Taking over program 3 or 5 year plan

 This.

I have the opportunity to take over a program next year and I honestly envision a two to four year plan. 

Year 1: We pull things together, duke it out with the bottom three teams in the division for the play-offs. We make the play-offs but end up with a tough first round game. Breaking into the quarter finals could be difficult.
Year 2: Make the play-offs again and get into the quarter finals and possibly the semi-finals
Year 3: Break all the way through to the semi-finals. 

We play in a tough division but we just need to knock off the bottom three teams to make the play-offs which is certainly do-able. The first round of the play-offs is a crap shoot for those first two years as we could end up seeing the #1 seed from two other tough divisions. We could be looking at a 500+ mile road trip across the state to play a perennial power-house in the first round. 

Really, the culture is already pretty firmly established within the community but we need a hard kick-start in order to take the program to the next level. The divisions realigned this year and we went from being in one of the weakest divisions to one of the toughest. Basically, we went from a guaranteed play-off birth to having to fight hard for it.

Trying not to get fired after year 3 of my 4 year plan

IMO plans like this are pointless.

I agree that plans like this are kinda just for show. I believe you need to have a plan for what you are gonna do to improve the program year by year. But to say what your gonna do 3 to 5 years down the line doesn’t make a ton of sense to me because you never know what is gonna happen in that time period. Nothing ever goes as planned.

I was asked to bring in 1, 3 and 5 year plans to my interview. I had been at the school for 7 years as OC...Really didn't know what the behind the scenes issues were until the prior coach stepped down:

1 year- upgrade all helmets to meet safety standards- (we were using helmets from 1996 in 2012), fill in the 3 coaching openings with competent long term coaches, develop an off season lifting program for all athletes, have 85 kids in grades 9-12 and win the games we should plus 1 game. Finished 4-4 and missed the play-offs by 5points.

3 year- upgrade all shoulder pads (the Riddell rep said he had never seen pads that old in use), get 85% of athletes at 85% of off season workouts, take entire staff to 1 college visit and 1 clinic,increase participation to 90 kids 9-12 and win the games we should plus 1 game. Lost 7 starters to injury and suspensions and were lucky to win 3 games.

5 year- upgrade field equipment, maintain 85% of athletes at 85% of off season workouts, go to 1 clinic as a staff and send each coach to the clinic of their choice and report back to staff with in-house clinic, increase participation to over 100 9-12 and win the games we should plus 1 game. Got to this point a year late: only losses were to play-off teams- 2 in OT, by 6, by 7 and by 14-- finished 4-5 and missed play-offs.

I wouldn't advise looking at it from that lense.... Ultimately, there will be so many factors that determines your output many of which you won't really know until you get in the job.... I always used to develop these plans and yet they never were even close to as I envisioned in fact first thing that happen was I had to junk the plan. Have a Vision work hard to get that vision in place and enjoy the process.... My experience...

1st job: Took over a very good program, didn't need a plan just needed to not screw up great things in place...
2nd job: Took over a program with 1 win in 3 years, we won 8 not as planned (thought it would be a 5 year deal) left after a year for what I thought would be bigger and better.
3rd job: Had a 3 year plan followed a very good coach in a tough league thought if we could generate more numbers and enthusiasm we could take next step, reality was there was some major infrastructural challenges that had nothing to do with coaching really a 6 year plan was needed much of which needed to be administrative changes (ie league, school of choice population, youth/middle school program set-up) although we made head way with some of this after 3 years and 8 wins my dream job came open.
4th job: My dream job, my home town (Grandpa was first Mayor) coming off of 2 1 win seasons total rebuild 5 year plan had to rebuild Middle School and lower levels, we qualified for playoffs and won 6 games in year one with 22 Varsity boys and 14 on JV team in a large school... Fired after year 4 (3, 2, 2 wins the following three years) with 35 Sophomores playing, 50 Freshman and 120 MS boys. Had a change in my admin and had a board member feeling like we needed to be more dynamic offensively... 5 Year plan may or may not have worked but didn't get to it.
5th job: Took over a 4-5 program with a coach who ran sound schemes and had kids lifting although there were dwindling numbers... Didn't really put in any plan just said lets have fun coaching and lets get kids having fun playing the game! Lets get better each day and lets focus as coaches on the effort we get out of our kids and the fundamentals we are instructing in all 3 phases... The results have been good 8-2 the first year and 61-13 in 6...

Ultimately, the point of this was I always had a plan the plan never went as planned! The only plan I think one should have at this time, is maximize each day, inspire (don't force) kids to work/lift/play, and focus on mastering your instruction of the fundamentals of your schemes and let the results be what they will be which will vary a great deal from place to place, time to time, and situation to situation!!!

no 5 year plan, your probably out after year 3 if your not winning or have done stupendous things to improve the program.
if you make it to year 5, your probably in the clear.
if you can win in year 1, do it. dont think about year 2 or 3. play the kids that get you wins in year 1, growing the program is important, but you may only have 1 good shot at winning, dont waste it.
at the same time, implement the lower levels, 9th and JV, the real backbones of the program-what you want the program to look like in 3 years.

ive never made it past year 3, lol. for 1 reason or another. i banked on getting a class of kids through the program before I really wanted to see strides(out with old, in with my kids type mentality). but by year 3 something has always happend(new principal or new AD or I did something stupid, lol).

plan for 3, revamp after 3 and make it 5, 5 becomes 10,
but dont listen to me, ive never made it that far. hahahahaha

Believe all of the phases would make up the "culture" of a football program. 

This to me is a talking point you hear on the NFL network. 

What they are really saying when they mention 3-5 year plan is that's how long (depending on the owner) he has to get things turned around before he gets $hitcanned.

In reality, I don't believe a HS that has comparable talent to it's opponents can't win immediately. On the flip side some schools will struggle to win forever. 

I don't think timelines make any difference.

JMO

As hard as it is for coaches to say this, I think in the first year or two, unless you have some mandate about how many games you win, I think you should try to not worry about winning.  Create some rules for what you think a perennially winning team would do, and go from there.  This is, of course, if you are going into a program that has been losing recently.  You've gotta "change the culture," as people say, and this doesn't happen while you are trying to win every game.  For instance, if you're trying to win, you are going to play the guys who give you the best chance to win and you will inevitably be in a situation where you'll start to think that it's okay to let this and that go rather than really doing the things that you need to do to change how every kid who comes through your program behaves.  When you do this, you are trying to win right this second rather than thinking about what you need to do to the program to win in 5 years or 8 years or 15 years.  This is tough when you have an athletic director and overall administration as clueless as the ones I've come into contact with, but if you want to win in 5,6, and 7 years, I don't really think it matters whether you win today.   


For example, a coach came into the our conference a few years ago, and I knew the first time we played them that they were going to be great inside a few years.  They didn't win a game that first year, but I still could see where they were going in the right direction.  Two years later, they were undefeated in the regular season and in the playoffs they lost a close game to the eventual state champion who happens to be a private school team who has like 80 boys in the entire school, 60 of which are division one athletes.  A bit weird I'd say, haha.  This coach had his guys running only a few plays in a system.  At halftime, they didn't just wander off the field.  They walked off 2X2 knowing that they were in the 15th row of players and their partner was Fred.  They behaved in a certain way after a flag was on the field, rather than trying to talk to the officials (WHICH I HATE).  They were terrible and everyone beat them.  Just two years later, that structure led them to an undefeated regular season.  

^ This, all day long.

I think outlining a process that you want to follow is probably more important than an outline of what you want to accomplish over the next several years. I try to think about what we want to ultimately accomplish as a program and then identify the things we need to do to achieve those outcomes.

The most important question that we ask is, "What can we do in the present moment that will get us closer to where we want to be as a program?" I try to identify our core principles, performance fundamentals, daily focus, weekly focus, season milestones and then the big picture outcome based goals such as making the play-offs, etc.

Try to focus on developing systems that will take care of the issues that you need to cover. Develop systems for recruitment, retention, staff development, fundraising, off-season weightlifting, feeder program support, etc.

When I took over at a program in 2008 I was never asked what my specific 5-year (or whatever) plan was. I was asked where do you see the program down the road. I said improve numbers, be a consistent winner and contender, have kids in the program who represent the community and school well. I listed some other things too. I said really I cannot comment as to specifics without knowing exactly where we are coming from. I think there are things you can get specific with like fundraising. It takes "x" amount of dollars to operate a good football program. You have to keep upgrading equipment, cameras wear out, electronics need to be replaced. You have to keep renewing Hudl. Those things take a plan and money.

On some things you have to decide if you need a sledgehammer approach or a sculptor's hammer and chisel.

A key thing I look at is it is kind of like a weekly overview of the classroom lesson plan. Rarely does it ever end up exactly like I wrote it up Monday. It adjusted. I had to allow for it adjust based on what was actually accomplished.

I am by no means saying you should fly by the seat of your pants. You should develop systems for recruiting the hallways, character/leadership ed, staffing, fundraising, strength and conditioning, feeder program, youth program etc.