2012 In Review

Whew! Well, it's over. Having lost the league championship, yet finishing 7-1 on the season, many would say that was a great year. I think, however, that this past season has been one of the most unbelievable rides I've ever been on. I want to take time out to share this with you, and maybe you can see some of my shortcomings and some things we did to take advantage of some of our situations etc. Hell, analyze my situations and see what you'd have done differently, I'm all for that. Whatever you can take from this season, I'd be glad to, and whatever you can add, please, by all means shoot me an email at footballislifeblog@yahoo.com.

Lessons Learned
The first thing I learned is that the Unbalanced Single Wing (UBSW) is a pretty cool offense.  My hat's off to Dave Cisar's system as we were able to install it from the ground up and had great success with it.  We ended up having the Power series, the Spin series and Jet series in at the start of the season and never really added anything after that.  Our Jet series really came alive in the latter part of the season once folks had film on us and knew what we were going to be doing.  The other thing is the UBSW is one of the most fun offenses I've ever coached in (yes including Flexbone).  The simplicity of it is so simple, yet because so many folks have not seen the offense in decades, it creates quite a bit of confusion for the defense.  Anyhow, it was very fun to coach in, and I got numerous questions from parents, coaches and even the officials!

I have had tragedy strike during football season, but none like this season.  I've never lost a player, and I've never had this much tragedy strike.  Losing two parents, and a player in the span of four days was the most incredibly terrible thing I've had to witness as a human being.  Then having to put it all together and put it out there on the field was pretty tough too.  I was amazed at the resiliency of the young men I coached.  I actually think THEY helped ME deal with it all.  Then in the end, we lost a player to a very serious back injury, that may have ended his football career.  Thankfully enough, the young man will walk, however football is probably out for the rest of his life.  In all this tragedy I felt like the young men were able to keep it together, keep things in perspective and lose themselves in the game, exactly like I would have them do.  I can't say enough about the quality of the young men I coached this year, as our character shined through time and time again this season.

I have to learn to enjoy the season more.  I have just went through a 7-1 season, in which we set the record for best season in school history, and I feel as though we failed.  The season ended two weeks ago, and yet I cannot come to the realization that we did good, despite not winning our league title.  I'm not sure how you ever get over what we had happen at the end of the season where we come up short on a goal we set out to accomplish, but if you have any suggestions, send them my way, as I'm still hurting.

The 46 defense is a great defense, but it does have its limitations.  I found out exactly what those were this season.  The seven technique in that defense nearly got us killed this year and I didn't have that kid to fill that position.  A year ago, we in our league we faced no 21 personnel teams whatsoever.  The breakdown was as follows:

• 5- 10 personnel teams
• 2- 20 personnel teams

So as you can see the need for a dominant seven technique was not needed.  In comes the 2012 season, and boy look at how things change:

• 3-21 personnel teams
• 1- 11 personnel team
• 3- 10 personnel teams

Much different mix than a year before.  Anyhow, the addition of the tight end to the scheme really hurt us as I just did not have that player to sacrifice at the seven technique position.  Now, normally I'm a four man front guy, but I work for somebody and he likes the odd front, so I ran the 46 with 3-3 personnel.  Well, I moved to a true 3-3 for two games to try and stunt/blitz my way into some things, and I did not care for this at all.  The kids liked it, but we were sloppy with our execution of the blitzes and when you are sloppy in the 3-3, the holes show up BIG TIME.  So then I moved back to my old staple, the 4-2-5.  I played cover 3 with it and mixed in some man to man, and things started to tighten up.  Now I have the blessings of my boss, I get to run whatever I want next season.  Looks like I'm going back to the ol' 4-2-5!

Be ready for anything.  Here I was cruising along as a coordinator, and BAM, all of a sudden I got the head coach title slapped on me.   Three weeks before the season comes up, my boss, the head coach, has a mild heart attack. Now, I'm freaking out because this is a guy who has been a mentor of mine for years and is the epitome of a class act. Now I'm sitting there in a hospital room with him telling me, "You're it, go coach em' up kid". To which I dang near soil myself! Now, I've been a head coach in career twice, and I have to say this, I didn't care for it to be honest. The politics, the whining parents, the nagging administration, it just wasn't for me. I like my job as the defensive coordinator as I'm free to do what I want, when I want, and how I want. Sure, you do have some of that freedom as the head guy, but there's just too much political BS involved for my taste.  Anyhow, things went smooth and I didn't have much in the way of headaches from the parents, but then again winning cures everything.  Just be ready for anything, you never know what you will face, or what you will come up against.  In retrospect, looking back on the past season being able to do what we did with the tragedy we had AND an interim coach, I'm really quite amazed. 

Be ready for anything grasshopper...

Don't do too much.  I really put too much on my defense at times.  Our offense and special teams won us a lot of games, which is the EXACT opposite of how my other successful teams have won (in the past I've been more like UF is now).  Anyhow, winning is winning, so I'll take it, but not playing solid defense came down to me.  I have to do better in that department and keep less on the defense and just "let them play".

Special teams are special.  Our special teams unit single handily was the most outstanding unit on the field this season, with our punt team and kickoff return team leading all groups.  We returned a school record (and league most) 8 kickoffs for touchdowns this season.  Punting-wise we averaged 43.4 yards per punt in JUNIOR HIGH (yes, my punter was a stud) and we converted EVERY fake we attempted this season (four for four).  We only had to punt a grand total of 10 times this season, which is a third less than last season (34 times).  We did give up one blocked punt this season and had one bad snap, which was our total from a year ago, so we did not get better there.  We did not allow a single kickoff return for a touchdown as we followed the "onside every time" philosophy this year (that's after giving up 4 KOR's for touchdowns the year before).  Now, we did not have a very accurate field goal kicker, so we did not even have a field goal team, but we averaged a dismal 43% on our two-point conversions this season, which must get better.  All in all, I was impressed with our special teams, and our ability to flip the field position on our opponent was second-to-none in our league.

Get everyone involved.  Another lesson I took from Dave Cisar, was to get as many players involved as you can.  Our retention rate was unreal this season.  We had 44 kids show up day one, and by the start of the first game we had all 38 uniforms filled, and did not have to have cuts (we had three kids quit, one get hurt, and two others did not have the grades).  By the end of the season we finished our final game dressing 34 players due to injuries.  NOBODY quit after the initial 38 were selected.  This is after a season in which we finished with 22 kids after starting with 28 (four quit, 1 was kicked off, and 1 was injured).  Our ability to get everyone involved both in practice and in games was essential to this retention rate.  Another thing I implemented was the "Buddy System".  Each eighth grader was responsible for a seventh grade teammate.  They exchanged phone numbers and had to answer weekly questions about their partners in front of the team.  I think the Buddy System really helped our overall team chemistry and kept us from having individual "cliques" within our group of 38. 

Tackle everyday.  The head coach and I disagreed on this originally, but since implementing this in his absence he has seen the light.  We were AWESOME tacklers this season compared to last.  Last year it took three to four guys to slow a ball carrier up, whereas this season we had several guys make solo tackles.  On film, the biggest difference is that the first guy would get the ball carrier down instead of holding on why the others got there.  We literally tackled everyday for the first month of the season.  After that we tackled on Monday and Wednesday with Monday being full bore tackling stations, and Wednesday being fit and freeze only.  The last two weeks of the season we tapered off to just fit and freeze type drills on Monday only. 

Alignment and Assignment and Fit-and-Freeze drills are essential at this age.  I have always been a big team guy.  I want to see reps and I want to see them live.  Well, in researching practice methodology over the past few years, I have found the good ones don't do this.  They do a lot of FNF and AA drills instead.  I cut our live team time on offense in half this season and we rarely went live on defense.  Offensively we did FNF on Monday, with live team on Tuesday and all plays on air on Wednesday, which included simulating game situations.  Defensively, we did FNF on Monday, Inside Drill on Tuesday and Seven-on-Seven on Wednesday.  Now if a team we were facing had very little passing threat we would do a live defensive team on Tuesday and then do Inside Drill on Wednesday.  Special teams we did at least one live per week.  Early on in preseason we did all of them live, but as the season progressed we cut that down to 2 a week, then at the end we did not do any live special teams.  FNF really improved, not only our technique, but our younger players confidence as well.  There's a lot you take for granted when it comes to coaching and one thing was my players level of development, and boy did I undershoot it.  That was clearly evident from my coaching last season.  This season was much better as we took the approach that our players knew absolutely nothing about the game and we were starting at the ground floor. 

The No-Huddle offense is the way to go.  I have dabbled with no-huddle in the past, but not like I did this season.  Now we were no Oregon, but in our live team sessions we averaged about 25 plays a session, which is better than a play a minute.  We had two speeds, regular and 9-1-1.  9-1-1 was our hurry up stuff and we really did well with that.  In three out of our eight games we scored right before halftime using our up-tempo pace and the largest amount of time we had was 1:18.  In game three we scored on a four play 61 yard drive with 55 seconds left in the half and one timeout.  In game five we scored on a five play 77 yard drive with 1:09 left and two timeouts.  In game seven we scored on a five play 48 yard drive with 1:18 left to go and one timeout remaining.  These were points we'd not have gotten last season, and in games four and seven they were the difference in the game.  If you are still huddling, you are wasting a lot of time, and I don't mean in the games.  The benefit we saw from going no-huddle is not in the games, but in practice.  We doubled our reps on practice, by far and in the games you automatically have a two-minute offense built in.  We can't go hurry up because a lot of our players play both ways, but still, we went no-huddle to improve efficiency in practice time and eliminate wasted time. 

Things to Improve On

Practice efficiency.  There was still a lot of wasted time in practice.  Now, mind you, we were practicing for easily two-and-a-half hours a year ago, and cut that down to two hours on average this season.  Still, there are areas where we need to improve and be able to get these kids home at a decent hour.  I have pushed and pushed, but the coaches I have are not really taking to the up-tempo like I am.  I don't have the luxury of firing anyone either as I was glad to have the other two helping me.  Anyhow, I will continue to work with them and push for MAXIMUM efficiency until we get it.

Relaxing.  I have a tough time turning off football, and even though this is Junior High football, I still constantly watched film, breaking things down and even took things so far as creating scouting reports (our league allows us to scout and trade film).  I also have a tough time detaching from the game, even in the off-season.  I simply cannot get my mind off the game, and I have to, or else I'm afraid burn-out is coming.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Finding a kicker.  Holy cow, thank goodness we onside every time, or else I'm not sure what we'd have done.  Also, we could have used a couple of field goals, that thankfully didn't come back to haunt us during the season.   I need to learn more about the individual technique of kicking, as to be honest I'm clueless.

Getting over the wall.  Our player development went good for the first six games.  Then we seemed to hit a wall where nobody really improved except for the younger players.  This concerns me, because it's the second year in a row I felt this way.  I even felt as though some of our players went backwards in their development, which is a really bad scenario.  Several players plateaued about that time in the season, and our toughest games were towards the end of the season.  I need to find ways to keep the young men motivated for an entire season, and keep developing their skills.  I know there comes a point in the season where getting any better is slim to none, but you CAN improve at least a little bit every day...right?

Handling a loss.  My favorite quote is one I live by..."I hate to lose even more than I love to win".  This is me in a nutshell.  A win to me is a win, nothing big about it, you did your job, you won.  A loss is failure though, and unacceptable.  I have a hard time coming to grips with losing, and when you lose the league championship on the last game of the season when you've gone 7-0, it really becomes are a hard pill to swallow. 

Dealing with officials.  I guess I'm getting a bit crotchety in my old age, as I had a few of those yeller' hankies thrown on me this season.  However, I must say, our referees made the NFL replacement refs look like officiating scholars.  Anyhow, this does not bode well when teaching young men about dealing with adversity.  I'm sure that official did not need me to bite his head off, I should merely "explain" my point of view, rather than trying to stuff it down his throat.  Point taken!

Do you kiss your mom with that mouth?

Well, that's my 2012 in review.  I feel with what my little guys went through this season, and where they came from, it has been a success story.  I'd love to have a trophy to put in the case (believe me, we need one, that damn thing is bare), but the memories of this season will go down as a special one in my book.  I have to say, watching young men conquer adversity like this bunch did, was quite a site to see.  I only hope next year we can do the same...

Duece

P.S.- For those headed to the playoffs, now's not the time to let up, keep on keepin' on!!!  Good luck!

Pursuit, Pursuit, Pursuit...Run to the Ball!

In a recent video clip (as seen here on Coach Hoover's site), I can be heard making the remark about my guys "running to the football".  After seeing this and hearing the comment, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.  Over the years, I've coached some good teams, and some awful ones as well.  The one thing, I've ALWAYS been amazed at is how many coaches told me how well my defense ran to the football.  In this post, I'm going to describe some drills and a philosophy that will help you teach your defense to run to the football.

Pursuit Drills
In the beginning of my defensive career, I had little to no clue about running to the football and just how important it is to the overall success of your defense.  I was lucky, in that the defensive coordinator where I went to college was enamoured with running pursuit drills.  So, what did this dumb rookie coach do in his first gig as a defensive coordinator...you guessed it, we ran pursuit drills...daily.  I had no idea what I was doing, but it worked!  As I look back on those early years, I can tell you this, what I did helped those players learn the proper angles to take on a football field, as well as developing the "will" to get to the ball carrier.  Over my time, on the defensive side of the football, I've used several pursuit drills that I will share with you here.

Angle Pursuit Drill
The first pursuit drill I utilized (and still do to this day) is the Angle Pursuit Drill (APD).  This drill is done by simply placing five round cylinders on the ground with an approximate spacing of two to three feet between them.  Use injured players, cones, or other dummies to assimilate the offensive alignment you wish to create.  On a side note, this is a good way to go over alignment and assignment drills during the course of the season.  In the early stages we simply align to a pro set.  The drill and the landmarks are shown below utilizing the Bear defense.

Cones are placed along the sidelines and numbered one through 11.  As you can see, from the diagram, each player has a cone that he must run to.  Once the player gets to the cone, they are to turn back and face the middle of the field in a hit position and foot-fire until the coach blows the whistle.  If the rep was not done at full-tilt, then those players return to their original alignment and do the drill over again.  The corners should flip-flop every play so as not to kill the corner that has to run the farthest.  If the rep was good, blow the whistle and on command the players that just executed the drill jog down the sideline and back in behind the drill awaiting their next turn.  Also, on the whistle, the backups will jog into their position and be ready for the drill to begin.

The defensive linemen must all come across the ball, and breakdown before running to their cone.  You can also set up two sets of cones, one on each sideline and have the defense react to your movement.  As with most football drills, the possibilities are endless! 

Another tweak I have done is to have the defensive linemen all hit on their bellies to simulate getting cut and then have them jump up and run to their respective cone.  I have also had them read a coach holding the football for either run or pass.  If it's run, the linemen will break down and when the coach slaps the football they will run to their cone.  If the coach puts the football up by his ear, then this is a pass read and all the linemen must break down, but this time they must have their hands in the air.  Again, on command they turn and run to their respective cone on the sideline. 

Do not use a snap count, use an actual snap or movement.  Simply sliding your foot, or moving your hand in a snapping motion will do.  Have an actual cadence to force the players to have to focus on just the football, thereby tuning out any background "noise" such as the quarterback's voice. 

I used to do this drill an even amount of times to the strong side and to the weak side as well.  DO NOT do this drill only to one side, or only to the strong side.  You must mix things up to teach players to run at different angle to get to the football.

DO NOT settle for poor effort.  Poor effort results in more pursuit drills being added on to the total for the day.  Vary the total daily, if necessary, and even omit them if your team has had a good defensive game, or a very good practice.  You do not need to do these daily, but I do recommend doing them daily during the weeks leading up to your first regular season game.  After that we tone them down to about twice a week until mid-October and then we only run the once a week after that.  If I have been fortunate enough to make the playoffs I do not run them unless I see poor angles in game film or loafs (this will be discussed later).  Poor effort cannot be allowed, or the whole integrity of what you are trying to teach will be sacrificed.  I cannot stress this coaching point enough!

Screen Pursuit Drill

A few years back I was coordinating a defense going into a district game against a very good screen team.  That season my defense had struggled some with the screen, especially when thrown quickly to a good athlete.  I came across this screen pursuit drill that worked wonders for my defense.  You can find this drill in Vannderlinden's book on the Eagle and Stack Defenses.

Set up three dummies to represent lead blockers that have gotten down field.  Have a runner behind them.  Set this drill up to both sides of the field so you can work both the attack side and the chase side of the drill.  The DL will rush as they normally do.  Have the QB (coach) drop back five steps and then float back two more steps and deliver the ball to one side or other of the offense.  The DL, upon seeing the odd drop, should then settle and react to the throw.  Once they see the direction of the throw, the DL should then chase the ball carrier, playing him inside-out.  The DL nearest the QB should continue to rush.  Once the defense as seen the ball thrown, then they should react to the throw with the outside-most defender tackling the outside leg of the receiver (he doesn't actually make the tackle, but the idea here is to keep outside leverage on the ball carrier).  All other defenders should attack the inside leg of the defender and fit as shown in the illustration below. 

The angles shown here, properly leverage all the "new gaps" that have been created by the OL pulling and moving down field.  The left corner, in this case, would be the force player.  This player wants to attack all blockers with the inside arm and tackle the outside leg of the ball carrier.  The reason for the tackling of the outside leg, is that if the corner loses the receiver he should lose him back to the inside where pursuit is coming from.  All other defenders will tackle the inside leg and spill all blocks as they pursue to the ball carrier (obviously we are not tackling in this drill, however this SHOULD be your coaching point when running the drill).  The defenders on the far side of the defense should get in pursuit mode once they see the ball has been thrown.  The one item not shown is that the DL closest to the QB should rush the QB and stay with the QB in case the offense has a razzle-dazzle trick play on where they throw it back to the QB. 

Loafs

Loafs are easily caught on film.  If you are fortunate enough to have both a wide and tight copy of the film, use the tight copy and once the play is run and the clip is through, if all 11 players are not in the screen, then the defense has one pursuit drill the following week.  The first time we instituted this, our team had 42 pursuit drills to run the following week.  We ran every one of them.  That number dwindled to 28 the next week, followed by 20, 14, 11, then eight.  By this time we had entered the playoffs and in our four game run we averaged only three pursuit drills per week.  It took some time, but we got our loafs out by utilizing film and the fact that most players can't stand to run any extra than they have to.  The other good thing with running pursuit drills in this manner is it is not simply a punishment run, such as sprints.  This punishment has a purpose, to keep your defense aware of running to the football, and teaching proper angles of pursuit.

Turnover Quota

Another item I used in the past to create turnovers and help my defense run to the ball is a daily turnover quota.  The idea here is that you give your defense an amount of turnovers to create.  If the defense reaches their turnover quota, I would deduct one pursuit drill from the amount we had to run that day.  For every turnover we created it was one less pursuit drill the defense had to run.  However, if the defense did not reach their quota, then I added one pursuit drill.  The idea here is creating a cognitive awareness of running to the ball and creating a turnover when you get there.

Early on things were great with this concept of a turnover quota, however I started noticing players going for the ball instead of making the tackle.  So, I added in for every missed tackle, the defense got one more pursuit drill.  By doing this, the first defender to the football had to ensure that he made and secured the tackle while the other defenders could go for the football upon their arrival at the ball carrier.

Summary

In closing, defense is very simple, you align properly, know your assignment, run to the football and tackle once you get there you will win games.  At the very least you will make things difficult for your opponent's offense.  Teaching the part about running to the football must be ingrained in your defense from day one, and must also be reinforced daily.  I hope this post helps you to understand the importance of a defense that swarms the football!

Duece