Off-Season S & C
Strength Report: Writing the Winter Off-Season Strength and Conditioning Program, Part I by: Mike GentryWhile Associate Athletic Director for Athletic Performance, Virginia Tech University(From the AFM Archives) 26 I enjoy my profession of strength and conditioning coaching because it allows…
Maybe Your Best Offensive Coordinator is a Girl
Football lessons from a world champion gambler by Jay Stolfi Your best offensive coordinator is a girl. More correctly, your best play‐calling analyzer is a girl. She is Annie Duke, author of the book Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts If you’ve ever been the play-caller in a football game, you know that making smart decisions without all the facts is the essence of the job. Duke is a Columbia University graduate and pursued a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Despite the Ivy League education, she is most known for her poker playing abilities. Duke accumulated over $4 million of tournament poker winnings including several World Series of Poker championships. Life, she explains, is a lot like poker. As I see it, so is football In Thinking in Bets, Duke makes the case that the thought process that leads to success in poker is the same thought process that leads to success in business, relationships and other important life situations. In poker, she says, you have to make critical decisions with very limited information…and you have to make them in real‐time. She goes on to give about 250 pages of detailed explanations, scientific data and tells plenty of amusing anecdotes regarding how the mind works and how to correctly analyze the outcomes of your decisions. All of the chapters have relevance to a football coach, particularly regarding offensive play calling, but I will focus on just a few key topics here. John Von Neumann, the noted mathematician, physicist (and poker player) is considered the father of “game theory”. His game theory revolutionized the fields of mathematics and economics. It is the study of how mathematical models can be used to understand seemingly unrelated things such as the likely interactions between opponents, how to account for hidden information, and how to account for the role of chance in the process of decision making. When asked by a colleague if he meant “the theories of games…like chess?”, Von Neumann said “No, no…Chess is not a ‘game’. Chess is a well‐defined form of computation. You may not be able to work out all the answers, but in theory there must be a solution, a right procedure in any position.” Real games, he explained, “are not like that. Real life consists of bluffing, of little tactics of deception, of asking yourself what is the other man going to think I mean to do. And that is what games are about in my theory.” Dukes recognizes that “The decisions we make in our lives‐ in business, saving and spending, health and lifestyle choices, raising our children, and relationships‐ easily fit Von Neumann’s definition of ‘real games’’’. The seeming randomness we face in our daily lives requires a specific kind of analysis …
multiple looks
by: David Purdum Head Coach Bob Stoops recognized the stress the up-tempo, no-huddle put on a defense. The writing was on the chalkboard. The veteran Sooners were already comfortable with the plays. Now, they were just…
Kentucky’s Best Passing Game Drill
blast from the past by: Mike Leach(When he was Offensive Coordinator University of Kentucky) 0Football coaches often ask each other, “What is your best drill?” At the University of Kentucky, our best offensive drill is called Routes On Air. It…
The Art of Play Calling
What goes into an Offensive Coordinator’s game plan?by: W. Keith Roerdink 3A good play is easy to spot on game day. It’s the decision to go for it on fourth-and-one that yields a fresh set of downs, a blitz-beating touchdown toss,…
The 5-Wide Attack Spread Offense
Visit https://www.billrennerfootball.com/origin By Bill Renner Offense is such a personal choice. The type of offense you run really reflects your personality. No one can tell you that one offense is better than the other. It is a personal preference. Yet…
5 Keys to Building Your Program Through Off Season Training
5 Keys to Building Your Program Through Off Season Training By Robert Pomazak MS SES PES Head Coach St. Charles North The old adage is that championships are won in the off-season. A positive, challenging and competitive off season program can help…
Money Play
By Coach Sobolewski Here’s a sample play we run that is tough to defend but super easy to teach. I signal this in with a money sign or I’ll simply call money and the team knows exactly what to do. …
Year-End Program Evaluation
Gerard Wilcher, Defensive Coordinator, Seton Hall University Assistant coaches rarely have an opportunity to impact the philosophical side of the football program. Generally, we are very much like the military. Policy is made and passed…
21Ways to Improve Your Offense Part II
Ways to Improve YourOffensePart B=11-21 by Dave Bosko, Quarterbacks CoachSpringfield High School (OH) From my experience, here are ways to improve your offense(continued from 11.5.19) #11 Play some substitutes in the 1st and 2nd quarter when the issue is still undecided.Continuously build your program…