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Post by spreadattack on Jul 28, 2016 10:12:04 GMT -6
As I said before, I attempted to get ahold of him through Twitter and nothing...if he is being selective that is his right so I won't complain too much. I don't even have a quarter of the material he has....so a trade isn't very likely :/ Chris...thanks for the insight. I think it's so bizarre how college and NFL coaches claim they want what's best for the profession....it is almost laughable. They peer pressured this guy into closing possibly the best football professional development site (with the exception of this site of course ) As someone mentioned awhile back....honestly? The playbook material I can understand but the freaking broadcast tape breakdown he did? Can't stop us there... I find it hard to believe how paranoid some of these coaches are, literally any college or NFL team can get the end zone clips of their offense/defense...maybe they thought his site was a leg up for when certain teams played them? I've successfully avoided ever getting any legal letters/calls and they are generally nice, but you'd be amazed at some of the emails and private messages I get from NFL and D-1 coaches (including head coaches) out of the blue -- guys I don't even know -- about stuff I've written about or posted. Very weird world. It's the same thing for journalists/beat reporters. They hand them strict guidelines that say they can't write/tweet about formations, plays, personnel groups, etc., or else they will revoke access. It's like, everyone knows you're going to be in shotgun spread my man.
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Post by spreadattack on Jul 27, 2016 8:48:30 GMT -6
Have to talk to James. He became a victim of his own success as he was adding so much good stuff -- including recent stuff -- he was on every coach's radar and a lot of schools, particularly in the SEC, were flipping out about stuff that wasn't even really theirs. I can also tell you from personal experience (though what I do is different than James) it's annoying to have to self-edit when writing things (will this school/coach get mad? is this across the line?), so I know he's enjoying the freedom that only comes by keeping it very selective. I also think he was going to write more about his own school's stuff so I imagine his HC/staff wanted to keep it under wraps. But again have to ask him.
I know a lot of journalists for big name publications and whenever they write things the staffs generally get to go back and tell them to take out whatever they think is competitive info, which often is stuff that you or I would say, "really?" But it's a different world with the internet now.
The irony is the NFL has gone to an interesting model where all the film is publicly available (a lot of the schools that contacted James were doing it just about all-22 film), but playbooks/handouts are harder to get because it's all done on iPads that are given out and that have remote security so they can be deleted remotely, so it's generally harder to get written playbooks/materials from the NFL but film is available, whereas I feel like it's weirdly hard to get all-22 for college but easier to get written materials.
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Post by spreadattack on Jul 16, 2016 13:07:15 GMT -6
HC has to be able to coach the coaches. This can take different forms: maybe he's the guy who can coach every position, or maybe instead he sets the tone for the program, the fundamentals of the program (hard work, effort, discipline, energy, etc) and can challenge the coaches to make sure they are coming up with the best drills and most efficient use of resources/time without necessarily being able to coach the DBs on Tuesday and the OLine on Wednesday. That might not be realistic, but it doesn't mean you can't be a "great" HC.
Though the guys who tend to be legendary like the Belichicks, Paul Browns, etc., could coach any position on the field if they wanted. And while Saban spends his time with DBs, that guy knows plenty about offense and every other position on defense, too.
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Post by spreadattack on Jun 7, 2016 16:20:02 GMT -6
Hard to know why the message wasn't received without being in the room. There are lots of ways to lead, and sometimes it takes different methods and sometimes people don't want to be led. Calling a team meeting in order to call out specific teammates may or may not have been an example of effective leadership; I just don't know.
The good news is part of playing high school sports, particularly football, is you get to see different styles of leadership, see what works, what doesn't work, try leadership tactics yourself, etc., in a low stakes environment. I'm sure your son wants to make sure the team reaches its potential this season. But the more important thing is that he learns lessons about leadership -- good and bad -- that he can use the rest of his life.
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Post by spreadattack on Mar 28, 2016 12:14:19 GMT -6
No. First, nobody goes to watch 7 on 7. Second, it's not really that popular with coaches. For every coach who absolutely love 7 on 7's there re probably 9 who consider them a necessary evil at best. The beauty of football is that a lot of different kinds of kids can play. Big guys who aren't natural run and jump can play real football but have no place in 7 on 7. To hell with it. Look, I'm with you 100% on what my preference is. My point is there's a lot of potential change in the air, and while I do not for one second think football will die or anything of the sort, I also can't predict where it will go -- and one important factor in the history of football is its willingness to evolve.
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Post by spreadattack on Mar 24, 2016 6:35:36 GMT -6
It's confusing because some "chop blocks" were legal; but now *all* are illegal, but what it means is still confusing. www.thescore.com/nfl/news/989654Does it mean any chop block where another guy has a hand or finger on the guy is illegal? What if he made contact just before the chop/cut block engaged? Hard to know.
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Post by spreadattack on Mar 24, 2016 6:32:10 GMT -6
Fun stuff, and I'll take real football over 7 on 7 any day (and he's right about how 7 on 7 is in some parts of the country being like AAU basketball), but -- and this is a big but -- is he so sure we won't one day move to a world where what fills up stadiums will be a version of football that looks more like 7 on 7 than traditional football? I'm certainly not saying I hope so, but 7 on 7 is popular without any tradition whatsoever, and with the safety concerns, etc it doesn't seem implausible. (I'm not saying next year, but in like 25-30 years.)
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Post by spreadattack on Mar 6, 2016 7:36:00 GMT -6
This is not new and also is in no way surprising, and it is arguably an even more obvious threat to youth player safety than a lot of football collisions. Yes, the ball weighs approx 1 lb, but as we all learned in elementary school science, force = mass x velocity (plus factoring in the velocity of the player's head/body moving towards the ball).
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Post by spreadattack on Feb 5, 2016 7:54:16 GMT -6
I knew an old coach who had coached well into his 70s, was extremely well respected, and was all football all the time - very old school. I visited with his family when he was in his early 80s (still in good health), and he was infamous for calling literally every person he met "coach." He said to the person with me (not a coach) "hey coach, what do you do?" and when the manager of the restaurant came over to ask how our meal was he said "hi coach, well, my soup was excellent. coach, you run a great restaurant."
It was funny, but it was his way of showing respect - was just ingrained in his brain.
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Post by spreadattack on Feb 2, 2016 19:26:49 GMT -6
This kills me, though not as much as the NFL guys always being like, "Well, this is one of the great players in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, coached by one of the great coaches in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE. That formation right there is very popular in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, but in order to win in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE you have to run the ball and stop the run. ... Oh, that was a great play. Jones is one of the best wide receivers in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE..." and on and on and on.
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Post by spreadattack on Jan 18, 2016 8:05:42 GMT -6
Has anyone mixed up the offseason weightlifting program by bringing in other people to run it for a day or just doing one off days, to keep it fun? I agree with pretty much everyone that lifting as a team is best, but also that kids now often want to stuff outside the program and, as mentioned, crossfit does have some positive aspects, not least of all the fact that it gets people fired up about the program. But I was curious if anyone has brought in a (good) crossfit guy for a day or just incorporated other ideas? I remember after the movie 300 came out Michigan State started doing "Spartan 300" workout days based on the movie and the training methods the cast used to get ready for the movie: coachad.com/articles/powerline-spartan-300-training/
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Post by spreadattack on Jan 12, 2016 16:46:26 GMT -6
Alabama's right tackle was worked over the entire game; Clemson had some good players on defense. A different game without the blown coverages, the terrible run fit on the long tempo run that went fora TD or the special teams gaffs, but that's also how Alabama and Saban beat you: they hold serve and generally don't make mistakes. I thought Clemson was overall very well coached but not Dabo's best game, but maybe that's unfair considering how well played the game was. Clemson's QB is no joke -- had 500 yards of offense himself and 4 TD passes and Clemson was missing two of their top WRs and their RB was hurt the whole game.
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Post by spreadattack on Jan 12, 2016 16:43:21 GMT -6
Not going to wade into this, but if the main answer to legitimate concerns/questions CTE, concussions, and issues from repeated subconcussive hits is simply to do more neck exercises or move the head away more during tackles, then football has a real problem.
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Post by spreadattack on Jan 12, 2016 16:39:22 GMT -6
Well, at least Stoops didn't say, "Oh, great! Here, just hold my *thing* for me while I read your resume"
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Post by spreadattack on Jan 12, 2016 16:37:40 GMT -6
Film Room was great. I thought Muschamp was pretty good too, though he was maybe a bit technical for the average joe, as he was calling out the specific calls and adjustments Saban/Kirby Smart were calling given his familiarity with Saban's system, like "They were in Cover 1 Funnel" or "they were in Cover 2 Buster" etc., but I thought it was cool.
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Post by spreadattack on Jan 2, 2016 8:14:46 GMT -6
That's nifty - wonder if he's really reading the DE for give? Maybe just give or shovel?
Bowl season has been a little disappointing. I thought Stanford was really impressive. Iowa isn't as good as their record but they are tough and sound, and Stanford just eviscerated him. The McCaffrey kid is special and I like how they've evolved the offense to be more spread to use him, particularly in the passing game. (Stanford even scored on a zone read.)
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Post by spreadattack on Dec 22, 2015 14:28:42 GMT -6
The problem with the Chip Kelly stuff is he came to represent either Forward Thinking in Football or College Football Coaches vs NFL coaches or something else, besides just being a good/solid/decent coach with pluses and minuses like anyone else. Also football -- like everything else -- remains a people business, and the biggest difference between college and the NFL is the people, in essentially every dimension.
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Post by spreadattack on Dec 21, 2015 13:13:35 GMT -6
it wasn't 10 years ago that if you knew anything about computers or video editing, you were beyond the realm of most every coach out there. Now it is such an integral part of coaching, I don't know if a single coach could function on a staff without these skills. To project what the game will look like in 10, 20 or 30 seasons from now, it would help to just lay out what has happened the last 10, 20 and 30 years for coaches. Particularly with the age of the Internet, information is so widely available and readily shared. At least we have smartfootball.com as a record of fact to what the game has gone through (http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/2006/01/has-spread-offense-reached-its-apex.html) Nice of you to say, though others smarter than me have done some of those exercises. In one of Homer Smith's books he got the AFCA and other clinic talks for like the prior 30 years as well as some info before that and traced the basic contours of the evolution of the game in a pretty fascinating discussion (the entire thing is around 15 pages and has more diagrams than text). But you're right about computers and the internet being a game changer for all of this, from blogs to Hudl to GIFs to streaming coaching videos to player teaching, etc. I would also argue that it's reduced the returns to innovation as others diagnose and copy innovations so much faster now than ever -- it used to take years for other teams to copy or catch on and now some of that process takes place in a manner of weeks -- though that's a topic for another time.
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Post by spreadattack on Dec 21, 2015 13:08:38 GMT -6
What I'm saying is that your thesis that the game isn't played much differently than it was then is inaccurate. Essentially, though, it's the same game. Generally, the positions are the same. The dimensions of the field are the same (Despite the changes in the hash marks at different levels). The scoring system hasn't changed and neither have the rules, in general. So, I don't think that the essence of the game will change. Tactics, training methods, technology? Hell I can't predict how that will change next year, let alone in 50 years. That's all fair, and I was trying to get to where you wound up, though you said it more eloquently. From my experience the average fan thinks 50 years ago football looked like those old reels of Walter Camp or Amos Alonzo Stagg coached teams, and I was just trying to say that much of the basis for a lot of modern football was either in place or was already in its early stages there. But I completely agree (and defer to your experience) in terms of that the complexity of the game (and many other facets as well) were very different, though the essence had already begun coalescing around the game we know now. But the constant evolution of the game is one of the fascinating things about it -- I'm not a baseball guy but I can't imagine asking what did baseball look like 50 years ago or what will it look like in 50 years. It will change but not in the way football always does.
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Post by spreadattack on Dec 21, 2015 8:51:18 GMT -6
Coach, can I ask how old you are? Not sure if this is a loaded question, but I'm in my early 30. So I've seen enough to know that things come and go, but I wouldn't say I have the long experience of others who have coached for decades.
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Post by spreadattack on Dec 20, 2015 16:15:39 GMT -6
Well, for those saying 50 years is too long, how about 25 years?
Also under center vs gun might be true but strikes me as more of a 5-10 year thing than a 25-50 year cycle thing, but just my initial reaction.
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Post by spreadattack on Dec 20, 2015 14:22:43 GMT -6
I have been having this conversation with a few folks -- and yes, it's totally speculative and we'll all be wrong and it's just for fun, and no this is not about concussions (well, only sort of about concussions) -- and I've been kicking around some thoughts on what football will be like in 50 years and was curious what the Huey board point of view would be like. A lot of this is driven by technology we can't predict -- definitely didn't know about iphones and ipads or even personal computers back in 1965 -- but I was also curious about the Xs and Os, communication, etc. As a preface, the game of football was definitely different in 1965 (or even 1955) but it also doesn't seem *that* different, given that Bear Bryant was winning national titles at Alabama and the Packers and Lombardi won the Super Bowl, almost every offense was a T-formation offense (and many were even using the shotgun and not just in single wing sets), the early 4-3 and Oklahoma 50 defenses were (I believe) in use, rather than some of the much older schemes, Weeb Ewbank with Namath had refined some of the pocket pass protection mechanics while Bill Yeoman had been running the Houston veer for a couple of years already and David Nelson and Tubby Raymond had been evolving the Wing-T at Delaware since the mid-1950s. Anyway, below are some areas where I'd be curious if any Huey-ites (young and old) had any thoughts on what they'd be like in 50 years. 1. Training: How will players be trained? Still core methods? Will "sports science" take over the game, with cheap fitness and heart rate monitors? To me this is an area that has changed a lot from 50 years ago, and given how competitive sports are and the introduction of wearable technology I see lots of development, though hopefully not developments like the steroid era and, of course, at the end of the day it's about developing the person not the technology. (I also don't think the sport will be played by people with "augmented" features or reality, i.e. extra sight or whatever through surgery or wearable technology, though we do kind of already allow this with receiver's gloves.) 2. Rules: I'd like to keep this away from concussion as I really do think we'll have football in 50 years, though player safety is going to be increasingly important and the rules are going to evolve for this also, but they also will probably continue to evolve to promote offense (particularly at the NFL level). Also, will there be any fundamental rules changes? (Elimination of some kicking game phases like kickoffs, changing to field size, etc?) 3. Teaching/technology: Technology is very broad as it can affect many aspects of the game from player performance to Hudl's impact on gameplanning, but to me it seems to hold a lot of promise for increased teaching -- take home methods, virtual reality sets for mental reps (which is already in use by Stanford and NFL teams). Also I'm curious about communication, whether headsets in radio will become standard, if there will be three dimensional modeling of schemes in real time on the sideline to replace whiteboards, etc. 4. Strategy/schemes: I saved this for last as I think it will trail, but where do ya'll think the game will go in terms of strategy? We've covered a lot of ground over the last 50 years, but we've also in many ways come full circle. For example, check out some pieces from the below article: That article sounds like it could have been published this season -- instead it was published in 1968. OSU's coach saying they would get 100 plays was Woody Hayes; Alabama's "master of defense" was Bear Bryant. www.si.com/vault/1968/11/04/550959/a-new-name-for-the-game-score-score-scoreSo what do you think football Xs and Os/strategy -- and the rest of the sport -- will look like in 50 years? I'll end with a quote from that article: "As Darrell Royal likes to say about trends and how the game goes in cycles: 'There ain't a horse can't be rode or a man can't be throwed.'"
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Post by spreadattack on Nov 24, 2015 9:05:11 GMT -6
NFL can be fun and rough, especially given all the commercials and now everything is about goofy replays and 20 minute replays with confusing rule interpretations -- is it a catch? Some of the players are tremendous and I do enjoy watching the trenches in the NFL, see some wonderful technique stuff as well as some physical feats a lot of people don't notice. I get more out of watching the OL/DL these days in the NFL than pass routes, etc. But an NFL team with 5 OL playing together is fun to watch. As someone said above you can watch any Patriots game and just watch how well coached the offensive line is and get something out of it. It's also easy now with Game Rewind to either watch a condensed game in 30 minutes or go right to the coaches tape with wide and end zone angles.
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Post by spreadattack on Nov 13, 2015 9:46:13 GMT -6
None of these stats will tell you how to set up your drill or what defense to run, but they can help you with organizing your practice by telling you what to emphasize and spend time on. In a perfect world you just try to get good at everything, though as we all know practice and meeting time is limited so you're always shuffling the emphasis. I think that's where it's most helpful -- focusing on what really matters.
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Post by spreadattack on Nov 12, 2015 15:34:01 GMT -6
Correct. It also gets away from the traditional "Hold them under 100 rushing, 150 passing, and 21 points. " If you are a hurry up no huddle team thats fine, but you better be scoring more points per possession than your opponent. It comes back to the changing of today's stats. 1. Be great on 3rd down 2. Create Turnovers! 3. Force Field Goals in the redzone. The rest is fluff. My issue with your list of 3 is not that they don't determine the outcome of games -- they clearly do -- it's that there is a huge amount of variance in how successful teams are at those three things game to game and season to season, i.e., there appears to be a lot of luck involved. I've seen teams lead the country in turnover margin one year and then the next, with basically the same lineup and same schemes, drop to the bottom of the country. People ask what happened, but a lot of it is just luck. There's a bunch of research showing that fumble recoveries is almost all luck driven, which makes sense since so much of which team recovers a fumble depends on how the ball bounces, and while there is slightly less luck with interceptions as some defenses/QBs/schemes are better, there's still a ton of luck there whether the ball bounces straight up or down or a kid catches it or drops the pick. I guess what I'm saying is that I agree you need to emphasize all those things but a lot of the coaches I've seen emphasizing them have had wildly disparate luck (both good and bad), and the best defenses (and often the ones who do well in those categories) are also the best defenses in terms of points per possession, yards per play, and all those normal metrics. I will say third down percentage is a huge one because it really tells you both how good your pass defense is but also your run defense as your percentage gets better the more long yards third down situations you force. Anyway, it's all a good discussion to figure out stats that really matter. Doesn't have to be all "analytics" to just find some comon sense useful metrics that aren't just total yards.
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Post by spreadattack on Nov 12, 2015 13:45:46 GMT -6
I also liked the data on the NFL page showing the percentage of drives that ended with a turnover. That's an important one to control.
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Post by spreadattack on Nov 12, 2015 10:09:28 GMT -6
It's all part of a general move towards efficiency stats and away from totals stats, in part because you can't really compare teams apples to apples anymore with different style of play, and it also helps you focus on the right things, i.e., the interplay of field position with drive efficiency, etc. Also highlights making smart fourth down decisions and other factors -- are you conceding points by punting? how good is your kicker? are your special teams giving your opponent good field position which means you are giving up more points per drive than your defense would otherwise be allowing? I don't know about it making time of possession more important, though points per possession (further) highlights how important turnovers are because it's a way of stealing possessions (same with things like onside kicks and also how valuable end of half possessions are, etc). Go to the last chart on this page labeled "Drives" for NFL data from this season, including average starting position, yards per drive, plays per drive, etc. www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2015/Also that football scoop article is really just pulled from Brian Fremeau's excellent writeup on the subject for CFB here: www.bcftoys.com/2015-ppd/
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Post by spreadattack on Oct 30, 2015 9:15:55 GMT -6
Kill was told he had to step away from coaching because of his cancer; I thought this was very moving. Said when he walked off the practice field for the last time he "felt like a part of him died."
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Post by spreadattack on Sept 10, 2015 7:43:44 GMT -6
WSJ had an article on QB's in which a lot of NFL people did a lot of hand wringing over what they thought was bad teaching of QBs at the lower levels. We can argue about different systems, but some of the stuff in here seemed rather unbelievable, like the GM of the Bills saying a legitimate NFL draft QB prospect didn't know the difference between Cover 2 and Cover 3. I'm curious what people on here think of this -- is there not enough teaching of QBs? Does this ring true? I have some thoughts about the NFL's own issues here, but I also know a lot of teams aren't teaching their QBs about fronts, protections, etc (and having success with it). www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-nfl-has-a-quarterback-crisis-1441819454
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Post by spreadattack on Jun 16, 2015 10:33:04 GMT -6
1) Do what you do
2) Think about -- but don't obsess -- over signals. If you have some pretty simple and obvious signals those might be due for a change anyway, but don't obsess about it and change everything.
3) Self scout -- You should be doing this anyway but you as a playcaller or gameplanner may have some tendencies you don't think about or that other teams haven't picked up on, and the only real difference between a normal opponent and an opponent that knows you very well is they may have a better beat on those tendencies. This is different than throwing everything out, but putting in a few tendency breakers can actually be a way to *exploit* the fact that the other team's coaches know you well and think they know what's coming.
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