The Football Coaching Podcast with Joe Daniel

It's a half-episode! Look for Season 8, Episode 2 of The Football Coaching Podcast with a deep dive on the Double A Gap Blitz on Monday at Noon Eastern!

Season 8 of The Football Coaching Podcast is focusing on deep dives on individual play calls, so what better play to start with than the Zone Read? In fact, we've come full circle - Zone Read Option was the topic on the very first episode of the podcast back in 2012! The deep dive series will take a look at play calls from every angle. We look at the origins of the play, the details of execution, how to attack or defend the play, and how to evaluate and evolve the play within your playbook.

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!