scout team, all or only best plays??

I think you can break those type of plays into two categories :
1) situations where only 1 or 2 players need to be wary
2) situations where the entire team needs to adjust.

Examples of the first situation would be double passes, halfback passes, reverses/reverse pass, hook and lateral etc. These are designed to take advantage of a SPECIFIC one or two players, and as such, these plays don't need to be repped in a normal team setting. A 5 minute period on Wed, and another on thursday should suffice.

Examples of the second situation might be Unbalanced lines, tackle over sets, tackle "out" sets (tackle split wide from the line, much like the SUPER INNOVATIVE all eleven type sets) swinging gates, lonely polecat, hurry up quick counts, the hidden ball carrier play etc. These should be mixed up in the regular team script, to ensure that the TEAM is prepared for them, since they are designed to take advantage of ANY one or two players who aren't ready to play.

As far as working on stopping base blocking schemes during a week when a team might not run them much, I would say that a well coordinated defense would have things to stop that in their "Every day or every week drills" during the individual periods. So maybe you don't rep a trap in any inside or team setting, but Maybe tuesdays the DL and LB always do a trap/gap exchange period for 10 minutes as part of your core defensive play, or in preparation for someone down the road .

(for example, if you are a serious contender in 5A, you know that you will have to stop the I option or veer offenses, because chances are you will see it in the playoffs (west monroe, acadiana). Last year, if you were a well coached team with aspirations to get to the dome, a spread pass period would have helped you weekly, since you might have had to face Mandeville, or Destrehan)

Thanks for the the wealth of info guys.. it really helps me out..

We certainly would not waste time practicing stuff that the opponents don't run. I'm from the school that says figure out the five or so top runs and passes then add in a few that they don't run often but could be dangerous to you. You mention reverse. They may not have run it often and they have not run it well but they have run it. Defending reverse is just a core part of playing defense, though, so we'd have a reverse in our script.

As a DC I feel that drawing scout cards and writing the practice script is the hardest job that I have to do. You don't want to play "Gotcha" either way. By that I mean that I don't want to hurt the defense's confidence by running a play that they're very unlikely to run in a certain situation against a defense designed to stop something that they've shown in that situation. I also don't want to waste a rep and throw a scout teamer into a meatgrinder by scripting an offensive play into a stunt that gives the O no chance.

There is a finite number of practice reps. Getting the down, distance, hash, and formation tendencies right, matching them up with the play cards, and throwing in a couple of things that can hurt us in that limited number of practice reps is hard work.

don't be intimidated - a retarded monkey could be a DC for a year and do well.
especially, if you're going to live in man-coverage

"wing it" all you want on Friday night, but the reps in practice should accomplish something specific...the kids should walk away with something that made them better (for the current opponent) by the end of practice, so when Friday does come it will be déjà vu (the experience, not the club).

Defensive Coordinators?

"They're darksided, tainted......THEY'RE NOT CHRISTIANS!!!"

This shocks me.

Piggybacking on the whole "INNOVATIVE" thread that banged around here for a while, THESE are the things that I think coaches should be exploring to be "innovative".

The fact that you have an opportunity to control a situation and make it the most advantageous to you and it is not done in that manner...just baffles me.

However, I know it is not unique. The last H.S coordinators I worked with did not do this either...as it was not how they did things 30 years ago when they started coaching.

We show them everything once, but we pound their top 3 run and top 3 pass plays by frequency and by avg gain. So 12 plays we focus on, but most times, some of those plays overlap, so were focusing on 9-10 plays.

Two additional keys to building your defensive practice plan and scripts for the week:

#1) If your opponent's coach/coordinator is the same from last year, what did they do to you last year that was successful?

#2) What did you struggle with last week or the week before? If last week's opponent found a "hole" - next week's opponent is likely to try to exploit it as well.

Jack Rarick
Holt Football
Braintree Athletic Systems

Agree somewhat ... in that you should have players aligned to make most plays. While I won't go so far as to say you "can't defend everything" or you should be able to "defend everything" some defense are more vulnerable to certain things while having an advantage against other plays.

For a small example ... cover 3 would make the defense more vulnerable to the hitch (double hitch from 2x2) but be much stronger vs the fade. cover 2 would be stronger vs double hitch but perhaps more vulnerable to the fade.

Same thing applies to the offensive side as well. Sure, by rule you should be able to block every defense, or have routes that can be executed vs every coverage. However, some runs are better suited for certain fronts while tougher to execute vs others, same with pass plays.

The key then is not to go "hard-rock mining" ... i.e. running plays against fronts that are harder to block when you could call a play where things go a little more in your favor. Likewise, if you wish to stop certain types of plays then be in those defenses that may be better suited for such.

It all comes down to execution ... nothing shocking about that statement.... so, to help our chances with the execution part we want to be in defenses or offensive plays that can be executed more efficiently (i.e. easier blocks, easier reads, etc.) vs what the opponent is giving us or we expect them to give us.