Worst to First- Jupiter Florida- Bill Powers

OJW,

They are manhandling 4A teams as well.
Their O-line coach Tom Morton is pretty amazing guy.
Remember they didnt have 40 kids when Bill showed up, they had 12 and the 12 he had had been beaten down pretty bad. He recruited the halls pretty hard. Got the lacrosse kids to play football and football players to play lacrosse. HE head coaches both. His QB is a pretty good hockey player etc

Once they had a little success that first year (10-2) they were able to add numbers.

Their Spring Game film is pretty amazing, manhandled a 4A team and WITHOUT, Will Powers, he was out after the first quarter with a high ankle sprain.

I think what Bill has done is as much about developing winners in the kids minds rather than a bunch of great Xs and Os. There is zero intimidation when those kids come out to play a bigger team. You dont se them get too excited when they win those, his kids fully expect to win every game. They feel they have too much invested for it to go any other way.

Then he works the heck out of them, unreal intensity and economy going on in everything they do. Seems like everything revolves around just a handfull of critical success factors. Like many at that classification, he has kids playing out of position to make it work. His kid played offensive tackle AND FB as a Soph, yep they had a #65 in the backfield on a number of snaps.

FYI I saw the all time record in this school for the 400, it was 53.1
In my HS we had at least 8 kids my senior year that ran 53.1, heck I probably could have still run 53.1 8-9 years ago. I did a double take, thought maybe it was the girls board LOL. They havent had a single DI kid come out of there since Bill has been around, not many teams looking for 185 lb linemen or 5'8" QBs etc. Hes started o-linemen under 150 etc, thats why his boy was playing tackle rather than FB.

He has several coaches that have been with him right up through Pop Warner, they are just as intense and committed as he is. They are all on one page, almost all of them are very successful business guys who arent used to losing at anything. HEck one believe it or not ( I know this guy pretty well) is a very successful Yaht Broker. Bill was a very successful stock broker and business owner etc who used a lot of processes to build up his kids the same way he used with his employees in the business he owned. In the end motivating people is motivating people and processing information is processing information, making good decisions are making good decisions, if you are good at it, you are good at it.

I dont think Ive ever seen a HS team that runs the FB trap better than JC. Watch the kids effort on those clips, every kid playing to the whistle. Spot on execution. HEck even the QB is getting out on every one of those "I" running plays and going hard to the whistle and that kid is a pretty descent passer and a runt to boot.

Thanks Dave,
It says alot about Coach Powers' "power" to get kids to do things.

The same can be said about the future "hall of fame" Coach Corky Rodgers from Bolles in Jacksonville-guy can just flat out coach.

It also says alot about 1B, none of us have very many D1 kids on the roster, it's small school football.
But these guys at Jupiter Christian beat much higher classification teams. But, these teams they are beating probably don't have any D-1 kids on their teams either.

In the state championship game, Jupiter Christian looked like a micro NFL team. It was strange, and I'm not explaining myself very well. But they ran their plays their players had college/NFL type movements.
Still can't explain what I mean, it was just the way they did executed their blocks, their stances, the plays themselves-they didn't look mismatched in size of linemen, their stances were perfect...stuff like that.

The fact that Coach Power went 10-2 his first year says alot more to me than where they are now.
But as they all say..."1B is still 1B" but these guys are playing ball like a decent 4A team.

My kids are 1B, we look like a 1B team-mismatched linemen, a couple at 300 a couple at 150LB, Backs that are too short, or too tall, stuff like that. Jupiter doesn't look like that.

Also, they are fairly large 1B at 200 kids. I have 100 kids in the whole school. Also at this level, coaching goes a long long way, but also just a just little bit of real talent.

OJW

Fortunately for me, I got to see him/work with him on 3 different days and shared a restaurant meal 2 times with him. If Im a young coach, thats the type of guy you want to work for, knows his stuff, wastes zero of anyones time with zero fluff.
Humble, but confident and helpful.
Yes all their coaches demand perfection of what the kids can control, they dont compromise. OJW Your observations dont surprise me at all.m but I did see a number of fairly scrawny linemen and the QB looked like one of my 8th grade kids.

Their biggest "stud" is Powers son and hes just 5'7" and 185.

OJW Im sure your 100 student population deal is a real hurdle, not sure how you do it, must be a bear.

Remember Jupiter will play 3 4A teams this year and 1 5A team, all schools with 1500+ population. They did fine against those types last year, they expect to do the same this season as well. They blew out a 4A team in their Spring game.

Thanks, Great question I failed to ask, Ive only done 3 interviews so far, wont make that same mistake again, sorry.

They are very big on quick first 2 steps by their OL. Their O-line coach is Bills buddy and feared/respected/revered by entire staff. Their o-line play is considered the cornerstone of the team and "skilled" players are expected to chip in if the numbers dictate, and they arent starting, no matter their size. Their best 11 see the field no matter what.

They are huge on 100% effort for 4-5 seconds and swinging the o-linemens hips into the hole etc. watch the clips, pretty amazing how they play to the whistle on every snap, even the QB etc

Coach Orr,

Thanks, the link to clips was at the bottom of the article.
You can also just use the youtube search function and put in Jupiter Christian or Will Powers

Will is currently being recruited by one of the Academys if memory serves.

Sorry, I got distracted reading the other articles. Does Epley in the other article, currently have his 12 week summer workout completed so one might look at it?

Cool, they teach hands.

I used to teach shoulders, but changed some years ago; however, I still teach shoulder skills for Gap, Trap and Down blocks. Also, if you are a running team who is gap scheme, I like the idea of shoulder skills if linemen's butts are in the air and they are firing off the ball and there is some misdirection going on in the backfield.

A friend of mine who used to coach in Kansas and Nebraska once told me that the new techniques being taught of hands is not generally applicable to most high school kids, because you are not able to recruit kids nor are kids fully developed in their upper bodies (for the most part) to manhandle a guy consitently and get movement.

He ran a inverted bone (hambone, diamond), which was predicated on the inside trap, sweep and counter. It seemed to me to have all the benefits of a good offense: misdirection, bringing guys in close in a double tight set, (I think good offenses bring em in tight or spread em out), being able to outflank teams, run the option, good play action and of course as seen in the you tube clip being able to run down hill at a defense with a lead back(one big lacking quality in the Wing-T)

He was big on trap angles, shoulder skills, firing off the ball with butt in the air and initial movement of the dline.

Sorry to hijack your thread Dave.

No prob, good stuff, no agenda etc

QB is a nice blocker for a kid that passes so well (not a DW offense QB)

Big +1 to that -- I think the whole debate is based on a false dichotomy. I don't see how you can trap block with hands only any more than you can pass block with shoulders only...

...and of course, blocking begins with the feet...

;D ;D

O boy, then I am screwed, because I have some real clumsy feet.