New Football Programs

I started coaching at my current school the second year of football at that school. They started with a varsity program, no JV only 20 kids and the first year a school board member tried to coach... The kids never even got a first down!!(honestly) They fired him and hired the current staff it took 2 years of pretty good beatings before we gat competitive last year. We were in every game with a chance to win all but 1 and finally picked up our first win. Now we will have 35-40 out, though still 9-12. but we stuck to our guns and had 15 fressman last year another 15 this year and got the JH program running the same schemes. Like Groundchuck said...stick to your plan ...it takes TIME with a new program.

I am nearing the close of the first year at a new school. We started the school year with approx. 90 freshmen, 85 sophomores, 40 juniors, 0 seniors in the entire school. We bascially had about 20 kids out for the team, 2 had ever played footbal before. We had 4 juniors and the rest were sophs and frosh. We played a full varsity schedule this season. First three games were absolutely brutal. By the 4th game we were competing and scored a lot of points in every game, although we were far from stellar on defense. Ended up 1-8 although we were far improved at the end of the season.

You have received some good advice here as far as having a plan and sticking to it. Also you must get a jr. high team going and running your system. We were able to do that, and I will now have 17 8th graders coming into the system as freshmen next year with at least a year of tackle football experience and a year with our terminology.

Some other things I would suggest that have helped us to this point:

1. Get the weight/agility/speed program going now. At the beginning of the year I didn't have 1 player who could bench 200, clean 150 or squat 300. Also had only 1 guy who could run sub 5.0 in the 40. After an entire school year in the weight room and on the track, we have over 15 kids who can do all of those things. I have had one student add 160 lbs on his squat, add 40 lbs. of body weight and lower his 40 from 5.8 to 5.0 since the beginning of the year. Get a program that you are comfortable with wether it is Husker Power, BFS, a Westside Variation, or whatever, implement it, have the kids buy into it, and get after it. Also, make it part of their everyday PE schedule. You will get much more done that way.

2. Get involved with the track program. I have a huge number of my football players out for track and have seen great gains in their speed, athleticism and confidence.

3. Get the basketball, baseball, wrestling, etc. either on your staff or on the same page with you. At a small school you are going to be sharing a number of athletes. Get those things ironed out first and realize that everyone can be successful and can still share the same athletes. The basketball and baseball coach are a part of my staff as well as the girls basketball coach (I am the head track coach).

4. Find out what type of kids you have and run a system that fits what type of athletes you have. I personally believe that football basically comes down to basic skills: blocking, tackling, etc. Schemes are over rated a little in my opinion. I have been equally successful running veer option, wing T, BYU offense, spread, and Air Raid. Find what you like and what fits with your kids and give it hell!!!

I hope this helps coach. Good Luck!!!!