Advice: Lack of Experience

If you have youth and inexperience KISS it

Keep
It
Simple (and)
Sound

Allow the players opportunity to grow and experience success... all great "clinic talk" right?

Teach them the only place where success comes [shadow=red,left,300]before[/shadow] work is the in the dictionary. There are certain things successful teams, people, and businesses have in common. You have to do those things. One that I like is "begin with an end in mind." What is the goal, what we are trying to accomplish? Are we trying to accomplish a 1 win season? Are we trying to be a .500 team? Are we trying to make the playoffs? (etc). Now what you do to reach that goal must follow suit. If you want to be a win 1 team you only need to outwork one team. If you want to be better than half...etc.

I guess I got off on a screwy tangent here so I hope this helps. Give some more feedback and I will try and help out some more.

I don't know if I'd spend a lot of time on film. That is more of an advanced teaching tool. For guys who have never played football and may not be very motivated . . . I just don't think it will be a very effective use of your time.

I think I'd spend as much time on the field as possible and would really stress the fundamentals - tackling, blocking, throwing, catching . . . . pursuit, alignment, assignment, etc. I would only run 1 defensive front and 1 coverage. Then I would rep the heck out of it. I would spend a lot of time on special teams, situations (goalline, short yardage, 3rd and long, etc), and stunts (blitz pickup for O and stunts vs. any formation for the D).

I'd also find young coaches to be on your staff. Guys who are far enough removed that they are authority figures, but close enought that they can relate.

I would spend time on leadership training. If you don't know where to start here, send me a PM.

Good luck coach.

I wil reiterate what everyone has been saying above- Keep the concepts simple and rep the heck out of it. Find simple concepts and and rep it until you know you can run it better than people can stop it.

One of the best coaches I have ever known ran a very simple play book- 6-10 play run series(splitback and power I) and a complimentary play action pass off of those runs. He would rep those plays day in and day out until he knew that he could run it better than the opposing defenses could stop it. His teams just out hit you every play- smack you in the mouth and hammer the ball down your throat. One thing he said too me that I've never forgotten-

"If you break a play down to its bear fundamentals and practice it day in and day out with the right kids, then 80% of the time you will pick up yards with that play. "

Lots of encouragement. Use your seniors as mentors for the new guys to help them acclimate to the game. Use creative scrimmages to help bring thet new guys along, and let the older guys have some fun. We will play 8 on 8 games with the QBs calling their own plays. This gets the coaches out of the kids faces, and lets the guys bond. We let them play for pride and extra conditioning for the losing team, etc. But, it will allow you to let your older players bring the younger along, without the coaches having to drive it all. They keep score and down and distance.

We play 3 men on the line, and the rest is pretty much made up. We will do it once a week in the preseason, and maybe a few times during the season. Just some thoughts.

I began each program I referred to above using the DW system, it is easy for sure and can produce some quick results. The only problem is that if you don't have athletes up front, then you are going to struggle with penetration. I know I will get slammed for that, but guys I have run the DW for 6 years, it is a good offense, but like any good offense, it needs personnel, and the DW can be prohibitive when you don't have a line of any kind - regardless of your skill players. I run a multiple spread, I, and 3 X1 and 2 X2 attack, but still use the DW infrastructure as the rules for runs, etc. Rules based offense is the way to go IMO.

I've never actually read the book, but I know there's a Football For Dummy's. From what I've seen it's set up for people who know jack diddle about football, but maybe you could find an idea or two about how to teach the basic stuff. Just a thought.

FUNDAMENTALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


it's that easy don't worry about some complex system don't run plays to run plays keep it simple run a few plays well. Make sure they can block and tackle. And have fun.

Explain your terminology fully and completely...assume that kids (especially freshmen) don't know anything. Our Junior Tackle kids come from a Wishbone background and we are predominately oneback in the high school. It's incredible to me that freshman football players don't know what terms like trap, power, pull, down block, and kick slide mean, but many of them do not.

I agree with Brophy's comment that you should explain WHY as well as HOW. For example, we were going over a QB read play today. Freshman backside tackle is supposed to arc release the DE and block the Willy LB. Well, the kid kept screwing it up and going to the wrong guy. So, at lunchtime, we took him in a classroom and showed him WHY he had to arc release the DE and block the Willy LB (in case the QB pulls the ball and runs weak side). After explaining to the kid WHY he needed to do that, he didn't screw the play up again.

I also like what Khalfie suggested...pick an offense and defense that is sound and that you can rep over and over and get really good at...it's better to do a handful of things really well rather than a lot of things half-assed.