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Post by The Lunch Pail on Apr 8, 2024 4:18:23 GMT -6
This is no shade at the OP, but I personally hate the term "simple." It's completely vague. What's "simple" for your kid that's been playing FB since 3rd grade is not "simple" for your kid who just started playing this year. "Simple" tends to devalue scheme or strategy, which is a part of the game. It's not all of the game, but it is part of the game. A team gaining a tactical strategy on you and whipping your a$$ with it isn't any different than a team with a cultural advantage over you or a physical advantage over you. Culture-Physicality-Strategy are the 3 main components of a football team. If you're weak in one of those areas, someone will expose you and it'll hurt. Create an emphasis on shrinking the picture for your guys. You'd be surprised how much a kid can learn when everything is a stimulus-response off of one guy. I hear a lot of guys say "we're gonna K.I.S.S. and run spot-drop Cover 3!" but have the most vague LB reads ever that only make a kid freeze 'cause he doesn't know what the fk he's looking at. You see spot drop coverage a ton in the NFL because it's the most instinctual, highly-aware concept you can ask of a kid. While complexity and volume can go hand-in-hand, they aren't always a direct correlation. Just because you have 3 different run plays doesn't mean it's automatically simple. It all goes back to how it's coached. It can't be ignorant or short-sighted. I used to say "this is how we block GT counter vs. a 3-3-5" when I coached OL, and I'd get torn to shreds when a team spammed NCAA fire zone on us from that look. I wasn't being "simple," just short-sighted and arrogant. I didn't give the kids the tools to succeed and ultimately I failed them as their coach that night. The reality is that it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to truly keep things "simple." You have to be masterful at communicating, teaching, and differentiating. These are some great points and exactly what I was looking for in the post. Thank you for your insights. “Culture” is such an overused buzz word these days, but I would be interested in how you define and develop culture since it is listed as a main component. Like what is a “cultural advantage”? Great question. I wholeheartedly agree that "culture" is the most overused, misunderstood buzzword in the world. I actually cringe typing it. But it does exist and it is a big part of the program. I define culture in tangible and intangible ways. Tangibly, culture is how well your players execute your program's core values. Everyone's core values are more or less the same, but I'll give ours for example - Sacrifice, Pride, Energy, Accountability, Relentlessness. We have a tangible action that reflects the core value that must be followed daily (Pride = organize the equipment shed after practice, Energy = 5 dabs a day for each player, etc.). We also have 12 team socials a year, each of which places an emphasis on a certain value (example - we do a community cleanup, followed by a pizza party). Culture can be a winning advantage when you combine the intangible manifestations with the tangible manifestations. A team with a strong culture will look a certain way. They are always ready to play. Kids are lifting a teammate when they're down, demanding effort and focus from others, and are mentally present in all situations. Never true for all kids on a team, but the vocal majority of a team looks like this when you have a strong culture. A cultural advantage can show up on the field. If you have two roughly equal-talented football teams with similar-level football coaches, the cultural advantage can show itself. Our first-round playoff opponent last year had innovative scheme, slightly better talent, but a poor culture. We coached our tails off, kids never blinked, and we really leaned into our culture to finish the game with a 32-28 W. Like I said, cultural advantage can be shown just like a tactical or physical advantage can be shown.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Apr 7, 2024 12:29:08 GMT -6
What are some things you guys do to keep things super simple for the players? Like in our program, we have like three run plays, four stunts, one coverage, etc… looking for other ways to stay simple This is no shade at the OP, but I personally hate the term "simple." It's completely vague. What's "simple" for your kid that's been playing FB since 3rd grade is not "simple" for your kid who just started playing this year. "Simple" tends to devalue scheme or strategy, which is a part of the game. It's not all of the game, but it is part of the game. A team gaining a tactical strategy on you and whipping your a$$ with it isn't any different than a team with a cultural advantage over you or a physical advantage over you. Culture-Physicality-Strategy are the 3 main components of a football team. If you're weak in one of those areas, someone will expose you and it'll hurt. Create an emphasis on shrinking the picture for your guys. You'd be surprised how much a kid can learn when everything is a stimulus-response off of one guy. I hear a lot of guys say "we're gonna K.I.S.S. and run spot-drop Cover 3!" but have the most vague LB reads ever that only make a kid freeze 'cause he doesn't know what the fk he's looking at. You see spot drop coverage a ton in the NFL because it's the most instinctual, highly-aware concept you can ask of a kid. While complexity and volume can go hand-in-hand, they aren't always a direct correlation. Just because you have 3 different run plays doesn't mean it's automatically simple. It all goes back to how it's coached. It can't be ignorant or short-sighted. I used to say "this is how we block GT counter vs. a 3-3-5" when I coached OL, and I'd get torn to shreds when a team spammed NCAA fire zone on us from that look. I wasn't being "simple," just short-sighted and arrogant. I didn't give the kids the tools to succeed and ultimately I failed them as their coach that night. The reality is that it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to truly keep things "simple." You have to be masterful at communicating, teaching, and differentiating.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 22, 2023 11:15:54 GMT -6
We play like 3 teams I would call “well-coached” on our regular season schedule. I don’t mean this in a disparaging way to our opponents as I get some are working through serious adversity (small staffs, low numbers, etc). But when we see teams who’s top run play is FB dive not blocking the PSLB, have WR’s blocking on pass plays, or constantly fumble snaps, it’s hard to consider them well-coached
I think the mark of a well-coached team is the line play and the special teams. If we see an OL crowding the LOS, constantly unsure of themselves, or letting unblocked players through, I know I’m not getting into much of a chess match with the other team. Same goes for guys who constantly have 10/12 guys on their kickoff units. I think you can spot attention to detail from a mile away
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 13, 2023 12:46:00 GMT -6
I don’t know what your practices look like but scrap any and all “bag drills” that are designed to condition and work on “movement skills” and replace them with key reads and reactions. They will naturally learn their movement skills by doing this and rep their reads and reactions. Lastly minimize the amount of players that can be placed in a bind. If his key takes him “here”, don’t be pissed when he isn’t “there” on a once in a blue moon scenario. His reads should be clear and concise; if he does this, you do that with as few if/thens as possible. The more if/thens the more of a bind they are in, and the slower they play. Agree with you, I ditched all non-game like drills years ago. Our entire DL plays outside shades. I’ve been telling them to “see the knee” as their key read. It either goes at them (shock peek shed) or away from them (knock OL into B-gap). Everything is hips-hands-feet We’ve also got a lot of 2-way guys. Trying to break them from their OL habits (2 steps in the ground, compressed stance) is a big battle I’m fighting with them. Just have to get lots and lots of reps!
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 11, 2023 21:56:09 GMT -6
Just wanted to tell you all I seriously appreciate all of the replies! I love this community of coaches on here
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 11, 2023 21:54:42 GMT -6
Starting to believe this is the toughest part of coaching. We can all draw up the best schemes on the whiteboard, but getting kids to execute it is the real art of this profession. I'm in a situation where our 9 guys on our starting defense are in their 2nd or 1st year of playing football. Maybe this is a personal problem and I'm just an imbecile for thinking this way, but man it's a battle to get kids just to do their job. We get lots of reps, unquestioned buy-in from all of the coaches, understanding of the scheme from the kids, we just have to execute. But we still have issues with DL not getting hands on OL, LB's freezing and not fitting downhill, (spot-drop) Cover 3 CB's getting beat on smash, etc. We run a simple 4-4 Cover 3 with a couple of checks and every position has no more than two different techniques, so we're far from a complex scheme. DL Is this a unique problem, my own situation, or do others experience this as well? A little reassurance would be great as I'm literally dumbfounded by watching our tape sometimes. I'm in my 8th year of coaching and this is making me feel like I don't know jackshit. How long have you been practicing, a week or two? This stuff is not natural especially for younger players. It takes reps, reps, and more reps. That's why you have practice every day. We’ve had spring ball, so our kids have been practicing since March. I got promoted to DC in May and further simplified things. We just have inconsistent practice attendance due to a wide variety of socioeconomic barriers. Rep counts are so varied across the board
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 11, 2023 14:42:53 GMT -6
Starting to believe this is the toughest part of coaching. We can all draw up the best schemes on the whiteboard, but getting kids to execute it is the real art of this profession.
I'm in a situation where our 9 guys on our starting defense are in their 2nd or 1st year of playing football. Maybe this is a personal problem and I'm just an imbecile for thinking this way, but man it's a battle to get kids just to do their job. We get lots of reps, unquestioned buy-in from all of the coaches, understanding of the scheme from the kids, we just have to execute. But we still have issues with DL not getting hands on OL, LB's freezing and not fitting downhill, (spot-drop) Cover 3 CB's getting beat on smash, etc. We run a simple 4-4 Cover 3 with a couple of checks and every position has no more than two different techniques, so we're far from a complex scheme. DL
Is this a unique problem, my own situation, or do others experience this as well?
A little reassurance would be great as I'm literally dumbfounded by watching our tape sometimes. I'm in my 8th year of coaching and this is making me feel like I don't know jackshit.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Nov 6, 2022 11:38:40 GMT -6
Personnel > scheme in HSFB. I knew this for years, but boy was it reinforced this year.
We had a great season. 8-2, third year of football at our school. We didn’t have a single lineman that could bench press 200, only one could squat 225. But we coached our butts off to get to 8-0.
But the last two games were just tough to watch. We had great game plans on both sides. Our kids were literally calling out the plays from the opposing offenses. Come game time, we would have 10 guys giving great effort and all in the right spots. The problem? We couldn’t tackle the darn ball carriers. We had coached tackling hard since July. The opponent skill guys were simply just BFS. Gave up 40+ in both games after giving up <20 per game all year.
That said, I learned you can absolutely coach your way to lessen the personnel deficit. Put your guys in the right position more times than not. Make the BFS opponent’s job as difficult as possible and you have a chance. But personnel deficits will get you beat more times than not.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Oct 30, 2022 12:48:24 GMT -6
We had an excellent season at my school. It's our 3rd year of varsity football in a rural school district that has an deeply-ingrained history of fall baseball. Despite all of that and playing a roster of 30 kids (it's 1A), we somehow managed to finish the regular season 8-1.
I can't lie, we played a schedule of inept teams. To be fair, we had a combined record of 2-15 over two seasons, so we weren't much different. We are an independent team surrounded by a 10-team conference, so we had to traverse the entire state to find games. Getting these "winnable" games was the best thing we could've done. However, we looked like beasts for most of the year. We were beating these teams 49-6, 42-13, 38-0, etc. like great teams are supposed to do.
We were undefeated up until our final regular season game. We were without four of our six seniors. We played a team with a .500 record that we knew was going to be a dogfight. We lost the game by 3 touchdowns, giving up nearly 60 points. They had a RB that ran right through every tackle (and we coached tackling harder than I've ever done this season). We'd literally defeat blocks and he'd just run right through 4 guys in the open field. We knew it might not have looked like that if we had our guys, though. So it was onto the next one.
First round of the playoffs. We're the 2 seed (8-1) playing the 7 seed (5-4). The 7 seed was a tough matchup, though. They had some freaky looking dudes, including an all-state WR and a 6'3/235# bruiser of a RB behind a massive OL. They just shot themselves in the foot game after game. We also knew this would be a dogfight. But we scouted them so thoroughly that our kids could call out the incoming plays all week.
What do they do? Completely break all of their tendencies. They're coaching, too. But our kids were so disheartened and seemed to lose all confidence. We ended up losing the game 46-8. I had never seen such a somber atmosphere in the midst of an 8-0 deficit. I don't have any clue what happened with our players.
I am just sad. These seniors were all such great kids who worked unbelievably hard to get to this point. Our coaches as well. I wish we could have ended on a better note than this
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Oct 28, 2022 14:21:46 GMT -6
Pretty mediocre
I completely regressed from my sophomore to senior season and lost all of my confidence as a player. I was never going to be more than a JAG anyways, but my playing experience completely shaped who I am today.
Looking back, I was a victim of some pretty subpar coaching. I can say that as I worked with my coaches after graduating. A lot of “frathouse/alphamale” type of crap going on within the staff that I learned after working with them. Telling kids they’re soft, not building relationships with players, getting plastered postgame and during glazier clinics, etc. I was a kid who had a pretty rough life at home and probably needed a more encouraging role model than “tough guys with a whistle.” Scheme & technique took a backseat to toughness & effort. We literally would do nothing but 1v1’s and drive the sled for OL Indy.
My playing experience taught me the power of loving your players
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jun 12, 2022 12:33:27 GMT -6
If you’re actually player led, the accountability should come from within. It shouldn’t take wind sprints for Johnny to see cussing coach = bad. Player led is a group of kids standing up for the team and telling Johnny to cut the shite.
Player led teams take great ownership in the team. Coach led teams breed a culture of players who are scared to do anything without Coach Smith’s approval.
I view our players, specifically the seniors & leaders, of my position group as my assistant coaches. During the previous coach-led regime, kids would dread practice and literally fall asleep during walk throughs. Now kids literally plan parts of Indy period with me, help grade teammates film, and coach the young bucks up. All with supervision of course, but it’s really such a beautiful thing to see.
It’s helped them enjoy the “process” more than just the results. Coach led teams suffer through the process, seeking glory and clout on Friday nights. Player led teams enjoy the process 24/7.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jun 10, 2022 20:18:42 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 ain’t Alabama” guys - what the _ are you teaching kids? It’s not about winning chalk wars, it’s about coaching kids up and being sound. Imagine any other profession having that mindset… priding themselves on their own ignorance. I really think those who say that are glorified cheerleaders - yelling at kids to “play harder” and conditioning them into the dirt to “get them tougher.” All I see is insecurity from people who make remarks like that. I’m going to coach my unit up as well as I can and push them to be intellectually curious as well as I can. Kids don’t like to be talked to like they’re stupid
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jun 10, 2022 20:09:25 GMT -6
Let's say it's Cam Newton, who made that play popular. Cam Newton is the dive portion of Power Read, and Michael Dyer (one of their two main RBs that year) is the sweep portion If we're playing Cam Newton in Central Illinois 1A football we're {censored}. In reality, if the QB is the better athlete, we're probably telling the DE to hit him immediately, tell the OLB and CB to get off a block, set an edge and let a pursuer follow the near hip and hope he cuts into pursuit that's pursuing at top speed. Jesus dude… nobody cares that you coach 1A football in Illinois. Answer the damn question. I coach 1A football in BFE Missouri. I promise you that we still see some DUDES. This whole “we’ll never see that!” BS is such a cop-out. Give other teams some credit. I used to have that mindset and it took getting my ass walloped up and down the field to learn my lesson
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Apr 21, 2022 8:36:19 GMT -6
Toxic masculinity is going to reach Gen Z and younger millenials. What? LOL typo Meant to put a "NOT" in there
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Apr 20, 2022 11:52:02 GMT -6
This is honestly a refreshing evolution of football coaches.
We've spent so many years as a society raising men for being "tough guys" that have a littany of character flaws and keep mental health issues bottled up to protect their image. It's just a dumb way to think and go about life. We're now more educated than ever, more informed than ever, and social norms are constantly evolving. Toxic masculinity is going to reach Gen Z and younger millenials.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Apr 16, 2021 13:12:19 GMT -6
I'll chime in... 7. I believe "K.I.S.S." is a cop out a/k/a - Coach saying he doesn't really want to learn, or my favorite, "It's not what I know, it's what the kids know." Again, I understand KISS may work for you, but again, my belief of the KISS principle is merely the, "This looks complicated, so I'm not going to teach it" as opposed to this mindset, "This benefits one program, why can it not benefit us." Amen
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jul 14, 2020 20:10:25 GMT -6
If something is learnable and able to be executed, does it matter if it is considered "simple"? In this context, yeah. I mean “simple” as less-detailed and more reliant on kids “getting it” with reps. The way I see it, “KILL” would be moreso like installing TCU’s coverage system. Not necessarily a “now let’s line up and play football” thing, but covers all the bases and is easy to adjust after installing the bulk of it. You run the risk of miscommunication/confusion, but you’re usually in position to defend most of what HS offenses can throw at you. “KISS” would be spot drop Cover 3. Nothing wrong with it, but a lot more is put on the kids in my opinion. I once read on here, “Cover 3 aligns to everything and defends nothing”. Not sure if I completely agree with that, but the sentiment is true. You never have to worry too much about checks and confusion, but your players better play fast and be in the right spots
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jul 13, 2020 19:44:35 GMT -6
Ty Gower (DC @ Princeton HS in Texas) sent a tweet a couple years ago that I still think about a lot to this day. Basically, he talked about how he doesn't buy the " Keep It Simple Stupid" philosophy of coaching and instead is more of a " Keep It Likeable and Learnable" guy. I've heard the latter term more and more now in describing coaching philosophies. At first thought, I thought "K.I.L.L." was silly, but now I've really opened my mind to it. I see a LOT of coaches using "simplicity" as a way of justifying ignorance or inability to teach something - "we couldn't ever do that, we need to be simple!" I'd say if you're a K.I.S.S. guy on Coach Huey, this isn't you. So don't hate-message me. I think "simple" is relative, too. One guy might find having one blocking scheme with a thousand adjustments to be "simple", while another guy might find "simplicity" in having ten blocking schemes with no adjustments to them.
Opening my mind up to the "K.I.L.L." philosophy has led me into researching the works of Dub Maddox, Andrew Coverdale, Chris Vasseur, Kyle Cogan, and Kevin Kelley. Maybe it's brainwashing, but I'm starting to learn that it's not bad to be in a flexible, albeit expansive scheme if you're willing to learn it and learn how to teach it. These guys are also excellent teachers, which is what sets them apart. Two years ago, I'd have shut myself out from ever tempting to research a system that's not "simple".
But the "K.I.S.S." philosophy also still is alive and well in today's game with coaches I greatly respect. I have an entire binder of notes I've taken from Joe Daniel, Tim Murphy, Ron McKie, and Rick Stewart - all what I would call "K.I.S.S." guys. They still maintain a great amount of detail, but keep a heavy emphasis on simplicity. Joe Daniel especially comes to mind here with his entire LB key read being "if the guard pulls, follow; if he doesn't, fill". None of these guys are ignorant or unable to teach, they just greatly prefer to KISS.
Now, the best coaches obviously can get the best of both worlds. But if you had to describe yourself, are you a "K.I.S.S." coach or a "K.I.L.L." coach?
This is born purely out of curiosity, I'm not going to try to argue with anyone. I think both sides have their positives and negatives.
Not to have a total cop-out, but here goes: K.I.S.S. is a mindset/attitude, K.I.L.L. is (mostly) personality traits/soft skills. Our defense is KISS, our offense is KILL. Our offense is very learnable for most kids because we have great words and phrases that help our kids learn and retain the info well. Our defense is quite simple, we try to do as little as possible so that we can get good at it (technical proficiency). If I had to chose one, it'd be KILL, but I think it's important to have a degree of KISS to everything so that mastery is (theoretically) possible. Good thoughts, I think it’s a personality trait as well. I’m a bit of a detail-oriented weirdo. I greatly respect KISS guys and of course every system has to have some element of it. But I could never tell a LB “if the guard pulls, follow; if he doesn’t, fill”, and feel comfortable with him lining up against the literal 4-5* guys we’ll see deep in the postseason. There’s certainly a healthy mix, and you want to avoid overloading them as much as possible. But I personally lack enough self-discipline to just keep it at that!
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jul 13, 2020 13:37:24 GMT -6
Ty Gower (DC @ Princeton HS in Texas) sent a tweet a couple years ago that I still think about a lot to this day. Basically, he talked about how he doesn't buy the " Keep It Simple Stupid" philosophy of coaching and instead is more of a " Keep It Likeable and Learnable" guy. I've heard the latter term more and more now in describing coaching philosophies. At first thought, I thought "K.I.L.L." was silly, but now I've really opened my mind to it. I see a LOT of coaches using "simplicity" as a way of justifying ignorance or inability to teach something - "we couldn't ever do that, we need to be simple!" I'd say if you're a K.I.S.S. guy on Coach Huey, this isn't you. So don't hate-message me. I think "simple" is relative, too. One guy might find having one blocking scheme with a thousand adjustments to be "simple", while another guy might find "simplicity" in having ten blocking schemes with no adjustments to them.
Opening my mind up to the "K.I.L.L." philosophy has led me into researching the works of Dub Maddox, Andrew Coverdale, Chris Vasseur, Kyle Cogan, and Kevin Kelley. Maybe it's brainwashing, but I'm starting to learn that it's not bad to be in a flexible, albeit expansive scheme if you're willing to learn it and learn how to teach it. These guys are also excellent teachers, which is what sets them apart. Two years ago, I'd have shut myself out from ever tempting to research a system that's not "simple".
But the "K.I.S.S." philosophy also still is alive and well in today's game with coaches I greatly respect. I have an entire binder of notes I've taken from Joe Daniel, Tim Murphy, Ron McKie, and Rick Stewart - all what I would call "K.I.S.S." guys. They still maintain a great amount of detail, but keep a heavy emphasis on simplicity. Joe Daniel especially comes to mind here with his entire LB key read being "if the guard pulls, follow; if he doesn't, fill". None of these guys are ignorant or unable to teach, they just greatly prefer to KISS.
Now, the best coaches obviously can get the best of both worlds. But if you had to describe yourself, are you a "K.I.S.S." coach or a "K.I.L.L." coach?
This is born purely out of curiosity, I'm not going to try to argue with anyone. I think both sides have their positives and negatives.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jun 21, 2020 19:40:51 GMT -6
I cannot stand this uncertainty.We've been having practice for two weeks now. Going to be the third week starting tomorrow evening.
We've been having practice for two weeks now. Every practice, I pour my heart and soul into the kids more than ever before; they're doing the same. We have the most talented roster in school history. But the elephant in the room is hard to ignore. I've coached these seniors from the time they were in 7th grade. My heart would break in two if they didn't get their senior season.
With that said, part of me questions if football is really worth having right now. Say we do go on as normal and get the season. Every week will be a roller coaster of anxiety. The atmosphere won't resemble what all of us played and loved (no fans, social distancing, etc). I know it's sad to have a season cancelled, but priorities have to take place. Our state championship game is in December. What if I infected my 90-year old grandmother at Thanksgiving and didn't even know it?
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Feb 14, 2020 8:08:38 GMT -6
What I find hardest is trying to translate the new lingo after 45 years of numbers and descriptive names that described point of attack, backfield action, and blocking schemes into the same play using what seem to be unrelated words in the coded system Hard for this old guy to have to be able to take: Red, 34 Power on one to Rondo (formation), Philadelphia (Power at the 4 hole), Cowboy (ball carrier), Percy (blocking scheme), Howdy (RPO action), Sunday (cadence), on the fly under duress during a game. That's a mouthful of words, and I always wanted to KISS this part so the play could come in from the side line correctly. I guess one gets used to it........ It's like I just want to lean out of the pressbox and yell: "Just run the 5 hole!" and let it go at that! I agree on this. I see the benefits people see in not using numbers, but I think numbers are more streamlined overall. I think guys who just name things random sh!t make it much harder than it needs to be. If you do go numbers, I think it’s best to have strict classifications for them. When I coached under a very well-respected flexbone coach, he carefully constructed our run game, which was made up of NFL teams. Example: our Midline play was “RAM”. “RAM” is taught as an acronym for “Read Adjacent Man” (From QB/C). Our Triple was “paTRIot” (tri). All of our inside dive plays to the B-Back were “b” words like “Bengal”, “Bronco”, and “Bills”. Would I have rather just used “10” for ML right and “13” for ISV left? Hell yeah! But he was very organized in his terminology and we would mix in lightning-fast tempo in tight fourth quarters. I just try to keep an open mind with the words, even though I like numbers much better.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jan 8, 2020 11:47:27 GMT -6
I love this thread. Sometimes it gets easy to forget in the offseason that there are (sadly) a number of coaches out there who don't go to clinics or make any effort to learn, and if they do go, they treat it like a frat party instead of a way to get better. Not to stick my nose up at anybody, I just feel bad for players that play for these types of guys.
IMO the real "garbage" offenses are the ones that confuse the players. You can be multiple + simple. We won a playoff game against a team pretty loaded with good-looking athletes, but for whatever reason just could not get it together. One of their coaches accidentally left their call sheet/gameplan for us in the locker room. I picked it up, and thought "damn! that's a lot of calls!" and chalked it up to a "garbage" offense that confused the players. But after time settles in and I re-watch the film of that game in the offseason, they actually were trying to do some pretty good things. They were very pro-style/west coast identity-wise. They just didn't seem like they had players who were 100% confident in their assignments. They literally would run stretch and the only person running stretch was the RB/QB while every OL/WR/TE ran a boot opposite (OL reached away, TE ran an over away).
Also, there can't be too many cooks in the kitchen. I am all for giving assistant coaches autonomy and letting them have a say in things. But when a pro-style team hires a split-back veer guy and a Tony Franklin guy, then it's not uncommon to see a bit of a grab bag mess with them rotating offenses every series. You have to get the buy-in from the coaches!
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jan 5, 2020 12:10:21 GMT -6
• 500 kids in the school • 7 coaches (split-staff; 4 OFF/3 DEF) • 57 players back in August
I am very jealous of some of the other schools in our conference with similar enrollments, but no soccer teams. Those guys will have 80-90 kids on their roster some years and two-platoon. Our soccer team is a powerhouse and most years for us, we’ll have 1-2 guys that could literally be all-state in football playing soccer. But it’s a fun challenge and I wouldn’t trade our kids for anyone.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jan 3, 2020 7:53:27 GMT -6
I love his stuff, I highly recommend anyone who coaches at 90% of high schools that aren’t in the upper echelon of TX/GA/CA/FL to at least make yourself familiar with it. He’s just a good dude who will never hesitate to help you even in Twitter DM’s or emails. I believe he’s even on here.
I’ve paid for his stuff, and i can tell anyone who’s on the fence about it that it’s worth every last cent. While you get plenty of good info from the podcast and his YouTube channel, his paid material is a simplified deep-dive into his system.
The funny thing is that his stuff, while detailed, is so simple that even if you don’t run it, you can pick up fantastic cues that you can put into your offense. In September of 2018, I remember hearing him say, “I just tell everyone on our gap schemes to block the backside number” and I immediately used this cue with our kids that midseason and our gap schemes took off from there.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Dec 12, 2019 9:15:26 GMT -6
Harding is a MUST-VISIT for anything flexbone. They’re very open and love teaching the ins and outs of what they do
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 22, 2019 5:13:38 GMT -6
44 last year, sitting at 57 now!
480 students 9-12, competing with a powerhouse soccer program. Winning a district championship helps for sure
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jun 12, 2019 11:28:06 GMT -6
Kids are more informed than they’ve ever been before. The amount of coaches who “lead” like some half-assed drill sergeant with a “because I said so” mentality is amazing to me. Kids ask questions now and want to know why, which is a GOOD thing. “Coach just knows” doesn’t make anybody better.
I find it silly how many programs also don’t put any effort forward to promote or better the image of their program. There’s a lot of teams that have no social media presence for outdated reasons like “I don’t know how to work that $hit”. It’s 2019, there’s no reason to not be able to even create an account and tweet something positive. It doesn’t even take two minutes to do and can do nothing but cast a positive image on your program
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Post by The Lunch Pail on May 18, 2019 10:27:58 GMT -6
We won our first ever district championship in 2018 with the smallest roster in 10 years and only six seniors. But everybody was so bought in and focused that we literally elbow-greased ourselves into a few wins. Don't get me wrong, we have some good athletes, but our best player in school history (QB/FS) is playing D-3 basketball and had zero football offers. We were playing against teams with six D2+ athletes in a competitive conference.
Quality all day for me!
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Post by The Lunch Pail on May 10, 2019 3:58:07 GMT -6
Alright! Let’s hear it what’s your go to. I’m 35 now and a former player but man, weight training is great but it’s hard for my beat up body (former college player) to do that more than twice a week. I modeled my plan after Coach Vogt (google it) and it helped me a lot but like I said, my body has some wear and tear. I got on a Yoga kick over summer and it did wonders for me mentally and physically. I’m still in pretty good shape, but being first year Head Coach it’s tough to be consistent and I’ve put on a few. Anyways, let’s hear it. What do you do? What works for you? What doesn’t? I’ve lost 70 lbs over the last 10 months,so hopefully I can be of some help here. To be honest, I never really lifted much at all. I’m better about it now, but the weight room was never the driving force behind my weight loss. What I did do however, was I walked at LEAST 5-10k steps a day for five months. Which really isn’t that difficult IMO, especially if you’re coaching. I would walk my old gravel road about 8 miles into the next county, then turn around and come back home while I watch the sun rise over the hills. If I didn’t practice, I would also do it at night and make it just in time to see the sun set. Walking is a fantastic stress reliever and much less difficult for me than running (I have shin splints out the a$$). I also counted calories. This is BIG. I think most of us as coaches can break the 5k steps just from coaching in general. But it doesnt do much if you stop at McDonalds and shove 3 McDouble’s in your face right after. I never realized how much I was eating until I counted calories. I could still go to McDonald’s after practice and have one McDouble, but I had a very black/white outline of what I am allowed to eat and not allowed to eat. But at the same time, this is why calorie counting is my FAVORITE method of dieting. You can still eat all the crap you’ve always wanted, but you eat it with the right proportions in mind instead of just gorging yourself. I cannot, CANNOT, emphasize the MyFitnessPal app enough. That’s where I tracked my steps, counted calories, and entered my meals. It literally never took longer than 30 sec to use. I set mine to where I’d lose 1.5 pounds per week, which equated to about 1,820 calories based on my height/weight/age.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on May 5, 2019 5:27:43 GMT -6
I go to fudge for all my drills Fudge fitness just reminds me how I didn’t work hard enough to be a D1 athlete.. forget I was a 5’10 OL from a small/rural school in the Midwest.
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