I've been in the business a long time. The things I was taught long ago still hold true today in coaching football:
1) The most important thing you can have as a head coach is a hard-working staff that is loyal to you.
2) You must have discipline with your kids, or you have nothing.
3) Always focus on fundamentals, and never get away from stressing them as the season goes on.
4) Don't micromanage as a head coach. Let your coaches coach.
5) Have a system of offense, defense that you know how to coach and that you believe in. Each year, tweak your system to the type of strengths or personnel that you have.
6) All warfare is based on deception - Sun Tzu
7) Being a motivator and being a people person is just as or more important as knowing your x's and o's.
8) In the end in high school football, most of the time the team that has the better athletes wins.
9) A great off-season program that gets kids stronger, quicker, and mentally tougher is the foundation of a great football program.
10) A team that runs the ball well offensively and is good at stopping the run defensively will win most of the time.
11) Selling your program is great, but the biggest seller by far is when you start winning games.
12) Poor coaches are usually unorganized and do not get their kids the # of reps in practice to master fundamentals. Good coaches are very organized and get their kids a max. # of reps in practice.
13) If you have cancers in the program, their disease can spread. You either cure these cancers or get rid of them.
14) Coaching should never come before God or your family.
15) Coaching in such a way to get kids to believe in themselves and develop confidence is what seperates many mediocre coaches from the great ones.