Who's Team Is Really, Really Bad?

Keep the focus on your team when you're talking about.

What can you do to help win the game?

Did you do your job on this play?

Have we done everything we can to prepare?

I've coached highly succesful teams and also teams that barely won one game, and I think that focus rings true for both sides of the coin.

Now, the struggle with the bad teams (in my experience) is they usually don't take ownership over their own mistakes and will look to point the finger at other players or the coaches. I really have no time for that, and a big focus of the program I am currently a part of (similar to yours, sounds like you're a little worse off) is eliminating that attitude and approach.

The tough part is that you really have to have to see the forest and not the tree, which can be tough because we also all love winning games and part of turning a program around is probably losing some games along the way.

Coach, I have lived this situation. MICoach is correct. You almost have to remove your opponent entirely from the equation and focus on yourself. Have I given great effort, do I have a great attitude, am I being a great teammate... ect.

The hardest part in my opinion is that kids on bad teams, that have been bad for awhile, have no model on how to do things "the right way", and they get no modelling at home as most of the time they are probably hearing how they are "too good to be playing at X high school".

In my experience I have found putting the focus on them, and what they can control (effort, execution, attitude), and being very very blunt when they are meeting that starts to bring them around. It truly doesn't matter what you "should" do against an opponent. Teams that historically have struggled have a very wide gap between "should" and reality.

Facts. "Slept On" is code for I don't want to do the work and it's everyone else's fault that I don't have what I say I want. 

This year I didn't even hold a captains vote. I knew which kids would win the popularity contest and those were not the kids I wanted to identify as leaders. I send one senior kid who is responsible out to coin tosses and that's it. 

Living it right now coach...


6-10 years ago this program had gone 1-9 or 0-10 every year. Low numbers, things being done the wrong way (kids missing practice all week and starting on varsity Friday nights, coaches coercing teachers to get kids eligible, etc...)

Guy before me got the job 5 years ago and brought me in to be the OC. Went 0-10 the first year with probably the most talented team we've had in my 5 years here, but just a bunch of selfish, entitled kids that had never been held accountable in their lives.

2018 we go 1-9. Won our homecoming game only. Got beat by A LOT in all the others. Not even close. Running clock by halftime. A lot of seniors on that team.

2019. HC burned out trying to fix everything and leaves to go to another school. I question whether I even want to apply for the job, but decide to do so after some conversations with my wife, other assistant coaches, and decide to do it. We dress 17 players for varsity in the 2nd largest classification in the state. We go 0-10 and only score 13 points the entire season. Shutout 9 times. Lose 69-0 multiple times (guess hitting 10 xp is impossible in HS). Half of our games had running clocks in 1st quarter. Of the 17 kids, 9 of them were freshman and starting both ways.

2020. We get lucky and I am able to withdraw from our conference requirements and go independent. I am able to schedule a bunch of schools who are in much lower tiers, and coaches I trust to not just destroy us by 70 every game. We go 4-6, with 2 of our losses to JV teams from some decent programs (only 1 score games each time) and then 2 other 1 possession losses. You would have thought it was a 14-0 national championship season.

2021. We are still independent and are currently 2-5. Won our 2nd game last night against a JV team of a large classification school. Our fans rushed the field, 45 minutes of fireworks, and you would have thought we just won the superbowl. I know the HC of the other team really well and he knows the situation we are in and totally understood and knows that we have to celebrate like that at every little success in our program.


It is the hardest thing to do... but we keep telling them the same things...


Being ON-TIME to football/school is important and we are very strict with attendance/tardies (no chance if they don't come)

What is YOUR job? Just do your job!!! We still have kids who think they have to do 10 different things rather than just doing their little responsibility on each play. End up with kids out of position all the time.

Reminding them that we love them and that because we love them we are going to coach them hard. If I didn't believe you were capable of doing it, I would just say "he can't do it anyway so why get upset"... I believe in you, and I know you are a better football player than I just saw, so I'm going to try to make you better... that is a GOOD THING, not a bad thing.

Getting them to understand that we are always going to be as good/bad as they, their parents, and the community want to be... If you and your parents don't want to come to offseason weights, we will get pushed around a lot... if you don't condition and do our speed components, we will be slower than the other teams... if you don't learn your plays and know your job, then we will not execute and the other team will win. Showing them that the results are not random, and often times are determined from January - July, not from August - October.


Our administration knows and understands how bad we have been, and still are... They are 100% supportive and think we are doing a great job getting kids to class, holding them responsible for their actions, and all the other NON-WIN related things that a program is supposed to do... anyone with eyeballs can tell that we are out-numbered, out-skilled, out-sized, out-strengthed, pretty much every Friday. When we do face teams like us... we are around a .500 record and most games are 1 possession at the end. COMPETITIVE. 

It is frustrating, and I have thought about whether it is worth it at times... it is normal to feel that way, but you gotta ask yourself if your frustration is because you hate losing more than your kids/parents/community do and that is why you are miserable. For many of my parents/kids, I am the "scariest guy in the world to talk to" because I tell them I expect things from them and then demand that they do their best to meet those expectations... If that makes me an @sshole, then I guess I'm an @sshole.

You definitely have do redefine success but getting your asss kicked weak in and week out is misery in the moment.

After Christmas you can go back and reflect on the growth but I’ve yet to find a man who can endure and excel through entire shitstorm unscathed.

This is a timely thread, and a timely post-  having just watched myself getting blasted into oblivion in a clip on "Eli's Places" (I think I deserve royalties).   My HS career was extremely disappointing, and a big reason was exactly what is described above.   Our team was so slow and weak-- we had virtually no offseason weights (the football HC was also the girls asst basketball coach and the head softball coach).  A 315 deadlift was "big weights"... and as I think back on it nobody ever really put our issues into words as they are above.   We honestly just thought "we suck" as if it was somehow it was just a part of divine providence that we were supposed to lose by 30-40 points a game.  

I often wonder what may have changed if anyone would have just pulled up the tape and said "Hey, look see how you are getting pushed back, that's because you guys squat 285 as seniors.   See how you are getting run past, that is because those guys work on speed mechanics, and you guys are running like cartoon characters. "  

Lot's of good stuff here that will be put to use. I appreciate the feedback. Up 12 - 0 with less than 8 minutes, we lost 14-12.

That's a hard fal brother.

Have your weight room numbers sagged as well? 

Yes. Once you are down, it's really hard to get back up.

Thanks for the awareness

goodbye spammer person shill friend 

I have never been a part of a team with 0fer on the table...

but I have coached teams that should be deep playoff run types and don't even make it to the playoffs. It is a hopeless feeling to be coaching a team where there is nothing you can do to make the group care or play without pointing fingers.

The year I'm referencing, we had 40 (!!) seniors, many of them were sophomores on a team that had the most wins in program history. They just tuned us out. We had 4 or 5 fringe D1 types/D2 starter types and should have run through all but one of the teams in our league. The sighs of relief in the office when that last horn sounded could have registered as a wind advisory. It is such a drag to go through but it is liberating when it is over.

I coached 2 ofer teams- 2001 as an assistant, 2017 as a HC. Also coached 2 undefeated regular season teams- 2012 (10-1) and 2013 (11-1). Had a 24 game regular season winning streak 2011-2014.

Oddly enough, 2017 was less stressful than 2013. 2012 was the most talented team I ever got to coach. 2011 was my favorite team. I think 11 was my best job of coaching and 12 and 13 were just the result of the foundation I laid in 10 and 11.

If I were to give advice on how to climb out of an 0fer, I'd say if you have $100 worth of capital to spend, put $92 of it into your freshmen and sophomores. That's your future. It'll piss jr and sr kids and parents off, but to turn the thing around those kids are usually too far gone into loser mentalities and habits. In 01 we had a really nice group of freshmen and we cultivated the heck out of them and their Sr year they took us to the semis. In 10 I had a really nice group of freshmen (who people told me were pointless because they hadn't won in JFL) coupled with a handful of good sophomore. Were invested heavily in them and it paid off 11-13.

Now, the thing is, once you've turned it around, don't forget what got you there. In 12 and 13 I was so focused on those jrs and srs that I left the development to the underclass kids to assistants and that did not pay off as well for me in 14, 15 and 16. If I had that $100 in 12 and 13 I put $75 of my time on the varsity. It should have been closer to 50/50 and it cost me long term.