The Football Coaching Podcast with Joe Daniel

The season kicks off and that call you've been working on for 6 months just is not working. Run plays, passing concepts, blitzes, stunts or coverages. Whatever it is… it's not working. This is the 5 step process to evaluate that football play call before you just kick it to the curb. You're always smarter in February than you are in September and October (or whenever your season happens this year!), so let's figure out what the problem is!

There's an old saying among option football coaches. OK, really it's among all football coaches… mostly old football coaches. If you can't block 'em, read 'em. Pretty simple. When you don't have anybody that can take that guy 1 on 1, you always have another option. Just make him wrong, no matter what he does. That's the premise behind option football. Make one guy wrong, no matter what he does. For coaches running a true option football system, this is a way of life. Let nothing get in the way of reading the guy that's causing problems. Then there's the rest of us. We run an offense that is not based solely on reading defenders. Are we left out of the option offense goodness? Nope. In this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast, I'll show you how to expand your offensive playbook using option football principles. Without confusing your players and causing a total disaster in the backfield.

Any time you decide to install a new playbook for your football team, you could run into trouble. It takes time to teach the skills your players need. It takes time for the coaches to understand how to teach those skills, too. The knee jerk reaction when your team isn't firing on all cylinders in the first few weeks of the season is to panic. Go back to what you were doing before. But that's not the answer. This week's Football Coaching Podcast looks at how to make in-season adjustments when your brand new plan of attack isn't working like you expected. This is how to get your team back on track with the changes you need to make to reach a whole new level of success.

Football drills are a big favorite among coaches. It's our thing. Standing there holding a whistle, watching your guys run around hoops and over bags. That's what coaching football is all about. Except that most defensive drills are a waste of time for high school football players. They end up never translating the drills to the field. Today you'll find out the football drills that really matter at every defensive position to get your players ready to win on game day.

When they hit the football coaching scene a few years ago, defensive coordinators were scratching their heads defending RPOs. But while it's a great tool for offenses to attack, run pass options are not as mystical as they may seem. If you've got a good RPO team on your schedule this season, you don't need to panic and change your whole defense. Follow the 5 tips for defending RPO's in this podcast to shut 'em down.

Using a creative evolution in the coverage package leading to a modified 2-Read Coverage in his 4-2-5 Defense, Hollis-Brookline High School Defensive Coordinator Fred Hubert helped lead his team to a New Hampshire State Championship in 2019. Find out the keys to the team's success and how this take the 2-Read Quarters Coverage package can work for your defense.

Week 1 of your season sets the tone, so you need to have your best offensive game plan ready to go. With the 2020/2021 season that doesn't mean having incredible strategies, either. It means getting the most from your offensive playbook. The game plan that wins this year is the one that's tailored to your players. What they can handle. It's about keeping it simple so they can play with confidence from the start. No matter what that defensive coordinator throws at you. Study Game Film Unlike most seasons, you probably won't get any scrimmage film this year. You're going to get a couple weeks of practice, then jump right into that first game of the season. You need to know all you can about the defense you're facing before you can develop your offensive game plan. So study last season's film. Anything you can get your hands on. "Can I break this defense with formations? Can I break this defense with plays? Where is it not sound? What is it not ready for?" Identify who they are. Not what you saw last year, but what that defense would look like if they had just a couple weeks to prepare. Because that's what they've got. Looking at what their JV team usually runs is a good start. Figure out the base defense. You aren't looking for tendencies here. Now it's about figuring out if you can break their umbrella. Create seams in the defense. Take advantage. What's Working in your Offensive Playbook? Now you need to look at your own team. What you've seen in the past, and what you've seen in practice so far (if you've had that). The best plays are the plays that work in practice. They are the plays that your players have the most confidence in running. So make sure in your offensive game plan you expect to call more of those! "What do you feel like you can call on a 1st & 10 in almost any situation and guarantee that you'll get 4 yards? You need to have that play in mind." You need a couple of calls in that game plan that you feel incredibly confident about. One is a play you can always get 4+ yards on 1st & 10. The other is a way to give your Quarterback some confidence throwing the ball with a simple pass. Pull Simple Levers in Your Offensive Game Plan Even in the best of times, game plans don't win many football games. Its the sad fact of coaching. You do a lot more damage over-coaching with fancy plays that win on a napkin that you'd do under-coaching and letting your players play. Formations are cheap. Plays are expensive. Don't over-do it, but as much as possible use base blocking schemes with special formations, shifts and motions to put the defense in a bind. "Script the first 10 plays, because you have an idea of things you want to see… but go off script in a heartbeat." You do want to script your first 10 plays, but you don't want to be completely controlled by the script. If the first play call carves them up, keep calling it! Finally, you need a plan for making adjustments throughout the game. The ASKA principle comes into play here, and pulling levers. Make sure you check out the ASKA podcast. It applies to offensive adjustments as much as it does to defense. Do You Have the Right Offensive Playbook? You've got the details on putting together that call sheet for Week 1 of the season. If you've got the right offensive system in place and your coaches are ready to teach the players, you're in good shape. Need help getting that offensive system just right? That's where JDFB Coaching Systems comes in for your team. Clients get access to The Pistol Power Offense System plus all of my other coaching systems, web clinic archives, private message board and more. Right now you can get instant access to the entire JDFB Coaching Systems resource library for 7 days for just $1: Click here to get started Related Episodes How to Game Plan Your Offense – Football Coaching Podcast Episode 172. Coaching ASKA Principle – Football Coaching Podcast S07E03. Levers Principle – Football Coaching Podcast S07E06. Learn all about Horizontal and Vertical Seams – Football Coaching Podcast S07E10. Study the Umbrella Principle so that you know how to break it. Scripting Your First 10 Offensive Plays State of Football 2020 and returning to play this year from The Football Coaching Podcast S07E15. 5 Day Install Plan to prepare your playbook install plan for a short off-season – Football Coaching Podcast S05E02.

There's a good reason so many defensive coordinators are also coaching linebackers on their staff. The position is critical for High School and Youth Football defenses to stop the run. Many coaches put their best defender at an Inside Linebacker position. If you're fortunate enough to have a natural, instinctive linebacker to play the position then your job is easy. Just stay out of his way and don't slow him down. For the rest of your guys, you need to coach. Earlier this season on The Football Coaching Podcast, I shared the ASKA Principle that has become one of the core principles for our defensive coaching systems. On this week's episode of the Football Coaching Podcast, we're going in-depth on coaching linebackers using the ASKA Principle. What is ASKA? ASKA stands for Alignment, Stance, Key Reads and Assignment. It started as a pre-snap checklist (stolen from the TCU coaching staff) for our defensive players. It evolved to a checklist for the coaches, and then to the foundation of how each defensive position gets coached. Each of those elements of ASKA gives you a lever to pull. By systematically seeking out weaknesses, and then pulling levers for solutions, you have constant improvement on your defense. Check out this podcast on Coaching the Levers Principle to learn more. ASKA for Coaching Linebackers When you're coaching linebackers using ASKA, there's a lot of levers you can pull. Check out these examples of levers to pull with your inside linebacker group: Alignment: Move your linebackers away from the line of scrimmage so they can flow to the football. Moving them closer makes them one-gap defenders, so you might as well put their hand in the dirt. Stance: Years ago, I made a simple adjustment in the way we coached linebacker stance to stop making false steps. I go in detail on that in this episode. Key Reads: Simplify your key reads if they're not working. There's usually too many if-then situations you're giving your athletes if they're not reading their keys. You can always start simple and build later. I detail both guard reads and linebacker reads in the episode. Assignment: You've got the most flexibility here. Changing the assignment can mean everything from a blitz call or coverage call, changing the front, or tons of other minor adjustments. Your most critical piece here is clearly defining the run fits using the Umbrella Principle. Listen to this week's episode of The Football Coaching Podcast using the player below, or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!

Welcome to Coaching Football 101, class is now in session. Today's episode barely scratches the surface of all that a new football coach needs to know, but we only have an hour. A football coaching friend likes to say that every man in America thinks he can do two things: grill and coach football (in 2020 you can add doctor to that list). But every experienced football coach knows at least half of that is not remotely true. What You'll Learn in Coaching Football 101 This podcast isn't the place to get into the details of coaching football. The little things like how to design a good play, decide which play to call, or figure out what drills to run during your practice. That's what a lot of new coaches are looking for. But in Football Coaching 101, we need to start at the beginning. Instead, today's lesson is going to focus on 10 things every football coach should know. Young or old. Youth, High School, College or NFL. First year coaches and 30 year veterans. 10 Things Every Football Coach Should Know Here's the list of 10 things every football coach needs to know that we'll kick off Football Coaching 101 with. You coach long enough, you'll learn all of these things through trial and error. Most of these I've learned through a lot of pain and suffering. I want you, new coach, to skip all that. I want you to start out in the fast lane. It's a better way to live. I'll go into each point in depth in the episode, which you can listen to at the bottom of this post. It's all about relationships. That'll get beat into your head any time you ask a coach the most important thing to know. You do not need to learn any plays to get your first job. Drills are for solving problems. Don't waste time on worthless drills. There is no RIGHT way. But there is OUR way. Confidence is critical. Being 'mean' or 'violent' is not. If you're new to coaching football, accept that you know very little. And that's OK. Drop all the excuses. You're a coach. Keep your composure. Terminology in football coaching is not universal. Execution of plays, not the play itself, wins football games. This is a great list to get started. But as I said earlier, it's just scratching the surface. There's a another great post on the most common mistakes youth coaches make here, but it applies to all coaches in my experience. And then there's all the fun stuff you're really looking to learn. The X's and O's of coaching football. There's a great place to start learning more of that too, with JDFB Coaching Systems.

Coach Tim Snow wasn't thinking about spread formations when he first started studying the Pistol Power Offense System in 2015. That first version of the system looked a lot more like the traditional One Back Offense that I first learned from Coach Bill Mountjoy years ago. But the great thing about the System is that it evolves. And as Coach Snow and the Winnisquam High School offense evolved in New Hampshire, so did their offensive playbook. The version of the playbook that won back to back New Hampshire State Championships in 2018 and 2019 uses a lot more wide open spread formations. But it keeps the same core principles and schemes. Scroll down to listen to this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast and my interview with Coach Snow on the use of spread formations in the Pistol Power Offense System. Versatility of the System Coach Snow credits the versatility of the Pistol Power Offense System with helping his offense evolve to fit the players. Each season, the Winnisquam staff takes a look at what his athletes can do. Then they build the playbook around that, while keeping the core teachings. After using a bruising rushing attack for 3 seasons, the talent the small New England school changed. It was time for a wide open attack. Starting in 2018, Coach Snow incorporated spread formations, the read option, and an expanded passing attack. That took Winnisquam to their first State Championship. The following season, the offense continued to evolve. RPOs were added to open up the playbook for an athletic Quarterback who's understanding of how to read a defense continued to improve. Winnisquam rode that development all the way to a second State Championship in 2019. They'll look to defend the Championship and three-peat (do I owe someone money for that?) in 2020. Play Calling with Spread Formations It's not just about the playbook. Coaches have to know how to choose what to use from the playbook. It's not just about spread formations. It's knowing what your athletes can handle, and what they can do best. Season to season, you're selecting the plays and formations that define your identity. You need to adapt to the style that fits your athletes best. You also need to game plan each week for how you're going to attack the opponent. Then you're looking at how to call the plays during the game. Play selection throughout the game determines the outcome much more than the game planning you do on the weekends. The Winnisquam offense has that down, scoring three times as many points in the second half as they did in the first half during 2019. Listen to this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast to find out the simple process Coach Snow uses to determine play selection. Tim shares exactly what he looks for to determine how his team will attack their opponents during the game. This is a great look at how the Pistol Power Offense is a lot more than just running the ball, or even lining up in pistol! Check it out using the player below, or search for The Football Coaching Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts!