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! 

Everything Matters In Coaching

I was recently speaking at a clinic and had the opportunity to talk about advancing in your career as a coach. It was a great opportunity to share some things that can help young coaches to avoid some common mistakes that can hold them back. We had a great Q and A session, and coaches in attendance told me it was very valuable. I wanted to share three important components to being a better coach.

1. Every Job You Do Matters, Do Them With Great Pride

One of the first duties I had was to line the practice fields.The first time I lined the fields I was miserable. I had a bad attitude and didn't do a great job. I decided not to put hash marks and markings for the numbers. When we went out to practice our receivers didn't know where to line up. The safeties and corners didn't know where to line up. The head coach ripped me in front of the team. After practice he called me into his office and told me that no matter what the job was, do it with pride. He said the reason guys get stuck not advancing often is that they are lazy. He told me if the fields weren't fixed I wouldn't have a job. That was an invaluable lesson to learn as a very young coach.

I had great mentors who taught me that if you want to be given the big jobs you really want, you've got to excel at the jobs you don't want to do. Every time I painted the lines after that I painted them like I was preparing an NFL Field. I learned to be meticulous and make sure the details were taken care of fully.

Every job you get matters. If you are assigned laundry treat it like it is the difference between winning and losing a championship game. And it should be easy, because it just might be the difference. If you are cleaning out the refrigerator in the office, take pride in how clean you get it. Don't do it just to check the box. Clean the refrigerator like it was going to be the difference between getting fired or keeping your job. It matters. I you are inventorying equipment, do it the best it can be done.

If you aren't willing to do the laundry well, you will never be a great OC or DC. If you want to move into a coordinator or head coaching position where you will delegate some of those duties, then you must be good at the duties you will delegate. No one likes doing the laundry and cleaning out the refrigerator, but great coaches take pride in the jobs that no one wants to do.

2. The Weight Room Matters More Than You Could Ever Know

When I first started coaching I didn't love the weight room. It was at the end of a long school day. I was usually mentally and physically tired. David Diaz, one of the best mentors in this business said, "this is the place where our success is built." We will get bigger, faster, and stronger, but most importantly we will get mentally tougher in here. This is where we build our team. This is where we teach our players that details matter. If you don't coach hard in the weight room, you won't be able to coach hard on the field.

The weight room is so much more than just getting bigger, faster, and stronger. It is where team chemistry is built through hard work and accountability. It is where mental toughness is built through accountability. It is where players learn to sweat together in adverse conditions. It is where you get to coach the details to players. You get to have them focus on the little tiny details, which is vital when you get on the field in the fall.

The current head coach I work for, Joe Cluley, takes this a step further. Not only does he want us engaged, but he wants us to bring the juice everyday. When you come in our athletic period it is different. It has a different feel. Every coach greets every kid with enthusiasm as they come in. We all are excited, which in turn increases the excitement of the kids. If we were bored, the kids will be bored as well. We want this to be the most exciting part of their day. The athletic period should not be easy, but it must be electric. We bring the juice from the time the first kid enters our field house until the last kid leaves after practice. The more juice you bring, the more juice the kids will have. Bring the juice every single day. He also holds us accountable to holding our kids accountable.

3. Relationships Matter Most

Relationships are the most important component of what we do as coaches. Winning games is how we get to keep doing what we are doing, and it is important. We have to win to keep our jobs. But the most important thing we do is not win a game.  The biggest ting we do is impact young men through the game of football. We use football as a catalyst to teach accountability, teamwork, trust, and responsibility. We use the game of football to teach young men to put the interests of the team in front of their own self-interests. This all depends on the relationships we build with the men we coach.

The relationships start and end with unconditional love. We love our players as much on their worst day as we do on their best day. It is important as coaches that we never give up on a young man. We must see in them what they do not see in themselves. We must believe in them and find the greatness they have inside. We must take time to get to know them off the field. We are blessed to be in a situation where many of our kids need rides to and from football actives. This gives us a great opportunity to spend time with them talking about life, their goals, their dreams, and their fears. 

Another great relationship builder is having your position group to your house for a cookout. We do this a couple of times a year to spend time with your guys away from football. It also lets them get to know our families. It allows your players to see you away from the game. It is a vital component to building relationships.

To make this work, you must care about your players as people. If you only care what they can do in a jersey you aren't a coach. At that point you are just a spectator. I don't care how much you can draw on a board. If you don't truly care about your players you need to do something else. 

What you have to understand is that the relationship in itself is not the impact. The relationship is what allows us to make an impact. Through the relationship we earn trust, and that allows us to hold athletes accountable. Many people struggle with holding players accountable, but accountability is a key to making an impact. When you hold players accountable to meeting the standards of performance, you are setting them up for success later in life. If you don't hold kids accountable, you are setting them up for failure.

Winning games matters, but making an impact on your players matters more. But here is the deal, if you make an impact on your players, you will win more games. You will have a stronger team bond. If you impact your players, they will impact each other. 

If you want to move up in coaching, you have to be willing to do the jobs know one wants to do and do them well. You have to be a great teacher and coach in the weight room. And most importantly, you have to unconditionally love your players. You have to build strong relationships that will impact your players in the future.

 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

Game and Practice Planning Preparation Resources

As you prepare for the 2019 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/

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! 

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

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.  

12 Keys To Being A Successful Offensive Coordinator

In the nearly 20 years I have been a coordinator, I have learned a lot about what doesn't work. Those mistakes have helped us learn ways to troubleshoot and figure out how to get better. A couple weeks ago a coach I met at the Glazier Clinic in St. Louis called me because he just got promoted to offensive coordinator. We talked about some things I thought were important, and figured this could benefit about anyone who was an OC or aspired to be. Here are some things I have learned that might benefit you.

1. Less Is More
The first and most important thing I have learned is that less is more. I have consistently been way too ambitious with our install menu. If we are going to use 32 formations, 10 runs, 6 passes, 2 screens, and a draw, along with a waggle and a naked boot, we have too much stuff. I used to think running a play is running a play regardless of formation. One season we decided to add new formations each week. Our concepts were the same, but the formations would change.  One week we struggled with our inside zone read play. Our tight end came back to the sideline and said, "coach, it looks different." Even though we ran the same inside zone read concepts, running them from different formations changes the presentation. Our tight end gave us a valuable coaching point that day.

The more you install, the more your players have to process. The more you install, the more they have to remember. It is also important to remember that each team is different. Some groups will have a bigger capacity to learn and remember. Some teams will not be able to handle as much. You have to figure out how much each group can handle.

2. How Much Should We Install
Coaches often will ask me how many plays they should install. There is no concrete answer, but I will say most of us install too much. Realistically you need 1 inside run, 1 outside run, 1 off tackle run, and one counter or misdirection play. You need 2 to 3 intermediate pass concepts, 3 quick game concepts, a play action off your identity run, a sprint out, a draw, and a screen. You run these from 6 base formations. Add one trick play and one exotic formation each week, and you will have more than enough.

You might have one gap inside run and inside zone. You might have a pin and pull concept or outside zone to attack the perimeter. You might have a quarterback who struggles to read though a progression. If that is the case then you want to install key defender reads. Find what works best for your guys.

One important addition is this: You need to have an identity play which you can always run against anyone and anything. Too many offenses do not have an identity. They have a collection of plays, but they don't have an identity of who they are. You need to know your identity and who you are. This needs to be a part of building your install menu and schedule.

3. Think Players Not Plays
When the game is on the line you need to get the ball to your dudes. What you call is important, but who you get the ball to is most important. One of the biggest mistakes I have made is trying to call the perfect play. The perfect play to an average athlete will rarely be a "perfect play." If you call a bad play but get the ball to a dude, he will make it a great play. The best thing to do is call a great play to a great player, but when in doubt, get your dudes the ball. Many a time we have had a huge play on a bad play call because the right guy had the ball.

4. Match Your Philosophy To The Head Coach
This is really important. If you want to run an air raid system and your head coach runs the slot-t, you will have to marry your philosophy to his. If you can't do this, then it isn't a job you need to take. Don't take an OC job to take an OC job. Make sure your values are aligned with those of the head coach. If your head coach wants to slow the game down, then don't walk in there trying to run a bunch of tempo. When Joe Cluley hired me to be his OC at Estacado he laid out his expectations and we made sure we shared the same philosophy. This is vital to the success of our offense and program as a whole.

5. Get On The Same Page With The DC
This is very, very important. You and the DC must be partners. You have to work together to build practice plans and share personnel. You have to be able to bounce ideas off each other and make sure you are always doing what is best for the team. If you don't get along with the DC you will not have as much success and you will be miserable. At Estacado our DC is Cody Robinson, and he is awesome to work with. We have a great relationship and work as a team. We also compete against each other, but we work closely to ensure we maximize the success of the program.

6. Leave Your Ego At The Door
One of the most important things you must know is that it isn't about you. It is about the kids and the program. This goes with points 4 and 5. What is best for your program? What is best for your kids? Never walk in and try to impose your will on situation. You must fit your system to the strengths and needs of the program as a whole. If you want to play fast and snap the ball 90 times a game, but it isn't best for your team, then don't do it. Guys are always talking about stats. The most important stat is the win-loss record. No one person is bigger than the program, including the offensive coordinator. Never forget this.

7. Hire Smart People and Trust Them
I want the best people in football around me. Find people who are very smart, care about kids, and are great teachers. Then listen to them when it comes to building your system. If there is a better way to do something find that way. When you personnel your offensive staff, find a way to put them in the positions where they can best contribute to the staff as a whole. The most important thing you will do is put your staff in place. Give them responsibility and a vested interest in the success of your offense. Give them the authority to coach their guys.

8. Promote Your Staff
As a coordinator your goal needs to be to help the members of your staff grow as coaches and move up in the profession. You want your guys moving on to be coordinators. Do everything you can to help them move up. With that said, make sure your guys understand what it takes to be a coordinator. If a guy comes late all the time or is always the first one out the door, he probably isn't serious about being a coordinator. Find out the goals of the guys you work with and help them reach those goals.

9. Personal Growth Is Vital
The day you think you have it figured out is the day you need to quit. Everyday is a chance to grow. Everyday is a chance to learn. Early in my career I saw a very successful D-1 Head Coach speak at a clinic. After his talk he was sitting in the front row watching the next speaker, a high school coach talk about paired plays. This power 5 head coach was taking notes on a high school speaker. This was a valuable lesson. Every time someone talks football, be ready to take notes.

When a coach visits your school to recruit, ask them questions. Ask them about install. Ask them how the teach a concept or a drill. When you ask, then take notes. Taking notes is a great tool for learning. Taking notes helps you to remember information. It also gives you something to look back on if you do forget. Most guys are smarter than I am. But I know that when I don't take notes I will forget.

The biggest part of this is personal growth. Be willing to grow everyday. Always strive to be a better coach. Always strive to be a great example. Never ask your position coaches to do something you wouldn't do yourself. This is vital.

10. Always Have A Pen and Whistle- 
Every time you talk on the field make sure you have a pen and a whistle. A pen is vital so you can take notes during practice. Too much happens for you to remember everything. Having a pen allows you to write down your thoughts immediately. You might want to look at how you are teaching a blocking scheme, or receiver steps on a route. If you don't write down your thought you might forget it. Maybe you never forget things. That's great. But having a habit of writing things down during practice will help you be more apt to remember.

11. Set Clear Expectations For You Staff and Players
Make sure you have clearly defined roles and responsibilities for your staff. If you don't have clear expectations your staff cannot meet them. This is an area that I struggle with to this day. You have to make sure your staff knows exactly what to expect on a daily basis. Once you set your expectations, hold your staff to those expectations. Your staff will only be as good as the example you set and the expectations you all strive to meet each day. Make sure you are the standard on a daily basis.

Make sure your players understand the expectations and standards you set. When they make a mistake you must first look at yourself. Could they have been coached different? Did they understand the standard? Was the expectation clear? If not, clarify. No one wakes up trying to screw up. Find a way to reach each player. If they don't get something don't give up on them. Find a new way to teach it. It all starts with clear expectations.

12. Preparation Is Vital
When I first became an OC I used to say "we run what we run." It didn't matter what the defense did, we were going to what we did. In theory this sounded great. But this kept me from preparing well. The truth is I really didn't know how to prepare. After that first year as an OC I went back and watched every single play from the season. I watched in disbelief of why we called certain plays. I winged our in game calls. There had to be a better way. I spent a lot of time researching how to prepare. I talked to successful high school and college coaches about how they prepared. I took pages and pages of notes.

During the summer of my 2nd season as an OC we spent a lot of time watching film and practicing our preparation. I built call sheets and began to simulate calling games. I had recorded college games on VHS tapes and would break them down. I would watch the games and try to find weaknesses. This was the beginning of our systematic approach to preparation.

When you prepare you have to watch film. I have written about this extensively, but the biggest deal is that you have to look at their structure, how they line up to formations, what coverages the defense plays, their blitz tendencies, and their personnel. We want to know were we can find leverage, numbers, and green grass, and where we can find a personnel win? Where can we win a matchup. We began to build a weekly menu, a very detailed practice plan, and very precise scout cards. Everything we did had a rhyme and a reason. Regardless of how you prepare, you must spend time in preparation.

Final Thoughts
These 12 keys are by no means an exhaustive list, but they are the 12 things I find most important to being successful as a coordinator. I wrote this looking inward as I need to work on several of these myself. It boils down to this: Be confident in your abilities, but be humble enough to realize it is bigger than you. Don't get caught up in the title of OC. Be a great coach at everything off the field and put the program first.

And remember this; Focus on what you have, not what you don't have. Don't look for the weaknesses in your players. Find their strengths.See the greatness inside the guys you coach. See them not for where they are, but for what they can be. If you see a kid as a backup, that's how you will coach him. If you see him as a starter, that's also how you will coach him. See them for what they can be, then coach them to get there. Also, make sure you let them know what you see them being. That is vital.

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!

Next Level Preparation

A few years ago I was speaking at a clinic about our game planning and an FBS coordinator asked me after the talk to go through what we do. I shared with him our offensive game planning resource and he used it through the spring. He emailed me back that it was a game changer. It was an honor to have him use these documents. After speaking at clinics and hearing that more coaches didn't know where to start, I decided to make these available.

Here is a link to my offensive game planning documents.

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 are a couple of screen shots to show you what our call sheet looks like: 

This shows you a small portion of it. It is a fully editable, customizable two sided call sheet. It gives you the ability to better organize and be prepared on game day. It helped us to be better play callers on game day. There are eight other fully customizable documents! Some of the top high school programs in the country use this, as do several college programs!

When I was a defensive coordinator we adapted this to our defensive preparation! 

Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. 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! 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! 

 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

Game and Practice Planning Resources That Helped Us Win!

Back when I first became a coordinator, I had no clue how to prepare for a game. We used to say, "we do what we do, and we aren't changing." The truth was, I really didn't know how to prepare and organize a game plan. After doing tons of research and visiting a variety of coaches, we began to become much more detailed in our approach to game planning. And boy did it make a difference.

I have been blessed to have had the opportunity to coordinate all three sides of the ball. I have been an offensive, defensive, and special teams coordinator. I have been a coordinator at the college level, and had an opportunity to coach all three phases. It was an amazing opportunity to gain a wealth of experience learning how to game plan and prepare a practice week.

As we began to become more detailed in our approach to game planning, our success quickly increased. We improved our offensive points per game each year. We improved our rushing yards per game. We improved in every statistical category. It wasn't that we found a magic bullet. We just were more prepared on gameday. Our practices became more efficient. Our organization was much better. And while we were more detailed, our game planning took less time on the weekends. We saved ourselves a couple of hours that allowed us a little more time to recharge the batteries. It wasn't that we did less work. On the contrary, we were more prepared than ever before. The difference was that we had a system.

A few years ago I was speaking at a clinic about our game planning and an FBS coordinator asked me after the talk to go through what we do. I shared with him our offensive game planning resource and he used it through the spring. He emailed me back that it was a game changer. It was an honor to have him use these documents. After speaking at clinics and hearing that more coaches didn't know where to start, I decided to make these available.

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! At one time this was $99, but it is available right now for less than $13!

Here are a couple of screen shots to show you what our call sheet looks like: 

This shows you a small portion of it. It is a fully editable, customizable two sided call sheet. It gives you the ability to better organize and be prepared on game day. It helped us to be better play callers on game day. There are eight other fully customizable documents! Some of the top high school programs in the country use this, as do several college programs!

When I was a defensive coordinator we adapted this to our defensive preparation! 

Here is a link to the defensive game planning documents. It includes 12 fully editable and customizable documents. https://sellfy.com/p/AY1u/ These are what we used to post 6 shutouts when I was a defensive coordinator. Defensive coordinators at all levels of football are using this. Again, it is less than $13 right now!

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! It is just $14.99! It will help you win more games. 

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! 

 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