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Post by coachphillip on Aug 12, 2014 8:28:05 GMT -6
I understand you met with the HC and got some things resolved. But, if he wants the OL to be aggressive and fire off the ball then he/you need to find a way to simplify the rules for your kids. You can't be aggressive when you don't know who you're supposed to block while the ball is being snapped. Are your guys confused about who to block completely? If you ask them with the defense lined up in front of them, can they tell you who they have? If not, they're never going to be able to fire off aggressively on anyone.
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Post by blb on Aug 12, 2014 18:53:11 GMT -6
Your linemen need to be able to tell you when asked, word for word as written in playbook, what their rule is on any given play.
If they can't, you will have problems.
Doesn't matter what drills you do and how much of an "offensive genius" HC is.
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Post by runitupthemiddle on Aug 15, 2014 21:22:54 GMT -6
Ironman That sounds like what we used to do
Now I have a question? What does read,give etc etc mean for the play? I know you said they are all traps But we when ran trap it was 33 trap, 43 trap, 23 trap, 73 trap all of these were blocked exactly the same only think different was the formation and some Possible motion, but all Blocked the same. And how come your head guy didnt just tag "gun" to the formation if he wanted 2 pt stance. ?
I do agree with everyone else, coachem up , come up With some simple rules and start sending that résumé out during Christmas break
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Post by shocktroop34 on Aug 15, 2014 23:48:25 GMT -6
You can't be aggressive when you don't know who you're supposed to block while the ball is being snapped. Are your guys confused about who to block completely? If you ask them with the defense lined up in front of them, can they tell you who they have? If not, they're never going to be able to fire off aggressively on anyone. Darryl Royal, the legendary coach from the University of Texas (back in the 60's) said, "You can't be aggressive and confused at the same time."
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Post by shocktroop34 on Aug 18, 2014 14:51:52 GMT -6
You can't be confused and aggressive at the same time.
I think I had the words backwards, but you get the drift.
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Post by bluedevil58 on Aug 20, 2014 22:28:00 GMT -6
Just to update the thread...
The future HC continues to jump in, even though we supposedly had an understanding. He's started installing new plays offensively using his old terminology and schemes from the MS, which is quite a bit different from ours. Every new play has a whole new blocking scheme, many of which are not sound vs. different fronts, and he has also started installing some stuff he ran when he played in HS that uses a third set of terminology. So now we're running 3 different offenses that are each called differently. He goes off on me and the players I coach when they screw up his stuff.
It's like the talk we had the other day never happened.
I told our HC the other day that I just can't coach this successfully because there are contradictions everywhere and no overlapping rules I can tell my guys to keep things consistent for them. He just quietly nodded but said nothing and did nothing. We still don't have a real pass protection scheme in after I begged for one and showed him how we could install it and drill it.
It's gotten to the point where a couple of our best linemen are now threatening to quit if they have to start on offense because they hate it so much. The rest of the team's taken this attitude that our OL (and me, their coach) are stupid and holding us back.
On a positive note, we have shelved all of our traps, so at least that's not throwing us off anymore. And we looked pretty good at pass protection in our last scrimmage because we won our one on one matchups, but any time the opponents blitzed it killed us.
We have 11 weeks ahead of us with 10 games. I'm going to finish out the season to keep my teaching job. Then I'm gone after this year. I can't take this anymore.
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Post by utchuckd on Aug 21, 2014 7:07:40 GMT -6
Welp, either jump his ass and clear the air, or sit there and take it. You're in a no win situation, either fight for your OL or let this {censored} scapegoat you and them.
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Post by msirishman on Aug 21, 2014 7:38:07 GMT -6
I'd probably get fired if I was in your situation. I'm not going to let another coach, who isn't the HC, berate my position players. We'd have some type of altercation.
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Post by fantom on Aug 21, 2014 7:47:55 GMT -6
Just to update the thread... The future HC continues to jump in, even though we supposedly had an understanding. He's started installing new plays offensively using his old terminology and schemes from the MS, which is quite a bit different from ours. Every new play has a whole new blocking scheme, many of which are not sound vs. different fronts, and he has also started installing some stuff he ran when he played in HS that uses a third set of terminology. So now we're running 3 different offenses that are each called differently. He goes off on me and the players I coach when they screw up his stuff. Let me get this straight: The DC is the future HC, not the HC now. You do not coach defense so he's not your boss. You do not plan to coach there next year so he will not be your boss. Your actual boss has given you your instructions. So, what possible reason would you have for caring what the DC says? You're going to have to stand up for yourself- behind closed doors, of course- and tell him that you don't work for him and won't take orders from him. If that sounds too confrontational, actually I toned it down quite a bit. My first impulse was to tell him something along the lines of, "Get the phok back there and coach your own phoking position and let me coach mine. You're not my phoking boss".
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Post by larrymoe on Aug 21, 2014 8:33:52 GMT -6
I'd have a really hard time telling him to not get bent right then and there.
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Post by bluedevil58 on Aug 21, 2014 8:42:35 GMT -6
Behind closed doors, when I confront him about this stuff, he just blows it off and ignores me or runs off to do something else. He takes off as soon as practice ends and I never get to see him where there aren't players just outside the door. Short of cornering the guy and punching him in the face, I don't know what else I can do.
We have, unfortunately, had a bunch of words on the practice field in front of players now, which I've tried to avoid but I got sick of him jumping my players for doing what we'd agreed to coach them to do.
For example, the other day he took a play we'd been running and redefined "zone" as double teaming the 2 DTs and leaving the DEs and LBs unblocked, but just on the one play. I quietly told him that's not we agreed on and he said that's how we were going to do it now. So I quietly asked him questions like "what if there aren't 2 DL inside to double?" He started screaming about how he's done it this way for years at the MS and it always worked so I needed to shut up because I didn't know what I was doing. This was during team in front of players. I dug in and said that it wasn't what we'd agreed to do in our system. He yelled back. I yelled back. Nothing got resolved. HC sided with him because it was "his play" and had worked twice in our last scrimmage against a piss poor team.
He thinks he's HC now and our HC has dictated a lot of responsibilities to him, though he's not officially HC. He's very tight with our actual HC, who again, is the principal I work directly under in the classroom. I also do work under this guy as DL coach. We're only a 5 man staff so everyone but him has an assigned position on both sides. Even the HC coaches DBs.
I don't know what else I can do short of quitting my job, getting fired for cornering the guy and throwing punches, or just swallow my pride and take it so I survive.
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Post by Coach Huey on Aug 21, 2014 8:57:49 GMT -6
go overboard the other way. have him make your practice plan. he will write it out exactly like he wants you to do it. if he doesn't write anything then you have nothing to do, so simply have them stay on the boards or whatever it was he wanted done - for the entire practice.
basically, overload him with duties, have him "coach" you on how to "coach" the OL. why waste energy on your part. throw down the gauntlet and "relent" by saying, "i get it, you know the way it should be done. please tell me EXACTLY what i am supposed to be doing today each segment of practice so I can teach this wonderfully successful MS system to a bunch of VARSITY athletes."
lose no more sleep over it. do as little as possible of your own coaching. pass the buck, put it on them - they're already doing that. if they tire of it and fire you... YOU WIN. when it goes badly - it will - then it isn't on you because you were following their "lesson plans" exactly because they wrote them up. you are merely following the prescribed plans.
moral is - if they've removed your legs, why bother trying to walk the walk for them? kill 'em with kindness, have them lay out the plan, you simply follow the recipe. either way, the results are going to be disastrous.
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Post by larrymoe on Aug 21, 2014 9:04:54 GMT -6
I agree with you Huey, but I wouldn't kill them with kindness.
I'd just kill them.
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Post by fantom on Aug 21, 2014 9:39:48 GMT -6
Behind closed doors, when I confront him about this stuff, he just blows it off and ignores me or runs off to do something else. He takes off as soon as practice ends and I never get to see him where there aren't players just outside the door. Short of cornering the guy and punching him in the face, I don't know what else I can do. We have, unfortunately, had a bunch of words on the practice field in front of players now, which I've tried to avoid but I got sick of him jumping my players for doing what we'd agreed to coach them to do. For example, the other day he took a play we'd been running and redefined "zone" as double teaming the 2 DTs and leaving the DEs and LBs unblocked, but just on the one play. I quietly told him that's not we agreed on and he said that's how we were going to do it now. So I quietly asked him questions like "what if there aren't 2 DL inside to double?" He started screaming about how he's done it this way for years at the MS and it always worked so I needed to shut up because I didn't know what I was doing. This was during team in front of players. I dug in and said that it wasn't what we'd agreed to do in our system. He yelled back. I yelled back. Nothing got resolved. HC sided with him because it was "his play" and had worked twice in our last scrimmage against a piss poor team. He thinks he's HC now and our HC has dictated a lot of responsibilities to him, though he's not officially HC. He's very tight with our actual HC, who again, is the principal I work directly under in the classroom. I also do work under this guy as DL coach. We're only a 5 man staff so everyone but him has an assigned position on both sides. Even the HC coaches DBs. I don't know what else I can do short of quitting my job, getting fired for cornering the guy and throwing punches, or just swallow my pride and take it so I survive. The more I hear, the more I'm reminded me of this:
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2014 16:18:25 GMT -6
Hold your temper and get out after the season.
I've worked in a similar program. It's not fun. The problems in some places have nothing to do with the kids and everything to do with decisions made behind the scenes. It sounds like you're in one of those.
Finish the year and leave. Learn what positives you can, even if it doesn't seem like much to learn, then move on.
It sounds like the craziness you're dealing with has forced you to grow as a coach over the course of this thread. Hold onto that when things look bleak and take it with you.
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Post by jasper912 on Aug 22, 2014 8:40:34 GMT -6
go overboard the other way. have him make your practice plan. he will write it out exactly like he wants you to do it. if he doesn't write anything then you have nothing to do, so simply have them stay on the boards or whatever it was he wanted done - for the entire practice. basically, overload him with duties, have him "coach" you on how to "coach" the OL. why waste energy on your part. throw down the gauntlet and "relent" by saying, "i get it, you know the way it should be done. please tell me EXACTLY what i am supposed to be doing today each segment of practice so I can teach this wonderfully successful MS system to a bunch of VARSITY athletes." lose no more sleep over it. do as little as possible of your own coaching. pass the buck, put it on them - they're already doing that. if they tire of it and fire you... YOU WIN. when it goes badly - it will - then it isn't on you because you were following their "lesson plans" exactly because they wrote them up. you are merely following the prescribed plans. moral is - if they've removed your legs, why bother trying to walk the walk for them? kill 'em with kindness, have them lay out the plan, you simply follow the recipe. either way, the results are going to be disastrous. IMO, this is the best advice in the whole thread. Originally, I was getting mad for you and the kids. I think you should take this advice and have him plan out the entire practice for you. Only thing I would NOT allow is him to yell at your kids. That makes me more upset than any thing else. If someone wants to jump on to me, then thats fine, but I'm not going to let someone jump onto the kids I'm in charge of.
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Post by msirishman on Aug 22, 2014 12:44:56 GMT -6
go overboard the other way. have him make your practice plan. he will write it out exactly like he wants you to do it. if he doesn't write anything then you have nothing to do, so simply have them stay on the boards or whatever it was he wanted done - for the entire practice. basically, overload him with duties, have him "coach" you on how to "coach" the OL. why waste energy on your part. throw down the gauntlet and "relent" by saying, "i get it, you know the way it should be done. please tell me EXACTLY what i am supposed to be doing today each segment of practice so I can teach this wonderfully successful MS system to a bunch of VARSITY athletes." lose no more sleep over it. do as little as possible of your own coaching. pass the buck, put it on them - they're already doing that. if they tire of it and fire you... YOU WIN. when it goes badly - it will - then it isn't on you because you were following their "lesson plans" exactly because they wrote them up. you are merely following the prescribed plans. moral is - if they've removed your legs, why bother trying to walk the walk for them? kill 'em with kindness, have them lay out the plan, you simply follow the recipe. either way, the results are going to be disastrous. IMO, this is the best advice in the whole thread. Originally, I was getting mad for you and the kids. I think you should take this advice and have him plan out the entire practice for you. Only thing I would NOT allow is him to yell at your kids. That makes me more upset than any thing else. If someone wants to jump on to me, then thats fine, but I'm not going to let someone jump onto the kids I'm in charge of. You're probably right, it is the best advice. But, then he wouldn't get the satisfaction of going postal on the guy.
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Post by windigo on Aug 22, 2014 13:54:28 GMT -6
For run blocking assignment, steps, fit, drive. Pass blocking assignment, steps, fit, obstruct.
It seems to me that your HC is a dumbass. Your EDDs have absolutely nothing for assignment, and fit. Of course your guys aren't blocking. They don't know who to block and they don't know how to sustain their block.
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Post by bleefb on Aug 23, 2014 21:44:19 GMT -6
If you've had good evaluations in the past, it would be pretty obvious that any bad evaluations you get this year would be punitive. You mentioned your union rep. Have you spoken to him/her yet? You need to walk away from this craziness and take whatever avenues that are available to you to protect your real job, but you will not survive the next three months emotionally if you stay. Wait until the losing starts, and it will. That can blow things up between people even with good staffs. I can imagine what the Middle School coah will do when that happens. You know, I helped out a buddy a couple years ago and was the OC on the JV team, just for fun and to mentor some young coaches, including the JV Head Coach, who had a total of 4 years of coaching total among them. (It was my 32nd year of coaching) Without sounding like Clint Eastwood "Get Off My Lawn!" I found out very quickly that they already knew everything. One guy kept bringing me new plays each week because they always "worked for him when he played Madden." Our DC, who was a first year coach, changed our defense every week to completely different schemes, and our Head Coach would be on his cell phone for most of practice except when he played Scout QB. Needless to say, it didn't go well, and certainly wasn't much "fun." It sounds like your Middle School coach is from the same school.
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Post by bluedevil58 on Sept 9, 2014 20:56:36 GMT -6
go overboard the other way. have him make your practice plan. he will write it out exactly like he wants you to do it. if he doesn't write anything then you have nothing to do, so simply have them stay on the boards or whatever it was he wanted done - for the entire practice. basically, overload him with duties, have him "coach" you on how to "coach" the OL. why waste energy on your part. throw down the gauntlet and "relent" by saying, "i get it, you know the way it should be done. please tell me EXACTLY what i am supposed to be doing today each segment of practice so I can teach this wonderfully successful MS system to a bunch of VARSITY athletes." lose no more sleep over it. do as little as possible of your own coaching. pass the buck, put it on them - they're already doing that. if they tire of it and fire you... YOU WIN. when it goes badly - it will - then it isn't on you because you were following their "lesson plans" exactly because they wrote them up. you are merely following the prescribed plans. moral is - if they've removed your legs, why bother trying to walk the walk for them? kill 'em with kindness, have them lay out the plan, you simply follow the recipe. either way, the results are going to be disastrous. Coach, I thank you for this advice. It's exactly what I've been doing for the past couple of weeks. My role in practice now is to take our OL, put them through some sled drills, bag drills, footwork drills, and tennis ball drills, then send them to team where they can run plays on air with the HC and future HC for an hour. We haven't lined up and ran any drills to block a live person in 2 weeks. We keep adding new plays and new blocking schemes that we run on air all week, then we get to a game and the OL doesn't know who or how to block any of it so I get yelled at. I pointed out they're doing exactly what we practiced: standing around and not hitting anyone. That didn't go over well, but it was the truth. We're 0-2 now after playing a pair of pathetic football teams everyone assumed we'd blow out. We couldn't block a soul. The OL and our QB (who has no reads besides "find the open man") have struggled and those kids have been blamed for our losses. We've scored a total of 24 points in 2 ballgames, 16 of which came on just two big plays by our WRs. On film in the last game, the OL couldn't even tell when to run or pass block. I got blamed for that, but I don't even know what plays we have in on offense anymore. I'm not even told about them. I hate coaching like this. I'm competitive and I want to win and do right by the kids so it sucks to be twiddling my thumbs while we're falling apart, but I don't know what else I can do here.
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Post by bluedevil58 on Sept 9, 2014 21:04:56 GMT -6
If you've had good evaluations in the past, it would be pretty obvious that any bad evaluations you get this year would be punitive. You mentioned your union rep. Have you spoken to him/her yet? You need to walk away from this craziness and take whatever avenues that are available to you to protect your real job, but you will not survive the next three months emotionally if you stay. Wait until the losing starts, and it will. That can blow things up between people even with good staffs. I can imagine what the Middle School coah will do when that happens. You know, I helped out a buddy a couple years ago and was the OC on the JV team, just for fun and to mentor some young coaches, including the JV Head Coach, who had a total of 4 years of coaching total among them. (It was my 32nd year of coaching) Without sounding like Clint Eastwood "Get Off My Lawn!" I found out very quickly that they already knew everything. One guy kept bringing me new plays each week because they always "worked for him when he played Madden." Our DC, who was a first year coach, changed our defense every week to completely different schemes, and our Head Coach would be on his cell phone for most of practice except when he played Scout QB. Needless to say, it didn't go well, and certainly wasn't much "fun." It sounds like your Middle School coach is from the same school. That sounds a lot like us. We're 0-2 now and got beat by a couple of teams we expected to blow out. Our defense had played pretty well so far, but this week we dumped our 3-4 and switched to a 3-5 because we play a spread team. Our offense right now is a bunch of formations with maybe 2 or 3 plays we run out of each one, but each play has a new blocking scheme. We've started flipping the OL according to the formation now. In some they flip and in some they don't, while in some we put the Ts at G and the Gs at T. It's a mess. The linemen don't even have a clear way of knowing when a play is a run or pass, unless it's a play action and we say "Pass" after the run play.
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Post by Coach Huey on Sept 10, 2014 6:25:03 GMT -6
go overboard the other way. have him make your practice plan. he will write it out exactly like he wants you to do it. if he doesn't write anything then you have nothing to do, so simply have them stay on the boards or whatever it was he wanted done - for the entire practice. basically, overload him with duties, have him "coach" you on how to "coach" the OL. why waste energy on your part. throw down the gauntlet and "relent" by saying, "i get it, you know the way it should be done. please tell me EXACTLY what i am supposed to be doing today each segment of practice so I can teach this wonderfully successful MS system to a bunch of VARSITY athletes." lose no more sleep over it. do as little as possible of your own coaching. pass the buck, put it on them - they're already doing that. if they tire of it and fire you... YOU WIN. when it goes badly - it will - then it isn't on you because you were following their "lesson plans" exactly because they wrote them up. you are merely following the prescribed plans. moral is - if they've removed your legs, why bother trying to walk the walk for them? kill 'em with kindness, have them lay out the plan, you simply follow the recipe. either way, the results are going to be disastrous. Coach, I thank you for this advice. It's exactly what I've been doing for the past couple of weeks. My role in practice now is to take our OL, put them through some sled drills, bag drills, footwork drills, and tennis ball drills, then send them to team where they can run plays on air with the HC and future HC for an hour. We haven't lined up and ran any drills to block a live person in 2 weeks. We keep adding new plays and new blocking schemes that we run on air all week, then we get to a game and the OL doesn't know who or how to block any of it so I get yelled at. I pointed out they're doing exactly what we practiced: standing around and not hitting anyone. That didn't go over well, but it was the truth. We're 0-2 now after playing a pair of pathetic football teams everyone assumed we'd blow out. We couldn't block a soul. The OL and our QB (who has no reads besides "find the open man") have struggled and those kids have been blamed for our losses. We've scored a total of 24 points in 2 ballgames, 16 of which came on just two big plays by our WRs. On film in the last game, the OL couldn't even tell when to run or pass block. I got blamed for that, but I don't even know what plays we have in on offense anymore. I'm not even told about them. I hate coaching like this. I'm competitive and I want to win and do right by the kids so it sucks to be twiddling my thumbs while we're falling apart, but I don't know what else I can do here. I can empathize with your situation. It isn't fun and the next couple of months will feel like forever and you're likely to "age" about 10 years in that time. However, things will get better as a new situation will arise in the future and this will serve as a learning experience that makes you a better coach and a better staff member. As for the getting yelled at ... simply ask them in the office to clarify the rules on blah, blah toss "because you're having trouble with the rules". Ask them if they could draw it up vs the 3-4 you're going to see and what they need you to tell the guard, the center, etc. Really stress that you want to do it exactly as they want it done so could they draw it up vs the 4-3, the strong slant, etc. and ask for the exact rule/wording you should be teaching each of the lineman. you really want to teach it the way they want it done and you just want to make sure... could they reteach you so you know you're on the same page. all you want to do is deflect the attention you're getting. call it deflecting the blame, but bottom line is you are just complying with doing things "how they want them done" so you will have the "out" of ... "well, I did it exactly like you told me... why are you yelling at me for that?" good luck.
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