covers multiple ways to run the power and power read from the pistol and gun! I take you through the mechanics and schematics of of the frontside and backside power read from three backs empty! This DVD will help you score more points!
In January of 2016 I published a couple of iBooks that have been read by coaches at all levels of football. The first is on Installing RPO's into any offense, that will give you a systematic approach to installing RPO's. 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. It is less than $15!
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.
One of the keys to our success was tremendous preparation!The key to preparation was our outstanding group of documents we used for all three phases. If you are looking for fully editable and customizable documents that you can tailor to your program, I have made mine available.
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Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/
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