Focus vs. a lesser team

We had a couple games this year like that. We focused a great deal in practice and during the game on alignment, assignment, and hustle. There was zero tolerance for players. If they slipped in any area we yanked them out and put their back up in for them. If the whole unit messed up they conditioned. Versus one team we score +50 in the first half, playing starters as well as subs. It was probably our best half this year of execution and hustling.

I was reading a book on the military conquests of Joshua


The lesson he knew, and later generals ignored, was you need a plan after victory too. After the fray is won, how do you keep the enemy from regrouping and coming back? In essence, how do you keep what you won?



Kids always need challenges..........I like the approach dgs used

Focus on yourself. What can your team get better at that week in practice? I'm guessing a team wasn't perfect the week previous. Focus on those mistakes and practice with intensity to fix those mistakes.

You see, there was never a mention of the next weeks opponent. Doesn't matter if you are playing someone who is undefeated or has NO wins....you should focus on your plan.

Also, when we are playing someone who isn't very good and the back ups get in...they must play well. If they go in and lay and egg they come out. Those back ups work their butts off to get on the field and will go hard, but offensively they have to move the ball and defensively have to stop people. We don't play back ups to have 5 TDs scored against them.

I think setting appropriate goals is a big factor.

I go into a season trying to establish the mindset that we have definite goals we want to accomplish every week, and winning forms only a part of this goal pyramid. Other goals involve specific targets for offense, defense & ST, character standards (no personal fouls, etc.), and I try to make these progressive as the season goes on -- raising the bar over time, and constantly expecting a higher standard of the kids on the team than they have displayed in the past, if only by degrees -- I try never to raise the bar so high that it is completely out of reach.

When playing bottom-feeding programs, I try to make the connection between winning, performing, and excelling as men as well as excelling as football players. Every time we knock the daylights out of an opponent, I want to see a hand reaching out to help him up -- and then we're going to do our best to knock him down the next play, and the next.

Other goals have to do with hustle, with precision, and generally with keeping the machine not only running at full RPM, but gleaming clean...when setting goals, think about how you'd like your team to perform and to behave, then set the goals accordingly, giving them room either to improve or to maintain perfection every week.

Hope that makes sense.

Our frosh coaches don't show film but what we do do is script the other teams plays run scout and tell the kids these guys are really good and fast so that we get the results we are looking for seems to work. i think one time we let them see film and they were more intimidated than if we waited until game time so we stick to script.