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Post by wolverine55 on Mar 22, 2024 11:09:44 GMT -6
I was going to post this the other day: SMU wasn't wrong; they were just ahead of their time!
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Post by wolverine55 on Mar 16, 2024 11:30:09 GMT -6
Honestly, in that situation, I think you just go with your normal after school routine from the beginning. Iowa has essentially eliminated two-a-days anyway so that's what we do even if practice starts before school does.
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Post by wolverine55 on Feb 9, 2024 10:47:56 GMT -6
We've done split practices since 2018 and at first I liked it. But, I'm interviewing for a HC job tomorrow and I've written up some base practice plans that have us practicing both sides of the ball every day. Passing was a big part of what we did last year and due to a returning QB, probably will be this year too. It got to the point where it became weird not having our QBs and WRs throw and catch every day. I imagine option teams with the ball handling would have similar issues.
Also, Wednesday was our defensive practice. If, and this happened a couple of times last season, I realized a check or call was a bad matchup with one of their formations or I realized I maybe needed to check something, that only gave me Thursday walkthrough to correct it. It would be better to have these realizations on Tuesday with a "work day" still available to fix them.
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Post by wolverine55 on Jan 19, 2024 10:45:27 GMT -6
I played high school football during the '96 and '97 seasons. I attended a really small high school (115ish) students so we first got to participate in football by joining another school as part of a co-op my junior year. Despite having only two years of experience, I did get to then also play for a D3 school. I will say that looking back now and comparing where I have coached to where I attended high school, we had an insane amount of good athletes for such a small school. Anyway, here's what sticks out to me:
1. As others have mentioned, there wasn't an off-season program other than 2-3 days a week in the weight room. I was projected to be a center immediately so I went out and snapped a football with a teammate after lifting weights. No one else did anything football-related during these weight sessions and this was the whole month of June and most of July.
2. The only football-related activity all summer was we had camp the last week of July Monday-Thursday at our practice field. This was a couple of weeks before practice officially started and was supposed to be the kickoff to the season.
3. We had talent--one school in our co-op won a basketball state title in '97 and then my school won it in '98--but we had a lack of experience. We had 36 players on the team in my junior year...and 21 of us had never played football before that season. It showed as went 0-9. Here's how raw we were: we played an extremely good Wing T team about midseason, and we were shocked that they pulled guards on passing plays!
4. My senior year, we recruited the heck out of the hallways and got our numbers up to 55 or so and we did go 3-6. Again, that lack of experience kind of did us in at times.
5. Backtracking to my junior year, we did Bull-in-the-ring and in my first rep of being in the center I got trucked by our starting fullback who was not new to the game. It was his fourth year of playing. And, that is how I fell in love with the game, lol!!
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Post by wolverine55 on Dec 19, 2023 8:13:54 GMT -6
On a serious note, dodgeball would be great if you have gym space or your kids could join the "regular" PE class for a day or two if not.
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Post by wolverine55 on Dec 19, 2023 8:12:44 GMT -6
There is no place for fun in the weight room. Squat heavy below parallel 8-6-4-3-2-2-2-4-1 and send them to English class. As the great American philosopher Thee Year Letterman has stated, "An hour spent in the weightroom is worth more than a lifetime in the classroom."
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Post by wolverine55 on Dec 8, 2023 11:59:25 GMT -6
For our home games, local churches provide pregame meals. Varsity players drive to the church right after school is dismissed (3:00) and we eat at 3:30. Players are free to leave the meal whenever they want to as long as they're back at the school by 5:30. This does give them some free time, but it's never been a problem. JV is given sandwiches/snack bags as they play at 5.
For road games, our players are provided a bag that has a sub sandwich, chips, and some fruit in it to eat on the bus ride. We used to do the Thursday night meal, but for us coaches, it was decided that we needed to take advantage of a night where we got home early to be with our families as our Thursday walk-through is only roughly an hour long.
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Post by wolverine55 on Dec 5, 2023 12:35:30 GMT -6
We meet as a staff at 9 a.m. Sunday and this meeting lasts until noon or so. The reason I point that out is because the answer to your first question depends. Sometimes I leave that meeting feeling pretty good about things and sometimes I leave that meeting thinking, "Chit, I still have a ton of stuff to figure out." Depends on the scheme and talent level of the opponent.
With your second question, it also depends on the opponent but one of my assistants has been a defensive coordinator for a state championship team before. I always run ideas and thoughts by him. Sometimes, depending on his suggestions, the game plan we run is more his than mine but it all fits within our defensive system anyway.
I'll add that I'm responsible for doing my tackle stats. I do these on Saturday morning but then try to make the rest of Saturday a family day as my wife and I have a two-year-old and a one-year-old. Watching college football together falls under the definition of family day, lol!
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Post by wolverine55 on Nov 28, 2023 11:38:59 GMT -6
In the past, we've gone to the St. Louis one as we're in southeast Iowa, so it's an easy drive down. Haven't heard anything on this offseason. The only bad thing for me is that the weekend sometimes coincides with the last weekend of basketball season so it's hit or miss on if I can make it or not. We also normally buy the season pass.
As a young coach, I actually spent the money and went to an individual Glazier clinic by myself and still had a great time.
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Post by wolverine55 on Nov 28, 2023 8:30:08 GMT -6
I like the idea of the sky kick, but we don't practice that so we would squib. For whatever reason, kickoff coverage is a consistent issue for us so we normally squib even if we don't particularly fear the other team's return men. Then, when they move the guys up, we give our kicker the freedom to blast one over their heads as he does genuinely have a decent leg.
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Post by wolverine55 on Nov 27, 2023 9:17:57 GMT -6
I like having access to Glazier Drive, but as mentioned I've lost interest in actually attending a Glazier clinic in person. If location is no factor--or if we're just supplying good clinics for the good of the group--two I'll vouch for in Illinois are the Run the Gun Clinic hosted by Sacred Heart-Griffin in Springfield, IL and the Tri-State Clinic in Quincy, IL.
The Quincy clinic is normally early-to-Mid-March and used to be a Wing T delight but they've expanded topics recently. The Gun clinic used to be "invite only" but I'm not sure how hard it is to get on the list anymore.
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Post by wolverine55 on Nov 21, 2023 8:07:07 GMT -6
For us, the "new stuff" we had to defend was the return to heavy personnel. This was also due to a change in schedule as Iowa rotates every two years. We saw Flexbone, Double TE Power I (twice), shotgun 3-back (twice), and then a plethora of shotgun 21 personnel in our district play. Both of the double TE Power I teams, one of the 3-back teams, and the Flexbone team had all been some form of spread within the last 1-3 years.
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Post by wolverine55 on Nov 10, 2023 14:02:55 GMT -6
OOOHHH, almost forgot this classic from the Frosh game. We kind of got the game in hand 20- 10 late in the 4th. We're trying to run out the clock, QB gets banged up, no back up, put in RB at the QB, running I/S Zone but the 2 numb nuts keep bouncing outside and running out of bounds, AND the back judges apparently thinks he's getting paid by the hour. He has throw close to a dozen flags just himself. We have 1st and 10 at their 15, end up with 4th and 45 and and score. Re-reading this thread reminded me I have one I can add from this past season. Our last game was against a state-ranked opponent and as outclassed as our varsity was, our JV was even moreso. Well, it's getting towards the end of the JV game and the crew is throwing flags on literally every play. One of our chain gang members told me this. After one of the flags, which went in our oppoent's favor, one of their assistant coaches goes, "Good lord, we're up 40 points. Can we stop throwing flags?!" Just a few seconds later, the official on that sideline could be heard saying into his radio to the rest of the crew: "Hey guys, it's a 40 point game. Can we stop throwing flags?"
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Post by wolverine55 on Oct 27, 2023 8:01:29 GMT -6
We had one Friday night on PI that 'happened' about midfield..... about a 15 yard go route on their sideline. The side judge was about 5 yards away. Ball incomplete, whistle blows, everybody slows down/stops; a full 3 seconds later the back judge crow hops and throws a flag towards that sideline about 25 yards in the air. He then jogs over and picks up the flag to toss it the additional 10 yards to mark the spot of the 'foul'. yeah, I'm a DB coach but it was not even close to a PI. My wife told me I yelled at those refs in the JV game Monday more than I did in the 20 years I coached. Combined. I rarely yell at refs because I know they try and it's a job no one wants. 3 things piss me off though 1. When refs don't know basic rules 2. They allow the sidelines to determine what flag does and doesn't get thrown 3. Poor mechanics- when a ref throws a flag on something that's not their call, I lose my {censored} mind I lied- 4. When refs take it upon themselves to keep the score close and start throwing complete BS. I totally agree and that's why I also try to not get on the refs too much, plus I'm not a head coach. I will say that for whatever reason, I saw way more of 2 and 3 this year than I ever have before.
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Post by wolverine55 on Oct 26, 2023 9:48:36 GMT -6
I've actually done live stats during our varsity basketball games. I was worried about the pace. And you're right: it wasn't very hard at all.
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Post by wolverine55 on Oct 26, 2023 9:19:59 GMT -6
Our stats, I think, got called into question at our district meeting earlier this week. I try my hardest to make the tackles as accurate as possible. Sometimes you're at the mercy of your filmer. In Iowa and apparently elsewhere, it's supposed to be 1 tackle for a solo and 0.5 for an assist with no more than two assists per play. But...I have a hard time not giving guys an assist when it legitimately takes 3 or 4 guys to get a ball carrier down. That doesn't happen very often though. I would like to think my stats are pretty accurate.
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Seniors
Oct 20, 2023 15:20:58 GMT -6
Post by wolverine55 on Oct 20, 2023 15:20:58 GMT -6
Back in 2017, we went 0-9 and the seniors we had actually had some ability but didn't work hard and just flat-out weren't good kids. To make it worse, our 3 most winnable games were weeks 1, 2, and 4. Made for a looooooong last five weeks because after we dropped the week 4 game everyone could see the writing on the wall.
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Post by wolverine55 on Oct 18, 2023 7:57:49 GMT -6
We have. They only answer you'll get--at least in Iowa--is "Well, you can't really tell on the film..." even when it's pretty obvious on the film.
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Post by wolverine55 on Oct 16, 2023 8:20:30 GMT -6
We run the typical spread majoring in Power/Counter but this year has been refreshing in some ways based on what we've seen from opponents: Week 1: Flexbone Week 2: Shotgun spread, but majored in TE Trips formation. Gave us a ton of problems as they didn't show this formation once Week 1. Week 3: Double TE Power I Week 4: Double TE I with some variety in formation Week 5: Shotgun Spread and they were bad. My first-ever shutout as defensive coordinator. Week 6: Shotgun Spread and they were good. Held them to 17 points, but lost a nailbiter. Week 7: Shotgun Two-back. Basically ran what the Week 4 team did, just out of the gun. Week 8: Shotgun Wing T. Week 9: A very good team who will give us a bit of everything Friday night, but the base is Shotgun Wing running counter.
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Post by wolverine55 on Sept 14, 2023 10:48:33 GMT -6
I actually got a call to my classroom one time asking if a kid was there. He was and was actually working on work with me and the caller simply said he needed to get home ASAP. I asked the kid if there was an emergency or if he knew why he needed to be home. He lifted his pants leg to show me his ankle monitor.
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Post by wolverine55 on Sept 11, 2023 9:45:12 GMT -6
Tough to follow that one, but I was reminded of another one this weekend. 2012 was my first season at my current coaching job. We major in Power/Counter out of two-back gun and did back then as well. Not sure why "wide 9s" would have given us trouble but I guess they were on this particular night.
Anyway, at halftime we're talking adjustments and our HC/OL coach was talking to his left tackle and asked him about the 9 techs. The left tackle gets an incredulous look on his face and responds, "9s?! They're WAAAAY out there! They're like 10s or 11s!"
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Post by wolverine55 on Sept 8, 2023 8:12:30 GMT -6
This goes back 20ish years ago. I was a freshmen line coach and also taught primarily freshmen English classes. Our freshman QB, who was not a good student at all, really got into Romeo and Juliet of all things. During a 9th-grade game, as he is lining up under center, he points at one of the opposing defensive tackles and says, "Sir, I bite my thumb at you!" Everyone on the field just stood there in shocked silence for a few seconds before he got going with the cadence.
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Post by wolverine55 on Aug 25, 2023 15:32:31 GMT -6
We play against a Flexbone team Friday at home. I'll link it if we livestream. Hopefully, you don't get too much out of it, lol!! "Due to network issues" no livestream of our game tonight.
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Post by wolverine55 on Aug 21, 2023 12:57:33 GMT -6
We play against a Flexbone team Friday at home. I'll link it if we livestream. Hopefully, you don't get too much out of it, lol!!
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Post by wolverine55 on Aug 7, 2023 8:54:08 GMT -6
Strangest I've heard in these regards is a teacher (can't remember if he coached or not) was in a tree spying on neighboring high school females having a pool party. Well, one of the girls actually started to drown and he sprung into action and saved her. Once things calmed down, where he was exactly and how he knew so quickly the girl needed help came into question.
This happened years ago and a quick google search proved fruitless, but I know it was a small Illinois school.
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Post by wolverine55 on Jul 21, 2023 7:05:18 GMT -6
1. Location--Southeast Iowa (Keokuk, literally as south and east as you can get and still be in Iowa, lol)
2. How many students are in your school 9-12? 600
3. How many players are in your program 9-12? Expecting 65ish this year, which is significantly up compared to past years.
4. How much money does your program raise each year? We do a fundraiser that raises us close to $15,000, but not all of that is pure profit as it's one of those discount card fundraisers so the company gets their take.
5. How much money is budgeted to you from school/district? Not sure, but as others have said, we generally get what we need.
6. What is your average home game attendance? Anything over 1,000 would be a big crowd for us. Not sure what the average works out to.
7. How often do you purchase new uniforms? Last purchase was 2019, but jerseys still in great shape.
8. How much gear does your program give players? Two shirts and a pair of shorts each year.
9. How much gear does your program give coaches? The same as the players plus occasionally a polo.
10. How many coaches are on your staff? 5 (maybe 6) We have a significantly smaller staff than almost everyone we play.
11. How many legitimately solid coaches are on your staff? 5, but if we do get the 6th guy on-board this year, he has very limited football knowledge but handles ALL of our technology stuff. That may count as "legitimately solid" in this day and age.
12. How many coaches on staff also have on campus jobs? All of us except one, who is a recent grad still in college.
13. How often does your staff get together outside of work? Rarely if ever.
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Post by wolverine55 on Jun 17, 2023 17:10:25 GMT -6
I agree that a four hour summer session is ridiculous regardless of time of day. I will say based on my experience players and families prefer the mornings as it's easier for work schedules plus high school baseball is a summer sport in Iowa.
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Post by wolverine55 on Jun 9, 2023 14:08:13 GMT -6
We go from 7:30-9:30 a.m. Monday through Thursday. That's weights and on-field work. We had a 7 on 7 this week and have I believe two more this summer. We'll have a team camp that's one night on July 20, I think. One thing that helps is nothing is done Friday-Sunday. Even our 7 on 7s and team camp are Tuesdays or Thursdays.
I did work for one HC who I wouldn't have worked for again because of summer demands but he was only here one year.
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Post by wolverine55 on May 28, 2023 15:01:12 GMT -6
The last couple pages of this thread have been amongst the oddest I've read on here. We might as well let aceback and that one guy who had literally had five different usernames chime in at this point.
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Post by wolverine55 on May 15, 2023 9:41:17 GMT -6
In my experience (different schools in both Iowa and Illinois) the Sunday policy has been "with Principal's permission." But, no one brings kids in on a Sunday unless it was the playoffs or if the basketball team had a Monday postseason game, there would be a brief Sunday practice.
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