Blog Archives
Refs Tend to Make Things Up
Yes, they do. They replace gaps in their understanding of rules with how they “feel” about things. It’s always best to educate them, politely of course, regarding the sidesaddle back. The sidesaddle can place his hands under center and is NOT required to receive the snap!
Rule 7, Section 2, Article 3
“Therefore, we run the ball…”
Back in the 1980s, many HS coaches sought an edge by adopting the pass-centric offensive system evolved by LaVell Edwards at BYU. His system was the pre-cursor to what Hal Mumme and Mike Leach evolved into the “Air Raid” that has been the football orthodoxy for the last 25 years. When the proper talent can be assembled (receivers, freakishly athletic OLs, and a QB) it can be an explosive force…
Without precisely the right talent, it is a shitshow.
The coaches at my high school were students of the game. They were well-prepared, knowledgeable, highly competent, motivated, and experienced. They were certain that BYU’s cutting-edge passing game was the answer to WHS’s lack of athletes. They were confident they could X-and-O the Warriors to gridiron success.
We went 0-10.
Our offense was a circus of long gains that were immediately nullified by sacks, holding penalties, incompletions, and interceptions. We could not sustain a drive, move the sticks, or flip the field. As a result, our defense was on the field, starting in our end, for 2/3 of every game.
0-10 coaches are almost always replaced. The new staff brought in a run-oriented, power/misdirection offense called the Wing T. They went 5-5 in 1988, then 10-0 in 1989.
Witnessing that turnaround had a profound impact on me.
When I started coaching, I knew I instinctively that running the ball would give my teams the best chance. I found and implemented John T. Reed’s single wing offense and my teams suddenly began to move the ball, sustain drives, and score. From there, I discovered the Double Wing through videos by Hugh Wyatt and Don Markham. They beguiled my mind and I immediately began melding their concepts into Reed’s single wing.
The last piece of evolution was the sidesaddle. After many fumbles while attempting to get a wedge snap to a sniffer back, I got frustrated and put the sniffer in the open QB stance. It immediately worked. The wedges were crisper and quicker and the kickout angles were significantly better. The sidesaddle single wing was born.
The league I coach in is isolated. It is very difficult to recruit kids from other areas. I have never been a strong recruiter, myself, and I do not really aspire to assemble an all star team. That process requires cutting players. I have never run a marginal player off and I do not even have the will to do it. I’ll leave that to the trophy-chasers. Instead, I want to see what I can do with the hand I’m dealt. You build relationships with these kids. Your heart bleeds for them. Your pride swells with them when they knock off a team vastly more talented. It’s a deeply satisfying experience for me to turn rec teams into contenders. If one must recruit an all star team to win a trophy, then so be it. I don’t begrudge them. But we have to find another way to success.
Therefore, we run the ball.
I’ve heard all the critiques of my offense a thousand times.
“That is not real football.”
“You have to pass!”
“That stupid/ugly/simplistic offense will never work in 4th grade.”
“It’ll never work in 5th grade.”
“It’ll never work in 6th grade.”
“It’ll never work in 7th grade.”
“It’ll never work in 8th grade.”
We run the same core plays in 8th grade that we ran in 2nd grade. Wedge. Power. Sweep. Counter.
Our 8th grade team gained 286.4 yards per game… our second best output ever.
This past year, despite a 4th place schedule, our rec team out-gained every opponent we played except 1. 4 of those opponents have significant numbers of out-of-area recruits on their roster. We have zero. We are a 100% rec team. We finished 5th out of 26 teams.
People can mock and sneer all they want, but there are no “style points” awarded in football. If you want a trophy, cut your weaker players loose and go get the dudes. But if you want to make a difference for a group of kids, give them a chance to succeed. Run the ball.
VIDEO:
https://www.hudl.com/video/2/689994/66ddee81203630716602987e
Journal: Week 1
2024/08/06 Journal, Entry 5
Tuesday, 8/6
About to kick off our 8th grade season. Practice plan as follows…
Got some good chute work in with OL and worked on wedge fit and pulling. Did not get to defense tonight as lightning came at the end of practice. 6 absences. 😦
Wednesday, 8/7
We worked through the entire schedule. Tucked some LB chute work in (shuffle steps, drop under the chute then explode face first extending up into the bag-holder). Added 10 minutes of quality wedge reps at the end. Decent practice overall, but I’m a little dismayed by the 6 absences again. Difficult to run anything resembling team with mostly dads holding bags on D. I addressed it by publishing everyone’s attendance with no commentary.
Another team and their parents cut through the middle of our team defensive session. I yelled at them as they strolled through and they threw me their smug look of contempt. People seem to have become so utterly un-self aware of how they affect others… or perhaps I am just grumpy-old-man now. Lol. The utility of publicly chewing their ass was not to get to them so much as it plants the seed within the minds of MY team that me getting nasty on people under certain circumstances is a real possibility. Ha!
Had a long chat with LG about attendance and philosophy last night. I need to work very hard to practice what I preach because I think it is the right path.
My personal priorities are:
1) Do not allow critics to affect me
2) Immediately move on emotionally from any undesired game results
3) Do no overreact to the myriad of inevitable challenges, letdowns, and affronts
4) Listen to my instincts and control my impulses
Thursday, 8/8
Rained out! Called it at about 5:10. Not surprisingly, the weather calmed down by about 6:15. Tough to ask folks to drive in that, but it’s tempting to be disappointed when the skies part and you think you could be practicing. The decision was made with best intent and the best available information at the time. No regret allowed!
Friday, 8/9
Random thoughts before practice:
Been contemplating the creative side of things and the desire to present ideas and offer my experience to others. That’s a big part of what writing the SSSW playbook was about. I would have never made it for public consumption without SP’s prodding, but I’m glad I did. On the other hand, the older I get, the more pointless and even silly it seems to want to share anything unsolicited. There is very little, if any demand. Every coach already knows everything. And those who don’t are bombarded with a tsunami of offerings, many of which are redundant and/or largely ineffective. And so, sharing my football knowledge is really little more than just an exercise of personal vanity. Preparing things for public consumption that will never be consumed does have some utility, however. When preparing items, the exercise forces me to organize my thinking and to blow off all the meaningless mental chaff.
The practice energy was good. Tackling was executed with intensity. The gauntlet drill was performed with great enthusiasm. Practice wound down with a wedge rep session. We started with JL at blocking back. This appeared not to sit well with WK who made some very intense tackles on JL. JL returned the favor and the intensity was as high as I have ever seen it. Coach Bit pulled them both to the side to attempt to contain the hostility to the drill. They are both excellent players and we want them to understand that we need them both on the field at the same time, and that we are not picking one over the other. We don’t want WK to misinterpret it as being unappreciated. He is and has been our best player. Again, everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. I reached out to WK’s mom about it. Upon reflection, perhaps I should have left it alone… let it breathe and not try to interpret for them or guide their response. I injected myself into a situation where it wasn’t beneficial or necessary. This gets me back to my “less talk, more action” pledge. The fates have set a course for this team. I need to resist them less and focus on my job and what I can control.
Anyway, it was a great week even though we missed a day. We cannot control the weather so I am not going to fret over it. I am a little concerned about the lack of attention I’ve given to team defense. We have spent good reps on pursuit, tackling, and coverage, but we need more team defense work.
Gratitude:
We were sad to lose JE, OK, and RA, but are very grateful for the new players we have added. They have great potential. I am so thankful to be able to be their coach and for being able to coach.
Onward!
Week 1 Overall Attendance = 81%
Journal: On Scoreboards and Stoicism
2024/07/31 Journal, Entry 4
Been reading the philosophy of the Stoics. It’s been mind-altering. It’s a hard mental path, difficult to adopt and master, but I see the truth in it. I wish I had read Marcus Aurelius 30 years ago!
A coach asked for advice on how to handle an 0-2 start. I replied with the following. I intend to follow my own advice if/when it happens again.
- Realize that your biggest enemy is your own doubts. You will be tempted to listen to and believe the growing chorus of critics that will poison your thoughts. Work hard to block them out. Critics add zero value. If they confront you… smile at them, nod in agreement, don’t get defensive, look them in the eye when they talk while you pretend to listen, then walk away and purge every word they said from your mind. If they are insufferable, cut their kid from the team. You owe it to the other 20 or so kids.
- Stay on plan- with focus on get-off and pursuit.
- The biggest killer of offenses, by far, that I have ever seen, is giving up inside penetration. Drill your OL to stop that at all costs. Forget the blocking technique until you can stop penetration. It is number 1! If you can’t stop penetration, everything else is bullocks.
- Bad teams can’t tackle. Tackling is ALWAYS a function of good pursuit. Work on lateral pursuit with cutbacks BEFORE form tackling. It’s vastly more important.
- Every losing team I’ve ever seen gets their DL blown off the ball. Fix that with drills. 2 on 1. 1 on 1. MAKE your DL hold their ground.
- Simplify your playbook and eliminate everything that cannot be made to work reliably in 3 practices.
- Don’t ask your players to do it. Stop talking about how to do it. Don’t beg them to do it, either. MAKE THEM DO IT. STFU and rep. That’s your job. Talking is not coaching. Leave the talking to the politicians and radio hosts.
- One last thing… Any coach who actually had to coach has lost and will lose again. The scoreboard is just a point, a mere snapshot in time. Most of us vastly over-estimate its importance and confuse game results with our ongoing status and worthiness. A win is but one single frame, and we exist in a moving picture. One instant after the game ends, the game becomes an unalterable figment of the past… an artifact. It is best to merely absorb the knowledge gained and delete the rest of the reaction to it. Don’t let it have any impact on you in the present. No criticism or praise is of any meaningful benefit to you in your endeavor. Showing elation or gloominess days later at practice is of no benefit to your players. It’s just pointless virtue-signaling and it steals the experience from your players. Living in the past is useless. You exist in the present to build something for the future. Get to work, and leave the artifacts to the historians.
P.S. I don’t write this journal for anyone. It is a repository of thoughts and experiences for me. If you get something out of it, great.
P.S. This is a note to self: Your players never let you down. YOU let your players let you down.
Journal: VCPs
2024/07/25 Journal, Entry 3
I love this time of year. Good turnout: 13 of 20. Got a lot of reps in.
- Get-offs
- Drive for 5
- Angle Tackling
- Lateral Pursuit
- Sweeps and Counters
- Coverages (7 on 7)
- Route Concepts
Journal: Football Registration
2024/07/23 Journal, Entry 2
Registrations have been filling out our roster. We got several returning players back, pushing our retention to 81%. Historically, area-wide retention (not counting age-outs) hovers around 75% per team. This year, our area was hit really hard with defections. The league retention will come in around 68%. Still, over the three year span, it has nevertheless averaged around 75%.
In our area, we give free registration to new players. This was done to rebuild numbers after the idiotically destructive COVID response. Our highest registration ever was 332 players back in 2009. It dropped to an all time low of 97 in 2020. It has since rebounded into the 160s. We expect to land around 70 new players this year. If we can attract 70 new players each subsequent season, maintain 75% retention, and the kids enter at the historical pattern of grade distribution, we expect to stabilize at about 160 players each year and remain solvent.
Enrollment Projections:
Sidesaddle Single Wing Football 