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Post by raider92 on Aug 3, 2022 17:17:21 GMT -6
I'm still a younger coach at 32, but it blows my mind how hard it is to get other coaches on board with organizational maps and road-mapping, especially with practice plans. So many that I grew up with and work with just go "defense day, offense day, and whatever we need to do day." IMO, this lack of mapping is one of the fastest and easiest ways to forget about fundamentals. One of my biggest gripes is wasted practice time, especially long pauses for water breaks or just talking/standing around. I see higher-level college and NFL programs doing these with great efficiency, and while I don't expect lower levels to be that organized, some kind of mapping or practice planning should be utilized. Our HC for our team would like to have interns for our program (though we wouldn't be able to pay them), and I've expressed to have one to be a quality control coach/intern...one who blows the whistle to stop/start each session of practice, or to make sure we aren't wasting time (I even suggested it could be a random friend/partner of the staff or team who wants to be involved). Give them a practice plan, and blow a whistle when it's time for the next session. I got quite a lot of resistance for it. We had a female student who took on a quality control type role for us one year. It was awesome. Like you said she blew the horn between sessions which was great because it kept me from getting 1 more rep of bucksweep and she also set up and took down drills so they were ready at the right times, set up cameras, got the scout books and scout jerseys ready for us, kept track of how many reps we were getting in various sessions, etc. She basically took on all the non football functions of running practice. She was also really fun to have around and, importantly, was mature enough to know how to not become a distraction.
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Post by raider92 on Jul 21, 2022 17:41:54 GMT -6
We have had this problem in the past and a friend suggested we do oklahoma in the endzone before the game. I think it set the tone and the other teams had to be a bit intimidated even if they didn't show it. For that group it turned us around and we won district and went two rounds deep in 6A Florida football. I would love some more info on the pre game lifts, what colleges do it? Any articles? My S and C coach might need some convincing. The best resource imo is Kevin Vanderbush. I believe he posts here. He was a big proponent of it when I spoke with him, maybe his philosophy has changed. To be clear we aren't going to have guys burning themselves out on max sets of squats. We do some lighter weight snatches and cleans etc., and fridays are an upper body lift day for us so our guys would get their upper body work in like normal that morning or during school. I'd definitely start by contacting Coach Vanderbush first if you're looking to convince your S&C coach, hes an outstanding resource.
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Post by raider92 on Jul 20, 2022 22:42:51 GMT -6
A few college programs (probably more than a few but I know of a few for sure) will do some Olympic lifts on gameday or even right before they go take the field for warm-ups. The idea being it gets the central nervous system firing.
The problem with most "warm ups" is the kids dont actually get warm. We feel the same about contact. A boxer gets into a full sweaty lather before he goes out to fight. We feel the same way about our players, the first time they get hit should be in warm ups not in the game. Maybe try some Oly lifts and some good physical drill work in pre-game. We do full on live tackling and board drills in warm ups. We also start practice like this as well.
Similarly, many of the basketball coaches I know who have gotten on board with gameday lifting report their teams getting off to way better starts.
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Post by raider92 on Jul 8, 2022 13:13:23 GMT -6
This is a good point. We run Wing-T and I call a ton of plays into our own sidelineHow many is a "ton," i.e. what percentage of your plays in a given game or even over a season? I set the TE/W into our own boundary I'd guess 80+% of the time if not more. Bucksweep, power, or buck trap probably account for 80% or more of our run game and all would go into the boundary if we set TE/W that way (we flip our line) so it's definitely a lot. It actually works great because the times we aren't running buck, power, or trap into the boundary we are running counter or waggle to the open field side which has some big play potential. It really doesnt hurt us to the boundary side either because buck sweep shouldnt be going wide anyway. When the quarter switches we just turn the formation around and stay into our boundary. The only times we wouldn't be extremely boundary oriented would be if teams load up numbers to our TE/W surface in which case we would still set the TE/W into the boundary but would attack the field side with belly series. We don't do that often tho, buck series is the overwhelming majority of what we do.
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Post by raider92 on Jul 8, 2022 12:26:15 GMT -6
For spread stuff, you are often in better shape calling the strength based on the alignment of the RB, but you have to be careful with that. Offenses try to be better about having “same side” plays than they used to be a few years ago, but the bottom line is that a sidecar RB is going to need to cross the QB’s face to get the ball on most runs, so calling strength AWAY from the RB is pretty common. It’s still not that rare to see teams who have no “same side” stuff for the RB except maybe a counter. For many, the same side run game often turns out to be QB runs and keeps. If the QB is the stud runner, you may want to declare it to the RB for that reason. You don’t necessarily have to set players based on run strength. You can just play a 4-2 and have your front 6 in C gap to C gap, maybe with the DE bumping out to a 6 or 7 tech. A 3-3 team can do much of the same stuff by walking the stacked OLB into a 6 tech and slanting everyone else away from him. This means you can just set both passing and run strength to the field (or to a tendency, which may be as simple as “right” or “left” as a default, so long as everybody follows their alignment rules so we get the gaps and receivers covered and we can make a Trips check or something if necessary. Remember that “run strength” itself can be kind of a nebulous term. Is it the side the offense is more likely to run the ball towards or is it the side with more people and potential blockers? If both those things tell you nothing, it may simply be Right or Left for various reasons, to the RB or away from him, or even to the opponent’s sideline or away. I’ve seen some teams who strongly prefer to call plays towards their own bench, which was apparently an old-school thing that some coaches would do before the days of headsets so they could see the details from the sideline for themselves as each play happened. I’ve seen some no huddle teams use it (not sure why), lower level teams without spotters doing it, as well as modern HS coaches who just don’t like wearing headsets. This is a good point. We run Wing-T and I call a ton of plays into our own sideline because it let's me see every detail for playcalling purposes. It also makes it harder for opposing coaches to help players recognize unbalanced sets or help them know what adjustments to call.
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Post by raider92 on Jul 6, 2022 16:33:04 GMT -6
My first year with my current program we lifted/ran for about an hour or so and then spent maybe 45 minutes on the field afterwards plus some 7s on Sunday evenings. Couldnt do much more than that because we had low numbers and most guys weren't real committed to football. After a good first year we had a lot of kids excited about football and a lot of returning players. The kids wanted to really get after it and we went whole hog 5 days a week with lifting, running, 7s, practice, etc. Probably about 2.5 hours every day. We had a great season and got much better on offense by sharpening things up over the summer. 3rd year same scenario, lots of energy and excitement. Same schedule thru the summer but by the last few weeks of the season I could tell the kids and even some coaches were checked out. We had just pushed too hard for too long, we had basically been 24/7 football for 2 years.
I think it depends a lot on where you're at as a program and the mix of kids you've got. What worked year 1 wouldnt have been good for year 2, but probably would've been perfect for year 3. I dont think theres any hard and fast rule but I'd err on the side of less.
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Post by raider92 on Jun 10, 2022 8:13:22 GMT -6
Apparently Quarters coverage, specifically split field coverage. Spilling too I guess. Tite/Mint front Crushing the front That's all too complex and can't be run at the high school level. I abhor spilling. We spill but I find more and more that it can be more trouble than it's worth. A good defense will be better by spilling but spilling can also make a below average defense look atrocious IMO. I see a lot of bad defenses in college football getting absolutely gutted in the alley because they're spilling to a guy who cant make the play in space or spilling to nobody at all. I've found it to be weirdly regional. Some places do it because that's the standard way and other places dont and its viewed as a "college" thing that may or may not be applicable to high school ball. Lots of great programs doing it either way. Fwiw I played in a 3-5 stack in high school that was probably 75% cover 0 or 1 and boxed everything. Made life super simple. As a head coach I've always spilled but I'd probably just box everything if we had a below average group of kids come through.
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Post by raider92 on Jun 9, 2022 19:01:52 GMT -6
Oh man, I know you wrote that you didn't want this to be malicious, and I'll try not to, but there are a lot of things out there that people do that just blow my mind. I was lucky enough to spend most of my coaching career, especially my early years, on good staffs with people who knew what they were doing. So when I landed on lesser ones I was shocked. You mentioned practice plans, I would add to that just organization as a whole. There is a general idea of what needs to get done, but nobody maps it out and it leads to blindspots, missed steps, and overlap of coaches not staying in their lanes. Along those lines, actual coordination by coordinators. You don't just call plays, you coordinate. You need to make sure the drills the position coaches are teaching (get to that later) fit within your scheme. So many coordinators just expect position coaches to come in and coach 'em up. And even if they do coach them stuff, said stuff doesn't fit. Coordinators should know precisely what they want the position coaches teaching, how to teach it, and when. They should then make sure that the PCs know this and how to do it. Unfortunately, most coordinators don't do this; they are either lacking the knowledge and structural understanding of how to implement it, or don't want to be seen as a micro manager, so they let PCs do what they want, and it doesnt mesh. Then there is the actual teaching of techniques. Lots of teams out there have coaches who don't really teach technique. Some may "tell" the players what to do, usually with a phrase that the players don't fully understand. Others show them, but continually coaching and enforcing technique, its shockingly rare. Coaches just have them perform full game situation movements (ie block this play) without refining, drilling, and repping the precise how. Blows my mind how many kids play football without being taught how to play their position. Athletic development and understanding of the human body is shockingly lacking. I'm not writing you need to be a kinesiologist, but I have seen multiple programs where coaches implement weight programs that end up harming the athletes physical development, and ignore the development of muscle groups. Accountability is another one. I get, a lot of people are handcuffed by the admin in how they can discipline players and address issues. But there is a lot of 'turning a blind eye' out there that really shocks me. Sometimes its coaches not wanting to anger a star player, other times its not wanting to deal with issues. Its awful. In any case, soapbox away for now. This should be a sticky/PSA...Not to mention, what maybe takes the cake is that when someone like yourself or myself tries to encourage/implement/tactfully push for even one piece of that, let alone most or all of it, so many people drag their feet, get annoyed, get passive-aggressive, or even get downright irrate for suggesting any of that. You get stuff like "C'mon coach, this is HS football, we ain't Alabama/New England, we're all just out here trying to have some fun." Then, 15 minutes later during team period, that same jackleg is out there screaming at their WR for dropping a pass and saying "come on now, so and so, we are trying to win games here, this is varsity football, this aint rec league!" 🙄🙄🙄 This. I absolutely hate the "we aren't Alabama/this is just high school ball" excuse for not teaching things right. Our O and D are intentionally crafted to be streamlined and simple enough for guys to learn it and execute it. I've worked hard to make sure it's a well put together package that can be learned and executed by our guys. With that said, it has to be taught properly. I'll crawl up an assistant's A$$ if they're not teaching something right. A down block is a 90 degree angle, a FBs 1st step is directly down the Midline on trap, etc. Teach it right. I'm an easy guy to coach for, but when assistants act like little details aren't important because it's high school ball I'm going to lose my $hit. That goes for terminology too. I tell our guys if the OLB asks what his job is on our "Axe" blitz then the freshman, JV, and varsity coaches better all give the exact same answer in the same terminology. If you dont want to learn the system well enough to teach it then go coach someplace where losing ballgames is acceptable.
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Post by raider92 on Jan 14, 2022 10:17:01 GMT -6
How does a team end up hiring 3 female coaches? If they can coach then no harm no foul but hiring 3 feels like it's on purpose or making a statement in some way.. Wouldn't fly around here tbh. Not just because people would think it was weird (it is), but because if my life depended on hiring 3 qualified female coaches I'd be effed running and sideways. Because two of them already had 10+ years of coaching experience (I coach with them now myself, and one of them is now the HC of our team), and the third is an all-american DB in the women's football alliance who has more football smarts than most coaches her age (and plays with far better technique than most high school DB's I've seen)...the big piece is that all three are reliable and professional. He coaches a team where no coaches get paid/it's all volunteer, and this was the first year he didn't have coaches either randomly vanishing early or midway through the year, or starting fights with their own players. Since I started coaching women's football, I've found it really is just a matter of people being ignorant outside of that circle when it comes to women coaches. It's only "weird" if people want it to be. They shouldn't have to work or prove themselves twice as hard that they can coach simply because they're women. Do you coach women's football? Edit: just saw you did state you coach womens football. I had wrongly assumed you coached high school boys football. Obviously female coaches are probably much more common in female football. I'm in a particularly conservative part of a conservative state coaching boys. I'd get a visit from the boosters and be cleaning out my office shortly thereafter if I hired 3 female coaches. I have no doubt the women you coach with are very good coaches.
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Post by raider92 on Jan 14, 2022 7:03:35 GMT -6
How does a team end up hiring 3 female coaches? If they can coach then no harm no foul but hiring 3 feels like it's on purpose or making a statement in some way..
Wouldn't fly around here tbh. Not just because people would think it was weird (it is), but because if my life depended on hiring 3 qualified female coaches I'd be effed running and sideways.
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Post by raider92 on Jan 10, 2022 8:54:38 GMT -6
Not sure what kind of system you run but anything that places a premium on snot-bubbling opponents is an easier sell imo. When I took over as HC I sold it to kids that we would be the most physical team in the state and it started with the OL, this was a group that was decidedly not physical the previous years and was more of a basketball school. Switched some of the best players from LB, RB, and even QB to OL to get ourselves squared away there (wasnt popular). Played a ranked opponent week 1 who was a big wrestling power and known for toughness. Got beat 24-20. Opposing coach told me after the game he was shocked at how physical we were. I told the team and they ate it up and from there on they have really believed they're a tough group of SOBs (most of them are teddy bears off the field). I think you get what you emphasize and if you're constantly talking about the OL and toughness kids will want to be a part of it when asked.
We also dont give them a choice. You play what we tell you to play, there's no debate or discussion.
Also helps in my case that I'm the head coach and the OL coach, certainly shows that its important. You could also get the same effect if your DC or S&C coach i.e. someone who puts in a lot of hours with the kids is coaching that position. If you hand the OL over to some newbie it's a pretty clear message it's not that important
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Post by raider92 on Nov 5, 2021 6:08:20 GMT -6
but we catch all kinds of BS from bleeding heart teachers and moms whenever we win by more than 21... This. That story of the team winning by over 100 is insane. We catch flack, at least on the JV level from parents if we don't start subbing in up 2 scores which is absurd. We don't sub in if a game is that close until the last series or two in the 4th. I did once start subbing in the first quarter because we jumped out to an easy 28-0 lead. Probably should've went for the running clock but there was nothing to gain other than getting out a little quicker and it's nice to get kids some quality PT. We didn't score again because I called the dogs off early. This team was so bad. We ended up winning 28-0 and their coaches who we know pretty well were appreciative. It drives me nuts. We won a hard fought rivalry game one year, which was also a crazy shootout, and after the game I get an email from a parent pissed that his senior son only played special teams on senior day. His son is an awful defensive back. We had won by 14 after punching in a score with around 5 minutes left in the 4th to make it a two score game and in his mind that meant we should've put the backups out there. The opposing QB threw for like 400 yards against our pretty good starters at defensive back. How long do you think it would've taken for them to cut it back to a 1 score game? You can never reason with those people. He would've been the first to crucify me if we blew a 14 point lead to the crosstown rival
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Post by raider92 on Nov 4, 2021 17:13:36 GMT -6
Back in 2008, I coached under a guy who basically went off "gut feeling" for when to go for two and when to kick PATs. Sometimes we went for two, sometimes we kicked and there honestly wasn't any real rhyme or reason as to why. Anyway, we were playing a team we were better than and were up 39-6. Not sure how exactly we got to 39 due to the reason listed, but anyway we did and then scored to make it 45-6. We kicked the PAT and missed it...so no running clock. I figured it would still be a quick rest of the game as we were both run-first Wing T teams. Well, they come out and proceeded to pass literally every play the rest of the game, we never did score again, and it was the longest second half I've ever been a part of. I've been guilty of this. I suck at math and didnt realize kicking the PAT would leave us 1 point short of the running clock. What made it worse was we had gone for 2 every other time, without thinking about it I just thought the classy thing to do was kick it. We put in the JV guys and the opponent kept their starters in. Our young guys couldnt stop them at all on D but ran thru them like a hot knife thru butter on offense. Ended up being a shootout, 69 to 42 or something ridiculous and ended up being the longest game I've ever coached. Should've just left the starters in and finished them off but we catch all kinds of BS from bleeding heart teachers and moms whenever we win by more than 21...
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Post by raider92 on May 27, 2019 8:57:37 GMT -6
My 2 cents, the rah rah buzzword bs that comes from coaching Twitter is an embarrassment to our profession. It's all self promotion in disguise. With that said, culture is extremely important. In my experience, guys who are buzz word hashtag coaches are also facemelter guys. The local hashtag coach around here is a 5 wide empty guy with a noodle armed qb and they suck, but hey they dominate the other teams in the area on Twitter. Right down the road from him is a 35 year veteran wing t coach who probably doesnt know what Twitter is but his team lifts like crazy all year round. The first coach has buzzword/twitter culture and the second has a real, effective, team culture.
When it comes down to matchups between 2 extremely talented and well run programs the Xs and Os are extremely important but even in those games one side or the other is usually going to have a bit more talent than the other on the lines or have a game breaking back that can hit a home run. There are maybe 1-2 games a year where the Xs and Os are absolutely critical. They're always important, but rarely do they outright decide a game.
The game itself is tough and takes a ton of hard work and perseverance just to even play it. In any competently run program it is a challenge just to be a football player. That, plus a coach who is a good role model, is the way kids learn life lessons. I think the character development stuff is a net positive, and in particular programs where kids are not getting any of that at home it is a good thing, but I think some guys get too wrapped up in it. Get them in the weight room, push them hard in practice, build relationships with them, and be a good role model for them and you've done 99% of the work towards helping them learn life lessons from football.
JMO
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Post by raider92 on Aug 14, 2018 21:25:00 GMT -6
Do any of you guys use a drying room or do you let practice uniforms sit in lockers overnight?
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Post by raider92 on Feb 1, 2018 17:27:06 GMT -6
What kind of attendance policies are you guys using? A former school of mine had a policy that if you missed 1 Day of practice for any reason you missed a quarter that week, miss 2 practices in a week and you don't play Friday. This also applied to injuries. What kind of procedures do you use to keep track of attendance?
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