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Post by temposquad on Mar 11, 2012 17:11:09 GMT -6
We are a small school with 50-60 kids out for football each year. During a clinic this year we heard a school our size speak about how they are able to go 2 platoon with their team. I can see how this would definitely be a weapon for us but I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the logistics. Next year I predict our offense and defense to share 3 starters and at least 3 back ups. Have any of you ever had any experience with this and how did you go about setting up your practice schedule? I feel as though if we strictly split them down the middle that I will be fielding a lesser athlete. We have entertained doing a "defensive emphasis" first each day giving the defense all their 1's and 2's for those periods. However, at this time we would have our offensive coaches working with our kids who will probably not get on the field on Friday night. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Post by coachplaa on Mar 11, 2012 17:25:44 GMT -6
What we do:
Our coaches coach either offense or defense. They only work on one side. Our few "special" athletes split their days with Indy/Group Work, which we do for the first half of each practice. Example: Our starting Free Safety is also a Wide Receiver. He'll spend Monday & Wednesday with defense, and Tuesday with the offense. Then the second half of practice, he'll always go with the first team when we scrimmage. 1st offense vs scout defense, then 1st defense vs scout offense; etc.
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Post by jackedup on Mar 11, 2012 19:51:34 GMT -6
I coach at a very small school with only 50-60 players too. We have 2 platooned for the past 2 years. The first year we only had 17 defensive players. Last year we had more defensive players with 25.
For me the ones that have to get practice time on both sides of the ball, are normally your best players. Therefore, you can take a more mental approach with him. So I will have those offensive players who are going to need reps on defense to come with me during film at least 1 day a week. Then we have a pre-practice period of 15 minutes. I will take those cross over players to work specific drills whether they are indy drills or group drills. Then they'll get a lot of reps during team... there is no rest on scout for them.
If you only have 3, that's not too bad. And to be honest with you, you made mention that your offensive coaches would have to work with players who won't see the field on Fridays. I think that is the best time for them to work... you're going to have to have 1 or more of "those" guys play at some time. The thing about 2 platoon that I like is that we have players who would normally not be able to play for other teams, excell with us because we only ask them to learn 1 position and to work it everyday. We're getting the most of what ever talent our players have.
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Post by cqmiller on Mar 12, 2012 6:18:39 GMT -6
As long as your dropoff in talent isn't too big, you can go platoon with as few as 50 kids... 25 on each side of the ball. Unfortunately for us here, our dropoff in talent between the top 10 kids and the next 10 kids is very large so we have a hard time putting too many of those 2nd group in at the same time.
Most of the teams that 2-platoon around here dress over 100 kids for a varsity game.
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Post by CoachCP on Mar 12, 2012 6:56:25 GMT -6
I think having kids spend the majority time in the area with most change is important. Maybe during camp and doubles it's 50/50ish, unless you have a good backup on the one side who you want to rotate in.
During the season,I think the emphasis needs to be on the area which changes most from week to week, which is probably his defensive position unless he just rotates in a little bit on defense. When I say defense changes from week to week, it means that personnel, formations, and other variables are more different compared to offense. On offense, you're normally running the base plays no matter what. You may make a blocking adjustment, but a kid can learn that quickly on his own.
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Post by fballcoachg on Mar 12, 2012 7:00:25 GMT -6
I just had this argument with a veteran coach who I was going to make my DC: He said "well there are going to be some times where I'm going to need Jason (our best player). I said "why?" He said "he's our best athlete coach, when the chips are down I want our best players on the field." (he said players but he meant athlete again) I said "so you're telling me that Jason, despite never practicing the position will be a better linebacker than Logan...a kid who only plays LB, played it for 10 games last year, will practice it everyday, who works his @$$ off in the weight room, who does nothing else but play LB and you're telling me that Jason will still be a better LB in crunch time?" He said "yep" I said "what does that say about your teaching ability." I tell you that story because when you split your staff, some will complain about their kids because they know the TB could be a better CB than the kid they have to coach up, or the starting guard would be a great 3 tech...whatever, you get the point. When they say "coach we really need Marcus at LB" They are really saying "listen coach, I am too lazy and not patient enough to work hard on this kid and develop him, I want the player already made, so I can look good." So get ready for that, it will happen. Beat me to it coach. The biggest issue you will have is coaches and their opinions or "fear" of coaching the lesser athlete. We tried this last year and this is the reason we abandoned it (against my wishes but you win some you lose some!), coaches were saying they couldn't play "that kid" when so and so was a better option but was playing offense. Funny thing was the biggest complainer was a guy who got our 2 best "athletes" that he absolutely needed to make our defense work, when they weren't playing up to his expectations it was because "I need this guy" not because "maybe I'm explaining this to them wrong" or "we are asking them too much." He's the one I got into it with because he was suggesting a bunch of kids for RB when our starter went down and I finally diplomatically stated "Coach, I'm not you, I trust that the back up knows his assignments, will bust his a$$ to make it happen, is reliable, and will give us everything he has, I don't need to cherrypick another athlete who never played the position." There is nothing wrong with playing kids both ways but I am a firm believer in 2 platoon which you are going to, if for nothing else like DC said about getting more kids to play. The biggest adjustment is going to be with your staff and how they approach it and handle the challenge. Like anything else, when you commit to it you are going to need to truly commit to it through the injuries and rough patches for it to pay off. As for the special kids you feel you NEED on both sides they should be able to pick up both sides by splitting Indy and Team as someone else stated. |
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Post by cqmiller on Mar 12, 2012 7:17:21 GMT -6
For you 2-platoon guys that are doing it with only 50 guys, are these numbers just for varsity level? We have about 75 kids in our program (9-12) and I need to field 3 teams (Frosh/Soph, JV, Varsity). If I divided those 75 kids up and platoon them, I would have 12 kids on offense, 12 kids on defense at each level.
I keep wanting to pull the trigger and move to the 2-platoon, but I can't force myself to completely move to that without enough bodies. We do make sure that if a kid is a starter on defense, he is a #2 on offense and visa-versa, with my very best kids playing a lot of snaps on both sides.
I guess my fear of pulling the trigger hasn't been fixed by some of my conversations with coaches who do platoon. Like I said above, the only schools that platoon here have 200+ kids in their programs, with 100 of them dressing and playing on the varsity level.
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Post by bigm0073 on Mar 12, 2012 8:00:14 GMT -6
I did it for most of my head coaching career and stopped this year. Had the best players play.... we had 45 varsity...25 jv....30 9th grade....huge drop off in talent imo at our school....our best players play both sides better and we are not cutting corners with talent...
We won or district and region...made it to the final 4 in our state doing this....we felt like getting away from 2 platoon gives us a better chance of success.
Something to think about is back ups when players go down...the 25th to 35th players in our program are awful and could not have played at the level we wanted them to play at.. the back ups are the biggest issue I ran into..
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Post by fantom on Mar 12, 2012 8:52:00 GMT -6
I did it for most of my head coaching career and stopped this year. Had the best players play.... we had 45 varsity...25 jv....30 9th grade....huge drop off in talent imo at our school....our best players play both sides better and we are not cutting corners with talent... We won or district and region...made it to the final 4 in our state doing this....we felt like getting away from 2 platoon gives us a better chance of success. Something to think about is back ups when players go down...the 25th to 35th players in our program are awful and could not have played at the level we wanted them to play at.. the back ups are the biggest issue I ran into.. We also one-platoon. I think I'm a pretty coach but I seem to be a lot better coach when I have better players. |
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Post by jgordon1 on Mar 12, 2012 9:11:39 GMT -6
I did it for most of my head coaching career and stopped this year. Had the best players play.... we had 45 varsity...25 jv....30 9th grade....huge drop off in talent imo at our school....our best players play both sides better and we are not cutting corners with talent... We won or district and region...made it to the final 4 in our state doing this....we felt like getting away from 2 platoon gives us a better chance of success. Something to think about is back ups when players go down...the 25th to 35th players in our program are awful and could not have played at the level we wanted them to play at.. the back ups are the biggest issue I ran into.. We also one-platoon. I think I'm a pretty coach but I seem to be a lot better coach when I have better players. I think you are a pretty coach too..LOL |
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Post by blb on Mar 12, 2012 9:14:35 GMT -6
My philosophy is to two-platoon as much as possible, play as many kids as we can without hurting our chances to win.
I especially like to have our Offensive Linemen play only that side of the ball when possible.
But we don't practice kids only one way.
One assumption guys make when they talk about Two-platooning is that any kid can be taught to do any task if they focus on it.
There are different degrees of talent and talent can't be taught. If a kid doesn't have speed or can't bend his knees it doesn't matter how many Individual drills you do with him, he can't make plays.
A second consideration is motivation. Sometimes the "down the line" guys don't care to "be the best they can be," are just happy to be on the team. They aren't Football players, they're kids who play Football. It's just what they do in the Fall.
So regardless of their specialization, they are not going to get good enough-play hard or well enough for you to win. In other words, it's not all on the coaches' backs.
Case in point. Few years ago coaching at a big school, with around 40 kids on the squad, we had like eight kids starting both ways. Hadn't had more than two or three before.
Our Junior class was bad athletically (only class to have losing seasons as Freshmen and JVs while I was there), they knew it, and didn't care enough to work to do anything about it.
Two of them started that year only because we didn't have anybody else at those positions. The next year as Seniors they led us to 3-6, the lone losing season while I was at that school.
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Post by blb on Mar 12, 2012 9:17:54 GMT -6
I think I'm a pretty coach I think you are a pretty coach too..LOL Ewww...well, they say "Virginia is for lovers." |
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Post by fantom on Mar 12, 2012 9:25:44 GMT -6
We also one-platoon. I think I'm a pretty coach but I seem to be a lot better coach when I have better players. I think you are a pretty coach too..LOL Sure, but have I ever written a book? |
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Post by irishdog on Mar 12, 2012 10:43:16 GMT -6
When I had the numbers (50) our kids learned to play both offense and defense. We did everything we could to two-platoon, and limit the number of two-way starters (1 or 2, usually skilled position players). When I didn't have the numbers (35) our kids learned to play offense and defense. We did everything we could to two-platoon, and limit the number of two-way starters (4 or 5, usually a mix of skilled position players and linemen). Football is, and has always been a numbers game. Get as many playing as you can. Eventually you'll find you have more kids who haven't played football, wanting to play football, and your numbers will increase.
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Post by fantom on Mar 12, 2012 16:30:07 GMT -6
I had 52 kids 9-12 but I had a chitty senior class of 9 kids, a small junior class, big sophomore class and 14 freshmen. We were going to have a down year no matter what. SO rather than rewards a bunch of lazy a$$ed seniors, I played 9 sophomores and 5 freshmen on friday night. We cancelled our freshman schedule. This program was in dire straights and I just figured the year to swing the hammer was in my first year. So now we graduate 3 players, I return 19 most of who will be here for 2-3 more years. So my lower levels should fill back up like they should. I just had to weed the garden. We only won 3 games, but we wouldn't have won those 3 playing those seniors. Enter Pat Knight press conference youtube clip. Makes perfect sense in a case like that. |
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Post by jackedup on Mar 12, 2012 16:33:16 GMT -6
I think alot of people assume that with 2 platooning, you can't use the other side players as your backups. Some of you are correct when talking about talent drop off. It's our goal to have no 2 way players but we know who would be a good back up and be able to play limited reps in a game because of their limited reps on the field. I think you have to have a plan for those guys. I had a guy who I knew when he went in we were only running certain things because he hadn't worked other stuff. It is ideal. Probably not but with limited numbers it has allowed more investment by ALL players and it has allowed us to compete against teams that would just wear us down.
I think there is another thing that goes into this. And I'm not sure how it works for other people or just for us. I think the offense you use makes a difference in 2 platooning. And maybe this only applies for small schools like ours. But we're a spread team that runs limited number of plays.
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Post by mholst40 on Mar 14, 2012 9:05:28 GMT -6
I agree with that jackedup. The offense and "style" of defense you play does play a role in it. I blitz heavy defense would be a little tougher to 1 platoon. And similar for the offense. I'm crossing that bridge with our best player right now. He's our RB, he's 5'11" 215 lbs, strong, a sophomore, power runner type kid and we are going to the flexbone and SBV and he's going to be the FB. He's going to get a ton of carries...I do not think he can take the physical pounding and be in good enough shape to play both FB and LB. We run flexbone style inside veer as a base and the past three years out starting FB also doubled as a starting ILB. It can be done. 2 of the 3 were all league LB and the third was an all league RB. |
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Post by mholst40 on Mar 16, 2012 0:09:19 GMT -6
We are D1/D2 which is the largest and second largest classification in CA.
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Coach Unk
Junior Member
[F4:coachdonjones]
Posts: 392
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Post by Coach Unk on Mar 19, 2012 15:31:01 GMT -6
I think the way HS ball is going you have to two platoon is, especially on the line. Now of course your skill guys with high energy can go both ways at the HS level. However, if you can get as close to equal talent on both sides of the ball by having a player go one way, then you should do it.
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