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: 

Using AI to Create a Dominant Defensive Game Plan

If you want to be able to call the right defense at the right time, then you need to check out my newest resource! I spent over a year building an AI Game Planning Analyst that will help you save several hours each weekend while being more prepared than ever before! Using AI To Create a Dominant Defensive Game Plan will revolutionize how you prepare for opponents. 

This was tested with programs of all levels, and every coach that used it said it revolutionized their game planning. Instead of flipping through multiple reports, you have everything in one place. The best part... You can talk to your data! You can ask questions and get responses. This is available at a special price right now! For a limited time, you can use the code AI at checkout to save $15. 

AI will not only save you countless hours each weekend, but AI will help you to be more prepared than ever before. AI can see data so much deeper than a human can. I walk you through how to use AI to truly supercharge your defensive game plan. When you get my resource, you get access to my custom AI Analyst! Here is a demo video of the analyst and how it provides you your data, your way, all in one place!

Using AI To Create a Dominant Defensive Game Plan will revolutionize how you prepare for opponents. Order now to get access at a special introductory price! I spent a year beta testing this with coaches at all level of football. Every single one said this has revolutionized their game planning! Use the code AI at checkout to save a few $$!

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 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. 

Using a SWOT Analysis With A Struggling Offense

There is nothing more frustrating for an offensive coordinator than not being able to move the ball consistently. It is frustrating when you can't get first downs to keep the chains moving. You want to give your defense a chance to rest, while also controlling field position. Ultimately, you need to put some points on the board. 

When you are struggling on offense you have to look at why you are struggling. This is where I recommend a SWOT Analysis for coaches. SWOT stands for:

• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities 
• Threats

This is a tool that has been used in the business world for decades, and also can be a powerful tool in sport. 

Listen, if you are struggling on offense I can tell you that I have been there. I have been in situations where we couldn't buy a first down. The SWOT analysis helps you to figure out what you are during currently, and what you need to change and adjust to improve. This is a valuable tool used in the business world that is also a valuable tool for coaches to use. 

At the end of the day you have two choices. You can keep doing what you have been doing and get what you have been getting, or you can make some adjustments and strive for a better, more desirable result. 

Before we perform the SWOT analysis, we are going to answer some overarching questions:

• Are you doing simple things that it takes to be successful on offense?
• Communicating the play to the unit, then QB/OL communication pre-snap
• Lining Up Right
• Base fundamentals- Eye Discipline, footwork, etc
• Are you getting your best players touches?
• Are your taking advantage of space?
• Are you running into a loaded box?
• Is there a particular front or coverage you are struggling with? 
• Are you running your identity concept?

These questions will give us some background information we will use for our SWOT analysis. Great leaders Analyze, Adjust, and Adapt. 

SWOT Analysis

Strengths and Weaknesses

The first thing we are going to to is talk about our strengths and weaknesses. We are going to look at our personnel strengths and weaknesses, our concept strengths and weaknesses, our practice strengths and weaknesses, and our process strengths and weaknesses.

Personnel

With personnel, I want to look at our best players and our best position group. We are going to rank our offensive players from top to bottom with their position. Next we are going to rank our position groups. This helps us to determine our strongest and weakest players and position groups.

Is our offense designed to play to our strengths of our personnel? Are we doing things that ask too much of our weakest personnel or position groups? Are the best players on the field? Are we finding ways to get our best 11 on the field at the same time? 

Then we going to look at our data. Are we getting the ball to our best players the most? If so, what is the result of their touches? Do we need to change how we are getting them or trying to get them the ball? If we aren't, what do we need to do to get them more touches? Are we taking shots? This is a big one. We want to take a couple of shots each week.

I like to look at each player and look at their average yards per touch. Sometimes the really good athlete isn't as good with the ball in his hands, and the guy we think isn't as athletic is actually more explosive. We are going to look at that to determine if the right guys are in the right places, and the ball is getting to them in the best ways for us to gain the most yards.

Concepts

This is a great segway into our concept analysis. We are going to again look at the data. What concept has been our most effective? Who is the personnel involved in that concept? Do we have better personnel to execute that concept? What concepts are not effective? 

To determine effectiveness you need to have a metric. I look at average yards per play, negative plays, and explosive plays. We want a run concept to average 5 yards, with less than 5% negative plays and 15% explosive. With pass concepts we want to average 10 yards per play with less than 5% negative plays and 25% explosive. For fast screens we use our run metrics, as these are an extension of our run game. We look at each of our concepts and then rank them. Then we look at how many times we called each concept. 

Here is an example of an analysis on our run and pass concepts. You can do this with Excel, or you can use a report to find this information. We use Recon Football to generate this data. 

Are we calling our most effective concepts most? If not, why? How can we adjust our play calling so we call our best concepts more often? Do we have the right guys getting the ball? 

If we see that we have a bunch of negative concepts, we are going to figure out why. What do we need to do to fix those concepts? Is it a personnel issue, a practice or drill issue, or is it an issue that we can't fix. If we can't fix it, we are going to scrap the concept. 

In the image above we can see that when we call a run, 35% of our runs result in a pass. This is because we use pre and post snap RPO's. I can see that we need to look at some concepts in our pass game to figure out why they are less effective. Is it a formation issue or a protection issue? Is it a scheme issue or a coaching issue? What adjustments can we make to improve these concepts? How can we coach them better? 

Win More Games By Eliminating Lost Yards on 4th Down

There are some things I saw this week that cost teams football games. Teams lost games they should have one because they didn't gave away too many yards. The most under coached area of football at the high school level is punt return. Most teams spend 5 minutes a weak coaching their punt returners, and the only time their punt returners catch kicks is during pregame. 

If you want to win more games, and beat people you shouldn't beat, you have to find areas where you can excel. Coaching your 4th down defensive unit will help you win more games. Not coaching your fourth down unit will lead you to lose more games. It is most glaring in seasons where you might not have as much talent or experience on the field. That is when the lost opportunities on 4th down. 

One of the biggest areas of lost yards is letting punts land and roll. Every ten yards the ball rolls is another first down your offense has to get to score. Last night I watched a team force 6 punts. One punt they fielded and started at their own 38. They ended up kicking a field goal. The other 5 punts they didn't field. Four of them the ball rolled anywhere from 15 to 30 yards. One of them was shanked and only went 20 yards. Overall, they lost 124 yards from punts rolling. They lost the game 28-10 because they lost the field position battle. 

The most difficult part of this is most coaches don't even realize the yards they are losing on 4th down, and the affect it has on the game. Every time you let a punt land, you give up an average of 12 additional yards. That's a first down. That also shortens the field for your opponent's offense when they get the ball back. If you start at your own 20 and go three and out, you are punting from inside your 30. If you start at your own 35 and go three and out, you lengthen the field for your opponent. Don't give away free yards. 

Too many coaches treat 4th down defense as an inconvenience. Because of this, they give up yards that negatively affect field position, which affects them on offense and defense. 

Let's talk about how to make your 4th down defensive unit become a strength rather than a liability. 

1. Practice Catching Punts

Break this into 3 parts. First, have your returners work technique with a coach coaching them. We are going to teach them how to properly catch a punt, throwing them the ball from close distance.

Work on catching balls kicked to you, kicked to the side, and kicked on the ground. Teach your players how to circle the ball and field a punt that is bouncing. Teach them how to recognize you have space. Do this with a coach throwing the ball, 15 to 20 yards from the players. 

Second, have a coach throw or punt to the players from 30 to 35 yards away. Start with the punts going to the returner. Then to the side, then short, then over their head. Move up if you have to. When you do this drill, have the returners not catching the punt aligned 10 yards from the returner on either side, as if they are cover guys. Have them moving towards the returner, but never getting within 3 yards of him. This gets your returners used to catching the ball in traffic. 

Third, have your punter punt the football to the returner. During the first two drills, your punter is warming up and your snappers are doing their snapping drills. Then have them punt live, with your snapper snapping and punt team protecting. We don't have them cover. We have 3 guys downfield simulate the cover team. We want our returner to get comfortable catching kicks with guys bearing down on him. 

Once our returner caught the ball, we wanted him to get vertical and make one guy miss. We wanted him to get 5 yards on every return. We told him to get five or six. This meant get five yards or six points. It all starts with fielding the kick. You can only return kicks that you actually field. 

2. If you aren't going to invest time catching punts, then block every punt

If 80% of the times the ball is punted to you you are going to let it roll, then you might as well try to block the punt. But coach, I don't want to get called for roughing the punter. Then practice blocking kicks. You get roughing penalties because guys don't know how to properly block a kick, and what angle to take. You can teach them how to block kicks. If you want to block more kicks, check this out: Coach Vint's Special Teams Resource

Now, better than catching punts or blocking punts is this... Do Both. Really Well. We always had someone going for the block, even when we were calling a return. I never wanted to waste an opportunity to get a block. If they were lazy in protection, we were going to get the block.

Winning With A Talent Deficiency

What do you do when you have a talent deficiency? This is a situation that most coaches will face at some point in their career. Sometimes you face this a few games a season, and sometimes you are going this every single game. What do you do? How do you handle this situation? 

No two programs are in the same place, and this will look different depending where you are, and what stage you are in with building your program. What remains consistent are the five keys to winning games when you are at a talent deficiency. 

1. Play Mistake Free Football
2. Play Together As A Unified Team
3. Win The Takeaway Battle
4. Make Big Plays On Special Teams
5. Shorten the Game

Play Mistake Free Football

When you are at a talent deficiency, your window of opportunity and margin for error is going to be smaller. Every time you make a self-inflicted wound, you shrink your margin for error. Teams with a lot of talent have much more room for errors and can overcome mistakes. When you have less talent, you don't have room for mistakes. 

What we are talking about are things that take zero talent. We are talking about lining up right, stepping with the correct foot, not committing pre-snap penalties, not jumping offsides on defense, and the like. Coaches need to make sure their are 11 guys on the field, not 10 or 12. These are things that take zero talent. Do the things that take zero talent really well and you will win more games. 

Play Together As A Team

This is so important. Everyone has to do their job, and only their job, to the best of their ability. They have to trust that the other 10 guys will take pride in their job every play. They have to trust that their teammates will give great effort. They have to trust that their teammates are going to be where they are supposed to be, when they are supposed to be there, doing what they are supposed to do. They have to trust their teammates will line up right and play with great effort. 

When you are at a talent deficiency, you have to convince your team that the whole team playing together is much stronger than the sum of the parts. This is the definition of Synergy, and is a vital part of playing above your ability level. Guys have to be bought into each other, care about each other, and be willing to sacrifice for the success of the man next to them and the team. 

Win the Takeaway Battle

First and foremost, you have to have great ball security. You have to practice ball security and emphasize it everyday. If you want to win a game you shouldn't win on paper, you need to take care of the football. It takes zero talent to have great ball security. 

You have to emphasize turnovers in practice. You have to have a period where you work on takeaways. When you are at a talent deficiency, stealing possessions is key. If we can finish three more possessions than our opponent, we increase our chances to win. Takeaways also create a short field. This gives us a better chance to score. 

Early in my career we beat a team we were supposed to lose to by 30 points, according to the papers. We forced 5 turnovers in the game. 2 were pick 6's, and two of them we returned inside the 10 yeard line. We only had 5 first downs, but we won the game 36-34. We couldn't move the ball against our opponent, but we were able to score because of the short field. 

Make Big Plays On Special Teams

Special Teams will win you games you shouldn't win, and lose you games you shouldn't lose. We want to make sure we are really good in punt protection. We want to make sure we don't kick the ball or punt the ball to their good returners. We want to make sure that we get vertical on our returns and then try to find daylight. We want to field every kick cleanly, so we don't give up hidden yards. 

The big one with this is blocking kicks. Blocking kicks are huge factors in beating teams you shouldn't beat. In the game I talked about earlier, we also blocked a punt, which gave us the ball inside their 5 yard line. This led to a short touchdown. The difference in the game was when we blocked their first extra point and returned it for two points. It was a huge momentum shift after they had gone up 13-0. 

Practice blocking punts and extra points. Find out who your best kick block guys are and help them improve that skill throughout the year. Blocking kicks is huge for winning games you shouldn't win. 

Let me also add that onside kicks can help you steal a possession. Find their weakness and install an onside kick to exploit it. You don't have to kick a traditional onside. Find the space in their return alignment and kick to that space. DO NOT KICK TO THEIR STUD RETURNER! I have made this mistake, and it rarely turns out good. There is nothing wrong with a pooch kick that won't be returned. They will start at the 25 or 30, and that is a win. 

Field Punts! There are hundreds of lost yards each game because coaches don't teach their guys how to catch a punt. 

Shorten the Game

This is a big key, and can help you beat teams when you are less talented. You can control when you snap the ball and how much time runs off the clock between plays when you have the ball. If you are a huddle team, take a little more time before you send the play in. 

A lot of guys tell me that tempo is a big key to what they do. Tempo is the great equalizer, but it can also be a double edged sword. If you are going 3 and out, your tempo will do more harm than good. But there are ways you can strategically use tempo. 

You can go fast and snap the ball, which keeps the defense on their heels. They are going to tend to be more vanilla. You can also bluff the snap, where you make it look like you are going fast, but you don't snap the ball fast. When you say your snap count, or clap, they might jump. Take the free 5. When you signal the play, you can also signal another bluff snap. This might get them to jump. 

Another thing to do is to bluff the snap, then signal in a whole new formation and play. Your guys now will get lined up and execute the play. The defense just made a call and now they have to adjust. This is a great way to run clock while using the concept of tempo.

If you huddle, you can use what we called 6 seconds. We would tell our guys six seconds from clap to snap. That means we would clap when we said ready break, sprint to the line, and call our cadence quickly. This is especially effective with unbalanced sets where the defense has to recognize surfaces, eligibles, and backfield sets quickly. 

When we were at a talent deficiency, we wanted to find a way to keep the game close in the fourth quarter. If we were within one score, our opponent might tense up. They suddenly are worried that this team they are far superior to was playing with them. 

Find ways to shorten the game, which will give you chance to win the game in the fourth quarter. 

Everyone Must Believe

Sun-Tzu says Every Battle Is Won Before It Is Fought. You have to prepare to the point that your players believe they have earned the right to win. Saying we are going to win is not enough. You have to convince your players that they have done everything it takes to win the game in preparation, and they have earned the right to compete. 

You also have to believe in each other. You have to believe the guy next to you is capable. The players have to believe in each other, and they have to believe their coaches will put them in the best position to be successful. The coaches have to believe in the players, and that the players will do things above their ability. The coaches also have to believe in each other. They have to believe that their colleagues will coach at a high level in preparation for the game and during the game.

If your players believe in each other, believe in their coaches, and believe they have earned the right to compete, they will believe they can win the game. If they believe, they increase their chances of winning. If they don't believe, they will lose. Henry Ford said, "The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can't are both right." The question is, which man are you? 

If you do these 5 things and you believe, you increase your chances of winning against a superior opponent talent wise. If you don't do these things, or you lack belief you can do these things, you won't have a chance. 

When you go into a game where you are at a talent deficiency, take the focus off the ability of the players. Focus on taking care of the things you have total control over, and build that belief in your players. 

I know we didn't talk about scheme, and scheme matters, but I wanted to focus on the things that every coach can do, regardless of talent level or what scheme they run. The biggest thing about scheme is finding ways to get your strengths attacking their weaknesses. If they are a team that flies around but has bad eye discipline, use reverse and misdirection. If they like to time up blitzes, change your snap count. To attack personnel, find the guy they are hiding, and attack him with your best guy. Everyone is hiding someone. 

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. 

Go Beyond the Results: 3 Keys to Success This Season

Today I want to talk to you about something very important to consider during games, practice, and watching film. 

One of the biggest mistakes I have seen made by coaches, and I have made as a coach, is focusing too much on the result. Sometimes you will have a very poorly executed play work out because your opponent jacked things up on their end. You might miss two blocks on a run play, but your running back breaks a tackle and ends up in the open field for a 75 yard run. Everyone gets so excited for the result, that they don't correct the mistake. 

When you don't correct mistakes, it is going to be harder and harder to replicate success when all things are equal. I see this a lot with teams that are loaded with talent, or they have one or two really good players. They will have a bunch of big plays because they have players who are just better than everyone else. They are able to break tackles in the open field. Or they have a defensive lineman who is unblockable for most high school offensive linemen. 

To avoid this issue, it there are a couple of things every head coach and coordinator should do. First, give your guys specific jobs during games. During a game, it is very important that every coach know what they are looking at, and actually look at that. Every coordinator should have guys assigned to watch different things. I have a sheet for each coach telling them where they should be during the game (sideline or box), and what they should be looking at. One simple rule is to have guys in the box watching away from our sideline, and having guys on the field watch the side nearest our sideline. 

When you have specific roles, you don't miss anything. If everyone is watching the game, no one is going to see when a mistake is made. Game Planning Packet for OC's

In addition to looking at mistakes, guys are looking at what the defense is doing. If you don't have a coach assigned to watch their secondary, you won't know if they are playing sky or cloud, and how they are reacting to certain routes and run actions. On defense, you need to have someone watching the offensive line, and someone watching the receivers on each side of the field. There is nothing worse than giving up a deep pass, and no one saw the route that was run. If you don't know what route was run, you don't know who made a mistake.

When you have a great play, celebrate, but if there was a mistake on the play, don't let the result keep you from fixing the mistake. If a lineman missed a block but the back broke a tackle, fix the mistake. If a receiver ran the wrong route, but the QB scrambled and had a big gain, correct the mistake as soon as possible. This means every coach must have a job to do and they must do that job. If someone wants to watch the game, they can buy a ticket. There is nothing worse than having a player make the same mistake, but no one correcting the mistake until film on Saturday morning. That mistake should have been fixed during the game. 

The same thing is true on the defensive side of the ball. You can't have everyone watching the game. You need to have guys assigned to watch different aspects of the offense. There is nothing worse than giving up a big play, and not knowing what route they ran, or what blocking scheme they used. You have to have specific roles for each coach and have those roles clearly laid out. You need to be able to correct mistakes immediately, not the next day. Defensive Game Planning Resource

Defense Game Planning: Keys to Dominating Preparation

In my career I was lucky to have had an opportunity be an offensive and defensive coordinator, and to spend time at the high school and college levels. I worked with some great football coaches who were masters at preparation. I wanted to give you a couple of things you can use to be more dominant on defense this season.

We had one goal on defense. That was to get the ball back as quickly as possible. There are four ways to get the ball back. 

We wanted to do everything we could to get the opposing offense off the field and to get our offense on the field. One of the most important factors in doing this was being prepared. 

The first key to preparation is to have good data. We never went a game without entering data on our opponent. If coaches share the responsibility of entering the data, you can knock out a game in less than 15 minutes. 

If you are a young coach who has the responsibility of entering data, take the responsibility serious. The data you enter is going to be the difference between knowing what a team will do and not knowing.

Once we enter the data, we then focus on the two keys to stopping our opponent. 

We want to stop their dude, and take away what is is that they do. We want to make sure that they aren't going to beat us with their best player or their best play. If they are going to score it is going to have to be with someone else running something else.

The data we enter is going to give us two things. First, it is going to give us tendencies. A tendency is something done 65% of the time. I want to know what it is they do most frequently. We are going to look at down and distance tendencies, field/boundary tendencies, personnel tendencies, field/zone tendencies, backfield tendencies, and formation tendencies. We will first look at run/pass tendencies for each of these.

Below is an example of run/pass tendencies for 3 games. This is from a company called Recon Sports

All we did was take the data we were already entering, upload it to Recon, and we had beautiful reports that helped us to be better prepared. Instead of spending hours with pen and paper, and filtering and sorting excel spreadsheets, these reports were ready to give us the tendencies we needed. This helped me to know what defensive calls would be good in certain situations, and what calls might not be as good. 

Championship Discipline, Accountability, And Leadership

Have you ever finished a season and been disappointed that you underachieved? One of the biggest disappointments in my coaching career was feeling like we didn't meet our expectations for our season. There is nothing worse than knowing you didn't have the success you thought you would have. I have talked to a few coaches the last couple of weeks that are frustrated with their seasons went and the directions of their programs. They feel like they are lacking discipline, leadership, and accountability. They have stupid penalties, turnovers, or mental mistakes that cost them football games. As I look back on the biggest disappointments in my coaching career, the biggest reason we underachieved was a lack of discipline, leadership and accountability tops. It was rarely a lack of talent.

Having a lack of talent is something that is often out of your control. Unless you are a program that recruits, you can't control the genetics of the athletes in your program. When we struggled because of a lack of talent, I could deal with that. When we had a lack of talent, however, we tended to exceed expectations. What is frustrating is when you have talent and fall short of expectations. 95% of the time this comes down to discipline, leadership, and accountability. 

Discipline, leadership, and accountability are three things you have complete control over. If you are a head coach, you set the standard for the level of each of the these three things. Discipline and accountability come down to the standards and expectations you set, and what you are willing to tolerate. What you tolerate from your best players will lead to the level of discipline and accountability for everyone in your program. And when someone doesn't meet that standard, do you hold them accountable? Do you have a system to teach them what they did or didn't do that went against the standard? Ultimately it is about changing behaviors.

More than once this year I have seen several very talented teams lose football games to teams with inferior talent because they lacked discipline. In my 25 years of coaching, I was a part of three teams that lost to teams much less talented. I watched several games this year where I saw teams with superior talent lose to inferior competition. How can this happen? If you have more talent, aren't you supposed to win? There is a reason there are a bunch of very talented teams that lost 6, 7, and 8 games this year at all levels. 

First, it happens because you allow it to happen. You control what you allow and what you expect. You set your standards and expectations. You control the level of accountability to your standards. As a head coach you are ultimately in control. You set the tone for the entire team. You are the one who ultimately sets that standards for your team. You are the one who controls the level of accountability for your team. 

If you are going to set standards, and you had better set standards, you must be willing to hold every athlete to the standards you set. If you aren't willing to hold your best players to the standards, then you are going to lose trust with the team. You are going to have players that might outwardly act like they are bought in, but they are going to be frustrated with any lack of accountability. You will have the same frustration with coaches on your staff. They may outwardly be bought in, but inwardly they will be frustrated. If you don't have complete trust built up with everyone in your program, they will tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. 

Let's get to 3 important keys I'd like to focus on. First: If your best players are not being held accountable off the field, they will break your heart on the field. 

I have seen his first hand, and it something that is frustrating because you have complete control over it. When you let a guy get away with being a jerk in the school building, or getting in trouble in class, he will break your heart on the field. When you allow your most talented players to be un-coachable and unapproachable in practice, they will break your heart on Friday night when you play good teams. Have you set clear expectations for your team, and are you willing to hold everyone accountable to these expectations? 

When you have two sets of standards, one for the guys who are hard to coach, and one for the guys who are easy to coach, you will lose when you play someone who is inferior to you in talent, but has a higher level of discipline and accountability. They will not make undisciplined mistakes that cost teams football games. They will not get 15 yard penalties that will extend drives. They will not get penalties on third down that end drives for your offense, and extend drives for your opponents. They won't get 15 yard penalties that negate touchdowns. They won't have breakdowns in eye-discipline. They won't stop playing hard when they get behind. When one standard becomes optional, all standards become optional. If you are inconsistent with your accountability, the players you do not hold accountable will not know how to handle real adversity when it hits. 

Let me add loudly: NEVER JUSTIFY SOMEONE NOT MEETING THE STANDARD

That is so important that it had to be in all caps. Once you start to justify negative behaviors, you are allowing yourself to accept mediocrity. Everything we are talking about today has nothing to do with ability or talent. Do not justify mediocre behaviors or habits unless you want mediocre results. If the standard is important, everyone should be expected to meet the standard. If the standard ins't worth holding everyone accountable, get rid of the standard. Once one standard because optional, all standards become optional. 

Second: Head coaches, listen to your assistant coaches when it comes to discipline. We had a situation one year where we wanted to bench two of our most talented players on offense. We wanted to take playing time from them. They weren't practicing well, and they were becoming a cancer for the team. They were lazy in drills, and that was carrying over to the game. The offensive staff was in agreement that these two players needed to be benched. The head coach initially agreed, but then relented. The players were not held accountable. While they made big plays at times, they also did not play up to the level of their talent. More importantly, they were a distraction far more often than they were making big plays. Instead of setting the standard, they were the negative example. 

Adversity Is A Gift

Every single one of us will face adversity. How you handle adversity is vital if you want to be the best at whatever it is you are trying to do. A giant key to success is how you respond when things don't go your way. The most successful people in the world, regardless of industry, know that adversity is a major part of life. They understand that adversity is not only a major part of life, but adversity is necessary for success. 

When faced with adversity you have two choices: You can take the easy way out and quit, or you can look at adversity for what it is-- adversity is a gift. About 80% of you just gasped and said with a boatload of sarcasm, "yeah right, adversity is a gift." But that's because most people don't want to face adversity. They want to be as comfortable as possible. They simply want to always take the path of least resistance, and that easy path leads to nothing worthwhile. Mediocre people see adversity as a hindrance. The truly elite see adversity as an opportunity. 

If you are going to be the very best at whatever it is you are trying to do, you need to embrace adversity. You need to welcome adversity into your life, as adversity does five key things for you: 

1. Adversity Stretches You

Adversity is going to get you out of your comfort zone. You can't improve and grow if you are comfortable. When you are uncomfortable you are going to push yourself beyond what you think you can do. Adversity works like the weight room. When you lift weights, you get stronger when you lift heavier weights. The more adversity you face, the more you will grow. 

2. Adversity Humbles You

Sometimes we need a humbling experience. When we get humbled we find ourselves looking in the mirror and doing some self reflection. This is very important if we want to be elite. Being humbled opens you heart and mind to learning and growing. The key when you are humbled is not losing belief in yourself and your team or organization. 

3. Adversity Forces You to Adapt

When you face adversity you have to be willing to adapt and change. You have to find a new way to do things. Adversity forces you to find solutions to problems that sometimes you don't fully understand. You may have lost a patent to a product, or a key player may have gotten injured. This is when you get to be creative and find an innovative way to get the job done. 

4. Adversity Brings People Together

Adversity forces people to come together as a unit. It doesn't matter if we are looking at a family facing adversity, a team facing adversity, or a fortune 500 company facing adversity. When you face adversity together your team bond will strengthen. There is something very special about having to push through a very difficult task as a group. You will form a much stronger bond when you face adversity together. 

5. Adversity Requires You To Push Through

This is very important in our question for greatness. If we truly want to be the best we can be, we must learn to push through seemingly insurmountable adversity. Too many people are coddled, and they never have to fight through anything. Pushing through makes the result that much more worth it. If you are a parent, make sure you don't make things easy for your child. You want them to have adversity before they leave your house as adults. 

Thank about that. When you win at something that is easy, it is meaningless. When you have to work really hard to accomplish something, it becomes much more fulfilling. If you only do easy things, you will only get mediocre results. If you have to fight through adversity, every accomplishment will be worth so much more. 

Most people are happy being average and below average. Understand that if you want to be elite, you will face resistance. There will be many people who will not understand why you embrace adversity. There will be people who will encourage you to give up. These people are not your friends. They are not your trusted advisors. These are people who don't care anything about you. Don't let people steal your dreams just because they gave up on theirs. 

Make sure you fight to embrace adversity and overcome the obstacles life throws at you. Remember, you are not a victim unless you choose to be! Everyone in the world faces things that test them. The difference is, successful people push through the adversity and fight until the finish. 

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. 

Preparation Resources

As you prepare for the upcoming season, I wanted to make available our game planning resources for you! These helped us to have one of the most explosive offenses at every level I have coached. Coaches from some of the top high school programs in the country use these documents to prepare. Coaches at more than a dozen BCS programs have also downloaded these documents to help them in their preparation.

Here is a link to my offensive game planning documents: 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!

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.

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/

 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! 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

All three of these courses are detailed, with everything you need to be more explosive and to score more points. 

The course on communication gives you a detailed approach to your gameday communication. I give you a system and a process to improve the quality of conversations, leading to improved play calling on game day. This course has received outstanding reviews from coaches at all level of football. A coach with multiple state titles told me this course helped them to be much more efficient and explosive this season. 

My two RPO courses take you through a systematic process of installing RPO's into your offensive system. RPO's put the defense in conflict, forcing them to defend all 53 yards of width and all 6 skill players every single play. I not only give you a system, but I teach you the methods to develop your own RPO concepts. 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

If you want to learn more about installing RPO's, I wrote a book called Installing Explosive RPO Concepts Into Any Offense. I wrote it for iBooks, which includes cut-ups to reinforce the application of these concepts. In the book I give you a systematic process for installing 2nd and 3rd level RPO's. Coaches at all level of football tell me this is a game changer! The book can be found for iBooks here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959

The iBooks version can be viewed on any iPhone, Mac, or iPad. It is a game changer in book technology! This book will give you everything you need to build RPO's 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

Follow me @coachvint on Twitter and Instagram! I am also working on two new book projects, as well as a podcast. If there is anything I can do, please let me know. 

Let Me Help Your Organization

Over the last 20 years I have traveled throughout the country speaking to teams and organizations. I have worked with some of the top high school and college programs in the nation, and have also spoken to business leaders and leaders in the classroom as well. If can help your organization build an elite culture while increasing the footprint of the impact you are having. If there is a need, please reach out to me and I will tailor a program to fit your needs. 

I hope you found something in this post you can use with your program! Good luck in your quest to be elite! 

3 Keys to Being A Champion

Winning is not something that happens easily for any program. Regardless of how much talent you have, it is very difficult to step out on the field and be a consistent winner. There are three keys-- three things you need to build a championship program.

1. Talent
2. Championship Mentality
3. Unconditional Love

Talent

Everyone agrees that talent is key to winning a championship. But talent is just a starting point. Talent is important, but what is more important is maximizing the talent you have. If you have a group of talented athletes but you don't develop them mentally and physically, you will underachieve. Too many coaches blame a lack of success on not having enough talent, and too many coaches who have a lot of talent don't work to develop that talent to the play at elite levels. 

The one key factor, regardless of the talent on your roster, is to coach players to be their best. Are you coaching to the level of the talent on your roster, or are you coaching to make the most out of the talent on your roster? Our job as coaches is to make the very best out of what we have. 

The weight room is a great equalizer. A great strength, speed, and conditioning program can help to develop the players you have. There is no substitute for strength, and no excuse for a lack of it. 

Building a program goes far beyond talent. 

Championship Mentality

A championship mentality does not just happen. It is something that must be developed on a daily basis. Everything you do either builds a championship mentality, or destroys a championship mentality. Building this mentality is a process, and it is a process that takes time. There is no such thing as waking up one day and all of a sudden you are mentally tough and focused.

The process starts with your expectations. Your expectations will give you a focal point for your standards. Bill Walsh said you have to act like a champion before you can be a champion. Your standards then drive your accountability. This is simply what you will allow and what you won't allow. What you permit is what you promote. If you permit people to be late, you are promoting lateness. If you allow people to loaf in practice, you are giving everyone permission to loaf. 

When you hold people accountable to your standards and meeting high expectations, you are setting them up for success. When you allow them to perform below your standards you are setting them up for failure. Here is the key: you do not know when success will show on the scoreboard. But building success in the details of your process will lead to success on the scoreboard.

Accountability is something you must constantly be striving for. Accountability is not easy, because it requires difficult conversations. No one wants to hear that they are not doing something right or doing something well. No one wants to face consequences. But it is through these difficult conversations and consequences that success is developed. 

The first thing you must do is define what you want your mentality to look like. Then you must train your people on how to live with that mentality. Our definition for mental toughness is simple.

Mental toughness is the ability to face adversity and failure with a positive attitude, and without a loss of enthusiasm, effort, and faith in the process. 

You must teach mental toughness as part of your championship mentality. When things get difficult, you have a choice. You can blame, complain, and make excuses. Or you can stick to the process and fight for a solution. It is very easy to blame others. It is very easy to complain about how things aren't fair. It is easy to make excuses about why you aren't performing. Those are things that mediocre people are very good at. Mediocre teams are some of the best at justifying why they are mediocre. 

Championship teams and organizations are willing to persevere through adversity. When things are not going their way they focus on doing things right. They don't blame others. They don't make excuses. They simply get better. A few years back we had a corner who was matched up with a big time receiver. The receiver ran by him on a vertical. Our corner came to the sideline and didn't make excuses. His position coach told him he was so worried about getting beat that he didn't move his feet. He walked through his speed turn on the sideline. The next possession the receiver tried to run by him, but the corner did the little things right with his feet, played the ball, and knocked the pass away. He found a way. 

You can't wait to teach championship mentality during the season. You have to build your mentality from January through July. Every single day you are either building a championship mentality, or you're not. The weight room allows you to instill high standards, and hold athletes to those standards. Your speed and conditioning program allow you to push your athletes beyond what they think they can do. 

A championship mentality doesn't guarantee you will win a championship, but it gives you an opportunity to play at the highest level possible. 

Unconditional Love 

Unconditional love is what bonds everything and everyone together. Many young people today never experience unconditional love. They don’t know how it feels to have someone love them without conditions. Unconditional love means we love you as much on your worst day as we do on your best day. We don’t love you because you are a good player, and don’t stop loving you when you get in trouble. 

It is important to understand that unconditional love means we are going to hold you accountable. Because we love you we are going to make sure you are accountable to meeting our standard. This is where a lot of coaches fail. They don’t hold players accountable for not meeting the standard. Or, you won’t hold them fully accountable. This often happens with really good players, and I would guess we have all been there. We have to hold them accountable if we are going to be our best as a team, and if we truly care about the player. It hurts to hold someone accountable, I get it. But it hurts the kid more when we enable them. 

Taking this a step further, everything you do as a coach is going to impact your athletes far beyond the football field. What skills are you giving them that will help them be more successful in life? Are you teaching them values they can use to be better leaders? Are you teaching them about accountability? Are you teaching them how to persevere? Regardless of your record on the field, the impact you make on their lives off the field is what will be lasting. No one can remember who won the third game of the season three years ago. But everyone will remember the impact you had on their lives as their coach. 

Never sacrifice winning for making a positive impact. If you win games but enable kids, you did not do your job as a coach. If you won’t hold your best players accountable, you will do two things. First, you will make the kid think the rules don’t apply to him, and second, you will begin to erode your culture. 

Sometimes a kid has to fail to learn a lesson. Sometimes they have to face a consequence that is painful. David Diaz, who I worked for at Columbus High School, was a master at accountability. It didn't matter if you were the running back with 30 offers, or you were the 3rd string guard who rarely played. You were going to be held accountable. Every single guy was held to a high standard, and there is a reason so many guys who played for him went on to be successful. 

Does talent matter? We all know it does. But there are plenty of talented teams that don't do very well, and many less talented teams that exceed expectations. You can't always control the level of talent you have in your program. But you can control your development of that talent. You can control how you develop the mentality of your team. You can control the love you have for your players, and the love they have for each other. 

I would challenge every single coach reading this to coach to make an impact. People always ask how the team is going to be. My good friend, Blake Sandford, used to say, "I will let you know in 20 years." The hard work we put in with our players will show when they are grown men and face adversity. Did we give them the tools they need to be great fathers and husbands? Did we set high standards and hold them accountable? Did we get them to see the greatness they have inside? Were we able to help them bring that greatness out? 

Don't measure yourself as a coach solely by the scoreboard. Your value as a coach goes far beyond what you teach on the field. No player will thank you in 10 years for teaching them how to double team block, or to run a slant route. They will, however, remember the lessons you taught and the values you helped to instill in them. 

Preparation Resources

As you prepare for the upcoming season, I wanted to make available our game planning resources for you! These helped us to have one of the most explosive offenses at every level I have coached. Coaches from some of the top high school programs in the country use these documents to prepare. Coaches at more than a dozen BCS programs have also downloaded these documents to help them in their preparation.

Here is a link to my offensive game planning documents: 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!

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.

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/

 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! 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

All three of these courses are detailed, with everything you need to be more explosive and to score more points. 

The course on communication gives you a detailed approach to your gameday communication. I give you a system and a process to improve the quality of conversations, leading to improved play calling on game day. This course has received outstanding reviews from coaches at all level of football. A coach with multiple state titles told me this course helped them to be much more efficient and explosive this season. 

My two RPO courses take you through a systematic process of installing RPO's into your offensive system. RPO's put the defense in conflict, forcing them to defend all 53 yards of width and all 6 skill players every single play. I not only give you a system, but I teach you the methods to develop your own RPO concepts. 

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

If you want to learn more about installing RPO's, I wrote a book called Installing Explosive RPO Concepts Into Any Offense. I wrote it for iBooks, which includes cut-ups to reinforce the application of these concepts. In the book I give you a systematic process for installing 2nd and 3rd level RPO's. Coaches at all level of football tell me this is a game changer! The book can be found for iBooks here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1078061959

The iBooks version can be viewed on any iPhone, Mac, or iPad. It is a game changer in book technology! This book will give you everything you need to build RPO's 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

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. 

Follow me @coachvint on Twitter! 

I hope you found something in this post you can use with your program! Good luck with your program.