Coach ,

When I was growing up, TVs were a small box and in order to get a clear picture at times, you had to turn the knobs and dials to fine-tune the picture.

Today we have 4k ultra HD TVs that auto-tune themselves for the best picture.  

Unfortunately, our offenses, defenses, and special teams work more like that old box. We have to make adjustments to refine them and bring them into high definition.

That’s what the focus is this week for our adjustments. After another weekend of football, I have identified some adjustments every team can make to fine-tune execution.

Offense 

Let’s start with the offensive side of the ball. After watching a Friday night high school game, one team, in particular, struggled to get their passing game going and two issues became very clear.

First they did not have an outlet for the quarterback.  We will get into tendencies in a couple weeks, but the main issue is this team only looked to pass on 2nd and long or third down. The defense did a nice job with their coverage and the quarterback was left without an option and ended up forcing the ball into coverage often.

The first thing I suggest if this is an issue is to install an operating system for your quarterback. Ideally, this would have been done already, but it gives your quarterback and the coach the ability to see things and communicate as to where the ball should be going.

Secondly, the routes should have some kind of outlet or check down.  Many times the offense was in a seven-man protection and it wasn’t necessary because the defense was bringing five. The QB had deep routes and nothing else as an option. Check down can be built into every route.

A solution to these issues is implementing something like Dan Gonzalez’s “A.C.T.S” operating system. He explains it here:

The third issue was the quarterback in this situation had no escape plan. He started running toward the sideline and condensing the field.  

If you look at any protection, there is a natural gap for the quarterback to escape, and being able to move up in the pocket is critical. This should be worked weekly to engrain in the quarterback how he should leave the pocket. Of course, there will be reactions as he does that, but it gives him a place to start as to where and when to get out of the pocket.

Two coaches address this. First Jake Peetz, OC at LSU shares a drill and game examples about moving up in the pocket:

Next, Mike Yurcich, OC at Penn State shares his philosophy on how they train this in practice including doing it in live team pass:

Ian Shoemaker, OC at Eastern Washington gives his QB’s six positive things that the QB can do in order to react to pressure:

Defense

On the defensive side of the ball, I saw another team who seemed to have a more defined escape plan for their quarterback, and throughout the game he was able to leave the pocket and gain big yards and move the chains.

One answer is to have a good contain rush and utilize a “rat” or a “spy” on the quarterback.  If you're breaking down and seeing a quarterback running for big yards on drop-back plays, you may want to implement this strategy into your game plan.

For Branden Jakubcin, defensive coordinator at Heidelberg University, Cover 1 Spy is their go-to call on money downs.  He explains it here:

Nick Davis, defensive coordinator at Ottawa University gives an example of his 2-Man Spy here:

Next, we talked last week about utilizing 3 man surfaces to defeat the tite front on offense. I’ve seen a lot of this in the first two weeks already. Baylor Head Coach Dave Aranda gives his adjustment to the three-man surface here:

Special Teams

On special teams, I saw a couple opportunities for one team who was able to get a rush on the punter and get close but just miss a block twice with the defender running through with both hands extended for the ball.

Brian Mason, special teams coordinator at Cincinnati likes teaching players to get long with one hand. The principle that one hand is longer than two applies here. This technique is something that Coach Mason drills the Bearcats on and he explains it here in their “block party” drill:

Early season look for those opportunities within all of your schemes and techniques to better define things for your players in order to refine your execution.  This is where you can begin to make some big gains by making small changes. These will pay off as the season progresses.

Always be growing!

Coach Grabowski

PS:

Here’s a link to last week’s adjustments insight