Weekend meetings

The last few years I was an OC at my old school we stopped meeting over the weekends. At some point during the weekend our HC would give me a call and I’d talk to him about my thoughts on what we needed to do. At that point we’d been coaching together awhile so those conversations were pretty short.

One of the things I did my last year there was set up a GoogleDoc that our O guys had access to where we could write down our attack thoughts and rationale for why we liked them. If I was still an OC this would definitely be something I’d still do and expand on it a little more like in the football scoop article.

Let me start by saying the entire staff is expected to view HUDL film at home over the weekend. We have "informal" meetings on Sundays; the HC, o-line coach, WR coach, d-line coach, and I (DC) meet. I call these meetings "informal" because the entire staff is invited, but it is not mandatory. Meetings start at 8 am and might go until noon. The offensive and defensive guys work in different rooms and leave when they're finished. I like doing it this way for three reasons: 1) There aren't too many cooks in the kitchen. 2) I have time to look at and think about what we want to do. Kinda' similar to putting something in the crockpot, letting it simmer, and coming back later to taste. It's not unusual for me to call the d-line coach later in the day to discuss something we mentioned in the meeting. 3) I like putting stuff on the board and having two sets of eyes look at it.
As soon as I get home from Sunday am meeting, I neatly copy my notes, send a copy to the entire defensive staff, and ask them to look at notes and be ready to discuss at meeting on Monday. By the time we "formally" meet on Monday night, the entire defensive staff has had an opportunity to look at the preliminary game plan, as well as video of opponent, and should be ready to discuss what we want to do.
I don't mind working seven days a week; I've been doing it that way since the beginning of my career. I realize that guys have family obligations and that some guys just need time away.

We meet on sat and sundays. Everything is copy and paste through hudl though.
I still think, outside the sermons, its one of the better things we do.
Not from x and o standpoint, but from a big picture p.o.v. ex. This grades, that kids attitude, this baby's mama...
Its one thing to say in a text, nother to say it to the group.

This is the problem that I have with doing everything online. If "Goodfellas" has taught us anything it's that talking over the phone is a bad idea. Writing it down, where it can be taken out of context and never goes away, is a hundred times worse. 

We meet from four to six on Sundays. That give us all the time we need to break down film, game plan, script play, etc. during the weekend at a time that works best for us (some work Saturdays). 


When we get to the meeting, it's all business. Thoughts on the last game, offensive game plan, defensive game plan, personnel changes due to injuries and any scheduling logistics that need discussing and go home.   

If things were still like they were 20 years ago, coaching may not be for me and especially my wife and kids.

Get to the HC's house, have a beer, wait for everyone to get there, have another beer, tell stories, eat snacks, watch film, argue about personnel changes for a couple of hours, drink more beer, watch the NFL game on TV for a bit, tell more "back in the day" stories (which are cool but not time efficient)...and on and on. 

I'm sure some of you guys know what I'm talking about. 

Wingt you beat me to it! I feel that I personally don’t need to meet, but my younger coaches benefit greatly from it. They share ideas and we talk about why they are good and bad for our game plan.

For those that don’t meet, do you feel like you lose out on collaborative ideas that can snowball from meetings?

I feel we do miss out on some of what your talking about by not meeting.  As I stated before I wish we could meet for 30 minutes to an hour to present game plan and solidify confusions in anything.

We still meet, but sometimes we seem like we are just keeping a office desk warm. I agree with HUDL times have changed, were we use to spend countless hours drawing formations/plays/and chart tendencies, we have that information once the columns are filled. I think spending an hour or so would be great, but spending 3-6 hours is keeping seats warm IMO.

All you have to do is google “hs coaches fired for emails and text.”
And I know it happens in lots of cases where it gets no press clippings.

Put into google, “coaches arrested for text to student/parents.”

thanks for the insight.

I can't imagine not meeting on the weekend. If we play a Thursday night game on TV we will watch the film as a staff Friday morning, watch with our players Friday afternoon, and then go watch someone play Friday Night. Saturday we don't come in, we communicate via text and google doc as we watch our next opponent. I hate those Saturdays. When we come in Sunday we are behind because we haven't had a true Saturday. While text and google docs give you a way to communicate ideas, you can't have a true discussion. You don't have the back and forth. I value the input of my staff, and google docs doesn't do them the justice of presenting their ideas. I want to be able to ask questions, and let them question each other. Add to this the fact that if I am working from home I am not really at home. It is easier just to jump to the office to do the work without being interrupted.

On a normal Friday night game we will come in Saturday, watch Friday's film as a staff, meet about personnel, watch film with players, finish data entry of our next opponent, and get their fronts, coverages, and blitzes drawn. We then watch one game together to talk about what we see. This is a quick run through to gather some ideas. We go over personnel and go home. I want my guys to make sure they are all-in once them get home. Because we got our work done at the office, they can be all-in at hime. We come back in Sunday to build the game plan. Much of the legwork and analytics were done Saturday, which means Sunday we are putting the plan together, building cards, plans, and scripts, and putting our call sheet together. We are talking about different concepts, adjustments, and how we will attack them on a personnel level, and when it comes to alignments. We couldn't have these discussions as in depth without meeting together. When this is done, we leave. 

With all that said, to each his own. Find what works for you. For us, we need to meet. It works best for us. But not meeting may work for some of y'all. 

I wanna hang with the coaches and their families. We meet on Sunday night and usually have dinner/drinks for the guys and/or family if we are doing a family-event. Too much work and stress to not get to know the dudes really well and do some fun things together... plus, I can't drink 50 of my home-brew beers by myself every week, so they get to help.

Defensively, We meet online using google meet. We have a google docs template that each coach is responsible for filling out and we go through and talk about gameplan thoughts regarding personnel, formation, plays, pass protection, situationally. We go through the practice plan for the week and if there is additional work to do, It is dished out and a deadline is set. We break and start doing our cards for Monday