Using the V Drill to Teach Inside Zone

The inside zone play has been a staple of our offense for years. The inside zone is a downhill, attitude run, where you want to create vertical displacement of defenders. 

How many times have you called a run concept, only to have the back not see the crease? Or, how many times have you given up a TFL on a run through because one of your offensive linemen did not see the backer run through? The V Drill helped us eliminate many of these mistakes and enjoy much more success. 

On the inside zone, we are going to use zone combination blocks. A zone combination block has 2 offensive linemen responsible for a down guy to a linebacker. We are going to get hip-to-hip and create movement on the down guy, with our eyes on the linebacker. Our offensive line must have great eye discipline to see the movement of the backer. 

When we install inside zone, we like to scaffold our instruction. We start with individual drills, then we work in pods. When we work in pods, we will have drill we call the V Drill. We start with the OL working the drill in indy, through a teaching progression. Next, we move to a group POD, where have a running back working with 2 offensive linemen. We will have 2 defensive players, 1 down guy, and one linebacker.

We put the back 4 yards behind the offensive linemen. We start with the defender lined up in between the two linemen and the linebacker stacked. On the whistle, the offensive linemen will come off the ball, fit, and drive. They will have their eyes on the linebacker. If the linebacker fills frontside, the frontside lineman comes off the combo and fits the linebacker. The backside lineman will overtake the defensive lineman. One key coaching point is the lineman away from the backer fill must knock his partner off the combo. This keeps you from giving up leverage and getting split. We also coach the offensive linemen not to chase. 

Growing, Developing, and Promoting Your Coaches

Promote Your People 

If you are in a position of leadership, work hard to promote your people every chance you get. One of your important responsibilities is developing and growing the people who work for you and giving them opportunities to grow in their career. You want to help them grow personally and professionally. If you are a head football coach or AD, you want to help your coaches to be able to pursue opportunities to better their carer. You want to help your coordinators become head coaches, and your position coaches to become coordinators. If you are a coordinator, you want to help your position coaches to become coordinators. If you are a principal, you want to develop your assistant principals to become principals. 

One of the AD's I worked for used to say, "if people aren't fishing in your pond, you need to stock it with better fish." He loved when people would call about coaches on staff. When we hired coaches, he wanted to know what their goals were. He would then tell me as a coordinator to help them find opportunities to pursue their goals. He wanted to see guys have an opportunity to grow professionally and he worked hard to make that happen. 

One of the hardest things to do is to get a head football coaching job in the state of Texas. There are often over 100 applicants for each job, and many of those applicants are more than qualified. Finding coordinator jobs is also very difficult. Most people are going to hire someone they know, or hire someone who is recommended by someone they know. Having people in your corner who can get you to the front of the line is important. It is much harder to get hired if you don't have connections who are respected. This is the same if you are trying to get hired at the college level. Help your guys when they have an opportunity to move up. And if you want to move up, ask your head coach and athletic director to help you do so. 

It is important that you know the goals of your coaches. Know what they aspire to be so you can help them get there. You also can help them grow the skills they will need to take that next step. If you know you have a coach who wants to lead a program, provide him opportunities to learn about budgeting and personnel management. Take him through the day-to-day operations that exist behind the scenes. Help him to learn about the things you do that he doesn't see. 

If you are a coordinator, do everything you can to help your guys become coordinators. Give them responsibility in game planning. Divide the game planning and practice planning tasks up among your coaches. Let them script practice. Divide up your game planning areas and allow them to take on more responsibility. Have them be involved in building the call sheet. Talk to them about the why behind what you are doing. And when an opportunity comes up for them to become a coordinator, help them get that opportunity. 

The Biggest Mistake Coaches Make With Accountability

In my coaching career I have made more mistakes than most. It would be impossible to count the number of mistakes I have made, unless you had one of those NASA supercomputers. Some mistakes I made were bigger than others. 

Today I am going to focus on one of the biggest mistakes you can make that leads to mediocrity. Often coaches don't realize they are doing this, and they don't understand the impact this mistake has on your program. Coaches are very competitive and driven, and want to be successful. The programs that have consistent, sustained success are the programs do not make this mistake.

Everyone focuses on talent with the best teams, and yes, talent matters. But there are plenty of talented teams that underachieve every single year. You might play some of them. Hopefully you aren't one of them. What we are going to look at today has the potential to destroy your program. 

As we look at this, let's focus on two things that you must do. First, you must build relationships with your players. Great relationships are founded on Trust and Unconditional Love. Second, you need to have standards of performance that are clearly defined. If you don't have clearly defined standards, how does anyone know what to do? This seems like a simple question, but many programs don't have clear standards. They have implied or inferred standards. They don't have a standards that help to reinforce their identity. They talk about things, but they don't live them. They live in the world if "ish." Everything important needs to be clearly defined. If you don't have standards, you will not achieve at high levels. 

Now let's get to that one thing... This is what happens at so many programs. What is that one thing...

Inconsistent Accountability to the Standards

Once you have your standards, you need to consistently hold people accountable to the standards, and do so on a consistent basis. You won't tell them what they want to hear, you will tell them what they need to hear. John Wooden said coaching is "correcting someone without causing resentment." This is where trust and consistency are important. Trust and Consistency are foundations of coaches building strong relationships. Most resentment comes from players not trusting that their coaches. They don't trust their coaches because of inconsistencies in correction and accountability. 

There are three ways coaches are inconsistent with their accountability... 

Nascar Tempo: The Great Equalizer

I want to take a few minutes to talk with you about Nascar Tempo, and the value of tempo to your offense. Nascar Tempo isn't a speed we play, it's a way of life. It's how we live. What does this mean? 

Everything we do we want to do with a sense of urgency. You want to have no wasted movements. You want to always be moving from one point to the next, and doing so expediently. Tempo is about being early and on-time. Tempo is about hustle. Tempo is about being determined and focused. 

As an OC, I wanted to find any advantage possible to score as many points as possible. But more important than points scored, was setting ourselves up to win the game. We had to score more points than our opponent. There were seasons where our defense struggled and we had to score more points on offense to win. There were other seasons where our defense was the strength of our team, and we wanted to do everything we could to help our defense. That meant not putting them in bad positions. But at the same time, we always wanted to score. Nascar was always a part of our offense, but we used it strategically based on the situation we were in. 

I look at our fastest tempo as an opportunity to play fast, but we don't just want to play as fast as we can. We want to mix up our Tempos or modes for teams to defend. I recently asked one of my quarterbacks from several years ago if he remembered how many tempos we used. He said sure coach, "fast, faster, and ludicrous speed." That made me laugh, because I showed them the luriscious speed scene from Spaceballs. 

We didn't always play as fast as we could, but had the ability to. There were times we played faster than others. We wanted to have the ability to change speeds. Today I want to talk with you about playing at our fastest tempo, which most people call Nascar. 

Benefits of Playing Fast

I look at Nascar Tempo as the great equalizer. We have the ability to keep the defense off balance, and not allow them to gather themselves between plays. We want to be able to dictate the pace of the game and get the defensive players out of their comfort zone. Defenses also don't have time to substitute. If they try to substitute players, they will have too many on the field. Here is an example from a game where the defense had 13 players on the field when the ball was snapped. They also weren't able to get lined up. 

As you can see, they couldn't get guys off the field or get lined up. 

What Are You Going To Do About It?

At this point your season has ended, and unless you won a championship, chances are your season didn't end the way you wanted. Every year around this time I would visit with my dad who was a retired coach. I would tell him all the things that went wrong, and he would always say the same thing. "What are you doing to do about it?" He didn't phrase it as a question, as much as a declaration that you need to grow and adapt.

As you come out of your holiday break, there is something very important every coach needs to do. You need to take a very deep dive into your program, and decide what you need to do to make it become the best it can be. You need to do this without pride. You need to look at things without letting your emotions or your ego get in the way. 

At the end of each season, I made a list of things that kept us from being our best. This list focused on the following areas: 

• On the field
• Schematics, Personnel, Situational Awareness, Play Calling
• Were we putting guys in a position to be successful? 
• Were we prepared for the situations we faced? 
• Practice
• Organization, Practice Schedules, Install Schedules, Scripts, Time on Field
• Game Day Operations
• Travel, Itinerary, Pre-Game, Pre-Game Warm-Ups, Coach to Coach and Coach to Player Communication, Box Logistics, Workflow, Half-Time Operations, In-Game Adjustments 
• Off-Season
• Program, Logistics, Set-up, Strengths, Weaknesses
• Are we getting guys out of their comfort zone?
• Are we getting stronger, faster, and more explosive?
• Spring Ball
• Organization, Set-Up, Practice Schedules, Install Schedules, Field Set-Up
• Returning Personnel
• Evaluate Personnel, Rate On Board, Who Are Dudes, Who Could Be Dudes, Best Leaders, Position Changes
• Character, Leadership, and Program Culture
• Define our current culture, character level of athletes, how will we improve leadership?

The hardest part of this process was looking at things and not justifying mediocrity. Ultimately, this is how you find the weaknesses in your program that are holding back the success of your team. This brings us back to the question, "What are you going to do about it?"

Once you identify areas of weakness, you need to build a plan to attack these areas of weakness. Depending on where you are as a program, you may have several weaknesses. It is difficult to attack them all. One thing to caution is to be careful that you don't treat the symptoms without treating the disease. During the season you are often going to apply band-aids to stop the bleeding. The off-season is the time when you can go through chemotherapy and treat the actual disease that impedes development.

What I mean is this... Often there is a deeper issue that causes problems within multiple areas of your program. Poor leadership can affect the effort and attitude of your players. This affects their learning. You might focus on improving your meetings and how you teach concepts, but this will only treat the symptom. You have to find the disease within your program. If you treat the disease, the symptoms will go away. 

10 Things Offensive Coordinators Should Do At The End Of The Season

At the end of each season, there were a number of things that helped us to use the season as a catapult for future success. No matter how good or how bad the season went, we were going to need to analyze what we did, how we did it, and who we did it with. We were then going to find areas we could target for improvement. 

In my 20 plus years as an offensive coordinator, I found there were 10 things that I had to do at the end of each season. I call this the end of season analysis. This was developed early in my career and evolved over time. These 10 things gave us enough information to use to improve as coaches, and helped our program to improve offensively. 

1. Run a Self-Scouting Report

    The first thing I did was run a self-scout report. I analyzed our formations and personnel groups, down and distance tendencies, run/pass tendencies, field zone tendencies, and time remaining tendencies. I also broke down our first 3 play calls for each game. While we ran a self-scout report each week, I wanted to look at it after the season as well. One thing I looked for was how well we scouted ourselves during the season, and find where I was tendency heavy. 

2. Make Cut-Up Lists

    After our self-scout report, I made cut-up lists. I made lists by concept first. Next I made cut-ups by formation. Then I put together a red zone cut-up, goal line cut-up, and a backed up cut-up. I then put together down and distance cut-ups. Then we made a cut-up of sacks and negative plays. I wanted a cut-up of turnovers. I also wanted a cut-up of positive plays, touchdowns, explosives, and momentum plays. I did this so I could go through and watch things in groups. Then would mark good and bad plays. These would be watched later by our staff to talk about changes we needed to make in our teaching. 

3. Watch Every Play From the Season

    One of the most valuable things we did was watched our cut-ups of every play of the season as a staff. We did this nearly every year. It typically required early mornings and some evening work to get everyone together. We would talk about each play call, evaluate the call, and talk about what was good and bad about the execution. While we do this, we will take notes on things we need to work on as we begin to prepare for the upcoming season. We also take notes on what defenses did against us, and adjustments they made.

4. Make Notes On The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

    I make a list of what we did well, didn't do well, and things we need to make changes to for the upcoming year. I will make a list of everything from concepts to techniques. I will look at everything on a very detailed scale, drilling down to the small details so we can correct things and improve. 

What About A Partial Scholarship?

It is exciting when a school says they are going to offer you a scholarship to play football at their university. All of the hard work in the classroom, weight room, and on the field have paid off. Whether you are a 5 star D-1 athlete, or you get an opportunity to play at a smaller school, you are part of a very small percentage of athletes who will get a chance to play at the college level. You are a part of an elite group. Less than 5% of high school athletes will have an opportunity to participate in college sports. The transfer portal and additional covid years of eligibility have only made it tougher to earn scholarships.

If you received an offer from a Division 1 FBS university that is either a Power 4 or Group of 5 school, your scholarship will cover all of your tuition, room and board, books, and additional expenses. Any financial aid you are awarded will be stacked on top of that and go into your pocket. But what if you receive a D2, D3, or NAIA offer? What about FCS schools? What does that mean financially? 

I wanted to write this specifically for the student-athletes that are not going to a Power 4 or Group of 5 school. Let's go through each of these and talk about what they mean. 

FCS schools have up to 63 scholarships they can award. Not all FCS schools give out 63 scholarships. To fund a roster of 95 to 115 players and only 63 scholarships to use, they are not going to give every athlete a full ride. They are going to give out many partial scholarships so they can field a full roster. Your offer may be only a partial scholarship, and this is something you must ask. 

**Note: The NCAA just increased the scholarship limit to 105 for FBS and FCS schools due to a house settlement. There are still many details to be worked out. 

NCAA Division 2 Schools have up to 36 scholarships to give to potential football players. Not all Division 2 schools use their full allotment. Very few, if any, athletes are given a full scholarship to a D2 school. Many D2's give out small scholarships to freshmen, and increase the dollar value based on playing time and contribution to the team. 

NAIA schools have up to 24 scholarships. Like D2 schools, they are going to divide these scholarships among 75 to 100 players. Many NAIA schools have limits to how much institutional aid an athlete can receive on top of their football money. 

D3 schools do not give out any scholarship offers. When you are "offered" by a D3 school, they are essentially telling you they will have a roster spot for you. They do not give athletic scholarships, so you will only get financial aid not related to athletics from a D3 school. 

While junior colleges can give up to 85 scholarships, not all use their full allotment. At many junior colleges your football scholarship is partially determined by how much federal financially aid you will get. This way they can recruit more players. 

In each case above, you are most likely getting a "partial scholarship." This means you are going to get a scholarship to cover some part of the cost of attendance. Scholarships are as small as $250 a year. Some partial scholarships are $5000, or $10,000 a year. The key is that the scholarship is only going to cover part of your cost of attendance. 

What does this mean for you, and what do you need to do to put yourself in the best position possible? 

1. Before you sign, ask to see the financial breakdown. Ask the school to show you the numbers. Many times I have heard from parents who thought their son was getting a full ride, only to find out they were getting a scholarship worth $1,000 or 2,000 dollars. The college can give you an estimated breakdown of costs if you provide them your income and family size information. If you have filled out the FAFSA, they can give you a very accurate picture of what your financial obligations will be to attend their school. YOU MUST SEE THIS BEFORE YOU SIGN!

I have seen many young people sign their letter of intent, only to find out later they were going to have to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket, take out student loans, or a combination of the two. If you are going to a D2, D3, or NAIA school, expect that you will have to pay some money out of pocket. 

Balancing Relationships With Accountability and Discipline

One of the most difficult things a coach must do is balance relationship building with building accountability and discipline in your program. There are coaches who are powerful relationship builders, and other coaches who are very good at building and developing discipline. The truly elite coaches are able to develop a perfect balance between the two, knowing when they must be more relational, and knowing when they must build discipline through accountability. 

You have probably heard coaches referred to as strong relationship builders. Their players will run through a wall for them. This is a powerful testament to the ability of these coaches to reach athletes. Building relationships is important to being a successful coach and running a successful program. One of the pitfalls of relational coaches, however, is when they struggle with holding their athletes accountable. They especially struggle with holding their best athletes accountable.  

When you build relationships but don't have accountability, you basically have become a "friend" to your athletes. They already have friends, and so do you. Kids don't need a friend. They need someone who will challenge them, and bring out the best in them. This doesn't happen through fiery speeches, or from coaches jumping around and being excited. 

Here are the six issues that come from coaches being relational, without having accountability. 

• Your athletes will make undisciplined mistakes.
• Your athletes will quit when they face adversity or get behind.
• Your athletes will not know how to respond to coaching.
• They won't understand what is happening when someone holds them accountable. 
• You will lose to people you shouldn't lose to from a talent standpoint.
• You will have more players quit during the season. 

How many of you have seen this at some level within your own teams? I have been a part of programs where you have great relationship builders, but the program lacks standards and accountability. Everything you do matters. You are either developing accountability, or you are developing entitlement. There is no in between. You can't talk people into being disciplined, and you certainly can't develop discipline and accountability by being a "good" guy. 

I also was in a program that was led by someone who didn't do a good job of building relationships. He thought that discipline was developed by being a jerk all the time. His players feared making a mistake, which made them robots on the field. They also were miserable and often quit in high numbers. Program retention struggled. Being too far on one end of the spectrum will lead to failure.

Strike A Balance

The key is strike a balance between relationship building and setting standards and holding people accountable to the standards. When a program has a very relational head coach but lacks discipline, you will only go as far as your talent will take you. You will not have consistent mental toughness. You will be really good when things are easy to moderately difficult. But when we faced someone who was mentally tough and more together as a team, you will lose all of your self-discipline. You will find yourself with a group of veteran players who hav a sense of entitlement. They know they wouldn't be held accountable, and this will lead to losing some games you should have won. You have to be continue to build strong relationships, but you also have to love your players enough to set boundaries and hold them accountable. 

The ultimate goal is for every single player in your program to develop self-discipline. But before people can develop self-discipline, they need to have someone hold them accountable to develop that discipline. 

So What Do You Need to Do?

Correcting this imbalance isn't easy, but is also not rocket science. It is actually very simple in theory, but difficult in that relationship builders have to get out of their comfort zone. Relationship builders struggle with making people uncomfortable. They want to please people and make them happy. In itself, this is not a terrible thing. But when you don't have a balance with standards and accountability, you limit the potential of your team. The hard part about this is that you are going to have to be willing to change, and change is hard. I recommend having a mentor who is strong in this area that can help you go through this process. 

First, you have to have a set of standards that are unwavering. You set clearly defined standards and expectations that will raise the level of the performance of those in your program. You need standards for the classroom, weight room, and on the field. Your standards are not going to adjusted to the individual, because they don't rely on ability. These standards all are things that take zero talent. What do you stand for? If you stand for nothing, you will fall for everything. Your standards are bigger than football. Your standards will carry people through life. The best part about your standards, is they take zero talent or ability.

Some examples of academic standards would be: 

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. 

How Much Is Too Much Part 2: Fully Installing Concepts

    This is the second installment on my series on How Much is Too Much? Today I want to talk to you about what it means to "fully install" a concept. One of the biggest issues we have as offensive coordinators is that we install a bunch of concepts, but we don't "fully" install them. We end up with a lot of play calls that are what we would say are good calls, but due to a lack of execution, they become bad calls. They aren't going to work against a particular defensive look, and we have limited answers in place.  Bad play calls stall drives and lead to multiple three and outs. I have had plenty of these in my career, and many stem from trying to do too much. 

A fully installed concept has the following 7 components

1. The concept base install

2. Blocking rules installed against each front you will see

3. Perimeter Blocking Rules and adjustments

4 Complementary Plays to take advantage of defensive answers

5. Play Action Component to take advantage of secondary support on runs

6. Route adjustments that can be made to attack coverage on passes

7. Reverse or trick play using the action of the original play 

    A full install is far beyond knowing the rules of a play, and your assignment. A full install of a play means that you can install that play, run it versus any front or coverage, and you have answers to the different adjustments defenses will make. When you have a concept fully installed, your players know how to adjust on the fly. They can change their path, their route, or their footwork. The back can adjust his path. The QB can adjust his read. Your players can make sight adjustments, and the coaches have complementary concepts that take advantage of defensive answers. You have to have answers for the answers of the defense.

    Let's look at midline option when installed fully. When midline is fully installed, we could run it against any front and any blitz. We had built in answers to the adjustments defenses made. We had if/thens built into the play. We had easy in-game adjustments that allowed us to handle different things the defense might do. Our kids could sight adjust based on how the defense lined up. We were able to successfully run the play anywhere on the field, against every opponent we faced, and we were able to have consistency. It wasn't a feast or famine concept. We had complementary tags that helped provide us answers to what defenses did to take midline away. 

    If they lined up in two high safeties, our receivers did one thing with their blocking. If we got 1 high safety, our receivers made an adjustment. Our playside guard changed his path based on the alignment of the read key and the defensive front. Our tackle and tight end would adjust their blocking based on whether there was a down guy in the C gap. 

    From the box, I could see what the defense was doing to try to stop midline. We typically saw three things defenses would do. First, they would scrape exchange with the 3 technique and the Mike backer. Second, they would have the Sam fall-in on the quarterback. Third, they would have the backside inside linebacker playing fast over the top to take the dive. We needed answers to those three adjustments. If they reduced their front, then we had ways to answer that as well. 

    We had complementary tags to take advantage of their adjustments. If they scrape exchanged, we would run our give scheme. If the Sam fell in on the QB, we would run mid triple which we tagged Mid Pitch. If the Will was fast over the top, we would run follow opposite. If the 3 tech was fast upfield, we would trap him. Below is an example of midline with complements. 

    We also had four play action concepts we ran off midline option to take advantage of secondary adjustments. If the Mike was playing triggering fast, we would throw a pop to the TE. If the safety was screaming downhill, we would run a post. If the corner was playing pitch, we ran verticals. We also ran the TE on an arrow off midline action if the Sam was squatting. 

How Much Is Too Much? 5 Negatives When You Install To Much

How much is too much? This is the age old question of offensive coordinators everywhere. At what point do we have too much installed? Why does this even matter? Is there such a thing as too much?

The first thing I will say is that I never once thought we had too little installed. There never was a season where I said, man, we didn't have enough in our system. There have, however, been several seasons where we felt we had too much installed. And often, it showed on the field. 

When you have too much installed, there are 5 things that you will find. 

1. You never get good at anything

2. Your players can't execute at a high level

3. Your coaches struggle to troubleshoot during games

4. It becomes harder to call plays, especially the right plays

5. You don't have an identity. 

    When you have too much installed, it is hard to be good at anything. You will find that you become really good at being average. How many times have you called the perfect play, only to have a kid bust on assignments? This is going to happen at times, but it is going to happen far more often when you have too much installed. 

    I equate installation to a jar full of sand. Once that jar gets full, you put the lid on. You can't add any more sand because there isn't any room. When you add some more sand to the jar, you can't put the lid back on. If you do get the lid on, you risk the jar breaking. How many times have you overloaded your players to the point they can't execute? Everything you install has to be practiced. It has to be rehearsed. You have to be able to run it against any front. The more things you try to do, the less time you have to practice each thing. 

    Another big issue that comes up is troubleshooting. When you have too many plays in your playbook it makes it really difficult to troubleshoot. Your guys come to the sideline after a series, only to be overloaded with information. They are not going to be able to process that information.  Your kids won't be able to make adjustments on the fly. If I am a receiver who has to adjust my blocking based on who the force guy is, I have to be able to determine if this is one high or two high. I have to know based on depth, eyes, and leverage if the corner is a force guy, or a deep zone dropper, or playing man. The more I have to remember, the harder it is going to be for me to make an adjustment and block the right guy. It is why we have receivers blocking no one. They are unsure. This happens all the time in games. Or, a guy will run the wrong route. An offensive lineman will step with the wrong foot. Having too much creates confusion and makes it harder to troubleshoot. 

    The hardest thing to do as a play caller is choose the right play to call when you have too much installed. You are looking at your call sheet, and it is just filled with information. There are really great things on your call sheet, and you can't pick what to call. Or, you can't find something you are looking for. You become indecisive. When you are indecisive you are not going to be as effective as a play caller. If you are targeted in your preparation, you will find yourself being a better play caller. 

    What is your identity? You have to have an identity concept if you are gong to be successful. What is the one play that you can run in your sleep when you need a first down? What is the one thing people must be able to stop if they are going to beat you? That doesn't mean you aren't good at other things, but knowing your identity and identity concept are vital for you to be explosive on offense. Your kids also feed into your identity. When you don't know your identity, they won't know your identity. 

    This is the big challenge coaches face each season, and each game week. How much is too much? It is going to be different for each team. What works for one team may not work for another. Some teams have a higher football aptitude. When a backup is in the game, your call sheet might be limited even further. The less they have to learn, the more effective they will be able to be. 

    As you prepare for the upcoming season, ask yourself these three questions.

It's Camp Season!

Camp season is upon us, as colleges across the country will be hosting opportunities for student athletes to get exposure this summer. There are one day camps, three day camps, elite camps, satellite camps, and more. During this time of year I get bombarded with questions about camps from prospects and parents. 

First: Camps Are A Time For Evaluation

    Camps give college coaches a chance to do three things. First, they get to watch you move in person. They get to see you live and watch you perform. They see first hand your athleticism. They see your ability to change direction. The watch your footwork, your speed, quickness, and explosiveness. Do you have good hip flexibility? They are also going to see if you can make plays against elite competition. 

    Next, they are going to see how coachable you are. They get a chance to work with you through drills, and see how well you respond to coaching. Do you listen when you are given instruction? Do you listen when other players are getting instruction? Do you take reps, or do you hang in the back of the line? Do you hustle around? 

    Finally, they get to see if you pass the eye test. Are you big enough to play there? Are you really the height you say you are? Do you really weigh what you say you weigh? Do you have long arms? 

    Ultimately, they are going to determine if you will add value to their program. Will you help them win more games? Can they see you elevating their program? 

Next: A Camp Invite is NOT an Offer

    The University of Texas has come through your door to talk to your high school coach. They leave several camp brochures, and tell the coach they want to see some guys at camp. A Graduate assistant sends you a DM inviting you to camp. You get excited because Texas is your dream school. Up until this point they have not talked to you one time.  You were backup on varsity, and are undersized for your position. You sign up for the camp, and send the coach a link to your film. You go to camp, have the best day of your athletic career, and never hear from them again. This scenario gets played out thousands of times each year.

    Getting invited to camp does not mean a school is recruiting you. Question: Why would a college invite guys to camp that they aren't interested in recruiting? Great question. The answer is that they want a good turnout. They want the energy. You might think they would only want the guys they are recruiting. But that is really a non issue. You see, when they finish stretching and break into positions, athletes will then be grouped by ability. If you are a guy the school is recruiting, you will be grouped with the best players. You will be coached by the position coach. The guys who aren't being recruited will be grouped with the lesser talented players. They will be coached by a "guest" coach. This might be a Division II or Division 3 Coach, or a coach from outside who is hired to work the camp. This isn't a bad thing, and gives you an opportunity to be evaluated by a coach you might be able to play for.  

    Understand that when that college coach invites you to camp, he may just be looking for a guy to fill a spot. If the school hasn't talked to you at all before inviting you to camp, they probably aren't interested in evaluating you at camp. They want you at camp to increase the numbers. That doesn't mean you are a bad player, it simply means you aren't going to get an evaluation from the host school. 

Focus On Schools Where You Can Play

    You want to focus on attending camps at schools where you can play. If a school is actively recruiting you, their camp would benefit you. If a school does not know who you are, you are probably going to be a donation. Everyone wants to go to Alabama, or Oklahoma, or Ohio State, or some other major FBS Power 5 School. But realistically, if those schools haven't talked to you before camp, you are not going to come out of camp with an offer. Here are a couple simple things you can do to determine if you can play at the school: 

    Look at their roster. Are you comparable to the height and weight of the players they are recruiting? Do you have the grades and test score it would take to be admitted into school? Do you have similar statistics in high school to the guys they are recruiting, and are on their roster? This is a quick way to know if you even have a shot at being recruited by a school. 

    It is very rare that a player who is not being recruited walks into an FBS camp and earns an offer. While I say it is rare, it can happen. But it happens because you do something that "wows" the coaches. Several years ago I was at a camp at an FBS school, and a linebacker from a tiny high school showed up. He had no offers. The coaches tested 40's at the start of the camp, and he ran a 4.4. That got him some attention. He then did really well in every drill. When it came time for 1-on-1's, he covered running backs and tight ends like a blanket. He left camp with an offer. His 40 time became a difference maker. He did something that wowed the coaches. 

 Have A Camp Plan

    If you want to make the most of camp season, you have to have a plan. You don't want to go to camps to be a donation. You want to go to camp to increase your chances of earning a scholarship. You aren't going to be able to attend camps every day during the summer, nor do you want to. You want to make sure you are attending workouts with your own team, and you don't want to burn yourself out and risk injury attending camps every single weekend. Over the years I have seen many really good players pull a hamstring or a quad because they attend too many camps. You have to have a plan for your summer. If you finishing your junior year, it is vital you have a plan. You have one shot to earn a scholarship. 

    First, make list of schools who you have actually talked to. Then, find out when those schools are offering camps. Put those camp dates on a calendar. Look at your school workout schedule. if there are dates where a camp is offered when you don't have workouts, that is a camp you want to attend. See which camps are offered in close proximity and similar similar dates. If you are traveling over 2 hours to go to camp, try to find a couple of camps you can attend in that area. You might go to one camp on a Friday, and another on a Saturday. You can also set up campus visits when you attend camps. While there aren't a lot of students on campus, this gives you an opportunity to see the campus of a school you are interested in. 

Prepare For The Camp

    The first time you run a 40 should not be at camp. Make sure you are attending summer workouts for your own team. In addition to working hard in the weight room, make sure you are working on your speed and agility. Don't go into camp without being prepared to have a great performance. Over the years I have seen a number of guys go to camp as a prospect, and leave as a suspect. I have seen guys at the top of the board end up off the recruiting board because of a bad camp performance. Make sure you are prepared. 

Camps Are An Audition

    Camps are your chance to audition for college coaches. It is your opportunity to show the coaching staff that you have the ability to play at their school. Do you have the measurables they require? Do you have the athletic ability they are looking for? Do you have the right mindset and attitude to be a championship player? Everything you do at camp will be evaluated. Treat the camp as a business trip. You are not there to clown around and make friends. You are there to make an impression. 

Wear Something That Sticks Out

    This is key! If you look like everyone else, you will make it harder to get noticed. Wear a colorful bandana or wear your hat backwards. Get bright colored cleats and bright colored gloves. These are examples of things that will help you get noticed. When there is a break the coaches will be talking, and they will say, "hey, did you see the kid with the backwards hat running routes? He's explosive!" Or they will say, "hey, that kid with the bright orange cleats is the kind of guy we want." If you look like everyone else, you won't get noticed. 

    Always have a bag in the car with a couple of options. If you show up at a camp and a bunch of guys have something similar to you, it is good to have a backup. I always tell guys to bring a backup pair of cleats as well. You don't want to have a pair of shoes rip and then you can't perform. 

    With that said, your athletic ability, coachability, and effort are the most important things. Wearing something to differentiate yourself doesn't help if you don't perform. Make sure you go out there and compete.

Camps Are Important

    If you don't attend camps, you are going to reduce your chances of earning a scholarship. If a school tells your high school coach they really like you, but they need to evaluate you at camp before they will offer you, go to the camp. Over the years I have seen many athletes wonder why they are being "slept on" when they didn't go to any camps. Colleges won't recruit you if they don't know who you are. And just having a good film is not enough. You need to go to camps, and it is important you make sure you go to the right camps. 

4 Keys To Getting An Athletic Scholarship

For most of my coaching career I have been heavily involved in recruiting. I have been a high school recruiting coordinator for over 17 years, helping our athletes to get recruited. I also coached at the college level, where I evaluated and recruited student athletes. Over the years I have directed camps and showcases, and hosted recruiting seminars for parents, prospects, and coaches. 

Recruiting is ever-changing. It never stays the same. But one thing remains unchanged. It is competitive. There will be over $3.6 Billion in athletic scholarships given by NCAA schools this year, and another $500 million or so given by NAIA schools and junior colleges. Only 2% of high school athletes will earn any sort of scholarship. Most scholarships are going to be partial, but regardless of the amount, can help make college more affordable. 

How do you get recruited? How do you become one of those 2%. What does it take for you to earn an athletic scholarship? There are four things that parents and prospects must know when it comes to scholarships. 

1. You have to be talented

    

    If you do not have talent, you most likely will not be recruited. This is important to understand. Coaches need to have a reason to recruit you before they will do so. What do you do that no one else can do? If you don't separate yourself, your recruiting will be limited. Before you can earn an athletic scholarship, you have to be a very talented player. Can the college coach see you having the ability to help them win more games? Talent is often measured based on your film. 

2. You have to have the measurables

   

    Recruiting is a lot like a beauty contest. If you run a modeling agency, it doesn't matter how good someone can walk, if they don't have beauty, you won't hire them. This is how measurables work. If you are the best offensive linemen in your state, but you are 5'11," your chances of being recruited are slim. If you are 6'6" and 275 pounds, you will get interest based solely on your size. 

    There are certain measurables that college coaches are looking for at each position. For some schools, not meeting their measurables means they will not offer you a scholarship. They are going to look at your height, weight, wingspan, shoe size, hand size, body type, and more. Again, how are you going to set yourself apart? The better your measurables, the better your chance at a scholarship. If you don't have the measurables, it makes it harder to earn a scholarship. 

3. You have to gain exposure

    No one will recruit you who doesn't know who you are. You have to get your name in front of college coaches. You have to attend camps and showcases. One of the biggest myths in recruiting is that if you are really good, coaches will find you. This simply isn't the case. There are literally thousands of really, really talented athletes who don't get recruited each year, that are good enough to play. They aren't getting recruited because no one knows who they are. 

    When you make a decision that you want to play college sports, you have to immediately begin to put your name out there. You have to be willing to do the leg work to get yourself known. If you come from an elite high school program, coaches might find you. But if you are like most kids who come from less well-known programs, you have to be very proactive. Reach out to college coaches. Go on their website and fill out their questionnaires. Go to camps and showcases. Use Social Media. There are so many things that you can do right now. If you want to be recruited you have to be willing to get your name out there. Just like in sales, the more contacts you make, the more chance you have of someone being interested in you. 

4. You have to have good grades. 

    The first thing a college coach asks for is your transcript. If you have below a 3.0 GPA, you are sabotaging yourself. The number of schools who can recruit you is reduced every tenth of a point your GPA falls. Every time you get a zero on an assignment, you sabotage yourself. 

    Getting good grades starts with being in class, and being there on-time. Second, you put your phone away and look at the teacher. Listen to them and take notes. Then, complete your classwork in class. Never say, "I'll do it at home" when the teacher gives you time to work on things in class. And when you do get homework, do it. Homework should be the first thing you do when you get home. Don't turn on the game system or FaceTime your girlfriend until your homework is done. 

    If you are struggling in class, go to tutorials. Your teachers will help you. Someone right now is reading this and saying, "but my teacher won't help me, she's mean to me when I ask for help." That may be true. It might be because your teacher is mean. Or, it might be because you haven't put forth much effort in class, and the teacher wants you to work harder. If the teacher doesn't like you, ask yourself what you need to do to change. Most likely, you have done some unlikable things. College coaches don't want to recruit guys that aren't going to do well in school. And if your GPA is too low, they can't recruit you. It is vital you do well in school. 

    Part of having good grades is knowing what your core GPA is. Your core GPA is not your overall GPA. Your core GPA is based on your math, English, science, social studies, and foreign language courses you take in high school. These courses must be on your school's 48H form. If you don't know what this form is, see your counselor. It lists every NCAA approved core course offered by your high school. I have seen kids lose scholarships because they took courses that didn't count towards the NCAA core course requirement. 

BONUS KEY: Your highlight film matters! Your film with either move you up the recruiting board, or move you down the recruiting board. Your film might even get you taken off the recruiting board. Your highlight film should only be highlights. Don't put average on film. 

Make sure you put your best plays first. Don't put plays in chronological order. Put your most explosive plays first. If they would say WOW, then that play should be the first thing they see. Don't worry if your film is too short. Don't put average plays on film to make it longer. This is a huge mistake too many prospects make. Only show them film that would make them want you to be a part of their program.

    

HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TODAY TO GREATLY INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF A SCHOLARSHIP! Recently I made my recruiting webinar available online for parents and prospects. This has hours of valuable information that will help you with the entire recruiting process. It has everything you need to navigate the recruiting process. For less than the cost of attending a college camp, you can learn everything you need to know to increase your chances of earning a college athletic scholarship! Click the link below to take advantage! I have put this on sale for a limited time! Click HERE to take advantage of this offer!

How to Win The Recruiting Process Course!

Here are the downloadable resources that are included in this program!

Click THIS LINK to save a few extra$$! 

You will get lifetime access to all the materials in this course! You will get 24 hour access to watch the videos. That way, you can watch at your convenience. 

This course has literally everything you need as a parent or prospect to greatly improve your changes of earning a scholarship! I take you the entire process, teaching you what you need to do, and how you need to do it. I educate you on some very important details that will help you to better navigate the entire recruiting process! Click the link to get your discount, and improve your chances of earning a scholarship. 

Additional Resources for Coaches:

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

Installing Post-Snap RPO's

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

Building An Elite System of Gameday Communication

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

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

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

https://coachtube.com/users/coachvint

  

The Return of the Fullback

Football has gone through many evolutions and cycles over the last 152 years since Rutgers and New Jersey (Now Princeton) squared off in the first known American Football game. Every year there are new wrinkles and fads. I have found, however, that even though there are new wrinkles, nearly everything is built off a foundation that comes from the early years of the game. You still find teams today running the single wing, which carries roots into the early years of football. On the other side you have teams that run the air raid, where the throw the football all over the field. 

One of the great parts about the game today is how diverse it is. While the game is ever-changing, it also stays the same in foundation. Regardless of what system you run on offense, the game comes down to blocking, ball security, and explosive plays. And defensively, it comes down to lining up right, playing fast, and tackling. 

The Return of the Fullback

One thing I love about football today is that two back formations have been making a comeback. In the early 2000's, many teams began to run the "spread." Spread is a broad term, but we saw more athletes on the field and less tight ends. You had the quarterback in the shotgun instead of being under center. Over the last 10 years or so, we have seen more and more teams starting to bring back tight ends and fullbacks. The fullback is a lost art in football. 

The fullback is essentially a 6th blocker in the game. If you can find a fullback who has dynamic talents where he can run and catch, you have something special. Back in the late 90's when we faced several wing-t teams each year, the key to the offense was the fullback. We used to say, "if we can stop the fullback trap and belly, we will be okay." The better the fullback, the tougher teams were to defend. 

In our own offense in the late 90's, we were based in the I. The key for our success was our fullback. Our fullback had to be able to block, catch, and run the football. We wanted a big guy with some speed. The biggest key, however, was their physicality. They had to be able to kick out an end, lead up on a linebacker, and break tackles on our option concepts. The more physical they were, the better we would be. Defenses began to load the box to take the run. We used option concepts to read defenders and gain a numerical advantage. One key to a successful run game is being able to equate numbers in the box. 

Today we are seeing teams in the shotgun using an H back like a fullback. Sometimes, they call him a sniffer back. He is leading up on linebackers, kicking out ends, and running pass routes. Offenses also move the fullback and tailback around, creating opportunities to get change the numbers. The one difference is that the "new" fullbacks are not going to get as may carries in the run game as they would under center. Offenses have also taken "option" football to another level, reading first, second, and third level defenders. 

One advantage in the shotgun, is that you can borrow your fullback to change numbers much easier than you can when under center. When you are under center, you have to run a slower developing play to bring the fullback across the formation. In the gun, you can have your fullback work immediately across the formation, changing gap fits.