Coaching the details

You mean like technique vs rolling the ball out there?

The 3 page thread on that last week ended up in the trash. Good luck
(beware of actual exchange/discussion)

I DO, however, wholeheartedly agree with your assertion, though

Do you press on hoping that one day it will click, maybe piece by piece?

Then it begs the question(s);

• What are we expecting of the players and HOW are we teaching them (if they aren't getting it)?
  
  
• Did we not allocate enough instruction time? If so/not, how much is enough time?
  
  
• Did we allocate enough time, but the way we attempted to teach it fail?
  
  
• If we DO proceed, is there a more compelling reason other than us not having enough faith in our own coaching ability to train an athlete HOW to properly execute his assignment consistently?
  

I am amazed at how some guys "evaluate" their players, looking for new athletes when one doesn't function as he thought he should (however giving that failed player clear directions and drills on how to not screw up hadn't even crossed that coach's mind)

Maybe, I run alot more slow motion team stuff right now so I can coach the details. Theres no point in adding another series for us when we dont run the one we have very well.

why add another coverage?

why add more stunts?

why work on anything other than get offs and pulling steps?

shoot, if we can block in space better then the plays we have will work better. If we can read "counter" then we dont need another defensive front...

Our practice time is 75% individual and play review time and 25% Team and inside run time.

The TF system is tough to run, if you can't snap it. And that was our major break down in my coaching, I should have put our best kid on our center in practice to see if he could snap. BTW, our starting center cracked his elbow, while skate boarding last week. At that point I should have taken out the gun snap. Moreover, our starting Z receiver, corner, and special teams returner snuck out of his house the night before the game. It was a major hurt to us.

This may be an example of what brophy's talking about.

We are a Houston Veer team. Our kids run it from at least ninth grade on. However, on Varsity we never run Triple Option in Team period until third day of two-a-days - gives kids time to rep, rep, rep so that when we do go 11-on-11 the ball is not on the ground every other play and the kids have some confidence in the plays.

In the meantime (first two days) we run base, simpler plays such as Dive, Dive-Option, Counter-Dive, Lead Option, Quick Pitch.

Some people I am aware of try to run Triple Option and give up quickly because they try to go too fast, expect too much too fast.

Brings clarity, or at least thought, to the adage "keeping it simple"

What exactly does that mean, and do number of plays have anything to do with it (as opposed to conceptualization of scheme).

When Hal Mumme came to Kentucky, he told reporters he only had 10 plays, and 7 of them were passes.

90 Series and Quick game
Fast Screens
Lead and Stretch

THAT, is keeping it simple and focusing on details.

And the reason they could focus on the details?

THEY LIMITED WHAT FUNDAMENTALS THEY NEEDED TO COVER.

What is really important to the success of said offense?

In the AR, your WR's only need 5 minutes of stalking blocking a month........

In the flexbone, your WR's only need 50 minutes of stalk blocking a week..........



I'm a big believer in whole-part-whole teaching.


You teach the whole scheme first. Basically, when we download a playbook off the internet, we do it to understand the scheme and how it fits together.


Get the players on the "what we are trying to do" train


Then, reinforce the essential fundamentals in Indy/Group/Skelly periods.


This is where the 4 or so things that MUST be done correctly are reinforced and become part of one's muscle memory.


For my offensive tackles, these are kick slide, punch, center of gravity, and foot movement.


I have a list of 14 things I want from them in pass pro, but those 4 are the essentials, and all I have time for really.


In TEAM, you are coaching effort and correcting assignment errors.



You SHOULD NOT be coaching fundamentals during this period. This is application of concepts time, and if a kid is thinking too much about HOW to do it, he will screw up.


It is your job as a coach to watch film, and then in those pre-TEAM practice periods, fix the "how we do it" mistakes.


Now, a coach can help an athlete who is messing up the HOW during team, by getting them to focus on the first phase of their muscle memory.


OL----"Timmy, all I want for you to focus on is taking your first step"


QB---"Gunner, just worry about keeping the ball loaded on your drop"


RB----"Just take a great counter step, Bobby"


You get the point.



If the kid does the first thing right, he will likely be lead to do the second thing right......then the third thing....and on and on.



"Over-coaching" is defined as being marred in a 45 minute TEAM period (that was scheduled for 25) where kids are given 5 corrections every play.



Those kind of practice make me want to shoot myself.....not in the head, just in the arm. Hopefully that pain will take me mind off the TEAM period that never ends.

Excellent point. Football, even at HS level, has gotten more complex the last couple of decades.

As a result, simple is not always best, or even possible. We try to be somewhat multiple on defense. But as a general rule if you're spending more time on alignments and/or assignments than fundamentals and techniques, you may be doing too much and asking for trouble.

I strongly belive you must be detailed in your coaching. I have tried it before where I zoomed through all the little things and 1/2 of the plauyers got it the other 1/2 looked like deer in headlights.

I have gone back to teaching the small stuff in Indy time and actualy taking the time to explain why we are doing something. The kids actualy pick it up better if they know why they are doing something and what purpouse it serves they see it as having importance so they focus on it.

What ends up happeneing is that it takes longer which is fine I would rather things take longer and us run less stuff by the end of the year the stuff we do run will will be solid. The other thing we have see with our kids is: once they get little things ie: LB reading the Guards the next thing you give them they can do much better. Once they have some idea of the basics the more complex stuff can be easier to do.

I learned this the hard way, we isntalled a D it was complex had 3 different looks multiple stunts, 2 different fronts, 2 different coverage looks with a tottal of 8 different coverages. I thought "yeah we are gonna confuse the hell out of the teams we play"................. I was 1/2 right I confused the daylights out of some of my players! During this time I was so blind to what was happening that I was telling by coaches it's ok that thye don't call pass or run or that we don't have good angles of pursuit.

We abandoned 90% of the playbook by week 3 got down to the basics of pursuit, gap cancelation, and run fit we ened up being much more sound.

being tired is one thing (fatigued effort), but if this "tired" means abandoning technique by losing focus, that is another thing.

Technique, to be any good, has to be step-by-step muscle-memory execution (i.e. 1st step MUST be here. 2nd step is wrong if it isn't here).

If a 3 step drop looks (read "times up") fine in the first half, but ends up all over the place in the 4th quarter, there is a breakdown of technique and this is a failure in technique coaching. Technique is the fundamental of executing the assignment of the position. These are the QUANTIFIABLES of the position that are essential if you plan on winning outside of athleting or muscling opponents.

** I lost my train of thought when I wrote that.....what I mean is
If I am playing a musical instrument in a song, I am playing within that particular chord progression. There is a foundation of rhythm and melody. If I vamp and solo and go off the deep end......OR I "get lost", I can always essentially hit the 'reset' button in my mind (find my way home) and revert to the ROOT NOTE and scale of the song - I can't go wrong doing that, and consequently, I can play in ANY song when I have that foundation of modes and scales down.

If I don't do that, then when I'm presented with an unfamiliar situation or I become disoriented / lose rhythm, then I'm pretty much sunk.

The same concept works in football. When I am presented with a difficult situation, do I breakdown and get enveloped by my opponent (and screw my team mates over by getting beat/out of position)? or can I revert to my fundamentals and win my matchups one step at a time?

As an Oline guy I am obsessed with details, but as I have moved from college-level to HS coaching I have found that details often need to take a back seat to the teaching of the "Big Picture" or the why's and how's of the system.

The guys I coach right now are in their 3rd yr with me (2nd as their Oline coach)- this season is the first time that I can truly expand the teaching to focus on the details at each position. This group was fundamentally unsound and lacked experience when we took over, and it has taken literally 1 full season for them to "get it" as a unit- they can literally teach me the system now.

So to answer the original question- Yes, I coach every single detail that I can but fundamentals trump details everytime.

brophy, stop picking on me.

What I mean as far as the TF system, we will still call everything the same, however, 100% will be under center. We will still run fast and solid as well as some basic passing concepts like Smash, NCAA, Post/Out with shallow underneath on some of them.

We have always been a Jet Sweep team with veer, belly, power, sally and counter. We have installed Jet, power, lead, belly. This year we are not fast enough to get around end, and we are not strong enough to mis-direct and run underneath the D-End, but in the team's defense, I only called belly off of Jet motion once and never ran veer.

This year I have nothing to do with the offensive line. The guy we hired has a great understanding of blocking concepts, however, when I look down to that end of the field I see a lot more talking than I see repping. At this point I am going to have to go down there and teach the kids the progression of the following, 1) Drive Block 2)Gap offense double team 3) Pull and pin and pull and trap. And most importantly doing all of those blocks with execution and finish. The guy knows what he is doing, yet there is just that tenacity and effort missing and I think it has to do with not enough repition nor enough progression.

Moreover, our Q can only throw the football about 20 to 25 yards acurately.

This will be our offensive running package, Lead, power, counter, Jet, Orbit Sweep, quick trap. The only plays we will be adding are counter and Orbit sweep. Although we won't do as much motion and then trying to run plays underneath (belly, veer, power) we will be the same up front. We are going to have to abandon veer double option at this point because both of our guards are dyslexic and cannot remember to step away from the play.

For the opener I am just worried about having A PLAY that I can run without worry. So even if it is 3rd and 45, we have a play that we can run that does not turn the ball over. Same thing with a base defense, punt team, KOR, etc.

Then after the opener we can evaluate. There is a big difference between week one and two. Under the lights is the ultimate test.

but doesn't that scenario give them the context in which to use their skill sets (and see how if they don't use it, it screws everyone else over)?

THIS is what you will see..........and THIS is what you need to do/where to be (when you see it).

a) INDY is this look (dive) with 2 offensive players
b) GROUP is this look (dive) in half-line
c) TEAM is this look (dive) altogether

If you don't do that (scout look), then all I can imagine left to do is alignment. period.

The disconnect (after alignment) comes from the movement (HOW to get to appropriate abosolute fit). There should be an absolute method of movement, how you want them to shuffle/run/slide/whatever into their gap. Staying disciplined in this flow reaction is what sets a player up to execute their assignment (tackle position / block destruction leverage / etc). If they screw this up (their pursuit leverage) then nothing they attempt to do later in this progression will work.

If there are things THAT MUST be done in your scheme----aka alignment and technique, then do that first.


However, I agree with Brophy......you teach that in the context of stopping the triple option.


And, as to your point about "do we talk a bigger game on the internet", you are probably right.

We faced a West Virgina type of 2-back spread last week. They would run Iso Read, GT counter trey read, etc.


Ideally, I would want my DE's getting hands on the OT, diagnosing the pressure and visual key, and making the play.


All thru 2-a-days we worked get off and hand placement. We worked squeezing a down block, fighting a base block, and keeping our outside 1/2 free versus a reach block.


THAT, is their muscle memory.


Problem is, we don't have the time (or I don't have the ability) to get them use to the subtle difference between "the OT didn't block you because the QB is reading you", and "the OT didn't blocking you because Counter Trey is coming to kick your arse out"


I get 25 minutes of defensive Indy a week, so what's important?


We settled on 2 Points of Emphasis.


1. Get hands on the OT (jack him up). I sure as heck cannot handle them running ISO down our throats. If he blocks down......

2. Hit the QB. Pretty much handles the option responsibilities part. It should be a give every time, and we won't worry about the QB keep or Bubble read option phase.


Guess what? You've probably have a decent chance at a kickout block (though we still squeeze a down block initially). So what? Iso and QB keepers were NOT going to beat us.


There are two ways we cripple our kids.


1. Poor teaching of fundamentals in camp (alignment, assignment, footwork, reads, etc.)


2. Information overload in weekly prep.


Give each position 2-3 plays top that need stopped. Fit it together with the other positions, and GO.


ALL of THAT was to point out this thought tdmaker:


The technique constantly need corrected and reinforced through out the season......that is why Indy period is the most important period of the day.


At the same time, don't give up gameplanning aspects with your kids. The right technique is not going to help if they have no idea what your expectations are versus triple option.





And at the same time, when you are that young, go beyond limiting your offense......put your call sheet on a 3x5.