Take Care of the Ball!

 I watched a couple of scrimmages this weekend and one thing that stuck out was how many fumbles I saw. I saw teams putting the ball on the ground far too often. If you want to win more games, start by not turning the ball over. John Heisman had a quote that resonated with me about fumbling. It might sound harsh, but it is also very true. 

A young OC reached out to me to look at their offense after the 2021 season and figure out how to make improvements. He wanted to talk about their scheme, but the real issue was that they turned the ball over too often. They lost 21 fumbles in 11 games. 10 of those were in the red zone. They fumbled 31 times and lost 21 of them. I asked what they were doing to coach ball security. He said they "talk about it" all the time. Talking about it resulted in 21 giveaways. Let's find a better way. 

My dad is a retired coach, and he used to tell me all the time that talking isn't coaching. You can talk about things all day long. What are you doing to coach the skill? Scheme wasn't their issue. Their issue was making a commitment to coaching the details. We started by focusing on taking care of the football. 

We put a plan in place to teach ball security. First, we defined ball security. You must define ball security for your coaches and your players. If they don't know the definition, they don't know what ball security is. Our definition is "Wrist about the Elbow, Elbow tight to the body, ball glued to the chest." We show them pictures of good ball security and bad ball security. Then we have them hold a football properly and coach them through this in a stationary position. 

Second, we have a coaching cue. This is a two or three word phrase that communicates the definition. We used "Chin the ball." Chin the ball reminds them that the wrist is above the elbow, the elbow is tight to the body, and the ball is glued to the chest. 

Block More Kicks and Win More Games

Back when we took over a program where we were at a huge talent deficiency, we needed to do things that would shorten the field offensively. We needed to lengthen the field defensively. Special teams was the way were were able to win games we should not have won on paper. A big part of this is blocking kicks. 

If you look at big games of every level, special teams always play a factor. At the high school level special teams can give you an advantage over your opponent when you are at a talent deficiency. We won a lot of games over the years because we had really good special teams. We also lost a few because of poor special teams. 

Block Kicks

Blocking kicks will help you win more football games. Get really good at blocking kicks. You can't just do this with scheme. You also have to teach your guys how to take the ball off the kicker's foot. When you block a kick, you are going to greatly shorten the field for your offense. 

Most high school punt teams do not have an efficient operation. The snap is not necessarily very consistent. Every single punt should have guys going for a block. Few high school punters are good enough to punt a ball that is going to be returned. Less than 20% of the balls punted to us were returnable. That means on 4 out of 5 punts we were not going to have a chance to change momentum. 

We made a decision we were going to block kicks. In our first year we blocked 9 punts. In our second year we blocked 11 punts in 11 games. We had one game where we blocked 3 punts. 4 blocked punts were returned for touchdowns. The other 7 gave us a short field. 

We also blocked extra points. We won a game 28-27 on a blocked extra point. We won another game 36-35 because we returned an extra point for 2 points early in the game. Too many teams treat extra points as a play off. You can tell a lot about a team by the effort they give defending extra points.

Winning The Scrimmage

 As scrimmages across Texas and the country kick off, I wanted to talk to you about how you win your scrimmage. Every year we had one or two scrimmages depended on when we started practice. 

Scrimmages are extremely beneficial to your program. My favorite part was having the opportunity to compete against another educational institution. Instead of beating on ourselves, we got to physically compete with someone else. 

The first thing I ask as we begin preparing for a scrimmage, is what do we want to take away from this scrimmage? What do we need to learn about our team? This comes down to two things:

1. Who
2. What

This leads us to our definition of winning the scrimmage. The scrimmage doesn't matter for your district standings or for your state playoff seeding. It doesn't count towards your win-loss record. Your scrimmages are about getting good work, evaluating your players and scheme, and coming out healthy.  

It doesn't matter if we scored more times than our opponent, or if we busted off a bunch of big plays. What mattered most to us was having an opportunity to evaluate ourselves, and coming away from the scrimmage healthy. 

Evaluating Our Team

I mentioned previously we were going to evaluate the who and the what. 

Who do we need to see compete to evaluate on our team? What concepts do we need to focus on during this scrimmage? 

The Who

We already know who are top guys are. There are always going to be some guys that are returning and proven. You already know what they can do. I wanted these guys to get some work, but they weren't the focus of our scrimmage. My focus was wanting to see the guys who we needed to evaluate further. 

Call The Touchdown Play

There are two things every man thinks he can do. Every man thinks he can run the BBQ grill, and every man thinks he can call offensive plays. Most people don't understand the preparation that offensive coordinators put into calling plays. They think its like Madden, where you click a button and the play is executed perfectly. Most people don't understand what goes into installing and building an offense, or the work that goes into preparation. Everyone wants to call the touchdown play, and hopefully I can give you some insight today that will help you all more touchdowns. 

What I want to help you with today is being more efficient with your game planning, and ultimately, using your preparation to call more explosive plays. A lot of coaches I talk to and work with are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data that is available, and they get overwhelmed. That can be a difficult struggle when you are trying to prepare a game plan. There is so much data, that it becomes difficult to know what is important.

I talk to coaches who love my game planning resource. They love how it helped them to be more organized, but they sometimes struggle with the call sheet. They don't know what to put in the call sheet, or how to manage it during a game. That struggle comes from not having easily accessible data that you can easily understand. Data always tells a story, but there are times I felt I was illiterate. 

A big part of great play calls is about having great data. I am going to make a much better play call if I know what the defense is going to do. If I know when they are going to bring pressure, I am going to make a better play call. If I know what coverage they are going to play on a particular down and distance, I will give us a better chance of calling the "touchdown play."

For several years I spent hours on end putting together excel spread sheets and trying to manipulate the spreadsheets to determine what a defense is going to do. In 2018 I ran into Danny Davis, who was a field artillery officer. He was taking data and analytics used in the military to make strategic decisions, and working on applying that to football. We got hooked up with him, and it revolutionized what we did. I want to show you how it saved us hours on the weekends, while giving us actionable data that helped us become more explosive. 

The data we got from Danny gave me a very clear picture of what we were going to see from our opponent. We were able to know what front they were going to be in, what pressure they were bringing, where they were bringing it from, and what coverage they were playing behind it. It helped us call more touchdown plays, without having to spend hours putting the data together. 

He built two dashboards for offensive coordinators that helped me to desegregate the data in a way that it made sense. It made it easier to understand what the data meant, and more importantly, gave us a much clearer picture of what the defense was going to do. No longer did I need to filter, sort, use VLookup, or any other excel function. I wanted to share this with you to help you to be a better play caller this season. If you want to schedule a demo with Danny, Click Here 

Before I fill out my call sheet, we need to enter the data into our video program. We are going to enter all of the typical data, Down, Distance, Hash, Yd Line, Play Type, Result, Gain Loss, etc. We need that data to be able to build tendencies. The next part of labeling is we are going to add the formation, motion, and play name for every play run against the defense we are scouting. The reason we do this is we want to be able to look at what defense they played against each formation. 

Once we label those three columns, we are then going to label the defensive information. We create some custom columns to get the data we need. We label the Front, Stunt, Blitz, Coverage, and then # of Blitzers. We then add some blitz direction data. To/Away is to the back or away from the back. Strong/Weak is strong or weak. Field/Boundary, is a blitz from the field or boundary. Those columns only get labeled if they blitz a second level player. 

We divide and conquer to input the data, and we try to do at least three games. We want at least 180 plays if possible. The bigger the sample size, the more reliable the data becomes. Once we enter the data, we export the data to an excel spreadsheet from our video program and upload it into Recon. Once the data is in Recon, the magic happens. 

This is what the Blitz Dashboard looks like, giving us a complete picture of the defense. This was from an opponent that we had broken down four games on. On the left we can see how many times they were in each field zone and what hash they were on, and we can see how many times they faced each down and distance situation. In the middle, we see their coverage and stunt percentages. On the right we see the number of times they brought 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 rushers. On the bottom right shows where the pressure came from. They are an odd front team who bases out of 1 high. 

Go Beyond the Results: 3 Keys to Success This Season

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Defense Game Planning: Keys to Dominating Preparation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three Keys to Building a Dominating Offensive Line

Coaching offensive line is a privilege for any coach. There is no other position like offensive line. In my career I was blessed to have an opportunity to coach every position on the field, and I can tell you that there was no experience that comes close to what it was like to coach the offensive line. It also helped me early in my career as an offensive coordinator. It is vital that an offensive coordinator not only understand the blocking schemes they install, but it is very important they understand the techniques involved in making the blocking schemes work. 

This summer I had an opportunity to work with some offensive line coaches in preparation for the upcoming season. We were able to spend some time talking about what it takes to build a successful offensive line. One thing you have to understand is that the level of talent you have does not have any impact on your coaching. There are going to be seasons where you have better talent than other seasons. That should have no impact on your intensity as a coach. On Friday night and Saturday afternoons there are no excuses. Everything you have done to prepare your offensive line will be on full display. 

If you are a new offensive line coach or you are a veteran, having a successful offensive line comes down to three things. But before I get into the three keys, I want to talk about leverage. Leverage is a huge part of success in football. We define leverage as an advantage. If you have leverage, you want to keep it. If you don't have leverage you need to go get it. We want to have leverage at the point of attack. Sometimes we are blocking a player who has us leveraged. What does that mean? It means he has the advantage. We need to move our feet to work to get our hat to a leveraged position. Sometimes we are blocking a guy where we have leverage. What do we want to do? We want to keep leverage. 

With that said, here are the three keys to building a dominating offensive line. 

First, you have to build unity within your group. This might be the most important factor to having success on your offensive line. You have five guys on the field at a time. If you also coach the tight ends, you might have 7 on the field for some plays. No other position has the same number of players on the field. There must be complete unity among the offensive line. They are a team within a team, and they must function as one. 

There are many ways to build unity, but I have found there is no substitute for spending time together outside of the locker room and field. Have your offensive line guys to the house for dinner. Spend time with them talking about goals as a group. Each year I had the offensive line over before the season and we talked about our unit goals. We spent time talking about what we needed to do to be the best we could be. I took every opportunity I could find to help them to bond as a group. 

When they trust and care about each other, they will work better together. They will communicate in the meeting room and pre-snap. They will be more vocal with their line calls, and they will gain more confidence in the ability of the guy next to them. They will not have to rely on their own strength, but they will draw strength from the group. 

Game Planning Key: Find Their 11th Guy

 Whether you are a seasoned offensive coordinator, or it is your first year leading the offense, there is something important you can and should do every single week when you are game planning. We found this one thing was really good against everyone we played, but especially when we played someone who was very talented. 

When you build your game plan you are are always going to look for leverage, numbers, and green grass. You are going to find the formations you think will give you a numerical advantage. You are looking for great angles for your offensive line. You want to find green grass for your skill guys, because green grass gives you explosive opportunities. You are always going to look at personnel, and today we are going to drill down to one thing within personnel that can give you an advantage.

One thing that is often overlooked is finding their 11th guy. Every single team has an 11th guy. That is their 11th best guy. Everyone, no matter how good they are, has an 11th best guy. Even teams you play that are loaded with 4 and 5 star recruits have an 11th best. 

Most teams you play have at least one guy they are hiding. They have one guy they are protecting because he isn't as talented as their other players. Some teams might have two or three of these guys. When you play someone who is really good, or even someone who isn't as talented, spend time looking for the 11th best guy. 

If the 11th best guy is a defensive end, figure out how you can attack him with your identity concept. If their 11th guy is a corner, find ways to match your best receiver up with that guy. If he is a safety and your best skill guy is an outside receiver, how can you adjust a formation to match up your receiver with that safety? Just because a guy plays outside receiver doesn't mean you can't move him around to match him up on a linebacker or a safety.

One example of this was when we were playing a top ranked team who was very, very good. They ran the 4-3 and played 2 high. They played base most snaps because they could. They had a dominant defensive line and their secondary and outside backers were really good. The Mike was really good, but he was their slowest defender. He was a guy who was very physical, but he didn't run well. We wanted to get him in coverage situations. 

Think Players Not Plays

One of the most important things we can do as coaches is to get our dudes touches. Whether you are playing for state titles or just starting a rebuilding process, you have a best player. You might not have the best athlete on the field, but you always have the best athlete or athletes on your team. Too many guys concern themselves with what they don't have. You will never win a game with guys that are not on your roster. But you will win games if you focus on the guys on your roster, and maximizing their abilities when you build your game plan.

I am not going to get into the psychology of winning right now, but if you don't think you can win, you won't. If you don't think you can score, you won't. If you believe you will score points, you will score more points than if you lack that belief. A big part of building belief is putting your players in a position where they can be most successful. 

When you build your game plan, think players as much as you think plays. When you begin to break down your opponent, look for leverage, numbers, and green grass. Where can we gain an advantage over our opponent? What formation will give us leverage, numbers, and grass? What concept will take advantage of that grass? And then, who is the best player to get the ball to to take advantage of leverage, numbers, and grass? 

That is a simplistic view of building your game plan. The reality is, if we run are throwing a tunnel screen, the tunnel will be more effective and explosive if we throw it to a fast player who can make people miss. If we throw it to a slower player who can't make people miss, the play won't be as effective. Who you are getting the ball to is as important as the play you are calling to get the ball into space. 

Developing Middle School Athletes and Coaches

One of the most important aspects to building a program is developing your middle school athletes. Depending on where you coach, this is going to look very different. There are some places that have well-funded middle school programs that are aligned with the high school, and some places that do not fund middle school sports or have dedicated feeder schools. In my career I experienced both. I spent 8 years coaching in the Bronx, New York, where we did not have middle school athletics or dedicated feeder programs. I have been in Texas for 12 years, where middle school athletics tend to be very well-funded and in some places, are vertically aligned with dedicated feeder schools for the high schools. I am going to address both. 

In the Bronx, there were no athletic programs in the middle schools. Most kids did not play organized football until high school. We invited Pop Warner teams of junior high age kids to use our facility, and to be a part of our program. This helped us to build relationships with the players and coaches. When I got to Texas, I was amazed at how well the middle school athletic programs were funded. I was at a 5A school (Now 6A) at the time, and we had 3 middle schools feeding our high school. Each program was aligned with our high school. We had 5 coaches at each middle school, and they had athletic periods just like the high school. 

Regardless of whether you are in a situation with vertically aligned middle school programs, or you are in a place with no school sponsored junior high sports, there are four things you need to do. 

First, you need to invite youth programs to be a part of your high school program. You want the kids at your games. You want their coaches to promote your program to kids and their parents. In many communities where kids can go to any high school they want, this is vital. You want kids to want to be a part of your program. You need to build relationships. 

When I was in the Bronx, we had a Pop Warner program practice at our field. They practiced after our practice finished, so we had our players hang around for a few minutes before heading in to change. We spent time with their coaches and kids on the field. This built relationships that helped steer kids to our school. When I was in Texas, we had youth teams practicing at our facility. These were 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. I made it a point to spend time at their practices. If you are in a multi-school district, this is a vital part of your plan to get his into your field house. 

5 Keys to Offensive Success

Regardless of what system you run or what level you coach, there are 5 things you need to do if you want to be successful on offense. These five things make a huge difference in the level of success you will enjoy. 

Before I get into the five things you must do, I want to focus on perhaps the biggest mistake we make as offensive coordinators. One of the easiest ways to jack up your offensive game plan is to try to do too much. It is very easy to draw things on the board and come up with a million great ideas. Those ideas always look good on paper and on the board. Then you get into the game, and your players don't execute them very well. You find yourself scratching your head. How come this concept didn't work. 

When you add too much into a game plan, you are going to be frustrated. It is very difficult to be good at anything you do, because you can't rep everything. The most important thing you can do when you build your game plan is to cut things out. Find the best of what you like and build from there. 

Think about this. You are going to snap the ball somewhere between 55 and 75 times a game, depending on how fast you play, how much you throw, and how much time your opponent has the football. If you play fast, and you play a team that plays fast, you might get 85 or 90 snaps. If you play a team that runs the ball and eats clock, you might get 45 or 50 snaps. Even you get 80 snaps in a game, you aren't going to need to run 80 different plays. In fact, you are going to repeat things that are working, and cut things out that don't work. It is okay to run the same play back-to-back, and even three or four times in a row. In 1999 we ran I-Right 42 Iso 16 plays in a row. For 2 straight drives that is all we ran. We scored both drives. We had had an advantage on the right side of our line, and our fullback was better than their Mike. 

If you have something they can't stop, run it again and again and again. As you game plan, look for formations that give you leverage, numbers, and green grass. You may find that team lines up different than you expected to a set, and they don't have a force guy, or they are a hat short. Once you find this, exploit it. 

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...