ball control (wake forest) vs no huddle (tulsa)

I like to sit back and control the clock. What are you better at? Offense or defense. If you are better at offense sit back, control the clock and keep the defense on the bench. If you are a solid defensive team then don't be afraid to push the pace forcing the other team to keep up and potentially cause some turnovers.

If you have athletes you push the pace. If you don't have athletes (and the risk of 3 and Out is greater) then you slow things down to keep the ball out of their hands. Remember, if You have the ball, THEY can't score! Use of tempos is good but for the most part, your athletes (or lack of them) will determine your tempo.

Ok you've got small numbers in the program. Whose going to be on offense? Answer - your best players. Now, whose going to be on defense? Answer - those SAME players. You need to keep in mind the conditioning factor for your guys. If you're running an up tempo offense those guys are going to be gassed having to play both ways (plus special teams). There is nothing wrong with no huddle, as it could actually be better with fewer numbers, but my advice for this year is to slow things down.

Push the pace right now regardless, provided you account for full hydration and other medical/trainer issues.

Game day is far away, the more reps you do now it will determine a lot of what you can implement and at what pace they can execute.

As others have said 7 on 7 tend to have some some issues with dropback depth at the second level.

We did half line drills(often had to due to lack of players) and it worked okay to one side of the play but still got a bit over exuberant on the pursuit.

Guys loved the settle and noose(we call it settle/spacing). We broke the dig route distance in half. Coach started trying to jump the routes. We had it every time after the first one he did that on. Everyone was paying attention and determining a sense of how to find extra space and seal defenders off the football's delivery angle.

That's after starting with MESH and Smash stuff. The settle concept works right into a MESH once teams get tired of being run into each other on man coverage. Kids love the mesh. Especially the TE types. They begin to read how their teammate is being covered and get a sense of how to settle clearing the MESH. If he's being chased you are too, so somebody will rub their coverage on the mesh, if they collision it from MLB just read the dig past it..


I'd say it's a matter of knowing who starts. If that isn't determined yet you need baby steps to get people on execution, and help evaluate. If you're dealing with known knowns then get into the concept part of practice.

As others here with more experience than me note, drills can work a lot of that too. Break those route concepts down the break point and rep them out, etc. Then you have the QB basically almost to his release point and the line of wr starting just before the break point and they get more reps in at quicker paces.


You would think it would not work but from what we've seen it does indeed accelerate reps. The hitch is a short route already so the timing remains the same.


Bill Walsh didn't run slants full speed because it limited the completion chances. The wideouts were more in control of the catch turned down just a notch. The fact he was able to work this into real game time is proof that slowing drills down and shortening the them to coming out of breaks can and will work when applied to certain game instances to an extremely high percentage.

Listen to fbdoc

Low in numbers and maybe short on athletes?

Slow it down - shorten the game - give your guys the best chance to win by getting them in the best play possible.

When you have numbers and/or athletes - hit the gas!

what you do on offense affects your special teams and your defense.
and your defense is the only one of the three that can prevent the other team from scoring.

Sooner or later your defense will run up against an offense that cant make the stop or stops and needs your offense to control the clock, grind it out, 3 yards and a cloud of dust. You cant just flip the switch from no huddle to huddle.