Play Calling

There are several factors involved in play calling.

• Personal
• Space 
• Defensive Structure 
• What is working
• Preparedness 

Personal this is determined by several factors your personal should be getting better right now until August rolls around.  This is off-season workouts, 7 on 7, Spring Ball (if you are allowed to do it), summer workouts, and finally having to steal for Urban Meyer high GSF.  My philosophy of personal is that you cannot control what level of athleticism that they came to you at but your job is to guide them to get as close as you can to that genetic ceiling as possible.  Remember Michael Jordan was cut as a high school freshman from the basketball team and through inhuman determination with practicing for the sport he loved became the greatest basketball player ever! You ever wonder what Mike Leach is writing down on that little index card during games? It was a hit chart that he counted how many times each of his receivers got the ball he was looking for even distribution.  The problem is that I don't live in that world I can only on campus recruit.  This coming up year I will have a couple of really good high school football players.  I am going to make sure that each one of those of guys touch the ball at least 20-25 times a game and then after that I am going to equally distribute the ball to the rest of the offensive skill guys.    

Space we are going to attack space.  In the run game look for bubbles and in the pass game look for grass.  With our offensive scheme the defense is going to have to defend 53 and a 1/3 yards wide and 18 yards from the line of scrimmage.  Also we are going to throw the post against outside leverage Un Capped and throw the go or the corner route against inside leverage Un Capped.

Defensive structure it's a mathematical equation:

2 Safeties= run the ball

1 Safety=utilize the option

0 Safeties=Throw the ball and Screens

Now of course we will run the ball, throw screens, and throw the ball against all defensive structures but as a general rule to attack the defense it is simple why try to run a play against the teeth of a defense when your hims are the same or not as good as his hims.

Do what is working try not to out smart your-self. Against one team this year we ran Counter 31 times for 260 yards for an 8.3 yards per play. Both of Bill Snyder's stints at Kansas State if his offense would find a play that worked he world run it over and over again until the defense stopped it then he would go to the next read or complement to it.

I am going to go back to my Copperas Cove days and since we run only two basic run schemes a Gap and Zone.  I am going to talk to our Offensive line coach and see what he thinks about just working Gap one day and Zone the other day.  The way we conduct practice offensive line gets a minimum of 10 5 minutes segments of individual.  That way all of his individual run blocking drills can be focused on that scheme for that day and tie in our screen game and passing game into it.  

Zone Day:

• Zone Running Stretch, Inside Zone, Speed Option and Speed Sweeps
• Sprint Out Passing Game
• Solid Screens
• Fast Screens
• 3 Step Passing Game

Gap Day

• Gap Running Game Counter and Power
• 5 Step Passing Game
• Counter Screens
• Jail Break Screens
• 3 Step Passing Game

Time and Reps last year we averaged 1 rep every 30 seconds during Group and Team.  This year our goal is going to run 1 play every 20 seconds if an athlete continually makes mistakes then his coach will pull him out put in a back up in and coach him up. We are going to have to coach off of film and coach on the run.    

Total Program Football 7th to Seniors Part 1

The first time I heard of a program running the same offense and defense at the lower levels was in the book Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger.  He was describing that the football players at Permian High School were running the same plays since POP Warner Football.  Fast Forward to my first football meeting of my very first job as a Junior High Coach in Copperas Cove Texas. Coach Jack Welch who I have learned so much from I have adapted his blue print to my own about program building.   Before he became the head football coach at Copperas Cove they were everybody’s homecoming game.  They did have some great individual talent but there are lots of programs across the state of Texas that has four plus Division One Scholarship players and they are sitting home come play-off time.  What makes Copperas Cove so special is the ability to turn program kids into very good high school football players.  There are several factors that led to this:

1. Alignment of Staff in the summer while I was working at Copperas Cove we always had a coaches retreat.  Not the usual work 1-2 hours a day if any.  But we put in a good at least 9-5 day with competitive games afterward volleyball, tennis, poker, ect.  The varsity coaches would put us on the white board make us explain the X's and O's and also make us teach and explain drills.  The objective of the whole thing was to make sure that the same drill and coaching cues used by 7th grade Receivers Coach  is the same as the Varsity Receivers Coach they both were saying the same things.  
2. The Progression in Copperas Cove 7th grade ran the 4-3 and were taught all of that package that the varsity used with that front with the exceptions of Defensive Line Twists.  8th grade a Eagle Front, Freshmen a 4-2-5 and 3-3 Stack, and Junior Varsity a 3-4 front was added.  There was a lot of carry over from each front.  Our get your best athlete but as intelligent athlete on the field was out End who always lined up in a 5 to the open side.     
3. Strength and Conditioning since I had played at Southwest Texas and for a time Larry Levermann was my strength coach I became our Junior High's Strength and Conditioning which meant I worked worked all summer for free but learned how to coach power clean (which is one of the most under coached lifts in football but that is for a latter blog).  Our District strength coach really taught me how to teach the power clean and expected me to teach all of the Junior High Athletes how to power clean which we did there was like 35 freshmen who were 185lb plus in the power clean that year.  
4. Our Discipline was also aligned if we had an athlete miss practice we used the same procedures that the high school used.  
5. The expectations of the staff were also aligned we got a blue pocket folder with our duties who we were responsible for academically what equipment we were required to take out and put up after practice every day.  We were also suppose to make calls to our athletes parents and let them know how they were doing in school, practice, any discipline issues etc every week.

I also worked in Pearland for coach Tony Heath he is very similar to what Coach Welch did at Copperas Cove.  Pearland also was on a lot of home coming schedules.  And in 2010 they were the 5A state champs. Both with Coach Heath and Coach Welch they were very important to me as developing into a Coach, Christian, and a Man and I have thanked God for having put them in my life.