Coin Flip - Defer to the 2nd half

Depends on which of your unites is best. If your offense is best-take the ball. However, if you have a good D, kick, play field position, and shorten that field.

i always defer--leaves for he possibility that they will kick-seldom happens but does once in a while--they make a mistake before the game even starts

I always used to defer, but a wise old man told me once, "why are you kicking off and giving them the ball at their own 35-45 and giving them a short field." We have never had a really good kicker, so that made sense at the time. But, I agree... if your defense is your strength, let them start, if not... receive.

If we win the toss; we will defer the kick-- all the time. I want my defense to set the tempo early and I want the ball first in the second half. Why?
1. Our defense was the strength of our team
2. (what you mentioned above) Other thought is you want the ball in the 2nd half, so you have maximum amount of time to take advantage of your halftime adjustments. Morale boost too in knowing your team is going to get the ball right away in the 2nd half.

We always defer... we are ball control and we can't kick very well... so that (choice to defer) seems like a bad idea. We've usually been pretty good on D though.

My mindset (and that of our coaches and players) is that we get the ball to start the 2nd half, once we've been able to go over their D and what we can do to it at halftime (we almost exclusively play both ways, so no OL meeting time while D is on the field). Additionally (ideally), we should be able to limit our opponents to two or three possessions in the 2nd (which really has happened a lot).

Also, with the wind here, we like to take the wind (more specifically, make passing teams go against a 35 mph wind), without sacrificing a possession. A lot of times here the wind dies down a bit by the 2nd half anyway.


I'm not sure how it will impact things in the NFL... but I'd bet a lot of teams will use this option, especially the first year it is available.

I believe you will see a lot of NFL road teams defer for 1 reason:

- 12 minutes NFL halftime

Have you ever looked at the stands at the beginning of the 2nd half? They are usually half empty because the fans are still in line at the concession stands or restrooms so the noise will be down. Why put your offense on the field to begin the game when the fans are generally pretty rowdy?

^{Do what Dave Cisar tells his kids. Tell the officials "we want the ball" if the official tells the kid thats not an option the kid says "we want the ball". I love it!!!}

Not to digress... but we have at least two crews in our area who would say: "Fine. You want the ball. Here it is. Kick it."

Since I don't really believe in halftime adjustments (the adjustments need to be made sooner than that or it is too late, don't get me wrong we still coach em up during halftime, but we don't wait until then to attack weak points of the opponent or to address weak areas of ourselves)

anyhow
since that

I prefer to get the ball and start rolling. Put the pressure on the other team.

I love when teams defer.
What are you always trying to do (besides score) throughout the game? Either "keep the ball" or "get the ball".
There are only so many touches in a h.s. game and we want the ball.

We defer. Want my defense on the field to set the tone, then get field position and get a score on O.

Defer...most of the reasons to do so have already been mentioned: want defense to set the tone; opportunity to pick direction of play in light of weather and field conditions; immediate opportunity to implement halftime offensive adjustments in the 2nd half (TOG - point well made, but surely you don't make one set of adjustments during the first half and sit pat the rest of the way); demoralizing effect on opponent of a successful, time-consuming, ball-control drive to start the second half, especially in those games where we also had the last possession of the first half (which has the added benefit of "icing" the opponent's offense and giving our defense that much more rest); etc. Regarding the field position after kick-off: ten years ago, a veteran coach made the observation that, at the high school level, almost regardless of what either team does with the KO return or the coverage, the ball will wind up within 5 yards either way of the 35 yardline 85-90% of the time, and he challenged me to check him on it. My experience has borne out his observation. So, my philosophy is to get the defense out on the field, set a tone, force a 3-and-out, and give our offense the ball in good field position, which as the conventional thought goes, is the game within the game. Even if the opponent gets one first down, the odds are our defense will not allow the next first down, and given the range of most high school punters, our offense will still get the ball in good field position.

There is one exception to the above, one time when I choose to take the ball to start the game - when our opponent runs the double-wing offense, for the reasons "superpower" gives above. It is my experience that double-wing teams spend so much time honing their few offensive plays that they usually have weak defenses and weak special teams. For them, it's all about getting the ball in their offense's hands and playing keep-away. So, my philosophy against them is to take the ball, score, onside or pooch kick, get the ball back on a short field, and score a second time. Now, they're down 14, haven't touched the ball, and in a panic. They know their offense is not a good comeback offense, so they start reaching and running plays that are not central to their offense and that they're not as efficient at executing, creating the likelihood of turnovers or 4th down situations with distances-to-go that even they aren't willing to risk and forces them to use a punter who's not had too many reps. Plus, you know they're going to go for 2 if/when they do score, so when you play good goalline defense and prevent those conversions, they fall even further behind. The pleasure is doubled if you can turn their own philosophy against them and effectively convert 2 pt. PATs against their weak defense. Under the scenario I've laid out above, they're down 16, and now they can't even rely on their philosophy that going 50% on their 2 pt. PATs will keep them at least even with an opponent that kicks PATs. They know they have to put together two scoring drives AND successfully convert BOTH 2 pt. conversions AND play stout defense (which, again, is not one of their priorities).

priority 1 Win the toss
priority 2 take the ball
If we were to defer(not likely, although sometimes a captain might lose his mind, you now how competitive that coin toss can be. ;D) you can bet your happy ass it would be a onside kick.

always defer in case they kick then you get the ball at the start of BOTH halves...