7 Weeks to go and Stack Formations

Today marks 7 weeks before our first league game.  Unlike in the U.S. where you get at most 3 weeks before you start the season, we have been practicing since November.  The majority of our workouts from November until February were all inside.  This is where we focused on conditioning and agility.  I was pleased with both the participation and the results.  We really pushed them this off-season and they accepted the challenge.  A sign of progress of the work we have done was when we had a player from last season come in late to our sessions.  This player had told me that he had worked out on his home and felt that he was in good shape.  He didn’t last more then 5 minutes, while the rest of our team completed the workout without a problem. 

Usually the conditioning is the first hour of practice and then we work on technique the second hour.  This seemed to be a new concept to our team as coaches in the past had not done this.  I personally think the time we put in the 2^nd hour is invaluable.  We have a new defensive coordinator this season and I felt it was important that our defensive players got as much exposure as possible to the new defense we would be running.  Offensively, we were able to add in a few wrinkles to our already established offense.  Unfortunately the gym we used wasn’t huge so getting 7 on 7 and 11 on 11 drills done were tough.  Now that we are outside we have more focus on the 7 on 7 and 11 on 11.  This is always interesting as the defense will win most battles.  Our timing on offense was not very crisp and we have been breaking in a new QB with some new receivers.  We also have a smart defense that recognizes the majority of our plays from last season.  These can make practices frustrating from a offensive point of view, but at the same time will only make us better as we prepare for our league schedule.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a colleague contact me about a topic we were discussing on Coach Huey.  By the way if you haven’t been on Coach Huey I highly recommend you do so.  It is a great coaching resource where coaches from across the world discuss various football topics.  We give each other suggestions, thoughts on everything related football. 

Anyways, we were talking about Stack formations.  Stack formations have been becoming more prevalent in the game, this season I saw the University of Michigan used them a lot in 3x1 and 2x2 sets.  I used stack formations a lot last season.  Now there are various reasons to use these type of formations, for me it was a way to try to get guys out of the box.  Eventually, we ended up getting one on one to the outside which opened up our pass game.  Unfortunately we never fully took advantaged of the one on one coverage as much as we should have.

When we run a stack formation we are looking at getting numbers to run the ball.  Last year it started with teams placing 3 players over our stack and leaving us with a 5 man box.  Obviously we had great success running the ball, which then had teams putting two guys over the stack and placing the FS into the box giving us a 7 man box.  Naturally we want to throw the ball with this defensive alignment and have a few routes that we like to throw against it.  My favorite one to run is 4 Verticals, with the top receiver in the stack running almost a slant/seam to the hash marks with the back receiver running his usually sideline vertical.  We can also run what I call shallow/follow where #1 runs a 6 yard shallow and #2 “follows” behind at about 8-10 yards.  You can also run the same concept with a slant by #2. I just feel that if we get the Cover 0 look or even Cover 1 we have more open spots on the field to throw the ball. Below is a couple diagrams with what we will see and the two main routes we like to throw.

Ultimately we will be a run first team, but we have to find ways to throw the ball.  I like to make the throws/reads as easy as possible and try to put our receivers in as much open space as possible.  I think stack formations gives us that opportunity.  Of course it all boils down to execution which comes to coaching and teaching our players how to properly execute these plays.  Only time will tell if us coaches are dong our job.

Success begins with your assistants

As I have said before I am terrible in keeping up with this blog.  Since my last entry I would kick around ideas about what I would want to write about, come up with a subject, and then just not write about it.  I would like to tell you it was because I was on a worldwide speaking tour about our undefeated season, or that I was busy fielding offers to coach the United States National Team.  Nope, that would be a lie.  I just didn’t do it because well I didn’t do it.  I don’t think I’ll be getting blogger of the year either.  Moving on…..

As you know we finished the 2011 season undefeated and were promoted to the 2^nd Division of the German Football League.  As I look back at the success we had during our season, I can’t help to see how we avoided the traps that we could had fallen into.  As many teams do during a season they face challenges that could possibly derail a team’s focus.  We were no different.  We had injuries, we had tough games, and we also had two coaches quit in the middle of the season, which could have destroyed our season.  Luckily we had a TEAM, and when we had those guys jump ship we rallied together and finished our mission.

Looking back on what happened when I had two people put themselves before the team, we were very lucky.  A common theme you will find with almost all good football teams is that the Head Coach is surrounded by good assistants.  Take a look at the University of Alabama, this year’s National Champion.  Nick Saban is a great coach, but he has some great assistants.  Jim McElwain is the offensive coordinator and QB coach for Alabama and he was a big reason why the Crimson Tide ran away with the National Championship.  He called a great game, and really coached up AJ McCarron who played one of his best games of his young college career. Now it wasn’t just McElwain as that entire Alabama staff is very good at what they do, hence the product you saw on the field last night.  However, if your assistants aren’t very good coaches who can trust then you will be lucky to have a good team.  Again we got luck last season.

One of the first things I wanted to do in order to prepare for this season was make sure we had good assistant coaches, starting with a solid defensive coordinator.  Last season one of the individuals who quit on the team was the Defensive Coordinator.  I was at fault for even bringing the guy on staff, but he was a guy that had a long history of being part of the team and thought the transition would be more smooth even with all the shortcomings I knew he had.  It blew up in my face.  But the good thing about making mistakes is that you get to learn from them, and that is what I did.  The search for a DC wasn’t very long as we had a call from a guy who was interested.  He was a Head Coach, but was released from his duties after the season after management thought they had under achieved.   He felt slighted and wanted an opportunity to prove that he was indeed a good coach, and felt that our team would be a great opportunity to show that.  After a dinner interview I came away impressed, but we are a team so I wanted him to interview with some key players from our defense to get a feel from them.  So I had set up another dinner interview, one which I would not be a part of so both sides could feel they could speak freely.  After I got the report from my players, it was easy for me to make this hire.  Our new DC has been beyond great thus far.  We are light years ahead of where we were last year defensively, and I’m excited to see the success we will have on the field.

We also have upgraded in other areas.  I have picked up an offensive line guy that I can trust, which is tough considering I’m an O-line guy as well.  We were also fortunate to keep a former player on as a secondary coach.  He will help our defense immensely as well; he understands the game and how to relate to the players.  I’m not sure how much coaching he had done prior to this, but he has a definite future in it if he continues to pursue it. I also was lucky to retain one other coach until March before he has to move back stateside. 

As I have said before our league may change but our goals do not.  We are going into our 2012 season wanting to win a championship.  That is why we compete.  But in order to do that I have to assemble the best staff that I can in order to have a chance.  Right now I think we are on the right track.