Posted by: @mahonz

When I coached HS ball in Phoenix we ran the Wing T and used the ME YOU ROCK system. A few years later Coach Ahren mentioned this system in his 2000 SW Conclave presentation. He ran the SW at some HS in Michigan. So a few years later running the SW at MT I used it and it worked great. 

Then I delved into ZONE and stopped pulling. That season you speak of I was introducing the ME YOU ROCK system which is nearly identical to your Twizzler but it was more of a Piggy Back Pin and Pull Zone type thing that me and Michael were experimenting with. I think the problem was I had forgotten how to teach the communications required so it went off to the shredder fairly quick after I nuked the kids brains.  

Then I went full blown down the Block Somebody Mega Splits path that NEVER even G blocked. Then you showed up and perfected the system making it your own. Im still not sure why you are going back to a VERY VERY VERY expensive teach. But Im rooting for you because its a solid scheme and you bore as easily as I do. ?

Remember...every single blessed time we both thought....oh....this will be easy....its not. Like...way not. I think this idea will start an electrical fire in Dunn's helmet. ? So play him on Defense. 

Yes, I remember, ME YOU ROCK. The problem was identifying who and when. The nuclear explosion is what took place in my head. For Garrett, Chuck and the players, it was more like the sound you get when you hold a seashell to your ear. ? 

I'm only going to use this in our ISO series.  ISO was a success for us because we had 4 opponents in a row that left our guard and/or tackle uncovered. No brainer.  I still have a lot of doodling to do so I can see where it will and won't work. Then, if I can't come up with a simple rule, I'll trash it and move on. The cool thing is that I'll have Spring to play around with it.

Dunn's a different player now. 

Our plans for the upcoming season is to get better at we do. So we set up a clinic with Dave potter to come to south Fl February 23-24. This will be our third time meeting with Dave. He never says no, even though we switched to murphy gun. I know he still love the traditional DW. Honestly I was really worried about switching to 100% gun, had no choice the boss said we are switching so we do. And honestly we were a lot better (this year anyway). 

Another thing I did is I sent all my offensive film to Dave to look at. He broke down the first two game called me and my son three way and went over ever play. He want to do it ever week two games at a time. I asked him to be as critical and honest as possible, we all know Dave has no issue telling the truth. And he did. Hard to believe there are people that live 1000 miles away is willing to help coaches like us get better for  basically nothing. Dave is one of a kind. And if you are a double wing coach your crazy not to reach out to him. Just want to say thanks again Dave !!! See you in February. 

Ps. Everyone is welcome , just need to know in advance 

Bill 

Posted by: @bill03

Our plans for the upcoming season is to get better at we do. So we set up a clinic with Dave potter to come to south Fl February 23-24. This will be our third time meeting with Dave. He never says no, even though we switched to murphy gun. I know he still love the traditional DW. Honestly I was really worried about switching to 100% gun, had no choice the boss said we are switching so we do. And honestly we were a lot better (this year anyway). 

Another thing I did is I sent all my offensive film to Dave to look at. He broke down the first two game called me and my son three way and went over ever play. He want to do it ever week two games at a time. I asked him to be as critical and honest as possible, we all know Dave has no issue telling the truth. And he did. Hard to believe there are people that live 1000 miles away is willing to help coaches like us get better for  basically nothing. Dave is one of a kind. And if you are a double wing coach your crazy not to reach out to him. Just want to say thanks again Dave !!! See you in February. 

Ps. Everyone is welcome , just need to know in advance 

Bill 

Not to speak for Dave, but we had a chat about a month ago and he said he was really intrigued by the Murphy Gun Wing. He has always been generous with his time and expertise. 

Posted by: @bill03

Another thing I did is I sent all my offensive film to Dave to look at. He broke down the first two game called me and my son three way and went over ever play. He want to do it ever week two games at a time. I asked him to be as critical and honest as possible, we all know Dave has no issue telling the truth. And he did. Hard to believe there are people that live 1000 miles away is willing to help coaches like us get better for  basically nothing. Dave is one of a kind. And if you are a double wing coach your crazy not to reach out to him. Just want to say thanks again Dave !!! See you in February.

Bill, I'm still going through your other games; but I'm having to split time with another DW coach.  A high school header here in NC actually coaches the Double Wing (I had no idea).  They just installed it last year.  The coach reached out to me and asked to if we could talk some DW football and said he was willing to drive to me. His school is a little over an hour away, so I said sure.  He asked me to break down his Hudl film and sent his entire season to me.  He also asked if he could come back to my house and bring his offensive line coach with him.  He also asked if I would attend their Spring practice to take a look at what they do.  So I agreed to all that (not having anything else to do except putter around the house fixing things).  So I'm still going through film and also looking forward to seeing you guys at the end of February.

--Dave

@coachdp 

No problem at all coach. I wouldn’t expect anything other then what your doing to help that coach up there. I know you are enjoying it too. I’ll see you soon, and would like to talk about that high school coaches progress also.

Bill 

@coachdp 

No problem at all coach. I wouldn’t expect anything other then what your doing to help that coach up there. I know you are enjoying it too. I’ll see you soon, and would like to talk about that high school coaches progress also.

Bill 

Spring tackle is a no go. 2 of us HC's who were hoping to combine teams combed the state for a league. The best hope was AAU, who has had a Spring Tackle league for several years. In November, he replied to an email: "Yes, we are having Spring Tackle. I will have details on our FB page in the next week or so."  Haven't heard from him since despite numerous emails, phone calls and FB messages. Oh well.

We looked into several other Spring leagues. One was 90 minutes away and is a municipal parks and recs league. Another said they will take our players, but will not allow anyone to form teams. So our kids would be scattered to whatever team. Another is 9v9 "hybrid", which is basically touch football with helmets and shoulder pads. The last one is run by the Denver Broncos and is for 7th and 8th grade students only.

So, we sent out an email to our respective families saying that we would prefer to not do Flex, but if there were enough kids who wanted to play, we'd coach them.  Focus will be on fun and learning. If a DT wants to play QB, we will teach him to play QB and make sure he gets some game reps. So far, we have 7 kids interested between the 2 teams. We need at least a dozen and would max out at 16.

So now Flex is in doubt. The guy I'm supposed to be coaching with (and who has 7-8 kids interested) has gone incommunicado. Very unlike him and I'm actually quite worried. I've reached out to him via FB, text, email and phone and even sent his wife a FB message. Haven't heard from him for a solid week.

He just called me back. He lost his phone in the snow . . . for a week.

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

He just called me back. He lost his phone in the snow . . . for a week.

Then ask him to explain not responding to email.

--Dave

Had our first Flex practice tonight. 45 degrees and raining, but had fun. It was good to be out.  7 out of 12 kids in attendance. 2 of mine were missing. One told me ahead of time. The other was a no show. 3 of my buddy's kids were no shows.

Introduced the passing tree and worked with the 3 kids who said they want to try QB. 45 minutes on Offense. Then turned it over to my buddy for defense. Cancelled tomorrow's practice because a Winter storm arrived.

Scrimmaged a younger team last week. Defense was great. Running game was great when we could remember the plays. Passing game needs work.

Games were supposed to start 4/1, but got an email from the commish that everything is getting pushed back a week. He said he has to make sure that a few of the teams are "legit" (they have enough players and they are actually going to play). Not a good sign because there are currently 4 teams in our local area in our age group. There is another area 45 minutes away, but they only have 3 teams in our age group.

TBH, they had tons of teams/players last year, but they put out a crap product. Mahonz and I told them how we thought they could improve things, but they make excuses and justify their questionable decisions.

#1 problem: 2 hand touch is too subjective. Game-changing blown calls make the games a joke. We suggested they go to flag. Their response:

"The whole concept of the game is based on a college or pro practice before a game.  It was designed by ex-pro players.  In college we wore "skeletons" which were the same general soft pads.  The idea is full speed, limited contact to avoid injury.  There are no plans to go to the flags.  That would take the defenders eyes off the offensive player and screw up fundamentals."

#2 problem: tons of "special" rules that require considerable practice and planning. On game day, refs don't know the rules, or don't agree with them, or don't enforce them, or league decides on the fly to ignore/cancel some of them. Example: "All fumbles are dead balls". Other team fumbles on 4th down. As defense is leaving the field, QB picks up the ball and throws it into the endzone. Ref says it's his judgement call. He'll blow it dead if it's a safety issue. We recommend that their field monitors are present during the pre-game ref meeting so that coaches can get clarification on the "special rules". Their response, "This is meant to be about fun. Also, many of our refs are learning their craft, so please be patient with them."

Plenty of other gripes, but those are the 2 big ones. Result:  Our club fielded 3 teams last season in our age group with around 65 players. This year, we had to scrape and beg to get 14 for a single team.

Scrimmaged the younger team again last night. Passing offense was night and day. I worked with 5 QBs this week and taught them all the 3 step drop by the numbers. This fixed 80% of the timing and accuracy problems. Receivers are starting to understand the timing as well. Ran about 10 plays that we have never practiced before using the "LEGO" system. About 6 of them worked. 3 of them worked very well. This will improve as the season goes on and I keep throwing "surprises" at them.

Got animated at one point when we tried to run the double reverse. This is actually a play that we worked on. First try, QB was lost. 2nd, WR (guy eventually getting the ball) was lost. 3rd try, QB gave the ball to the wrong guy. 4th try, WB was lost. What set me off was that I decided to run the reverse, then called the formation. WR (guy getting the ball) asks, "Ooh! Can I play QB?". So I knew he wasn't focused on the task at hand. After the 4th disaster, I pulled the offense together and explained, "We are going to run this again. The defense 100% knows we are going to run this again and it is STILL going to work. Now, imagine how well it would work if we could execute it on the FIRST try. You all want to learn different positions and I am committed to teaching those positions. I need you all to be committed to learning those positions. Each of you must be focused on every. Single. Play." Then we ran it and got about 10 yards.

Earlier in the week, my Co-HC in charge of defense told me he was thinking about going to strict man coverage. I pulled a Potter on him and asked him a series of "why" questions. At the end of it, he decided to stick to zone and better define the alignments and zone responsibilities. Defense worked as designed . . . keep everything inside and in front of you. Give up the "deke and dunk" short stuff because we believe few teams will have the patience or ability to string together a long drive. I think every 6th pass is an INT and last night, I was pretty close on that prediction. We gave up a lot in the flats because OLB is a tough one to teach and we allow anyone to jump in and play it. I invited the other HC to move the OLBs wider by 3 steps and rep the heck out of quick outs, swing passes and screens.

All 5 QBs had some opportunities and all had success. Just about everybody got the ball. Everyone seems to be having fun. Let's hope the league doesn't crap the bed.

Posted by: @gumby_in_co

Earlier in the week, my Co-HC in charge of defense told me he was thinking about going to strict man coverage. I pulled a Potter on him and asked him a series of "why" questions. At the end of it, he decided to stick to zone and better define the alignments and zone responsibilities.

So what was his reason for considering man coverage?  And why did he decide to stay with zone?

--Dave

@coachdp That was my first "Why". He said that the kids seemed confused about zone and that "you cover this guy" is more simple. I offered the following observations on man coverage:

1) While "cover this guy" is a simple concept, if you ask 5 different kids which guy they should cover, without direction, you will get 5 different answers.

2) you are potentially trading "I understand who I am supposed to cover" for "I am not able to cover him"

3) you are losing some degree of run support. While there is more passing in flex than tackle, teams still tend to be much better at running than passing

Then, I offered these observations on our implementation of zone:

1) We have not explained alignment to them

2) We have not defined the zones to them

3) It was still very effective in our scrimmage

So I suggested we spend half of a practice teaching alignment and assignment and he agreed that would be better.

In our first scrimmage vs the younger team, we were so dominant that I told the 2 defensive linemen to drop into coverage rather than rush. We were proving nothing by sacking the QB on every play.  In the second scrimmage, they had improved their blocking and implemented a quick out by the back as a check down for their mobile QB, so I didn't call off the DL. They completed quite a few passes to their check down back in the flats, but between drops, bad throws, sacks and bad snaps they could not sustain any kind of drive. I expect this of most opponents and this is why I recommended a "keep everything in front of us and contain" defensive philosophy. If we can eliminate the big plays, I do not believe the flex teams we play against can string together enough successful plays to score.