10 Game Planning Mistakes You Are Making

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Your football team has a big game coming up. You’re facing the top scoring offense in your area. The Defensive Coordinator has not slept in 4 days. He’s watched every snap of every film you have. Over, and over.

Are you getting what you really need from all that work, though?

Check out these 10 mistakes Defensive Coordinators make when game planning for the next football game.

Mistake 1: Focusing on Weak Tendencies

You can only focus on a handful of events at a time. If the tendencies do not jump out at you, ignore them. They ran 61% of the time on 2nd and 4-7 yards? Let’s say you get to that D&D 5 times during the game. 3 times they’ll run, 2 times they’ll pass. Was that worth it to you?

Stick to strong tendencies. 75% or more, for Down & Distance. You should be teaching your kids about D&D anyway. They should know that 3rd & 10+ is a passing situation already. Don’t waste their time with that. [Read more...]

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How to Set Defensive Goals for Your Football Games

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From one of our September Web Clinics this season, I broke down 3 ways to set goals for your football team. Goal Setting is a big topic, particularly for motivating players to succeed. The three methods we looked at were:

  1. Setting multiple goals. This is the traditional “Checklist” of Goals.
  2. No Goals. Just Win Baby!
  3. Weekly Goals, tailored to your opponents. This is what we’ve done this season.

The web clinic was earlier in the season, but I’ve had a ton of trouble getting the video to process. Hopefully you will get some ideas for the upcoming season. [Read more...]

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Outside the Lines Manual for Organizing Your Football Program

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Chris Fore of http://coachfore.org was kind enough to send over his Outside the Lines Manual for me to look over and put to use. This is a collection of over 100 documents that coaches need to use throughout the year.

If you have ever been a Head Coach, or spent much time around your Head Coach, you know that they have an ever-growing list of off-field responsibilities. Your reward for rising to the top of the ladder is our sport is to, well, be distracted by everything but the very thing you got into this for – coaching football!

Coach Fore’s Manual is a great resource. He has collected all of the different documents he has used as Athletic Director and Head Football Coach at Capistrano Valley Christian Schools in San Juan Capistrano, and since May of 2012 as the Athletic Director at Excelsior High School in Victorville, California.

The documents contained are not brilliant, they are not something that most of us could never figure out ourselves. The point is, you don’t have to sit there and figure it out. It’s already been done for you.

  • Need a depth chart? Pull it up, fill it in.
  • Player Interviews? Coaches Evaluation? Print it off.
  • Post Season Awards Banquet? Everything you need.
  • Equipment Inventory? There’s even a letter to send for the kid who somehow “lost” his jersey.

It’s the stuff you have to do, but you would rather not waste time on it.

Each document in the Outside the Lines Manual will require editing to fit it to your unique situation and program. They are templates, but templates can be an invaluable time saver.

Whether you’re looking for practice plans, stat sheets, or trying to organize your own coaching philosophy, you’ll find a document in here to help get it done.

The one that we’re all looking for right now, though, is probably the on-field stuff. There’s plenty of it in the manual. Coach Fore has included:

  • A template for cards to put in your wrist coach
  • Depth charts on a convenient template to keep them in one place
  • Points of emphasis for each phase of Special Teams
  • A “Two-Point” Chart to know when to make the call to go for it
  • A sheet of on-field Coaching Responsibilities so that all of your staff are contributing in the right places
  • Sheets for keeping track of play calling during the game (a lifesaver when it’s time to tag film, by the way)

I was really impressed with just how much was included. Coach Fore’s manual has been a big help just in the last couple of weeks for our program. Whenever a need for some sort of document comes up, I just pull up the Outside the Lines Manual documents and find the one we need.

Check out CoachFore.org to learn more about the Outside the Lines Manual and purchase it.

 

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CoachMe Football Application Changes the Game

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If you see some of the diagrams that I use on this website and on Football-Offense.com, you may notice they look a little different. They aren’t drawn in Playmaker Pro, or Power Point, or Excel (in fact I do not even have Microsoft Office on my computer).

Instead, a lot of those pretty looking apps drawn on a “chalkboard” background, and recently on a field background, are from my iPad. I draw a lot of my diagrams on the CoachMe Football Application for my iPad.

After I got an iPad last Christmas, I started searching for Football applications immediately. Shortly after, I found the CoachMe Football App, which has continued to develop since then. It is a great application with a bright future.

I had the chance to interview Willy Joseph, one of the designers of the CoachMe app, about the company, the direction of technology in football, and how we can use this technology with our football players. We also got an awesome demonstration of how to use the software.

Click on the Play button below to see the interview, and find out all about the MeApps Studios guys who developed the software (they’re coaches!), and see an extensive demo of how the application works.

There is a Free and a Paid version of the App. Want to get it?  See the free version in iTunes here, or search CoachMe Football in your app store.

Visit MeApps Studios to learn more about the application and all of the platforms it is available for. Awesome application for football coaches, growing and improving rapidly, and a great bunch of guys. Get on board!

Apologies for the terrible sound quality and video quality in the first half. I’m learning!

 

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Defending the Wing-T Offense in the Under Front Defense

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Just keep in mind going into this… I am an amateur enthusiast of the Wing-T. We will scout the opponent to see what they do best in the Wing-T Offense, and make our game plan accordingly. But I love the offense, and so half the fun of writing this article was drawing up the best I could, a Wing-T Offense.

In my interview with Jerry Gordon, author of Coaching the Under Front Defense, I asked him how he would defend the Wing-T Offense. “In my opinion,” Coach Gordon stated, “The Under Front is the greatest front for the Wing-T.” He’s absolutely right.

The Under Front is what we have used for several years when facing the Wing-T Offense. The defense creates tough angles for some of the top plays in the Wing-T Playbook, one’s that your opponent might be expecting to run if they’ve seen you lined up in something else (like our 4-3 Over Front Defense) for the past few weeks playing Spread teams.

If you already use a 4-3 Defense attack with lots of bending and wrong arming, you’ll be in great shape against the Wing-T Offense. While the Under Front creates the look of a reduced 50 Defense, it uses 4-3 Defense principles that will be tougher for the Wing-T Offense to handle.

Using the Under Front to Stop the Wing-T Buck Sweep Play

My primary reason for liking the Under Front is that it just creates tough angles for the best plays. Take a look at the Buck Sweep, which looks to kick out the last man. This is the feature play of the very popular Wing-T Buck Series.

We invert the Safety in our Quarters Coverage, and walk the Corner back to stay over top of a vertical release. When the Safety reads the down block by the Wing, he will be squeezing the air out.

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Filed Under: 4-3 Defense, Game Planning, Other Fronts