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Post by NC1974 on Jan 10, 2010 16:55:46 GMT -6
This came up in another thread...thought it might get some discussion...
Here is the bigger question to me. How much total weekend time is needed? As I look at these posts, there is a pretty big range of total time spent by programs on weekends. Here are just a couple of comparisons: Redandwhite - 1.5 hours on Saturdays + 6-9 pm sundays = 4.5hrs
cwood - 7-2 on saturdays + 1-5 on sundays = 11 hrs
Now I'm just using these two posters as examples but this is a huge difference in time commitment. What gives? Are some programs just more efficient? Any thoughts?
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Post by doublewing on Jan 10, 2010 17:18:46 GMT -6
not always minutes and seconds or x's and o's count, but rather a big part comes down to your johnnies and joes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by phantom on Jan 10, 2010 17:23:29 GMT -6
not always minutes and seconds or x's and o's count, but rather a big part comes down to your johnnies and joes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Huh?
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Post by touchdowng on Jan 10, 2010 17:37:54 GMT -6
Hours spent on the weekends by a coaching staff doesn't equate success on the field.
Productive time spent on the weekends is the what should be measured. Every program will be unique unto itself.
I've coached for HC's that were very formulaic and linear in their approach. There was an order to how we were going to put our time into each weekend and no matter what we would put in that amount of time. We would spend from 8am to Noon on Saturdays and 3pm to 6pm on Sundays. I believe in that particular circumstance it had to be this way as our staff was young and we wanted to take a weak program and make a league champion out of it.
My last HC gig our hours looked like this 7am to 11am on Saturdays. 6am to 7:30am Mondays just to make sure we were on the same page. My D coordinator would meet informally with our D position coaches and I would do the same with my O coaches. Could be a phone call, could be an actual meeting, or just an email. The average years of experience on this staff was near 20 per coach.
I think both situations were effective but were entirely different. The second scenario is also backed with much more technology to help us work apart from each other.
Just some thoughts.
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Post by brophy on Jan 10, 2010 17:42:27 GMT -6
The other thing to factor in is M-F athletic period and/or coaches schedules.
If you have no classes to teach and are at the field house all day.....what the *#@+ do you need to blow so much time on the weekend for?
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Post by brophy on Jan 10, 2010 17:46:29 GMT -6
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Post by wolfden12 on Jan 10, 2010 17:48:34 GMT -6
Brophy, where do you get that type of gig?
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Post by brophy on Jan 10, 2010 18:08:02 GMT -6
Where they take football seriously
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Post by coachorr on Jan 10, 2010 18:16:25 GMT -6
Better question: "What does your staff need to do in order to be prepared for Monday?"
1. Copy films 2. Exchange 3. Opponent film breakdown 4. Scouting report 5. Team stats 6. Shoot the breeze and BS
Etc etc.
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Post by emptybackfield on Jan 10, 2010 18:19:52 GMT -6
Better question: "What does your staff need to do in order to be prepared for Monday?" 1. Copy films 2. Exchange 3. Opponent film breakdown 4. Scouting report 5. Team stats 6. Shoot the breeze and BS Etc etc. Running into a pretty gray area with #3 and #4
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Post by redandwhite on Jan 10, 2010 18:43:14 GMT -6
I think what's important is that you feel comfortable as a staff going into Monday. Although as I said we spend about 4.5 hours together on the weekend, everyone spends time breaking down film and other assigned tasks on their own schedule. I agree with those who have said they don't want to meet just to meet. We feel that the process we have developed works well for us and allows us to work more efficiently.
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Post by hlb2 on Jan 11, 2010 6:45:55 GMT -6
I attribute this to 2 farmers, each given the same amount of land and same amount of seed. Farmer A is a dedicated farmer, wants the best crop he can possibly have, so he plants his seeds carefully, checks all the signs, make sure the soil has the proper pH, waters them according to the almanac and so on and so forth. Farmer B is not the same however, he has better things to do than watch some crop grow, so he plants his seeds whenver he feels like it, and checks on them occasionaly, but never checks the almanac, never runs the pumps quite like he should. So, who do you think is going to get the most from their crop? Farmer A is not guarnteed he will have a better crop than B, however, he can sleep easy at night knowing he's done everything he can to insure he has a good crop. This story was told to me in h.s. by our lifting coach talking about the time put in for off-season lifting, but I felt it was pertinent here as well. Sure, you're not guaranteed anything for the time spent preparing, but I know this, I would do it, even if I was facing the NY Giants with my h.s. team!!! To me, preparation is key, and I'm going to put in as much time doing it as possible. I have called the opponent's plays on the sidelines several consecutive downs in a row, and had kids ask "Coach, how did you know that?", to which I reply "Because I've watched hours and hours of film on them." Did it help us, not really, but it could have, and has had in the past. My DC is duece on this board, and he watches and unbelievable amount of film, and works his a$$ off but we don't have a stellar defense. I do the same offensively. Why? So that when the dust settles, and the chips fall where they may, we can look back and say that their talent was the only thing that beat us. Everything else, you as a coach can control. Time-wise we start at 7 AM on Sat. with breakfast and film from the night before. We bring the kids in at 10 and watch til' noon. Everbody leaves after that and does not return back until 4 PM on Sunday evening to install the game plan. That's jus' the way we roll I guess!
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Post by indian1 on Jan 11, 2010 6:56:18 GMT -6
I think the time spend on football over the weekend is directly proportional to how well a coach gets along with his wife.
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Post by blb on Jan 11, 2010 7:39:29 GMT -6
When I first started out we met Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon-evening because I bought into the idea that we had to be doing something all the time, spend more hours than the other guy (old Woody Hayes quote, "I may not be as smart as the other coach, but I'm going to outwork him.") Had just come from college coaching where we had meetings to plan meetings (or to justify our salaries I guess).
As I've gotten older I have continued to streamline things and do away with a lot of stuff I consider busy work that doesn't really help us prepare or on Friday night.
Now our staff meets from 3-5 pm on Sunday. I do the film breakdown beforehand because a) I have young staff with families and b) as header I get paid more than they do.
When we meet I put on white board scouting report of opponents's offense and defense. Then we watch the two exchange tapes (and our last year's game with them if helpful). Afterwards I go over tentative game plan and ask for assistants' input based on videos.
Our players come in 5-7 pm Sunday to watch previous game film and about a half of opponents. We used to have a class where they could watch more during the week but no longer, so they will see a whole game on Friday after school.
You don't have to be a "grinder" or sacrifice your personal-family life to get it done. I think some coaches get a false pride and sense of security by bragging about how many hours they put in, kind of like how many kids they have that can squat or dead lift the entire weight room.
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Post by lochness on Jan 11, 2010 8:28:22 GMT -6
You don't have to be a "grinder" or sacrifice your personal-family life to get it done. I think some coaches get a false pride and sense of security by bragging about how many hours they put in, kind of like how many kids they have that can squat or dead lift the entire weight room. Bingo. It's not about how much time you put in. I'd argue that at the HS level, if it takes you 6 hours worth of weekend meetings to get things done, you are TERRIBLE at managing effective and efficient meetings. We meet Saturday mornings from 7 am to 10am. Sometimes we go until 10:30am if we have a unique challenge (injuries to cover, unfamilliar opponent / scheme, etc) We will review our film as a staff and then watch films / review the scout report of our next opponent. We then discuss our gameplan, which is match-ups, offensive focus (ie: not "new plays" but "which plays do we focus on and what adjustments do we need), defensive alignments to unfamilliar formations, etc. We spend a lot of time talking about personnel and how to best use our people against our opponent. We then talk about our practice planning for the week. That's it, really. We don't need to re-invent the wheel every week, nor do we need to feel like we are covering every conceivable contingency. It's football, not a moon launch. We then usually go scouting Saturday afternoon, as there are 3 or 4 teams in our league who don't have lights, so we can check those games out. Between Saturday and Sunday, we then have a bunch of our own stuff to get done (scout team cards, scouting report, film analysis / break-down, etc.) on our own time. We come in on Monday and the kids lift for a while. While the kids are lifting and the JV's are getting ready for their game, we meet again to discuss details or any new perspectives that might have been gained by our individual work over the weekend. This is usually about 30 minutes or less. We then do a film session with the kids and introduce the CORE game plans on the field with the Varsity. If additional conversation is needed, we'll talk after practice on Monday night to finalize our thoughts (DETAILS, not basics...we've already established the basics). This is usually no more than 10-15 minutes additional. This is usually the "hey, did you notice that the pulling guard's hand is light when he's trapping?" kind of sh!t than it is "HEY, WE NEED TO GET INTO 5-WIDE AND CHECK DOWN TO OUR THERMONUCLEAR CONCEPT WHEN THEY SHOW A BUFFALO FRONT WITH THEIR SPUR HAMMERED IN THE FLANK" sh!t. I don't understand how anyone who has a solid and consistent philosophy and system on O, D, and ST could spend any MORE time on meetings than that. Your philosophy, rules, etc. should do 80-90% of your "game planning" FOR YOU. Then, it's just personnel, implementation, and adjustments.
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Post by coachcb on Jan 11, 2010 8:34:36 GMT -6
We spend all day Sunday watching film, scouting, and game planning. It runs as long as it needs to. Some days, it's a solid 8-9 hours, other days it's shorter.
I disagree that the time put in doesn't equate to success on the field, assuming that the time is productive. But, here are several things that I make the whole process more efficient:
1. Grading- keep the grading system simple. I've coached in programs where they assign grades to players on an academic scale. Each play is grades out with scores from 1-4; this takes forever because it gets subjective; you have to rewind the film constantly to assign a fair grade. I prefer + and -, with quick explanations as to why each the - was assigned.
2. Scouting- Defensively, we make scout cards for every single play that we see from that week's team and we chart tendencies. Everyone has a job to do; you put your nose to the grindstone and get it done. This is what takes up the bulk of the time, but you just jam through it as quickly as you can. And be aware of what films are going to give you a good look at everything and what isn't. If they have several huge blowouts or losses, then their tendencies are going to be skewed; don't spend a whole lot of time breaking that down. If they're up 45-0 at half, you know that they're going to run their base run schemes the entire second half; not a whole lot of point in breaking much more of that film down. If they're down 0-45; it's the same deal; they're going to be passing..
3. Game planning- if your scheme is simple, this is simple. Defensively, we go through what's going to work well and what's not. We look at the blitzes that will work well and those that we need to stay away from. And, we always have our base stuff.
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Post by coachks on Jan 11, 2010 8:46:58 GMT -6
I don't understand how anyone who has a solid and consistent philosophy and system on O, D, and ST could spend any MORE time on meetings than that. Your philosophy, rules, etc. should do 80-90% of your "game planning" FOR YOU. Then, it's just personnel, implementation, and adjustments. I'm with this. Our offensive guys know what they want to run against every front. Odd stack it's belly/lead, even front lots of buck sweep. Everything from that point is adjusted based on their in-game reaction. Spend the week scouting personnel. Defensively, we already have adjustments for nearly everything. How we react to Slot...Trips...Double Tight was put in already. Everything else was taken care of during clinic season. 2 back set? We like to use some under front. Full house look, we like to use our sky and go 5-3. Defensively we just make sure nothing they do breaks our rules.
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Post by coachorr on Jan 11, 2010 9:36:28 GMT -6
Better question: "What does your staff need to do in order to be prepared for Monday?" 1. Copy films 2. Exchange 3. Opponent film breakdown 4. Scouting report 5. Team stats 6. Shoot the breeze and BS Etc etc. Running into a pretty gray area with #3 and #4 Just throwing some stuff out there. Not really anything specific.
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Post by coachcb on Jan 11, 2010 9:38:11 GMT -6
I don't understand how anyone who has a solid and consistent philosophy and system on O, D, and ST could spend any MORE time on meetings than that. Your philosophy, rules, etc. should do 80-90% of your "game planning" FOR YOU. Then, it's just personnel, implementation, and adjustments. I'm with this. Our offensive guys know what they want to run against every front. Odd stack it's belly/lead, even front lots of buck sweep. Everything from that point is adjusted based on their in-game reaction. Spend the week scouting personnel. Defensively, we already have adjustments for nearly everything. How we react to Slot...Trips...Double Tight was put in already. Everything else was taken care of during clinic season. 2 back set? We like to use some under front. Full house look, we like to use our sky and go 5-3. Defensively we just make sure nothing they do breaks our rules. I agree with this as well and it's one of the reasons why I like running veer. Based on the front, we already know what we're going to run. All of our schemes are in place; we'll just apply them to the front we're going to see. The automatic check and 'check with me' calls are in place; we'll go from there. Some other things to consider: 1. How do they align to 21 personnel Twins set. 2. How do they align to 22 double tight sets. 3. Do they adjust to a Wing set? 4. Do they adjust to a tackle over set? 5. Who are we going to have to read consistently (i.e. who can't we block)? Who can we 'load' on certain plays (i.e. who can we block)? 6. Do we need to use different perimeter blocking schemes consistently?
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Post by coachorr on Jan 11, 2010 9:40:16 GMT -6
You don't have to be a "grinder" or sacrifice your personal-family life to get it done. I think some coaches get a false pride and sense of security by bragging about how many hours they put in, kind of like how many kids they have that can squat or dead lift the entire weight room. Bingo. It's not about how much time you put in. I'd argue that at the HS level, if it takes you 6 hours worth of weekend meetings to get things done, you are TERRIBLE at managing effective and efficient meetings. This is really the point isn't it. Work smart, not hard.
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Post by coachorr on Jan 11, 2010 9:46:01 GMT -6
I don't understand how anyone who has a solid and consistent philosophy and system on O, D, and ST could spend any MORE time on meetings than that. Your philosophy, rules, etc. should do 80-90% of your "game planning" FOR YOU. Then, it's just personnel, implementation, and adjustments. Another great point. I was at a school one year where we ran the veer, midline, wing-t, Pro-I and a mixture of other things. The HC would spend Sundays figuring out which plays would work best against the opponnent. Not just plays from a philisophical offensive thought stand point, but actual plays.
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Post by touchdownmaker on Jan 11, 2010 10:50:56 GMT -6
I guess I worry more about taking care of what we do , than what the other guys do.
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Post by fatkicker on Jan 11, 2010 12:22:50 GMT -6
i was once a big believer in practice longer and preparing longer....
now...if it takes a 4 hour practice to accomplish what should be done in 2 and a half....then it's our coaches fault.....double wingers don't be offended....but do you really have to run the power toss 20 times a day? especially if the first 10 are perfect....
just like.......it should RARELY take 6 hours to watch two films and meet.....
i love coaching....but now that i have a family....i don't believe in sitting in the coaches office and telling "back in the day" stories for 3 hours.....
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Post by lochness on Jan 11, 2010 13:13:28 GMT -6
A lot of the stuff people are saying you do in meetings can be done by delegating assignments to coordinators and key staff personnel.
I've never been one for doing "grading" in a staff meeting. Jebuz, no wonder it takes guys 6-9 hours to meet. I've also never been one for analyzing and drawing up every single one of our opponent's plays they've run that season. We try to focus on 5-6 base plays that they revolve their offense around and make sure we can stop those plays. If they beat us with some play they've only run 7 or 8 times total by week 4, then more power to them.
I think the thing that helps us the most is that we say "it should take us THIS long to get THIS much work done," and we stay within that frame. It helps keep us on task and helps us focus on the purpose and agenda we have set for ourselves.
The worst HC I ever worked for was a "more is better" guy. MORE practice time (over 3 hours), MORE meeting time (over 6 hours), MORE plays, MORE defenses, etc. etc. etc.
We won 3 games that year...one of which was a crossover with a lower division and the other two were against a winless team and a team that had only beaten that winless team.
I'm glad I learned at a young age that "hard work and dedication" doesn't mean "I waste 9 hours in a frigging meeting."
Now, if you were to ask how much time each week I personally spend on football, it would be substantially more...but that's partially my own choice. And, more importantly, it's at my own schedule and doesn't interfere with my family life, maintaining my home, etc.
Time management is such an underrated skill.
And, it's become an (incorrect) measure of a coach's worth if that coach spends tons of hours on football. Coaches love to wear it like a badge of honor "YEAH, that's right! I spent 10 hours meeting about football this past Sunday. Obviously, I'm dedicated!"
We have the same approach to practice and weight room. If you can't get it done in the allotted time, then you are doing something wrong is what we tell ourselves and our kids.
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