How Valuable is Your Information

How Valuable is Your Information?

One of the ways that today’s technology has negatively affected our society is that people expect immediate or instant gratification from their lives.  So many things have caused all of us, myself included, to become this way.  One of the most incredible advancements in our society is the speed at which we can access information.  For example, I know nothing about changing the oil in my truck.  However, if I wanted to learn how to change the oil in my truck, I could find a YouTube video with a simple web search that will fully detail how to change the oil in my truck.  Information used to be an extremely valuable commodity in business, education, and for the purposes of this post: coaching. 

In the coaching profession, the information that a coach possessed used to be extremely valuable to players and parents.  However, just like I can find an article on how to change my oil, players, coaches, and parents can now find a video or website that will tell them exactly how to block the off tackle power play.  Entire websites have been set up detailing the intricacies of some of the game’s top offensive or defensive units.  For example, the website fishduck.com has video, presentations, and explanations of almost every offensive play run by Chip Kelly during his time at Oregon.  Even the casual fan can visit that website and see all the details of how a particular play is blocked.  Other websites have entire games from the NFL or NCAA available for any coach or fan to view.  The information that used be so valuable to coaches is now available for anyone.

In some cases, coaches have fallen victim to the instant gratification society by valuing the information that they possess over the ability to teach the fundamentals of the game.  Going back to the oil change, I might know HOW to change the oil in my truck.  I could go to ACE Hardware and buy all the latest tools and accessories to change the oil.  However, at the end of the day, there are still some fundamental things that I will have to be able to do in order to use those fancy tools and the information that I got off of YouTube.  If I can’t perform those skills, then it doesn't matter what tools I have and what information I possess.  I could have the secrets to a successful oil change from the world’s greatest oil changer, but those secrets in my possession are worthless because I can’t even turn the first wrench properly to begin the process!

My point is, information is readily available for us as coaches all over the internet.  The secrets to Chip Kelly’s offense aren't secret anymore.  The problem is, sometimes as coaches, we rely too much on the information and not enough on the teaching of skills and techniques that will help our kids be successful.  One thing I have noticed lately is the prevalence of offensive “systems” that you can purchase from various coaches around the country.  I’m not knocking those coaches for trying to make an extra buck, but the bottom line is that no matter what information you possess, you still have to know how to teach kids, evaluate their performance, and teach them the fundamentals they will need in order to be successful.  If you can’t do those things, then the information you might possess is useless.

Hybrid Plays for Spread Offenses

Hybrid Plays for Spread Offenses

This season, our team went from 0-9 last season to 12-1 this season, losing in the third round of the state playoffs. Last year, after a tough season, our offensive coordinator and I took a look at adding some “hybrid” plays to our offense. We were already a spread / zone read team that ran a fast tempo offense. We had a few hybrid plays but had not explored them to their full depth. This season, we used quite a few of these hybrid plays and had the number one ranked offense in the state and one of the top high school offenses in the country.

Hybrid plays involve multiple options on the same play and many of you likely already do this to some extent. We set out to create a system on these plays that involved pre-snap reads (gifts), post snap reads, and in some cases option game following the post snap read. Here is one example of our hybrid inside zone play from a 2x2 formation:

Pre-Snap

Assume that the field is to the right (ball on the left hash or left middle) and please excuse my crude drawings. In this 2x2 hybrid play, we have multiple options pre-snap. The two shaded areas are areas that our quarterback will look at pre-snap to determine if he will throw either concept. If, for example, to the field side of this play, the defender is not completely covering the 4 step out and we have soft coverage, he will throw the out route to the field. Additionally to the field side, if there is press coverage on our outside receiver and the down and distance/situation allow us to, we can take a deep shot with the vertical.

On the short side of this hybrid play (or in this diagram to the left) we also are reading the alley area for leverage. Many times, teams will play two safeties and leave the slot to the boundary uncovered. If the corner is soft, we can throw an arrow route to the slot while the outside receiver stalks the corner. This throw is completed before the WR begins his block so blocking downfield is not a problem. It is essentially a quick screen to our fastest (often smallest) WR with one of our more physical blockers in front of him. If the arrow route does not catch the ball immediately after the snap, we want him to continue to work for width (not depth) and turn his back to the sidelines. He will become a pitch option for the QB if the QB pulls the football on the zone read.

All of these options are pre-snap reads for our QB meant to take advantage of “gifts” the defense may be giving us by their alignment. There is a lot of coaching and film work that takes place in order to teach the QB when and where it is appropriate to throw these pre-snap options. Our offensive coordinator and our QB meet on a regular basis to discuss these issues from week to week.

Post snap

The post snap version of this play is much like any other zone read you would have encountered. If you are interested in how we block our inside zone or the finer points of our OL play, please feel free to contact me; however, I will focus primarily on the hybrid versions of this play.

Post snap, if none of the pre-snap options are viable or preferred, the QB will read the backside defensive end and give or keep based on his movements. If the ball is pulled, the QB will stretch the defense to the boundary and then has the option of flipping the ball to the slot receiver that ran the arrow route as a pre-snap read. This is almost always a forward pass and is sometimes completed in front of the line of scrimmage. Many times, our linemen have not yet made it downfield enough in the interior of the pay to get a lineman downfield penalty. If the pass is completed on or behind the line of scrimmage it is essentially a screen and we don’t have to worry about having linemen downfield.

We feel this hybrid play, along with many others that we employed this season, helped us to make such a drastic change in our record from last season. We used a handful of these plays, along with our regular offense, to achieve extraordinary efficiency on offense this year. If you would like to discuss this or any other hybrid plays, please feel free to contact me at:

gabriel.fertitta@gmail.com

Never Defeated

I'm thinking about writing a book about our two seasons from 2012 and 2013.  In 2012 our football team went 0-9 and in 2013 our team went 12-1 and finished the regular season undefeated.  Here is a "hackers" attempt at the start of a book about those seasons and what it took to turn around our program.  Any feedback would be great!

Never Defeated:

The 2013 Rock-a-Chaws were 8-0 going into our 9^th game of the season and players and coaches alike could feel the excitement of what was about to happen that October night.  We were playing Moss Point High School at home that night and if we were victorious, life would have brought our football family full circle from exactly one year ago.  In 2012, we finished the season 0-9.  Although we had 10 regular season games, one of our games that year had been cancelled because of a hurricane.  Ironically enough, not to take anything away from Pass Christian who would have been our opponent that night, that was the one game that we had the best chance of winning in 2012.  If we won our game against Moss Point, the turnaround would be complete and we could all breathe a sigh of relief.  Winning that game would mean that we had gone from 0-9 in one year to 9-0 the next, a feat that had never been accomplished in the State of Mississippi and one that only a handful of teams had ever accomplished in high school football history.  The game was fairly uneventful but was indicative of the kinds of games we prided ourselves upon winning throughout the 2013 season. 

If you would have lined up the players from Moss Point and the players from St. Stanislaus and asked 10 casual football observers to pick who they think would win the game, I would venture to say that at least 9, if not all 10 of them, would have picked Moss Point.  We only dressed 41 players.  Moss Point dressed over 60.  They were, man for man, bigger than we were (although we had a few big linemen), and they were most certainly more athletic than us.  Had we been competing in a track meet or a football combine, we most certainly would have been humiliated.  Truth be told, you could have done this with almost all of our opponents in 2013 and had a similar result.  Every week, as we watched pre-game warm ups, the coaches and I would look across the field and see a team that had bigger and more athletic players than we did.  We had a few guys that would pass the “look test,” but we also had a few players that were considerable contributors for us that looked more like Biology majors than football players. 

The young men of the SSC football team were not “casual observers” however.  These young men had been meticulously trained to perform their duties and, although the other teams we played may have “looked” better than we did, our kids were trained for the rigors of high school football better than most of the teams in the state.  Partially because of our coaching staff’s obsession with preparation and driven partly from the sting of an 0-9 season, our coaches left no stone unturned when it came to preparing the 2013 football team.  We were 8-0 at this point for a myriad of different reasons, but the simplest of them was just sheer hard work.  The coaches worked diligently through the off-season to train our kids physically, psychologically, and spiritually.  All three of those areas worked together to produce the team that was on the field that night.

Senior RB Corbin Patton ran for 101 yards against Moss Point

Senior Captains: #44 LB Joe Guillot, #28 SS Johnny Longo, #14 QB Tyler Allen, #16 WR Brennen Bradley

Moss Point and Stanislaus captains shake hands before the game

The SSC Defense was relentless all year

Jr. Corner Evan Lundgren makes a leaping interception against Moss Point

Jr WR Chase Rhodes dives for the pylon and scores a touchdown while Sr WR Chase Zimmerman gets physical with a MP defender

SSC Defensive Coordinator and Strength Coach Deuce Harrison stressed the importance of proper tackling for two straight years.  #8 Austin Miller performs a textbook tackle on kick off coverage.

LG and C Alex Myrick and Field Nicaud protect against the big MP Defensive Line as Sr QB Tyler Allen drops back to pass

Sr WR Brennen Bradley hauls in a vertical ball over two MP defenders

During the game, all of these things became radiantly apparent; we hadn't lost a game yet that year because our team was as prepared as they possibly could be.  The Rocks physically dominated the entire football game from start to finish.  Our players were in considerably better shape and executed their assignments with surgical precision.  The game was over before it even really got started.  We were ahead 35-6 at halftime and scored just 6 points in the 3^rd and 4^th quarters after we pulled our starters.  SSC would go on to win the game 41-21.  Our quarterback Tyler Allen was extremely efficient completing 18 of 23 passes for 292 yards and 5 touchdown passes.  We also ran the ball for 166 yards behind one the most physically dominant offensive lines in recent school memory.  Our defense in 2012 had given up a massive 52.2 points per game.  At this point in the season in 2013, our defense was averaging giving up 19 points per game.  The defense was on full display this Friday night.  The Rock-a-Chaw defense totaled 15 tackles for a loss, 3 sacks, and 2 interceptions.  Before the backups went in, the Rock-a-Chaw defense had surrendered only 6 points.  When the regular season was over, the Rocks defense was statistically one of the best in Mississippi. 

After the game I spoke to our team about how important it was for us to remember that just one year ago we were in almost this exact same spot and talking about collecting equipment and reviewing off-season schedules and hadn't a single win to show for all our hard work.  As usual, I reminded them of their commitment to our strict no substance policy.  The “hydration nation,” as it came to be known among the players, was something that had become critical to our success that year.  Our seniors, along with the rest of the team, had made a serious commitment to trade in their beer cans for water bottles at the parties that happened all along the beach each Friday and Saturday night.  By the time our team was 9-0, the momentum from the hydration nation was strong and tough to resist.  Even kids who didn't play a sport all year were walking around the school with water bottles in their bags and filling them up at the water fountains in between classes.  I assume it had become the “cool” thing to do.  The turnaround was real.  As I walked off the field to greet my wife, parents, and friends, I was reminded of a bible verse that had inspired me to continue in this mission exactly one year ago:  Galatians 6:9 “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

The 2012 Season Mercifully Comes to a Close:

I sat in my office the week after our last football game thankfully ended our season in 2012 at St. Stanislaus and wondered what I had done to deserve such a miserable year.  The coaches and players had worked harder than we had ever worked before that off-season and continued the grind throughout the season.  Unfortunately, our season didn't end up like we had hoped.  We finished the 2012 season 0-9 and suffered some of the most disastrous losses I had experienced in 9 years of coaching, including an 82-80 defeat to regional foe Poplarville that would make national headlines.  The dim lights in my office provided a perfect place for me to slouch back in my chair, scratch my head, and sulk quietly by myself.  I never once allowed anyone to see me struggle in public.  I put on the best face I could for our team each week and genuinely believed we had a chance to win every game we played.  Now that the season was over, I could sit in the 1970’s green chair in my office and feel sorry for myself with no one else around to see it.  It was cathartic.  At this point, I was looking for direction from anyone and anything I could find.  I ran across a bible verse that day, and although I am not a bible quoting scripture hound, I do follow Christ and I do believe in his teachings.  I am a Catholic so that probably explains why I can’t give you chapter and verse of all my favorite quotations.  This also wasn't the last time I would find inspiration through scripture leading into the 2013 season.  But this verse read, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” Galatians 6:9 (I had to google it).  I copied and pasted that verse into a word document and printed it off in the biggest font that would fit on one page.  I taped it to my door so that every time I had to come out of that office I was forced to read it. 

I knew that I had been “doing good” in football terms.  I was certain that what I was teaching our boys and what our coaching staff was doing to prepare them was the right thing.  I had definitely “become weary” however.  The long hours of the previous off-season and the even longer hours of the accompanying regular season had all but taken the fire out of my spirit.  And truth be told, I've always been an extremely enthusiastic and fiery young football coach.  The part of the scripture that I didn't want to accept was “at the proper time.”  I wanted to reap my harvest now, but it was not in God’s plans.  He had bigger plans for our 2013 football team;  I just didn't know them.  And, little did I know, but the struggle from the 2012 season was only just beginning.  The fallout from that abysmal season had not begun to take place although the writing was on the wall everywhere around me.  Parents, players, alumni, former coaches, and even some of our super supportive administration began to wonder what was going on with our football program.  

So You Want to be a Shepherd

So You Want to be a Shepherd?

I try to find inspiration for being a football coach in all areas of my life.  I will read a book that has nothing to do with football and somehow apply something that I read from that book to leading a group of young men on a football team.  In full disclosure, I am Catholic and teach at a Catholic school so this post may seem a bit “religious” but I think it gets to the root of all leadership.

Pope Francis has instantly become one of my favorite popes of all time.  He really understands what it means to be a servant leader.  If you haven't followed his papacy, even if you aren't Catholic, you should check in to the things he has done and most notably the things he has NOT done since becoming pope.  For instance, the Pope refuses to ride in the luxury "Pope Mobile" and instead walks among the people during his visits.  He has refused to live in the insanely ornate Pope's Apartment in the Vatican and instead lives in a fairly modest apartment not far away.  Even as a Cardinal, he rode the public transportation in South America refusing to have an automobile.  He really gets it.  A few months ago I was at mass at the priest during his homily quoted something that Pope Francis had said recently when talking to a group of fellow priests, 

“If you want to be a shepherd, you have to smell like a sheep.”

Article about Pope Francis' Speech to Priests

That phrase instantly struck a chord with me as a football coach.  If you want to lead kids you can’t do it hands off.  Too many coaches see being a head coach (or an assistant for that matter) as the position of “do as I say.”  We often talk to our kids about being “servant” leaders, but rarely do we as coaches exemplify that type of servant leadership.  If you want kids to follow you, sometimes you have to do the things that the lowest of servants on the team must do in order for kids to follow.  Jesus washed the feet of his disciples even though he was One chosen by God to save us all from our sins.  Pretty powerful servant leader. Here are a few concrete examples that happened to us this year.  I genuinely despise telling people things that “Iv’e done” but in this case I think a few of these examples might help you to think about ways that you can be a shepherd and smell like a sheep with your team as well.

Filling Water Bottles

Let’s be honest, no one wants to fill water bottles at practice.  We have a full time trainer and a few managers but at some point in practice they usually will get bogged down and can’t keep up with filling bottles.  We use injured players to fill bottles as well, but from time to time, I will run over to the water station and start filling up water bottles myself and bring them to the players like I was a manager.  In doing this, the other players on the team will see that this is important and usually will follow suit.  They will fill water bottles when they see a need for it and be servant leaders for their teammates. 

Filming Practice

Film is a vital part of our everyday routine.  We teach our injured guys how to properly film practice and we have a manager that can do it as well.  However, when there is no one to film practice, sometimes I will do the honors.  It shows the kids just how important the film is, and it also shows them that no one is “too good” to do a little filming.

Walk Through the Locker Room After Practice

We have a separate room that is our “coaches office” in our field house.  It isn't much, but it does separate the players from the coaches which is nice.  However, too many times we will walk straight in to the coaches office after practice and start talking about the next practice etc.  Make it a habit to walk through your locker room after practice and talk with a few players about something from their day at practice.  Be specific.  Be genuine.  Players can tell when you aren't being real.  Find that kid on the scout team that works his butt off but doesn't get much recognition and say something positive to him that shows you were noticing his effort.  You never know how far that will go for you in the future.

Doing these little things will give your players a concrete example of what being a servant leader really looks like.  The next time one of your seniors yells, “Freshmen fill the water bottles!” challenge that senior to fill those bottles himself first.  If a senior does some menial task that is mostly reserved for the lowly freshmen, then when he asks those freshmen to do it (and they have witnessed him do it himself) they are way more likely to respond positively.  The same goes for coaches.  “If you want to be a shepherd, you have to smell like a sheep.”  Pope Francis knows his football!

In Defense of "Duck Walking"

I’ve been asked a few times over the past months what the value of “duck walks” were for offensive linemen.  A few people even called me old fashioned or said that teaching that particular technique was out dated.  I think, however, that for high school offensive linemen, one of the most important things that you can teach them is the importance of duck walks or what I call “demeanor” drills.

The most difficult thing to teach young offensive linemen is how to "move like an offensive lineman."  This movement is what I call "demeanor."  Demeanor is the movement and body position that is most conducive to sustaining blocks and creating drive on a defender.  Most young athletes are used to "running" everywhere they go in sports.  However this is the first thing we have to teach young offensive linemen NOT to do.

Why can't I run?

If you were to put any athlete in front of a van and ask them to push that van down the street, they would most certainly not "demeanor" that van down the street.  The first thing they would do would be to lean over, shoulders over their toes, and push the van and do that on the balls of their feet.  This pushing would also be accompanied by a very narrow base with the feet like a sprinter in the 100 meter dash.  This works really well for pushing a big heavy object and would seem like it would be the best way for an offensive lineman to "push" a defensive lineman.  However, the van can only move in one direction.  A defensive linemen getting "pushed" will likely get "pushed" back off the line of scrimmage initially but will soon use the forward lean and momentum of the offensive player to throw him off of the block very easily.  The weight of the offensive lineman is not evenly distributed and while he is pushing with great force, he is not doing it in a way that will allow him to sustain that block for any length of time.  If you are a veer running team and expect the ball to hit the line of scrimmage within a split second of the ball being snapped, this technique may actually be the best blocking style for you.  However, if you are running a traditional gap or zone scheme, offensive linemen must typically sustain their blocks for at least 2 seconds before the ball carrier has passed them up.

So the next question is, how do I sustain my bock and still get push from the offensive lineman?  The answer is to have a wide base and DO NOT RUN!  The "demeanor" of an offensive lineman starts with the feet.  Once contact has been made with the defensive lineman, an offensive lineman should have all of his cleats in the ground.  If you have coached offensive line for any length of time, you have most certainly heard this statement before.  However, you may have not really questioned, "why?"  Having all of the cleats in the ground helps to balance out the weight of the offensive player.  Think about a chair.  If you were going to make a chair, you would need to find a balance between the right height of the chair and the correct width of the legs to keep that chair balanced.  If the chair is too tall and the legs are too narrow, it won't be a very stable chair to sit on.  The same is true for a lineman base.  If the lineman is up tall and on his toes when drive blocking, he is much more likely to get thrown off of the block and become off balance.  By keeping all the cleats in the ground, the lineman is more likely to be stable and sustain the block.

The feet should also be turned slightly out and the majority of the weight should be on the inside portions of the feet or arches.  This will also help to keep the knees inside of the ankles in the base.  This is a critical part of the lineman base in his "demeanor."  The knees should be inside the ankles to create "power angles" that are conducive to generating force from the ground, to the feet, through the legs, and into the hips which are the most critical part of the drive block.  

I have seen many line coaches who try to get their players to move their feet as fast as possible in their "demeanor" drills.  This is one of the biggest mistakes I think coaches make when teaching young linemen how to block using the proper demeanor.  Ask any 9th grade lineman to move his feet as fast as possible from one end of a board to the other and you will most certainly get what I call "shuffling" of the feet.  Instead of generating force from the ground through the legs etc., that young lineman will simply shuffle his feet as fast as he can from one end of the board to the other.  No power will be generated in this type of demeanor.  Furthermore, when the young athlete tries to use this technique when actually blocking a defender, he will get pushed back every time.  What will he revert to?  Running.  He will do the drill one way and then attempt to block in the game a different way.  The key to teaching demeanor with the feet is not asking the young man to move his feet as fast as possible, but to ask him to move his feet as fast as possible while pounding the inside of his arches into the ground.  Will he be able to do this as fast as he could when he was shuffling?  Absolutely not.  But he will generate way more force by pounding the feet into the ground quickly.  We call this "angry feet."  We never want to sacrifice power for speed.  Power is a combination of how hard we can generate that force AND how fast we can do it.  But never sacrifice the power for the speed.

The duck walk or demeanor also allows a lineman to "unweigh" a defender.  With the prevalence of zone and gap blocking schemes in today's game, there is a much higher priority on sustaining blocks than their is on driving a defender 5 yards downfield.  Think of your typical zone play from the shotgun.  Most of the time, the running back will pass the offensive line 1.5-2 seconds after the ball has been snapped.  That's an awful long time to sustain a block against a defender that is likely more athletic than the offensive lineman.  Unweighing the defender is critical to sustain a block.  While I never want a lineman to think they don't have to fire out with a good flat back and knock the defensive player off the ball, I don't want them to do that at the expense of sustaining the block.  We teach our linemen to generate that force upwards on a 45 degree angle.  Our end goal is to get our hips as close to the defender's hips as we possibly can.  Try it.  Get a partner and try to push him and ask him to throw you off the block.  He will likely do this pretty easily.  This time, assume a wide base and attempt to "lift" the defender and press your hips to his hips instead of "push."  Now how hard was it for him to get off the block?  Much harder.  Why?  You have raised that person's center of gravity.  They have no way to generate enough force to get you off of the block.  On zone runs, I would much rather see our linemen press their hips to the hips of the defender on or in front of the line of scrimmage than I would see them drive the defender 4 yards back within the first 1 second of the block.  

Demeanor allows a lineman to do all of these things with the best of both worlds.  You may not be able to push that van down the street faster using demeanor, but you will be able to sustain your blocks longer while not sacrificing too much drive.  Keeping a good wide base and generating power while staying balanced is why we teach demeanor to our kids every day.

If you are interested in any drills we use to teach these techniques, feel free to email me at gabriel.fertitta@gmail.com