Our Off Seasons flat out SUCK.
Since I have been at my current school (3 years) our off season's have never been what I have wanted them to be. Every year I feel I get more organized and improve my knowledge in S&C yet none of it matters if I can't get the kids to buy in to it.
Every game we lost this past season I 100% contribute to our lack of dedication to the weight room.
I tried to get the kids here, tried to beg them here, but so many were content with just starting that it didn't matter. Couldn't really hold a kid out for not showing up because his back up didn't show up either. Through January we were having the same terrible results for our off season workouts... 10-12 kids a day after school is not getting it cut when you have a school of 2,000 and you know you will end up with at least 30 kids on both varsity and JV when the season starts. What the heck are those other 50-60 kids doing who aren't showing up??!!!
I got tired of it, I was fed up, frustrated, and ready to just give up.
I finally did something I should have done long ago. I held a meeting, advertised it to the kids for over a week, told them it was mandatory and the most important meeting in school history.
I laid out a point/reward system for them and told them what was required to play football for me in 2013.
First I laid out the fact that attendance was taken daily and I would post it at the end of each week. To play football, at any level in 2013 a player would have to attend 75% of workouts between now and spring ball.
Each player would be given 1 point a day for showing up to our workouts. Any one involved in a spring sport would get 1 point per day as long as they were in that sport. I stay in the weight room until 6:00 every night. So if a baseball or volleyball player gets out at 5:30, they can run down to the weight room and get at least their core lifts in with me. If they do this they get 2 points for the day.
I also declared that every football player who wasn't doing a spring sport was now on the track team. No negotiations, no excuses if you want to play football you are on the track team.
I sat down with the track coach to coordinate our practice structure but basically every OL/DL was now a thrower, every skill player now a runner.
Runners would do track then lift after with me. Throwers would life with me first then go throw or run. He handles all the speed work, I handle all the lifting. You can do all the SAQ work you want, I have never seen kids improve their raw speed and conditioning more than after a full season of running track.
Now that we had a point system, and a minimum percentage of points needed we just needed to really add a level of competition to it.
Our current Junior (going to be senior) class is in my mind selfish and lazy. There has been a lack of leadership in their grade level. To help I picked 6 of these future seniors to be "Captains" of mini teams, and I divided every kid interested in football in to one of these 6 teams. I'm hoping that be forcing these kids into a leadership role they will start to become the leaders we need them to be for the 2013 season. Each of them started a year ago, and talent wise should be our best guys in 2013 they just need the right discipline.
Intrinsic motivation or doing the right thing are not good enough motivators for today's kids, and the kids on my football team. I needed a carrot to dangle to spark their interest in this new football program I am trying to establish so along with the points and small teams I came up with an award system
For the team with the most combined points: Captain gets their home jersey, any cleats they can dream up, spirit pack. The entire team will get a special t shirt that no other person can buy or win.
The captains have a lot of incentive to push their team members to be at practice so they can win their prizes.
I also want the other players to have something to shoot for (other than hitting 75% so they can make the team) so I am buying cleats for the top 2 point scorers in our program.
Our attendance has blossomed, we now have over 60 kids a day at track and workouts, as well as another 5-10 per day who come lift after baseball or volleyball. We are 2 full weeks in to the program right now and the kids have really bought in. The captains are on their teammates for missing (because they want to win) and players really want to show up and earn their points. I have kids asking me 3x a day if they made sure I checked them off for lifting that day because they want to get every point.
Each week I have posted the individual and team point results in our weight room and on my classroom door and they have really gotten in to the competition aspect of it.
I have made it a big point to not only not record excuses of any kind, I do not even listen to them. A few players have given me this excuse or that excuse and I say you gotta do what you gotta do, if you don't hit 75% you are not playing football. Our biggest Rival is Pittsburg HS. So when a kid gives any excuse for something whether at school or at practice I pull my cell phone out, pretend to dial up Pittsburg HS... and repeat the excuse... so I might say something like...
"Hey pitt, Johnny wants to see his GF after school today... can you take it easy on him in November? Please? oh wait... you don't care??? You're still gonna tee off on him? Ok I'll let him know" The no excuses attitude is a major point of emphasis I am trying to push across.
The only thing I am not sure on is when I am going to have the "cut off date" or deadline for when players have to reach a certain point total.
I wasn't sure how this was going to work, and trust me I never really bought in to a point system. I thought it was something for the rich schools and that our kids would go on the same as before but I can't express how big our turn around has been and I feel good about our future as long as we can keep this up.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Blocking Progression
Often times we coaches (myself included) get so caught up in schemes, wrinkles, adding new things, the defense we are facing, but we fail to address the most important thing of all ... fundamentals.
I know I am guilty, as I am sure many are across the world, as the season goes on you start having more team time, and less individual time. The quality of your indy work diminishes and I know throughout this season I kept feeling like we just weren't getting better week to week, or over the course of the season.
I had the pleasure of hearing a number of great speakers this weekend at the San Francisco (really Concord my home town) Glazier Clinic. The best of which was former YV and Clovis East Coach, and current Clayton Valley HC Tim Murphy.
He is a widely known DW guru. This year he switched to a shotgun DW and had even more success. Blew everyone away, won our section for Division II and came up 1 play short of winning the right to represent NorCal in the state playoffs. Oh by the way he didn't even get hired until the middle of spring ball.
Anyway he is an awesome coach and I got to check out a bunch of his presentations over the weekend. His team came to my camp last summer and I knew they would be good. They're coming again this year and it will be awesome to have them.
Anyway back to the point, he gave a great talk on his blocking progression.
What I was most happy about was the fact that what I taught this past year was really almost identical to the way he taught it. I have seen some of his earlier videos so I was close to doing things his way.
This technique for an on block is the foundation for everything they do, and a great phrase he said was "a block is a block"
this was in reference to a coach asking about different techniques for different blocks... this progression is the basis, the difference between blocks just comes from stepping at different angles, and working your head to a certain side.
I am going to go through the entire blocking progression below:
I started my blocking progression like most do, stance, first step, second step. However Murphy actually teaches his progression from the fit position and works backwards.
1. They start teaching everything from the "fit" position. Good pad level, back at a 45 degree angle. Hands locked on shoulder pads, thumbs up, elbows in. Good bend angles in hips, knees and ankles. One important point is that he has the scout defender hold the blockers elbows in. This is to help reinforce the elbows in for the blocker. Keeping elbows in is a more powerful position than you are in when the elbows are flared up/out.
2. The next step is to start from the "load" position. The blocker will have a flat back with their arms loaded or cocked back. Their hands are somewhere between their mid thigh and hip. On command the player will step and deliver a blow with the knife or base of the hand and get into that fit position... the hit and back have to be at a 45 degree angle... can't go straight up. 45 degrees is the most powerful angle and we want to make contact on that 45 degree angle with great pad level.
3. The 3rd part of the progression is to begin from the stance. The stance should be with a flat back. On command they will take their first step and load the hands. Important points... he teaches keeping the off hand in a 3 pt stance to be down near the down hand. "fist by the wrist" This is to keep the load even on both sides. They must keep a flat back when they freeze after their load step. He will sometimes have a kid stand over the with their hand 2 inches above their back in their stance. On the load step if their back touches the hand the kid knows he has risen too high.
> then comes the 2nd step and delivering the punch on the 45 degree angle
> this gets us into our fit
from there we will start the final step: Drive
4. they start in a perfect fit and on command they drive the scout defender pounding the entire foot into the ground, weight on inside of foot.
command is "fit" > player gets into perfect fit
"show me" > player twists defender to show coach his grip on shoulder pads, thumbs up elbows in
"drive" > player begins pounding feet driving down the field
"lockout" > player violently bench presses to finish the block... back goes flat again, finishing him to the ground (only get this perfect block a few times a game but practice it anyway)
They will work this step by step progression and from there go to 50% speed putting all the steps together
from 50% they go to 90%
Finally 100% all out on the drive block
They also practice drills they call "Stick Like Glue Series"
Sidewinder drill - drive block (can adjust % of effort) scout guy begins snaking side to side as he is driven back. Blocker has to work his feet to stay on the block and not get out of control.
Spin Drill - drive block, scout defender chooses a direction to spin, blocker has to redirect and stay on the block
Pop up Drill - drive block, defender throws blocker down onto ground, pop up and continue to block, repeat
He teaches a solid progression and maximizes what his players can do. His OL was SMALL, but they ran the heck out of the ball.
They work this progression relentlessly. At our Summer camp, when the other teams were repping team stuff in their independent practice time, his guys were working progression over and over.
He said he works the progression every week, all year long, even 5 weeks deep into the playoffs.
This progression is not solely for the OL. He makes every player on the team do this, including his QBs. Every player has to learn how to block and to be a great blocker in his offense.
I know I am guilty, as I am sure many are across the world, as the season goes on you start having more team time, and less individual time. The quality of your indy work diminishes and I know throughout this season I kept feeling like we just weren't getting better week to week, or over the course of the season.
I had the pleasure of hearing a number of great speakers this weekend at the San Francisco (really Concord my home town) Glazier Clinic. The best of which was former YV and Clovis East Coach, and current Clayton Valley HC Tim Murphy.
He is a widely known DW guru. This year he switched to a shotgun DW and had even more success. Blew everyone away, won our section for Division II and came up 1 play short of winning the right to represent NorCal in the state playoffs. Oh by the way he didn't even get hired until the middle of spring ball.
Anyway he is an awesome coach and I got to check out a bunch of his presentations over the weekend. His team came to my camp last summer and I knew they would be good. They're coming again this year and it will be awesome to have them.
Anyway back to the point, he gave a great talk on his blocking progression.
What I was most happy about was the fact that what I taught this past year was really almost identical to the way he taught it. I have seen some of his earlier videos so I was close to doing things his way.
This technique for an on block is the foundation for everything they do, and a great phrase he said was "a block is a block"
this was in reference to a coach asking about different techniques for different blocks... this progression is the basis, the difference between blocks just comes from stepping at different angles, and working your head to a certain side.
I am going to go through the entire blocking progression below:
I started my blocking progression like most do, stance, first step, second step. However Murphy actually teaches his progression from the fit position and works backwards.
1. They start teaching everything from the "fit" position. Good pad level, back at a 45 degree angle. Hands locked on shoulder pads, thumbs up, elbows in. Good bend angles in hips, knees and ankles. One important point is that he has the scout defender hold the blockers elbows in. This is to help reinforce the elbows in for the blocker. Keeping elbows in is a more powerful position than you are in when the elbows are flared up/out.
2. The next step is to start from the "load" position. The blocker will have a flat back with their arms loaded or cocked back. Their hands are somewhere between their mid thigh and hip. On command the player will step and deliver a blow with the knife or base of the hand and get into that fit position... the hit and back have to be at a 45 degree angle... can't go straight up. 45 degrees is the most powerful angle and we want to make contact on that 45 degree angle with great pad level.
3. The 3rd part of the progression is to begin from the stance. The stance should be with a flat back. On command they will take their first step and load the hands. Important points... he teaches keeping the off hand in a 3 pt stance to be down near the down hand. "fist by the wrist" This is to keep the load even on both sides. They must keep a flat back when they freeze after their load step. He will sometimes have a kid stand over the with their hand 2 inches above their back in their stance. On the load step if their back touches the hand the kid knows he has risen too high.
> then comes the 2nd step and delivering the punch on the 45 degree angle
> this gets us into our fit
from there we will start the final step: Drive
4. they start in a perfect fit and on command they drive the scout defender pounding the entire foot into the ground, weight on inside of foot.
command is "fit" > player gets into perfect fit
"show me" > player twists defender to show coach his grip on shoulder pads, thumbs up elbows in
"drive" > player begins pounding feet driving down the field
"lockout" > player violently bench presses to finish the block... back goes flat again, finishing him to the ground (only get this perfect block a few times a game but practice it anyway)
They will work this step by step progression and from there go to 50% speed putting all the steps together
from 50% they go to 90%
Finally 100% all out on the drive block
They also practice drills they call "Stick Like Glue Series"
Sidewinder drill - drive block (can adjust % of effort) scout guy begins snaking side to side as he is driven back. Blocker has to work his feet to stay on the block and not get out of control.
Spin Drill - drive block, scout defender chooses a direction to spin, blocker has to redirect and stay on the block
Pop up Drill - drive block, defender throws blocker down onto ground, pop up and continue to block, repeat
He teaches a solid progression and maximizes what his players can do. His OL was SMALL, but they ran the heck out of the ball.
They work this progression relentlessly. At our Summer camp, when the other teams were repping team stuff in their independent practice time, his guys were working progression over and over.
He said he works the progression every week, all year long, even 5 weeks deep into the playoffs.
This progression is not solely for the OL. He makes every player on the team do this, including his QBs. Every player has to learn how to block and to be a great blocker in his offense.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Cut up of the day: Snag
I love the Snag concept... it was our best dropback pass play in terms of completions. We need to improve how we run when we see man coverage but against zone it is money. We did not always pull the trigger, but I was amazed how it opened up almost every single time... It was almost all we could complete when we dropped back yet flat defenders still had to defend bubble and chase it, and the Snag would open up in behind them.
We need to improve our completion % on this next year and I am going to alter the Snag runner's route slightly. When we ran it ugly they broke their route off too shallow. In the future I do not want them to break in on their angle until they push vertical to 5 yards. I want them catching the ball at 8 yards deep not 5. Breaking too soon often got them coming too far horizontally. I do not want them coming near the Inside LB. I want to just pick on that flat defender.
Most of the clips below are hitting the Snag route. There are a few times we found the back mixed in. Also a really nice TD to the RB after a jet sweep fake.
We need to improve our completion % on this next year and I am going to alter the Snag runner's route slightly. When we ran it ugly they broke their route off too shallow. In the future I do not want them to break in on their angle until they push vertical to 5 yards. I want them catching the ball at 8 yards deep not 5. Breaking too soon often got them coming too far horizontally. I do not want them coming near the Inside LB. I want to just pick on that flat defender.
Most of the clips below are hitting the Snag route. There are a few times we found the back mixed in. Also a really nice TD to the RB after a jet sweep fake.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Cut up the day Finale: Cross/Boot
The last "base play" in our arsenal, and the final in post in my "cut up of the day" series is the cross concept. It has got to be the most popular bootleg concept in football. It is essentially the same as our Flood play but from a 2x2 alignment. This concept is run at every level of football and from any sort of personnel group.
You end up with a Go/Clear out
a quick route in the flat (from spread it is a slow played out to sell the run look)
teams often use a TE, H back, or FB to chip block and then get to the flat
The backside slot or TE runs the deep cross over the inside LBs (who should be biting on play action)
We hit the out very often as the OLB covering him was often out leveraged due to his alignment and initial run read. We were also able to hit the cross a few times when the OLB jumped the out, and ILBs sucked up on the play action, leaving a void. Even against man the cross is a great concept because it is difficult to cover a speedy slot WR across the width of the field.
We sprinted to this concept, play actioned with sprint out pass pro
but my favorite way to run this concept was using a "boot" protection featuring a guard pull
I thought this concept worked exceptionally well for us because the guard pull added to the run action and in one game particular (where they had a DE who we simply could not block) this played slowed him up a whole lot. He could no longer crash down when he read down block and blow up our guard.
Some of the clips feature a QB who began the year as our 3rd stringer! Starter got suspended a game, and he beat out the kid who was our backup all year during that week of practice. The clips with #12 at QB were his first start at QB of his life.
I didn't include it in the film but he even picked up a huge 4th and 4 conversion on this play with his feet when the defense didn't bite on the run fake and flew out for pass.
I see this concept being a bigger part of our offense in the future as we begin to explore the use of some TE/H back stuff.
You end up with a Go/Clear out
a quick route in the flat (from spread it is a slow played out to sell the run look)
teams often use a TE, H back, or FB to chip block and then get to the flat
The backside slot or TE runs the deep cross over the inside LBs (who should be biting on play action)
We hit the out very often as the OLB covering him was often out leveraged due to his alignment and initial run read. We were also able to hit the cross a few times when the OLB jumped the out, and ILBs sucked up on the play action, leaving a void. Even against man the cross is a great concept because it is difficult to cover a speedy slot WR across the width of the field.
We sprinted to this concept, play actioned with sprint out pass pro
but my favorite way to run this concept was using a "boot" protection featuring a guard pull
I thought this concept worked exceptionally well for us because the guard pull added to the run action and in one game particular (where they had a DE who we simply could not block) this played slowed him up a whole lot. He could no longer crash down when he read down block and blow up our guard.
Some of the clips feature a QB who began the year as our 3rd stringer! Starter got suspended a game, and he beat out the kid who was our backup all year during that week of practice. The clips with #12 at QB were his first start at QB of his life.
I didn't include it in the film but he even picked up a huge 4th and 4 conversion on this play with his feet when the defense didn't bite on the run fake and flew out for pass.
I see this concept being a bigger part of our offense in the future as we begin to explore the use of some TE/H back stuff.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Cut up of the day: Sprint Draw
The Sprint Draw has been a hot topic in the coaching community. It was a great play for us and was set up nicely by the amount of sprint out we ran, and the fear our QB as a run threat put into the defense. This was a beautiful constraint play for us.
We got a lot of movement in most cases from the playside DE trying to fight reach blocks, and more importantly we made LBs move, in some clips they SPRINT out of the box to try to get under routes and by the time they realize the RB has the ball it is too late.
OL wise we work to our sprint side and pick up "our man" based upon our pass pro rules and how we ID the front (we use a typical air raid pass pro based on the Center IDing the front each play).
I LOVE this play... there are a lot of times we do not even block it great up front, you will see 1 or 2 guys getting killed, but as long as they remain engaged, the flow gives the RBs enough room to do their thing and be the great athletes they are.
We got a lot of movement in most cases from the playside DE trying to fight reach blocks, and more importantly we made LBs move, in some clips they SPRINT out of the box to try to get under routes and by the time they realize the RB has the ball it is too late.
OL wise we work to our sprint side and pick up "our man" based upon our pass pro rules and how we ID the front (we use a typical air raid pass pro based on the Center IDing the front each play).
I LOVE this play... there are a lot of times we do not even block it great up front, you will see 1 or 2 guys getting killed, but as long as they remain engaged, the flow gives the RBs enough room to do their thing and be the great athletes they are.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Cut up of the day: Sprintout
The sprint out game was a huge part of our offense this year. Our QB was a great athlete and was at his best when he could threaten the defense with both his arm and his legs.
By definition we can sprint to any concept in the play book with a one word tag for sprint, but our main sprint out game was
Curl/flat from a 2x2 set
And Flood from 3x1
I was AMAZED at how often we were able to hit the quick out. It was an easy completion for us especially near the goal line... At times I felt the entire stadium knew we were throwing it but we still completed it. It was a great answer for us when defenses wanted to load the box and bring everyone on the goal line.
Enjoy!
Curl/Flat
The best constraint to all of the sprint out passing IMO is the sprint draw...
I have written multiple posts about it in the past. Tomorrow I will load some sprint draw clips.
By definition we can sprint to any concept in the play book with a one word tag for sprint, but our main sprint out game was
Curl/flat from a 2x2 set
And Flood from 3x1
I was AMAZED at how often we were able to hit the quick out. It was an easy completion for us especially near the goal line... At times I felt the entire stadium knew we were throwing it but we still completed it. It was a great answer for us when defenses wanted to load the box and bring everyone on the goal line.
Enjoy!
Curl/Flat
Flood
The best constraint to all of the sprint out passing IMO is the sprint draw...
I have written multiple posts about it in the past. Tomorrow I will load some sprint draw clips.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Awesome iPad App!!!
I Just got an ipad3 (you can get great deals on them through apple's site on refurbished models. Their refurbished ones are just as good as new. Mine came in looking perfect in a brand new box and packaging.)
Of course I have the "usual" HS football coach apps... HUDL, Dropbox, Evernote, a video camera app, coach me play book app, blah blah blah
But yesterday I decided to download the ESPN College Football App
IT IS AWESOME
There are top stories, score and highlight features but my favorite is the video tab...
You can select which week of the season you want and pick from a number of games... Pretty much every ranked team...
They have every TD and big play (sack,int,long run, long pass)
I was having a blast watching clips and being able to dissect some offensive concepts from a bunch of different games. I was checking out a ton of Oregon and Arizona offensive plays last night.
The only negative I noticed was you manually try to rewind each play to review it the video gets a little herky jerky. I found it is better to watch the play til the end and then just play it over from the beginning.
Overall really cool and something I think any coach with an iPad will enjoy.
Of course I have the "usual" HS football coach apps... HUDL, Dropbox, Evernote, a video camera app, coach me play book app, blah blah blah
But yesterday I decided to download the ESPN College Football App
IT IS AWESOME
There are top stories, score and highlight features but my favorite is the video tab...
You can select which week of the season you want and pick from a number of games... Pretty much every ranked team...
They have every TD and big play (sack,int,long run, long pass)
The only negative I noticed was you manually try to rewind each play to review it the video gets a little herky jerky. I found it is better to watch the play til the end and then just play it over from the beginning.
Overall really cool and something I think any coach with an iPad will enjoy.
Cut up of the day: 4 Verts
4 Verts wasn't necessarily a huge part of our offense but it was our way of backing off corners some and hurting a team when they played single high against or no safety against us.
We hit one of the slots a number of times against cover 0 or 1. Even on the completions I still think we sailed the ball too much, it needs to come out faster than some of the clips here.
There is also a long TD pass clip from a stop n go we ran.
We hit one of the slots a number of times against cover 0 or 1. Even on the completions I still think we sailed the ball too much, it needs to come out faster than some of the clips here.
There is also a long TD pass clip from a stop n go we ran.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Cut up of the Day: Outside Zone
Our OZ wasn't as big of a part of our offense as I wanted it to be. Part of this was because of the backs we had and some mistakes we made. We actually had much more success running QB OZ with the RB leading. This was a great play for us because our QB was fast, ran hard, and it gave us an instant numbers advantage. One thing that helped us was all of the sprint out we ran... it looks very similar to the defense and puts those force /flat players in conflict.
When we had number advantage to trips we could overload them by running it strong, when defenses brought their OLB over to the trips side and left no #2 defender to the single side we could run it weak.
A lot of the clips you will see my tackle after determining he couldn't get a reach block turn his defender out giving a CUT UP read (as opposed to a cutback read on IZ) The best clips in my opinion are the ones where QB reads that block turns it up, and then gets back outside.
The final 2 clips are us running speed option. I included it because we ran it with an OZ blocking scheme. This wasn't a big part of our offense, only ran it a couple times on the year.
Since I have now shown cut ups of our whole base run game I can now show this...As a bonus here are some clips of our QB keeps on the backside of our run game. These are not called runs, but every RB carry involves the QB reading the BSDE, we are still not as good as I want us to be at this but we were better this year than we have ever been with it (mostly because of personnel). Our backup QB actually did a better job reading it than our starter who was our stud runner.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Cut up of the day: Counter
To continue with the cut ups of the day theme... today I will be showing cutups of my favorite play in football... Counter GT
This has been "my play" in every offense I have coached and I think it works beautifully out of the spread.
Playside Down blocks (or doubles)
G and T pull for kick and wrap
To our RB we will read the BSDE
you will see a lot of clips running QB GT (I think the best play in a spread formation, great counter to teams keying back) using RB to fill on BSDE
This has been "my play" in every offense I have coached and I think it works beautifully out of the spread.
Playside Down blocks (or doubles)
G and T pull for kick and wrap
To our RB we will read the BSDE
you will see a lot of clips running QB GT (I think the best play in a spread formation, great counter to teams keying back) using RB to fill on BSDE
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