Must have an approach to what you want to hang your hat on, it could be hard work, commitment, and development. It may be to work hard and to give 150% effort in everything your team does. We will focus on our effort in our drills, hustle, the film room, weight training, and do it with respect to the game, coaches, opponents, opponent’s coaches, referees, and the community.
Commitment must be a big part of your program. Athletes will commit to the program by going to practice, giving 150%, hold themselves accountable to make the off-season program, and developing themselves as good athletes both academically and athletically. This will help the program continue to develop for the following seasons. This will create a tradition for the youth and underclassmen to look forward to be part of the program.
Development of the underclassmen should be your biggest concern because it will be the future of the program. So freshman coaches and JV coaches must be critical to the programs future. The head coaches approach may want his lower level coaches running a basic offensive and defensive scheme to the one that Varsity is running. This will help the kids learn the plays so we but the time they get to varsity we can continue to develop the athletes. In addition, I will contact a youth program in my city and introduce them to my offensive and defensive schemes to see if they can start teaching it at the youth levels. This is another way to develop my athletes through the youth ranks and develops confidence in them. I would ask seniors to go down to the youth practices to help volunteer and mentor the future of our program.
Season Scheme or Slogan:
Another approach may be to develop slogans which may as as example focus around effort. Expect it to happen- 150% effort. This would be the team slogan with themes each week of the season. It may be the belief to encourage you athletes that effort is the most important characteristic in being successful then no matter what the results are that building character young individuals is of prime importance. Have a theme for each week against our opponents to keep the athletes inspired and motivated to give their best effort. You may want your athletes to focus on personal goals that are attainable and measurable. That is an attainable goal and it is not result focused. Win or lose the athletes can still build confidence. Confident athletes tend to play loose and not fear of failure, which in turn usually shows on their performance.
New Traditions:
New traditions are very important because it helps develop team chemistry. One new tradition might be that after every walk through you would have a team meeting where the players do all the talking and the coaches just do the listening and supervising. The players would give two goals, if they achieved their goals from the prior week, and a different player each week to hold them accountable. This gives the seniors a chance to mentor the underclassmen. Set goals that are attainable and also measurable each week.
Another tradition is a players meeting room where they can have lunch and watch football movies together. This helps to continue developing the team chemistry and gives them a chance to relax and hold each other accountable.
Offensive & Defensive Strategies:
Must have an offensive approach that you can hang your hat on based upon the type of athletes that you have which might be a pistol and under center no huddle offense for example. Also may want to sell to your coaches and players that you want to run a balanced offense that can take what the defense gives us but also put the defense on their heels by running lot of plays in a condense time. I want to get the plays into the offense quickly without huddling.
Your defensive strategy might be to run multiple fronts and schemes where so you can use a 3-4, 4-3, and 4-2-5 packages and create personnel for each package. This helps you adjust and prepare for any offense the opponent throws at you. Teach them what they will see but also teach them their keys to strike and assignments which, will give them an idea of what they will see from the offensive side and aligns our packages to take away their strengths.
Believe in yourself, the coaches, and your teammates then you can be successful and develop into a powerhouse. Buy into the program and we will be successful. Don’t cheat yourself or your teammates.
Running a Football Program is more than just an August-October responsibility. As a Head Coach each season starts immediately after the previous season ends. This begins with sending out all of our equipment to be reconditioned. Then, as a staff we get together, while the season is fresh in our mind and fill out player and staff evaluations. Once this is done we then schedule player meetings to go over their evaluations and what they need to focus on to improve for the next season.
Starting in December begin your winter lifting and agility program. During this time as an example lift and condition Monday, Wednesday, and Thursdays after school. After the sessions on Mondays we chalk talk our defense. On Wednesdays we have our leadership/values sessions. On Thursdays have your offensive chalk talk sessions. As coaches we hit the clinics February – April. During this time use the clinics as a time to get
together as a staff and discuss what you have learned and possibilities of new schemes or plays to be implemented also, use clinics to learn about what other teams are doing and how to possible stop or beat it.
Must believe that to be a truly successful coach you have to have a plan and a desire to develop the “whole person” in your athletes. You might subscribe to the belief that winning is the byproduct of developing habits of excellence in all areas of our lives. The installation of a comprehensive plan that focuses on developing these habits in everyone involved in my football program is a primary focus of my coaching plan. Simply put, my team will be pursuers of excellence in all areas of their lives. This will be the criteria that I will judge success by. Success in areas including academics, graduation rate, community involvement, campus leadership, personal faith development, athletic progress and accomplishment of team goals, will all be a part of our mission statement and rubric for the evaluation of success.
Season Scheme or Slogan:
In order for student athletes to reach their full potential on and off the field, there are many components to a football program. A successful program isn’t just determined by wins and losses. The athletes must reach their potential in the classroom, as well. As a way to promote success in the areas of academics and football, I have created a year-long plan to support the athletes in reaching their goals. The 4 phases correlates into the respective seasons of the year with an emphasis on the attributes to this end.
Consider if you don’t already have in your program a Leadership Academy to foster the growth of your program’s athletes through participation in character building activities. The success of your football players in life, will greatly depend on your athletes’ ability to overcome adversity independently, as well as together. Monthly themes will assist in supporting the ideas of leadership that promote success on and off the field.
Student athletes will learn to lead by example! Coaches will continue to meet during the off-season weekly, usually after a weight-lifting session. This is an important time to study new offensive and defensive schemes. Coaches will develop team goals and be assigned their new roles for the upcoming season. This is an important time for coaches. The athletes will be doing team building exercises, and the coaches will continue to develop a good rapport with one another through their weekly meetings, as well.
Running a Football Program is more than just an August-October responsibility. As a Head Coach each season starts immediately after the previous season ends. This begins with sending out all of our equipment to be reconditioned. Then, as a staff we get together, while the season is fresh in our mind and fill out player and staff evaluations. Once this is done we then schedule player meetings to go over their evaluations and what they need to focus on to improve for the next season.
About the Author of this post:
Jerry Campbell has over 30 years of high school and college coaching experience. He has experience as a head coach, offensive coordinator, and various position coaches. He has written numerous football coaching articles in various publications, is the author of over 30 books on coaching football, and has produced 12 coaching video series. Additionally, he is a nationally sought after speaker on the coaching clinic circuit.