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Post by The Lunch Pail on Nov 7, 2016 18:08:21 GMT -6
We just had a game in Illinois that finished with a final score of 91-70. One team was a mostly double tight wing-t team, while the other was spread from a few different formations (2 back, doubles, trips, empty). BOTH teams were hurry-up no huddle. The spread team played like 15 guys in the box on defense, and the wing-t team played cover 1/0. As you can imagine, big plays were on both sides of the ball. What are some big scores you guys have seen this season? Here in MIssouri, Glendale (I believe they're being coached by the Mauk guy), beat somebody 85-44 for the district championship last Friday.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Nov 7, 2016 11:24:50 GMT -6
Kids are the future
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Oct 25, 2016 11:34:43 GMT -6
I'm of the opinion that David Yost (QB Coach/Pass Game Coor.) at Oregon is very underrated. Pick his brain if you ever get an opportunity. He used to be an OC up the road here at Mizzou. As an OC, Yost loved empty backfield sets and using his QB like an extra running back. He's a smart guy.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Oct 17, 2016 19:29:09 GMT -6
Creating a good culture and WINNING gets the athletes. First year switching to spread in '14, we were 4-7 and got 1-2 of the athletes in the hallways. Now, we're 7-2 and we've got almost 75 kids on the team in a school of 500 that competes with a powerhouse soccer team. As **** noted earlier, take a look at schools like Lamar and Maryville in Missouri. Lamar is a DTDW/Spinner hybrid and Maryville is a Delaware team. Both are fricking powerhouses in the middle of nowhere and I guarantee you they don't have issues recruiting athletes.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Oct 13, 2016 11:18:14 GMT -6
This feels like an upper middle class tickle fight between parents. Why does everything have to be so dramatic? Social media. Everything is a fight for attention and their 15 minutes of fame.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Oct 7, 2016 8:03:55 GMT -6
Not all private schools are the same. There's a private school 10 minutes north of us that is in a town of 100,000 people (I'm in a town of 4,000). They just recently signed a kid to play football at Boise State who lived over an hour away from campus. They recruit like crazy and use the term "regional catholic" pretty loosely. We also have a private school 15 minutes south of us in a town of 45,000. They recruit kids from the county east of them, which is full of very little towns that don't have football. But they mainly stay true to their home city. Alabama's 2nd string TE went to school there, along with every member of his family. Here's what's unfair. The first school, who's got multiple D1 players in all sports, plays little schools like us (we still beat them) and the second school I mentioned goes out and plays the big boys.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Oct 4, 2016 13:15:22 GMT -6
I usually ignore parents when things aren't going their way. I believe it comes with the job that not all parents will be happy with you. I've always treated it like water off a ducks back. Now I have a parent going to my players and causing dissension in the program. This parent is calling all of us coaches m'fers and calling the school a dump and he went to my players about this. His kid is one of our best citizen type kids...straight As and a hard worker and he us loved by the team so the kids listen to his dad. I just want to know what you guys would do with this. I'm dealing with a parent like this right now. He told his kid to milk an injury to get back at me for not starting him on offense. After every game, I get an angry email from him. His kid is a great kid. Great attitude, talent, and good student, too. His dad has tried to make him quit three times and he loves football too much to carry out with it. It's no wonder his dad has also been kicked out of multiple youth sport leagues for being fricking crazy. Guys like these are just bullies. They know they have nothing to lose and you've got everything to lose. Their goal is to make you lose your job just for the fun of it. The best thing you can do is treat him like he doesn't exist. If he confronts you, be very polite and agree with everything he says. Like others said, he'll just end up either straightening up or another parent will
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Sept 20, 2016 7:03:46 GMT -6
One school I was at did Donkey Basketball I laughed too hard reading this
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Sept 16, 2016 16:10:10 GMT -6
Scout O is bad, as a rule.... but JV scout O? That is torture. That is the sort of thing to make someone hang up the whistle. Our staff coaches both teams, so when we are JV defense I'm with D along with our DL coach. I draw up nice cards - big spacing on a manilla envelope - different blocks are color coded, ball carrier is color coded. Name of the play is on the top of the card. I'll write little notes (Motion is behind QB ect...), label the depth for passing routes. I'll even get in the Huddle and tell them the name of the person to block. We get a o.k. look on Varsity.... That JV crew though.... I had to end the session early one day last week so I didn't go batsh*t crazy on some poor scout teamer "Johnny, what did the card say"... "pull right"...."why didn't you pull?" .... *mouth-breathing, shrug, head drop*.... "Ok, lets run it again. This time pull and block so and so" .... "ok".... "You didn't pull?!?!?!?!" .... Repeat 15 times with 10 different kids. Where did the card say to lineup? "I don't know".... what position are you playing ... "Tight End".... so where is the one labeled "TE".... "oh"....player goes to lineup..... on the wrong side. Middle School is this on steroids
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Sept 16, 2016 7:06:55 GMT -6
It's sad how many kids can't read a picture. We just tried scouting an old-school I offense on Wednesday (played them yesterday) and we couldn't get a look. They got in their stances and ran back to read the diagram as the QB said his cadence
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Sept 14, 2016 19:57:23 GMT -6
Reading this, I noticed I have some similar issues (constantly thinking about work, not comfortable relaxing, sh!tty sleep, etc.) How do you take care of yourself, stay balanced, and keep some things in perspective? Here is the article if anyone is interesting in reading it: thelab.bleacherreport.com/i-m-not-the-lone-wolf/I love this article so much I bookmarked it so I can read it every day. I love the game of football so much, and nobody wants to win as much as I do. But I don't want to be remembered as only a football coach when I die. I don't want the game to take such a toll on me that I don't enjoy winning, lose hair before 40, and become a bad guy to be around off of the field. I've seen overworking and stress take a toll on a lot of my family, and I don't want to fall into that same fate. One of my favorite quotes is "kick back and get high on the living part of life". I have multiple hobbies off of the field. I split & sell firewood, I play country music, I'm doing a family tree with my dad, and I raise livestock at my house. I've learned just as many lessons doing those things as I have playing/coaching football. In fact, being able to get away from the game of football makes me love it even more when I come back to it. I'm still passionate and dedicated to football, but I don't let it define me. When I have kids one of these days, I want them to remember me well and I want to be a great father. I don't want to watch them grow from the window of my office. I think it is important to find faith. I'm working on becoming a better Christian lately. Not saying anybody has to be a Christian or do something a certain way, but it's just what I do. I believe having faith gives a solid foundation of priorities.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Sept 14, 2016 19:30:33 GMT -6
I know things are different in some places.
Nevertheless, I still think you have to be intense enough to get the job done but relaxed enough to enjoy it.
Coaching HS Football should not consume you year-round nor does it have to in order to be successful.
I firmly believe that two contributing factors to declining participation in our state are 1) the demands put on kids (and coaches) out-of-season, and 2) by the time kids reach HS many of them have been playing tackle Football for at least four years, and at some point they've had enough.
We told our kids that their priorities should be 1) Faith, 2) Family, 3) Academics, 4) Football (no lower than #4 In-Season).
How many of us coaches live that way? Or are our priorities out of whack? Glad I'm not the only one who preaches this anymore. Just like the article states, God isn't going to ask you about your win-loss record at the pearly gates.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Sept 12, 2016 7:03:44 GMT -6
I coach MS and I'm guilty of cussing. No f bombs but I have slipped out a "shite" and "a$$" about every day. I cuss only in terms of encouragement, though. "C'mon Sammy put him on his a$$" isn't terrible to me.
I'll NEVER cuss to make my kids feel bad. It's just an expression of extreme emotion and passion.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Sept 6, 2016 18:32:46 GMT -6
What are some field painting ideas you guys have done or come across? When we were finishing up last night, we started talking about doing something in the end zone. We had a checkerboard idea, or diamonds. Or the Notre Dame slashes. Ultimately, the only thing that prevented us from doing anything was the fact that none of us really had a good idea of where to start and how to set it all up. So, what are some things you all have done for your field? We have a pretty plain grass field no logos or names, just numbers, lines, and hashes. We paint a logo on the 50 for homecoming. However, the coolest design I had ever seen was from one of our rivals. They had a grass field with no track (field had been there since the 1940's). They had the midfield logo, names including a horseshoe in the end zone, all in blue, white and red (school colors). In this steep hill on the southeast corner of the end zone, they had written "Pinto Country" and I always thought that was cool. But what makes a facility great isn't exactly the field, it's the atmosphere. This was a very old town, and the building was surrounded by old Victorian era buildings like you'd see on a town square and their fans were crazy. They always packed the stadium and bled into the visitors section. Not to mention, in an old town, on an old field, they ran a DTDW with 300 pound linemen who were meaner than anyone else I'd ever seen. It was pretty fitting.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 29, 2016 11:03:42 GMT -6
My comfort zone is much more oriented to the older style "contrarian" offenses such as the DW, the Veer, the Wishbone, or Wing T. I try to emphasize fundamentals, what I see from a lot of the contemporary offenses, is that they emphasize "schemes" and the fundamentals are secondary to getting athletes the ball in space. I'm in the same boat as you, and I'm a young buck. We're "spread", but we spend 80% of our time with a true fullback running iso. I am more comfortable putting an extra blocker in and running gap schemes than I am living out of zone schemes in 10 personnel. And I didn't mean for my comment to sound that rude. The best coaches I know are "old guys". I just think there's a crowd of old guys who hold themselves back with their own stubbornness just like there's a crowd of 20-somethings who want to run what they see on TV and completely disregard technique
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 28, 2016 13:40:00 GMT -6
I'm 100% with you brother. I'm experiencing exactly that right now at the middle school level.
Our HC is a good friend of mine, and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. But he's also about 26 and is kind of in over his head a little bit (3rd year of coaching experience). He's been trying to build the team from the skill positions to the line, instead of building from the ground up. The guy spends zero time with the linemen (doesn't even know their names) and really screws me over with the plays. We run the same plays as the high school does, but he accidentally printed out every fricking play and variation of a play the high school team has ever run. So now, our base play is blocked 3 different ways that are nothing alike. The offensive line (who's never had to memorize plays before), all of the sudden has to memorize what feels like a million. But it's all simple for the skill guys, because they just line up in a few different spots and run the same paths. The high school HC isn't really helping, either. He tells me that our base play (that's blocked 3 ways) is blocked "depending on the front". Mind you, we don't get any film or anything of our opponent. So how do we know what the front is? On defense, we can't even get aligned properly in a simple one-gap 3-4, and now he wants me to install a 4-3 along with it. Good grief.
Anyways, the only guy helping me on the OL is in his 70's. He has been a referee longer than he's been a coach, and he's your classic old guy. I like to try to dedicate some of our indy time to learning these plays, and working on proper fundamental drills that are simple enough for some of our guys to comprehend. Well, he just laughs and says "No thanks, I've already got an entire plan set up". His "plans" make me want to puke. Every day, we do 1,000 different variations of the bag drills for offensive-indy, even though our kids can barely get in a stance. Every day, we only work on tackling for defensive-indy, even though they don't know how to line up. Whenever we do dedicate 5 minutes to walking through offensive plays, he spends more time talking to the scout defense about how to play defensive line than helping the OL. He spends 70% (literally) of our indy time talking to the players. His directions are never clear, and he is that guy that has to spend 5 minutes correcting a player whenever they don't do it right. So much time is wasted because he overcoaches our players.
So while the HC is upset that our offensive line is running into each other during team, he should probably take a peek at what we're doing during indy time. He does this every year, too. Our middle school teams have won less than 5 games in the 3 years he's been here, and now I know why. I don't like to be negative, but if we don't get it turned around in a hurry, this season could be over before it's even gotten started.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 22, 2016 11:12:02 GMT -6
#4 is definitely the most accurate.
I'll never understand egotistical WR's or RB's who won't block for their teammates. We're playing a very talented team this week that just lost to a team with no seniors and one junior 45-24. These guys have 7 guys who were chosen as preseason all-St. Louis kids and they gave no effort whatsoever. These two twins they have starting at WR/CB were extremely athletic, but had the worst attitude I'd ever seen. They couldn't run the ball all night on a defense where the biggest guy was 190 pounds (their OL averages about 280) because they wouldn't block. They wouldn't even get out of their stance. They took a step and stood there. Not to mention that their 150 pound sophomore QB rushed for 300 yards on scrambles because they wouldn't tackle.
An unselfish culture is what breeds success. A well-coached, unselfish offensive line can set a tone for the entire team. I've always believed the best offenses and defenses are built from the ground up
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 14, 2016 17:13:24 GMT -6
Actual screenshot....I understand that we are sometimes at the mercy of our video crew but man this was a gut punch when I cracked this open today and realized I have 6 days to get a team ready based on this. Been there before. Actually happened to us last season in the opening game prep. But we beat them 50-0 so we got the last laugh. Our Week 1 opponent just gave us film of their jamboree last Friday night, and the quality sucks just as bad. It looks like it was filmed with a handheld camera, and they left the audio on. They played a school that my HS coach just got the job at. My HS coach has run DTDW since about 1985 and served as a coordinator under Don Markham for a while. Of course, our Week 1 team is a coaching staff of a bunch of visor-wearing 20-somethings in bro tanks that runs shotgun spread. First play, the coach up in the booth says "oh here they come again in that stupid ass offense". They scored on that play from 50 yards out and I almost fell out of my seat.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 12, 2016 9:29:23 GMT -6
Lost our top athlete, one of our top leaders, our best QB is missing 3 of the first 4 days, and our best RB is marooned in Mexico through the weekend.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 10, 2016 14:05:49 GMT -6
Most of us are about 10 days in now. So how's it going? We have 24 kids, only 1 "bad" day of practice. We are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were last fall at this time. Hopefully we can keep progressing forward. Best of luck this season, coach. Hope to see you in Districts. I always root for y'all unless you're playing us
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Aug 9, 2016 18:46:34 GMT -6
Legitimately one of the highlights of my life was seeing my name in a CoachHuey thread title. Thank you for the kind words, too. Keep up the good work!
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jul 31, 2016 7:01:35 GMT -6
Is anybody an insider, and is it worth it? I'm not an insider. They do get to participate in eClinics but that's about all I know. I'm not an insider, but I still soak up a lot.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jul 28, 2016 7:40:06 GMT -6
Just wondering if anyone else listens to this guy. He makes great football coaching podcasts and has a ton of knowledge. Here's a link to his page if anyone wants to check him out: joedanielfootball.com
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jul 22, 2016 0:06:20 GMT -6
Here in Missouri, we get this thing called "humidity". I don't know if you guys have ever heard of that in Cali, but it sucks balls. It's like heat that weighs you down and destroys your will.
All kidding aside, morning practices do help a ton. I've always found that kids hate getting up early, but LOVE having the entire day to themselves. IMHO, practices often start out flatter when you have these practices at night. Kids are often tired (most of our kids have a job), and give off an "I really don't want to be here" vibe that spreads throughout the team. In the morning, our guys are so tired that they can't complain.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jul 13, 2016 11:57:58 GMT -6
Tell them the dangers of athletic specialization. Playing baseball year-round every year harms you more than it helps you. That is my exact point though. Harms you from what? Helps you for what? If a kid enjoys playing baseball more than football, and he is being safe about arm usage (pitchers) what is the problem? I'm not strictly saying he needs to play football. But playing one sport year-round is downright silly. You're limiting your athletic abilities, risking burnout, and hurting the purity of adolescent athletics. At a young age, nobody knows what sport they "really" like the most. We've had guys who come into high school saying "I'm a baseball guy" and leaving saying "I'm a football guy". Kids change their mind on what they like the most based off of more than how good they are. Kids like one sport over the other based on things like team culture, success of team, friends who play, and if the coach is a d!ck or not. All of these things can change over time. Kids change their minds. No need to label them a "_____ kid" when they're young.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jul 13, 2016 10:55:39 GMT -6
Tell them the dangers of athletic specialization. Playing baseball year-round every year harms you more than it helps you.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Jun 3, 2016 18:53:53 GMT -6
Hell yeah! Wranglers and a big belt buckle, a dip in. Just like my dad when he used to work on trucks. All you need then is a little Merle Haggard and George Jones in the background and you're set!
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Post by The Lunch Pail on May 29, 2016 16:22:22 GMT -6
Not really a quote, but a couple years ago, we stole something from Stanford. "1/11". If you concentrate all of your effort into doing your 1/11 and worry about what you can control, then you will have the best chance of being successful. The kids loved it and rallied around it. Put it on our t-shirts and wore it during pre-game warm ups every game
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Post by The Lunch Pail on May 8, 2016 8:11:43 GMT -6
Absolutely. We had a senior this year who was a 145 lb. bull-rider who hadn't played football since 6th grade. He ended up being one of our best players on a pretty talented team. He started both ways and got All-Conference. For a guy that little, he hit hard. We could've honestly put him at LB if we wanted to.
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Post by The Lunch Pail on Apr 25, 2016 20:40:53 GMT -6
As for the best Wing-T coaches in MO, I can think of two off of the top of my mind:
1.) Matt Webb, Maryville: look up his state championship games vs. Burroughs (Ezekiel Elliott's last game) or Seneca. Smash mouth football at its finest.
2.) Shannon Jolly, Eldon: Very, very sound and physical teams year in, year out. Rebuilt a dead program.
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