Weekend Work

[bjohnson]

As a coordinator, how many hours do you spend on the weekend preparing for the next opponent? 

Also how much input do you allow your assistants to have in the game plan?  I know this might be difficult to quantify but do you just tell them "this is what we are doing" or do you have open discussions and listen to their thoughts and ideas?

[wolverine55]

We meet as a staff at 9 a.m. Sunday and this meeting lasts until noon or so. The reason I point that out is because the answer to your first question depends. Sometimes I leave that meeting feeling pretty good about things and sometimes I leave that meeting thinking, "Chit, I still have a ton of stuff to figure out." Depends on the scheme and talent level of the opponent.

With your second question, it also depends on the opponent but one of my assistants has been a defensive coordinator for a state championship team before. I always run ideas and thoughts by him. Sometimes, depending on his suggestions, the game plan we run is more his than mine but it all fits within our defensive system anyway.

I'll add that I'm responsible for doing my tackle stats. I do these on Saturday morning but then try to make the rest of Saturday a family day as my wife and I have a two-year-old and a one-year-old.  Watching college football together falls under the definition of family day, lol!

[spartan]

Open discussion seems to be inefficient. We have a system how do we apply the system to the opponent's defence. Your game planning is done in the spring and fall during install. If we have matchups in the front 7 that we like what runs from our system are we using vs their toads. Same in coverage how are we attacking.

Hell in 3 hour meeting we talk defense more then offense anyways

Meet 2-3 hours plus keep breakdown to min. Guys don't vary much and also you better be able to deal with change. Again that is fall camp where you rep plays vs different fronts and coverages.

[MICoach]

The days that I do things can vary between Saturday, Sunday, and (rarely) Friday night, and the order sometimes changes too...but here are some rough guesses from this past season.

- 1 hour just watching film, giving things the "eye test"
- 2 hours tagging - Hudl assist does most of it but I tag formation, play type, concept, personnel
- 0.5 hours running reports, reviewing them
- 1.5-2 hours meeting - we don't do a full staff meeting any more but I'll meet with my side of the ball most Sundays
- A few minutes on the phone with the head coach

I usually try to cut it at that and spend time with my wife the rest of the weekend. I do scout cards and watch special teams film on my lunch and prep period. I could delegate the scout card work but I just end up pissed off because they're not done "my way." Same for tagging.

In the coaches meeting we will watch some of our previous game and discuss game planning. We see a wide variety of offenses so oftentimes there are new things we need to address - run fits, adjustments to motion, checks, etc.

I usually have a running plan but am open to hearing from position coaches.

To be honest, I wish they gave me more input. They will agree with whatever I suggest most of the time, and if they have suggestions it's almost always the DL coach wanting to play four down linemen or the LB coach wanting to pack the box. DB coach doesn't usually have much of an opinion, just wants to be told what to rep. OLB coach doesn't say much but does a good job.

I worked on a staff in the past that would do a long meeting on Sunday - coaches would meet for a short while, then split O/D to watch the entire previous game and then scout film. We'd get all of the scout cards Monday and Tuesday done ahead of time, then the players would come in to watch the game film and lift. From a purely football standpoint I loved this. At my current school we're less likely to get good attendance on the weekend from both coaches and players. My wife also likes it better when I'm not gone for 6 hours on Sunday.

[fantom]

Dec 5, 2023 12:24:14 GMT -6 bjohnson said:

As a coordinator, how many hours do you spend on the weekend preparing for the next opponent? 

Also how much input do you allow your assistants to have in the game plan?  I know this might be difficult to quantify but do you just tell them "this is what we are doing" or do you have open discussions and listen to their thoughts and ideas?

This is just the way we worked based on the HC's, mine (DC), and other assistants;

We had a full staff meeting Sunday at 5 PM. I'd come in with a tentative game plan and so would the HC/OC. I'd watch film and put the game plan together between Saturday and Sunday on my own. I'd start, stop, do other stuff, then start again. We'd present the tentative plan at the meeting. After the meeting I'd go home, type up the final game plan, and put it on the boss's desk Monday AM. 

[cqmiller]

Me... probably 12 hours total including gameplanning, practice scripts, and everything.

Staff-wise we have 90 min of data entry and scouting on Saturday and then staff meeting Sunday night to get gameplan to coaches and practice scripted.

Staff votes on whether we are in-person or online. We tried combo once but it was a NIGHTMARE.

[realdawg]

I am the HC and the DC. So I spent quiet a bit of time on film on the weekends. Just on defense I would say.

Friday Night-an hour doing tackles and just kind of reviewing the film
Saturday-1-2 hours reviewing/grading our film from Friday night, kind of depends.
Then, I would estimate 3 hours breaking down our opponent-against depends on if I break down 2 or 3 films. First time through the film, I am watching and just tagging formation and play. Second time through tagging D and D and gain and some stuff like that. 3rd time through making my hit chart. As mentioned, game plan wise we usually dont have to do a ton. Your system takes care of most of it. But there is always a screwy formation or two that you have to figure out. I am usually just kind of thinking about it and formulating a plan in my head Saturday evening and Sunday morning. We meet as a D staff for 2-3 hours. I generall say here is what I am thinking. But I usually have somethings that I ask their opinion on, and even if I give them a certain aspect of the game plan, I ask what do ya'll think about that.

[hlb2]

I am similar to most on here. Saturday morning I typically enter in stats and then finish up any breakdown that needs to be done. I have people on my staff that work on the future opponent during the week so we are basically a week ahead at all times. They only enter in the simple stuff such as down, distance, ODK, yard line, hash, etc. I do have one guy that has gotten better at entering in the formation and strength, but he still needs work so I end up tagging all of that stuff. We enter A LOT of data, so some of the assistants have some delegated jobs. The DL coach enters in the protection and protection mods. The LB coach enters in the backfield and formation variations and the DB coach helps the LB coach with the formation variations. I do formation and play, gap, direction and any situational columns we have. By Saturday afternoon I start doing the reports and hit charts we use for our scouting report. My DL coach puts together our cover sheet for the report and the personnel sheet (height, weight, position, and any other pertinent data we can find on the internet such as 40 time, Rivals info, any offers they might have etc.). Saturday night to Sunday morning I pour over the data and watch the film of certain formations and plays etc. I moved to Coach Vint's method of breaking down opponents this past season and it was worth the $ spent on his methodology. Really streamlined our process and gives you a guideline for data acquisition and reports/cutups that need to be made. From that we generate the "Big 12" as he calls it (sometimes it's more or less than 12, but usually right around that) and that is what we work from on who/what we are going to defend that week.

Sunday we meet as a defensive staff usually around noon. That meeting can last from 2 until ?! hours depending on who we are facing, who we need to hide, who we need to exploit etc. From that meeting I generate the scout cards based on the Big 12, and the assistants all generate notes for their position group. The notes are usually just one page with the checks and change ups and pressures that we'll be using that week. From there, Sunday night I set the practice schedule and start working on the cutups. We do a Big 12 cutup, and we also do a "Good, Bad, Ugly" from Friday night. The GBU cutup is only about 10-15 clips we feel the kids can learn from mistakes or we show good technique/fundamentals etc. Sunday night I also ship over our game plan to the head coach and we usually talk over the phone about what each other is doing vs. our upcoming opponent and any injuy/discipline issues we might be facing (convo usually lasts about 15-30 min).

That takes me to Monday morning, where we have an athletic period with the football team for 1st period. In that time, the scouting reports and notes are delivered to the players. The game plan is reviewed with the players and then this is repeated in an afternoon meeting as well, but with film. Once that class is over with I finish the scout cards and the cutups and we come back and have a 15-20 min meeting before practice Monday and review the game plan. Monday after practice we meet again for about an hour with the players watching the GBU film, our O cutups, D cutups and special teams cutups as well. By that point everything is set and we rep the execution of the game plan the rest of the week.

I do a lot, and it takes a lot of time, but it is just me and my wife and she's fine with me putting the time into it, so that is not a big deal. I don't mind how much it takes, because I know it's for a good cause, and it is what I love to do anyways. I try to let coaches have free time on the weekends, so their portion of the breakdown is small.

I do ask that they have input. I tell every new coach, I do not want "yes men". There are several times where I come into Sunday with a plan, that gets changed by the end of our meeting. I respect the guys opinion's that I coach with very much. I also let them know, do not be offended if I do not use your suggestion. I also try to explain why I'm not using their suggestions when I do decide not to use them so there is a logic behind my decision. Saying "no we're not doing it that way" and leaving it open ended does not do a young coach any justice when comes to learning how to be a good coach or coordinator. Most of my guys have good input, some are out in left field sometimes but it's been a good system I've used now the past 5 years. I think having your guys have input gives them ownership of what transpires on Friday night. I've had good success doing it that way, and really good buy in from my coaches.

[cwaltsmith]

Hours vary. As far as input. I welcome all input and we have open discussions. HOWEVER, and that's a BIG however lol, input depends on dedication level and it has to be able to be tied to what we do. Had an asst once, he'd come in every Sunday with something he saw on tv that worked and said we should put it in. Or if team we were playing had trouble with something on films we got he'd say let's just do what they did regardless of what it was or how good they were. Drove me crazy. I am not against adding stuff but IMHO it has to be "worth the squeeze" and able to be tied into what we have done all year.

[blb]

Whether you're HC or coordinator, delegate as much as you can.

What got me out of coaching wasn't parents, Off-Season, or even winning-losing. It was all the weekend stuff I had to do because of my situation (had to do most of it myself). Just didn't want to do it anymore.

Also make sure whatever you're doing is useful. I didn't want to spend hours on D&D to know that in Run Situations they were going to run Iso, Power, or Sweep, and on Passing Situations they were going to pass. 

Besides how much does that help kids during the game? They're going to play the defense you call and react to what opponent does. I felt if they could get lined up correctly, read their keys properly, execute the defense called as near 100% possible we would have a chance.

I was more interested in plays they ran by formations (that also helped in drawing up scout cards), situations like GL, SY, formation into the SL, Gadgets, etc. Also if there were any tendencies by personnel especially substitutions.

From an offensive standpoint I wanted to get their "base" front-coverage(s) etc. but because we were a Veer team breaking them down vs. a Spread or T team wasn't going to do me a lot of good. We saw a lot of DOW ("Defense of the Week") anyway.

I would look to see if they had a Gorilla we needed to double, read, or avoid, or more importantly somebody we could attack run or pass (very few HS teams have DE/OLBers or CBs of equal ability for ex.).

The older I got the less I liked having meetings but I still felt it was important to meet as a staff on Sundays, if only for couple hours to go over game plan (to help Sub-Varsity teams too), watch opponent film, discuss any issues.

[echoofthewhistle]

Too much time personally and would love to delegate more and receive more input, but unfortunately this past season it was me and the WR coach were the only offensive focused coaches on the staff. The other coaches with offensive position were either the HC or defensive focused.

I'd probably spend 6 hours on film and breakdown on the weekend not including my position grading. Then we meet on Sunday for about 2-4 hours as a entire staff. However, we would split off which went quicker for us than the defense because we broke our stuff down ahead time so we could focus on scripting practice.

To be clear as others say find others to share the responsibilities, I was fairly spent by the end of the season.

[Defcord]

I work on and off for 12 hours on Saturday and about 4 hours on Sunday.

It's a ton of time, some would probably say too much but I actually enjoy that part of coaching. Some of what I can do I could probably cut out but I don't want to. I think a good assistant could probably get everything done in 4 hours or so depending on the opponent.

As a coordinator here is what I did on the weekends task wise:

*For Previous Game
-Defensive Stats from previous game
-General defensive notes for coaches at all position to make sure we were seeing the same things and speaking the same language (2-3 things by position to emphasize...about 15-20 plays total)
-Create position specific notes and share with players (I am noting out almost every play but ask assistant coaches to make a 10-15 play cutup for their groups)
-Create a Loaf Reel (high accountability and detailed)

*For next game
-Tag formations and play from previous game
-Scouting Report on opponent
-Our personnel
-Practice Script for Monday (formations and top plays to line up) and Tuesday (all group and team periods)

As far as input from assistants, I am all ears as long as they have put in the work. If they have 22 minutes of film done and want to throw random ideas at me when they come to the meeting, I am not listening to them. I am pretty up front about this. If they have watched film and have detailed and logical suggestions, I take them very seriously.

[bjohnson]

Saturday - Grade Friday night Film and do stats; Watch opponent Film. Assistant Coaches input information into hudl. (4-6 hours depending on our opponent)

Sunday - We meet with kids for an hour and half going over the previous game and giving them their grade sheets. Then as a staff we meet and have an open discussion on our next opponent, finalize game plan, make scout cards, script, practice plan, etc. (4-8 hours again depending on opponent).

[blb]

I never felt that "grading" game film helped very much.

They're our kids, they're all we've got. Can't trade them or pick up somebody else on the "waiver wire" like in NFL.

Plus it's very subjective.

If somebody is not getting it done, is the backup going to do it better?

If so, you made a bad decision on who should be playing to begin with.

That's the kind of the thing you do in college coaching to justify the money you make.

[MICoach]

Another thought on this topic - I think it helps a lot as the season goes on to have some consistent terminology between your offense and defense so that you can re-use some film. One big on if you use Hudl Assist is formation naming.

If our week 7 opponent already played our week 6 opponent, it can save a lot of time to have some consistent data already done for you.

[Defcord]

Dec 6, 2023 13:14:31 GMT -6 blb said:

I never felt that "grading" game film helped very much.

They're our kids, they're all we've got. Can't trade them or pick up somebody else on the "waiver wire" like in NFL.

Plus it's very subjective.

If somebody is not getting it done, is the backup going to do it better?

If so, you made a bad decision on who should be playing to begin with.

That's the kind of the thing you do in college coaching to justify the money you make.

I think the big thing in watching film is not so much the actual grade part of grading it. The feedback to the players is huge in improving their play because how they perceive things as they are playing versus how they actually performed is not always the same. Being able to give them and show them specific feedback makes a huge difference. 

The other thing with the film is that it helps the coach know what kids need to improve on. Even if there isn't another player next in line, by knowing the performance levels of players on specific tasks can help the coach decide on what drills to use and also sometimes what schemes to adjust so that we aren't asking a kid to try to execute something they are not capable of. 

Grading just to have a percentage never made sense to me. But grading for feedback has made a huge difference in the players I have coached. 

[blb]

You can certainly make corrections (and also praise good plays) without having to spend time giving each kid a grade on every play.

I told our kids we were watching game film in order to construct improved performances, that if we had to tell them every time they did something  well-right we would be there for hours. Plus we expected that of them.

So they shouldn't take criticism as personal.

Also that when I was talking to one player at any position, I was talking to all of them so that they could learn-get "mental" reps whether they were in the game or not.

In fact I rarely used a player's name. I would say "PST's first step needs to be more lateral" or whatever.

[Defcord]

Dec 6, 2023 14:05:33 GMT -6 blb said:

You can certainly make corrections (and also praise good plays) without having to spend time giving each kid a grade on every play.

I told our kids we were watching game film in order to construct improved performances, that if we had to tell them every time they did something  well-right we would be there for hours. Plus we expected that of them.

So they shouldn't take criticism as personal.

Also that when I was talking to one player at any position, I was talking to all of them so that they could learn-get "mental" reps whether they were in the game or not.

In fact I rarely used a player's name. I would say "PST's first step needs to be more lateral" or whatever.

You are spot on. For some reason I took your message as evaluating film more than grade film so I just read it wrong.

[hlb2]

I'm on the fence about grading. We give two grades for each play. An alignment, assignment and technique grade and a performance grade. Every play gets an AAT grade. Not every play gets a PG. PG is did you positively or negatively impact the play? If they had no bearing on the play, they don't get any value for PG. I mainly do it and get my coaches to submit it, so I 100% know they watched the film and also wrote notes/comments to their position group. Again, that's delegation because in the past I basically did it all without grading and made the comments myself. That would take 1/2 a Saturday easily and I don't have that kind of time. I think grading without context, is not good. That is why we have the coaches make comments, individually through Hudl's messenger function or via text. I agree with blb in that you don't call kids out, you lose some credibility there as a coach IMO. Am I guilty of it, hell yes, but I try my best not to. I feel the grading, with the comments, let's the players know where they stand.

Where grading has helped the most is when Jimmy and Johnny are very even players but Jimmy is slightly better than Johnny, yet Johnny's dad is the helicopter dad who thinks his 5'9" 150 lb MLB is going to Georgia on a full ride and thinks Johnny should be playing more. Grades are data points you can use to justify your decision to play Jimmy over Johnny. And yes, I've had cases where we've had to use this. Not much, but it helps. Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does. I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

[agap]

I spent a lot of time on weekends when I was DC, probably too many hours to count.

I agree with some other coaches. Assistants could tell me what they thought about the game plan as long as they watched film and their suggestions fit within our scheme. Most times they didn't care what we did; they just wanted me to tell them the game plan.

I have never been big on meeting as a staff. The team I coach for now met Saturday mornings to watch film and grade our positions. It was something we could have done at home by ourselves. The team before that we met on Sunday mornings to watch our previous film. We just discussed the same things we talked about during the game. Then we'd watch our next opponent for a little bit but barely discussed the game plan. The team before that when I was DC would meet Sunday nights on Zoom. The HC would talk to us first as a whole staff and then we'd split into O and D and I would share the D game plan and the HC would share the O game plan. The meetings were usually around 30 minutes or even less.

We graded each player that played one season a few years ago. I didn't like it because after the top 4-5 DBs, no one else could play at the varsity level so it didn't matter how the starters graded out each week. Last season we graded our whole position group as a whole. They got a + or a - each play as a position group. I actually liked that because it was the whole group and not just individual players.

[coachwoodall]

Our HC expects each player to be graded
1- for feedback - each +/-/whatever is linked to a Hudl clip
2- for justification for the depth chart
3- for ammunition if a parent has an issue with playing time

[44dlcoach]

We tried the grading thing a couple years ago, and a few weeks into it we all remembered why we abandoned it the last time we stopped grading several years ago.

Now we have a running joke that if we lose we have to grade the film so we better show up ready to avoid that.

[bjohnson]

Grading lets the kid know where he stands and also helps the coach know what needs to be worked on. It's not about the actual grade itself or "he's the best I got so it doesn't matter", it's about an approach to make sure coaches are spending their time wisely trying to improve the skills they need to improve on. For us, we run some plays only in one direction during big games because "John Doe" can't get the job done because he's weak at whatever skill needed...

[cwaltsmith]

My problem with the plus minus system is if a kid lines up correctly and steps correctly but gets whipped... Why am I giving him 2 plusses on that play. Or what if he does everything but misses tackle ... or what if it's other way were he steps wrong but makes a great play anyways... also think that other types of grades can be subjective. Anyway... I am all for feedback for the kid to get better... Idc if hes best I got... my job is to try to make him better. And as far as ammunition... If I am at a place where I have to have that I'm ready to be somewhere else anyway.

[blb]

Dec 7, 2023 8:45:48 GMT -6 coachwoodall said:

Our HC expects each player to be graded
1- for feedback - each +/-/whatever is linked to a Hudl clip
2- for justification for the depth chart
3- for ammunition if a parent has an issue with playing time

If a kid's not playing, how can you use game grades to defend #3?

Besides some parents are so myopic about their kids they won't believe you anyway.

[coachwoodall]

Dec 7, 2023 11:42:22 GMT -6 blb said:

Dec 7, 2023 8:45:48 GMT -6 coachwoodall said:

Our HC expects each player to be graded
1- for feedback - each +/-/whatever is linked to a Hudl clip
2- for justification for the depth chart
3- for ammunition if a parent has an issue with playing time

If a kid's not playing, how can you use game grades to defend #3?

Besides some parents are so myopic about their kids they won't believe you anyway.

We film practice

Also, HC mandates that if a kid is on the varsity roster, he has to get game reps

[blb]

Dec 7, 2023 11:54:46 GMT -6 coachwoodall said:

Dec 7, 2023 11:42:22 GMT -6 blb said:

If a kid's not playing, how can you use game grades to defend #3?

Besides some parents are so myopic about their kids they won't believe you anyway.

We film practice

Also, HC mandates that if a kid is on the varsity roster, he has to get game reps

Fair enough.

[hlb2]

Dec 7, 2023 10:02:15 GMT -6 cwaltsmith said:

My problem with the plus minus system is if a kid lines up correctly and steps correctly but gets whipped... Why am I giving him 2 plusses on that play. Or what if he does everything but misses tackle ... or what if it's other way were he steps wrong but makes a great play anyways... also think that other types of grades can be subjective. Anyway... I am all for feedback for the kid to get better... Idc if hes best I got... my job is to try to make him better. And as far as ammunition... If I am at a place where I have to have that I'm ready to be somewhere else anyway.

You do it as I stated.  2 grades.  Alignment, Assignment,  and Technique (AAT) and Performance (PG).  You're example, Johnny does his steps and tech correct but has a negative impact on the play he gets a 1 for his AAT and a 0 for the PG.  He got a 50 on that rep.  Simple.  

The last part is tough.  That's great you can move and go where you want, but not all of us can, and having that extra data point if you're in a meeting with the "higher ups" at least shows them you're not just "winging it" when it comes to doling out playing time.  

[cwaltsmith]

Dec 7, 2023 13:13:28 GMT -6 hlb2 said:

Dec 7, 2023 10:02:15 GMT -6 cwaltsmith said:

My problem with the plus minus system is if a kid lines up correctly and steps correctly but gets whipped... Why am I giving him 2 plusses on that play. Or what if he does everything but misses tackle ... or what if it's other way were he steps wrong but makes a great play anyways... also think that other types of grades can be subjective. Anyway... I am all for feedback for the kid to get better... Idc if hes best I got... my job is to try to make him better. And as far as ammunition... If I am at a place where I have to have that I'm ready to be somewhere else anyway.

You do it as I stated.  2 grades.  Alignment, Assignment,  and Technique (AAT) and Performance (PG).  You're example, Johnny does his steps and tech correct but has a negative impact on the play he gets a 1 for his AAT and a 0 for the PG.  He got a 50 on that rep.  Simple.  

The last part is tough.  That's great you can move and go where you want, but not all of us can, and having that extra data point if you're in a meeting with the "higher ups" at least shows them you're not just "winging it" when it comes to doling out playing time.  

So if they have correct alignment and assignment but bad technique... what does he get??? not criticizing genuinely curious

[coachtua]

At my last school we started meetings at 8am Saturday. Usually go over injury report, league results from the previous night. Bring up anything that needed to be discussed as a staff. Quick discussion of our game the night before. Start game planning around 9 work until 3.

Our HC would spend most of the time with the defensive staff. Offensive staff would break down film and write up game plan. HC would meet with offensive staff around 2. We wrote the plan and finalized it with the HC. Mostly our game planning is to just discuss any changes/tweeks at may have seen on film from their games this year vs last year if it is a recurring opponent. Then any adjustments that we need to make.

Current school we don't meet on the weekends anymore.