What do you do to get your guys going pre-game?

Ah, the mysteries of human psychology and motivation.

Kids only get so many At Bats in HS Football. They should be able to get themselves "up" to play games.

If they don't not sure there's much coach can do about it.

Before leaving for field I simply remind them of what the game means to us, and what we have to do to win. No prayer-meeting Evangelism or gimmickry.

This is exactly our approach too...

We don't get too crazy or preachy. We remind the kids of our goals, how hard they've worked, and what each individual game means to us. Sometimes we have a "theme of the week" that we harp on a bit. Then we remind them to play for each other, and to be the guy everyone can count on. We wish them luck, strap 'em up, and "punch-in" to go to work.

All the other stuff isn't really our thing, and I'm not sure it has a lasting impact anyway.

Can I get a background music guy follow me around before a game? Seems to make things a little better.

Same here.

As for the question of why teams come out flat sometimes, if I had an answer I'd bottle it and sell it (Of course I wouldn't spam it here on Huey's).

we look more into the "focus on assignment, game" rather than "rah rah, kick some ass" type stuff. focus is more important, to me, than 'hyped up'.

everyone's all hyped up until they get hit in the mouth ... but, if you lose focus you got a problem.

we just go over the game plan, the details, script, scenarios, etc. theme is doing your job, helping a teammate, play the next play, etc. there are no "knock their heads off" speeches with heavy metal in the background.

When I played in highschool our coach was not a big raw raw guy. HE would give a quick speech about effort intesity and attention to detail. Talk about focus, and keeping our heads in the game. He would tell us to lean on eachother, and to count on one another.

We would then listen to Bil withers - lean on me while we just kinda bounced around and sang along. Still get goose bumps when I hear that song, you may not think it is a football song but listen to the words. Had a lot of meaning to us, and we subscribed ot the attitude of leaning on eachother.

A song like that right before you walk out gets you kinda calm and ready.

Spike the water bottles with Red Bull....

i'm not big rah rah guy - but my assistant is so i often let him do a pregamer --- i like some of the youtubes --- had one early in my career but it had cutups from caddy shack and stripes - probably not what some of you want - but it lightened the mood... kids see so many movies i think they have come to expect a big pre-game speech...

You are no fun at all.

I have always felt that your week of practice, and the messages you send all week, matter a lot more than the pre-game speech. Keep in mind as well that the younger they are, the more likely you are to simply scare them with a big fire and brimstone speech. For every kid you fire up, there's one beside him who you just turned to stone. :-)

I can tell you a speech that is worse than useless, and is in fact counter-productive. That is the big half time speech. I can't tell you the number of coaches I have seen go make the big half time speech, only to watch their kids play even worse in the second half than they did in the first. At half time, you keep it short, simple, and upbeat - the work needs to get done in groups as you make your adjustments.