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Post by coachorr on Oct 1, 2008 0:48:33 GMT -6
"I can not control our limited athletic ability but I can hold these kids to a higher standard."
This is what it is all about. Great post, thanks.
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Post by coachcastleman on Oct 1, 2008 6:52:19 GMT -6
I am in the same boat as so many others that have posted. Coming into this year we really thought we would compete for the conference championship, now we are fighting to make the playoffs. I could sit hear and make every excuse possible(we have too few seniors - only 6 six on the team and 2 injured, too many injuries - we have 4 two way starters out with serious knee injuries) but in reality it is about attitude. Our junior class is loaded with talent, but lacking in attitude. They think that winning a football game is an easy thing and can't figure it out that it takes hard work every day to win a game. The bright spot is, is that our Sophomores "get it". They are coming to play every day. They bust their butts in practice and play with a high level of intensity on game nights. Our coaching staff in relatively young and inexperienced and we have talked at great length about what we as a staff need to do to get the older kids to buy in. This in our second year at the school, following a hall of fame coach. We went 7 and 2 last year and got beat in the first round of the playoffs. We had good effort in our off-season workouts and expectations were high. In the second game of the year our best defensive player when down with a knee injury and it was like the team just quit right then. We were down 7 and driving the ball (he plays fullback too) and was very much in the game. Over the course of the next several games the same type of scenario plays out. We are in it at half and then just don't come to play in the second half. I have talked to them until I am blue in the face about finishing games, but we can't even finish a tackle. We have tried so many different things to get them to do what we need. We have taught and re taught every fundamental necessary and still cannot get the desired result. The community still feels that these kids are the greatest thing in the world and it has to be the coaching. I am sure we have never heard that before As a staff we have decided to keep coaching our butts off until they come around. We have tried to stay positive during the process. Winning is not easy, I just need to get the players to understand that.
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kr7263
Sophomore Member
Posts: 228
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Post by kr7263 on Oct 1, 2008 9:15:46 GMT -6
We are currently 0-5 in a 1-14 2 yr run. I decided this week to stop pushing; stop harping on "what it takes to win" and challenge the kids to have fun. We still maintain strict discipline (2 starters were 2 MN late to practice and did 100 up-downs) and hold the kids accountable for their positions / fundamentals. However, we look for anything to get excited about. Yesterday we did a competition OvD the coaches from the loosing squad did push ups (we lost so I ended up doing 20 push ups). My kids know and understand "what it takes to win", we just can't finish the game either. (Friday night vs 5-0 conference leader 19-21 with 8:00 left in the game - we finished with 200 total yd to their 190 - high and low vs this team, but we ended up loosing 35-19. They scored with 7:40 on a 22 yd run.) My point is try to find something to get them going. Practice has picked up this week and the kids seem like they are just as focused as the beginning of the year.
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Post by coachturley on Oct 1, 2008 19:53:38 GMT -6
I'm in my second year as a head coach.....we are 4-0 and averaging 47 ppg. Last year, we were 3-7 and started 0-3 getting our ass kicked by our rival. There was some great comments coming out of the stands that night. In the beginning, we used a normal practice routine, etc. As we realized how bad we were (couldn't tackle and couldn't block) we switched gears. We padded up Monday through Thursday. We blocked and tackled everyday. Did this wear on us over the course of the season? Yes, I am sure it did. We also did Oklahoma Drill twice a week (kids loved it). But we set out to do two things.....learn how to play and find out who REALLY WANTED to play. We got better and missed the playoffs by 20 seconds and a fade ball. Then the real work began....offseason. This is where I truly believe you build your team how YOU want it. Push them, drive them, and test them to the very limits. My rules are simple....go through off-season (Jan. - April), spring ball (May), and go through summer pride (they must make 80% of workouts to play). If a football player does not play a spring sport - he is in track - no questions asked. Some dropped out quick...but we knew that the guys who survived were going to be the ones we wanted to play for us. We also went through what we called boot camp one week before we started practice where we essentially ran the dog out of them. During fall camp - we run a ton of gassers and then run sprints during the season. We run spread no-huddle at a high tempo so we have to be in shape. It has paid off...we have outscored our last two opponents 65 - 6 in the second half.
And lastly, I have a great staff under me. We work well together, we are all on the same page, and no one is undercutting anyone else. You all must be on the same page and watch each other's back and believe in what you are doing. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for - if the staff is not on the same page, not working together, players will see right through it. I don't know if any of this helped - but keep working at it coach and keep your head up.
Good luck and God bless,
Coach T
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2008 9:29:48 GMT -6
I'm in my second year as a head coach.....we are 4-0 and averaging 47 ppg. Last year, we were 3-7 and started 0-3 getting our {censored} kicked by our rival. There was some great comments coming out of the stands that night. In the beginning, we used a normal practice routine, etc. As we realized how bad we were (couldn't tackle and couldn't block) we switched gears. We padded up Monday through Thursday. We blocked and tackled everyday. Did this wear on us over the course of the season? Yes, I am sure it did. We also did Oklahoma Drill twice a week (kids loved it). But we set out to do two things.....learn how to play and find out who REALLY WANTED to play. We got better and missed the playoffs by 20 seconds and a fade ball. Then the real work began....offseason. This is where I truly believe you build your team how YOU want it. Push them, drive them, and test them to the very limits. My rules are simple....go through off-season (Jan. - April), spring ball (May), and go through summer pride (they must make 80% of workouts to play). If a football player does not play a spring sport - he is in track - no questions asked. Some dropped out quick...but we knew that the guys who survived were going to be the ones we wanted to play for us. We also went through what we called boot camp one week before we started practice where we essentially ran the dog out of them. During fall camp - we run a ton of gassers and then run sprints during the season. We run spread no-huddle at a high tempo so we have to be in shape. It has paid off...we have outscored our last two opponents 65 - 6 in the second half. And lastly, I have a great staff under me. We work well together, we are all on the same page, and no one is undercutting anyone else. You all must be on the same page and watch each other's back and believe in what you are doing. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for - if the staff is not on the same page, not working together, players will see right through it. I don't know if any of this helped - but keep working at it coach and keep your head up. Good luck and God bless, Coach T You nailed everything we've done thus far but the staff! I'm spreadbone' s DC and we did everything you talked about right from the get-go. The fall camp and everything and the gassers etc. is just what we did. Our problem is we only have 4 out 8 dedicated coaches. The 4 of us that are dedicated are all teachers, the others have jobs outside of school and cannot always make it to practice, so we have struggled being on the same page. The bad thing is that the admin. he was hired under has been torn apart and even it is in disarray right now (we just hired a principal a month ago). It has been rough all the way around, but bone and I are hometown boys that have come back to our alma mater and we are getting trashed by some of the parents who are supposedley our friends (in my case were my friends). It has been rough and we've both taken it hard, but we are just looking for the kids to get better each week, and we've had a real good week thus far, especially yesterday. We'll see on Friday as we take on that pesky ol' wing-t w/some pretty good athletes running it! Duece
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Post by coachturley on Oct 2, 2008 19:58:06 GMT -6
Get after em' and good luck Duece! Hate to hear that about your staff and admin. I am truly blessed to have the staff that I have. We work great together and are all good friends as well.
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Post by towtheline on Oct 5, 2008 0:15:50 GMT -6
I agree with dcohio if you can lose with someone you can certainly lose without them
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Post by spreadbone on Oct 6, 2008 9:23:32 GMT -6
Thanks for all the responses, I appreciate it. Just an update, we removed 3 kids from the team, and viola, the practices have gotten much better. However, our big problem now is kids not executing. When you are as little and as small as we are when you don't execute it makes problems even bigger than they really are. We got over 400 yards rushing hung on our defense last week and duece is my dc so you know he knows his stuff. I'm the OC and it was the same thing, but not as bad as on defense. I guess it is just the frustration of losing, but it's almost as though the kids don't trust what we are running and teaching them. I think a lot of the doubt they are getting comes from home too because we are losing. I think Heisman Dad is telling son we don't know what we are talking about etc. etc. I'm not sure how you get the kids to listen to you instead of the parents, that's a tough call IMHO. What do you guys do when this is happening?
Anyhow, like I said before thanks for posting, it really has helped me get through some bumps in the road.
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Post by spreadbone on Oct 13, 2008 6:15:56 GMT -6
Wow! Duece really does know his stuff! This week we did a very good job shutting down a wing-t team that normally rushed for nearly 300 yards we held them under 1/2 that this week. You could see the kids were getting it as they worked on it. I was very impressed! However, our offense, which I coordinate, cannot get out of its own way right now. Still getting calls from parents and stuff, but our grades are up and the kids spirits aren't bad either despite being 0-5. I'm very proud of them, and actually starting to have fun coaching them. Anyhow, once again thanks for all the info. and help, I appreciate it.
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Post by spreadbone on Oct 13, 2008 10:37:45 GMT -6
No, and I feel really bad about it. Don't get me wrong, our d hasn't been good (avg. giving up 400 yards/game so far this season), but they have been better than our offense. We've given up 109 points in 5 games, but only scored 33, so we are not very good all around. What is good to watch is the kids getting better every day. I can see marked improvement every day in our sophomores especially. I guess that's all you can ask...right?!
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Post by coachorr on Oct 13, 2008 13:06:43 GMT -6
What type of offense are you running?
I began doing play review on bags everyday for about 20 minutes and that helped our offense a lot.
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Post by raiderpirates on Oct 13, 2008 15:06:49 GMT -6
We held the best team to one score, including a goal line stand w/inches to go late in the first half. Lost 8-6 but really took it to the other team. Had some procedure calls ruin an early scoring chance, scored first anyways, but should have scored twice. We still outgained them for the most part.
Your level there's so much more pressure. It is frustrating when you see kids improving at something that takes time and people want instant results and keep changing things week in and week out.
The long term approach is more likely to remain sound in terms of fundamentals. We had one play they tried an option pass that could have been six points on us and he barely threw it forward. We aren't nearly as fundamentally sound in coverage as I'd like but we made plays on the ball and twice nearly forced a fumble on their end of the field late in the game.
We still had a time out to use after both of those fumble forcing efforts as well. It could have set us up to run two plays before the game ended. The HC said it was over. I still had the guys use them to put us in position to at least make plays on the football. They ran it with four and a half seconds left on fourth and long rather than risk punting and got a nice run to end it from a trick formation. Had a DE kept contain his teammates were on the play. It might have been an item where we get it with a sec or two left on the clock from inside their twenty.
Running players off is not the correct term for what you did, the former players ran themselves off of the team by not becoming team players.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2008 17:24:44 GMT -6
just messing with you spreadbone...it's a team game. Hey we got beat in double OT friday night, would be easy to complain about the offense's lack of production, but point blank...if they don't score, they can't win, they scored, so they won, it's pretty much that simple. The offense has very little to do with that part of the equation. Yeah you're right about the not scoring and winning that is so true. We've got to get better though, our defense has been on the field nearly 3:1 to the offense! Just ribbin' ya bone, see you in the morning. Duece
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