Is Your Football Film Session a Waste of Time?

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The lights are low. Your players are scattered around, some are in chairs, some are on the floor. They’ve been sitting in classes since 8am, and now its 3pm and they’re sitting again, watching next week’s opponent.

You’ve got the remote. A few assistants are scattered around the room. You are narrating the film like Ben Stein, while your assistants chime in with occasional comments. The players rarely say anything, except an outburst over a big hit.Can’t you do better than this? I know you had to live through it and they should too. But are you using the limited football film study time that we have as wisely as you can? [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Coaching Mentality, Scheme

Defending Trick Football Plays

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Trick plays are always fun for the offense. Once a game, give or take a play, the OC gets to call something he drew up on a napkin. He may have been drinking, maybe not, when he drew it up. And the kids, they just love running trick football plays.

But you’re the defensive coach. You’ve got to stop it. The question is how?Don’t waste a lot of practice time on stopping a trick play. Talk through it in a meeting. Throw it out there once or twice during practice each day. But don’t waste the kid’s time with a 12 minute period on stopping the Double Reverse Pass. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Scheme

4-3 Under Front

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While I’m always willing to talk about how adaptable the 4-3 Over Front is, there is always going to be a need for change-up fronts. The 4-3 Under Defense is the perfect compliment for this defense. It is easily teachable, fits all that your Defensive Linemen have learned, and simplifies things for two of your linebackers. Only one player, the Sam Linebacker in our scheme, must learn a new skill set.Coach Jerry Gordon has recently published a book on Coaching the Under Front Defense that is available now. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: 4-3 Defense, Scheme

The 5 Defensive Schemes that Dominate

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What defensive innovations will we see in the new decade? Probably not many – there’s nothing new in football. But there’ll be adjustments, tweaks, and without a doubt, cool new nicknames for the same idea. What is the best defense to use in the 2010 season? Whatever you know best, or whatever fits your personnel best. Depends on who you are, how you operate, and what you believe. Here’s my Top 5 Defenses for 2010 and the decade to follow:5. 46 Bear Defense [Read more...]

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Filed Under: 3-4 Defense, 3-5 Defense, 4-2-5 Defense, 4-3 Defense, 46 Defense, Scheme

Defending the Option Offense

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Warning: This is a pretty long post. There’s a lot to talk about in defending the option. I tried to separate it into sections, so you might want to print it out and read it at your convenience!

For reasons I won’t go into, there’s no question that I’m not expert in defending the option. In fact, if I ever run my own offense, you can bet there’ll be some element of option football in it. Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! I also know that I have made a lot of mistakes in teaching how to defend the option, and spent a lot of time thinking about it and trying to learn more about stopping an offense that doesn’t even need to block all of your players in order to score.The biggest mistake I have made in the past is in not taking all of the thinking out of the play for my defensive players. What it boils down to is gap responsibilities though, and knowing who is coming to your gap. Let your players understand what’s happening to them and why they should never look for the ball. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: 3-5 Defense, 4-2-5 Defense, 4-3 Defense, Coaching Strategy, Option, Scheme