2017 Off-season to do List

My 2017 Off-season to do List

Attend Coaching Clinics

It is now clinic season! There are several different clinics that I will be attending. I will be attending two Glazier Clinics and a handful of local high school coaching clinics.  There are several different clinic topics that I am looking forward to. I will be attending a Wing T, 3-5-3 defense, and a no huddle topic session. The Glazier Clinics are always awesome, but my favorite clinic is the one my local high school offers.  There are less people and we get a combination of film study, whiteboard talk, and on field instruction. Some of the best clinics I’ve ever attended were clinics that local high schools offered.  These clinics are usually really cheap or even free.

Roster Evaluation and Recruiting

We have our football team banquet coming up next weekend. It is now time to reconnect with all our players and begin preparing our roster. I am focused on engaging with the parents and making sure they bring their kids back this season. I will contact all our players by phone call, text, and/or email just to check in and make sure they are staying active! I know a lot of the kids I am coaching this upcoming season so the pre-season depth chart is pretty accurate.  I’m also planning to get my players out in the spring to practice plays and work with our new QBs. This season I will have to replace my starting QB and back up QB.  We are returning our third string QB, but he is our starting split-end so I rather find another kid that can start at QB. My priority is to grow our roster and to find two new quarterbacks.

Many of my players play other sports during the winter and spring season. Many of my players play basketball, baseball, and some wrestle. I will attend a few games so I can go recruit some of their teammates. Attending the game is not only good recruiting but it is a good way to strengthen your relationship with the player and their parents. When I visit the games I will look for overall good athletes and players that are competitive. Two years ago I attended one of my former players basketball game.  During the game I noticed that one of his teammates was a great athlete and very competitive. I was able to talk to him and his parents after the game and I asked them if their son would be interested in football. After a few weeks I was able to talk them into signing up. The kid ended the season with 18 touchdowns and was our best running back.  Long story short, it’s worth attending some of their games so that you can recruit for football.  The best recruiters for your team will always be your players. I am always pushing my players to recruit their friends.

Pre-game Warm Up

Even though we had a very successful season, I still felt like our warm-ups weren’t very good. There were a few games were we got off to a slow start and I blame that on crummy warm ups. This off-season I am focused on coming up with a better pre-game warm up routine. I feel that we spend too much time running through plays. I also feel like we have to get a little more physical during warm ups. I’m not saying we’ll go live, but I still think we need to do some contact.  This past season we would run through our offense, defense, and special teams. Then at half time of the game before us we will go get weighed-in. After weigh-ins, we will break into individual sessions and do some position specific drills.  When there is roughly four minutes left in the game before us we will do some form tackling and form blocking. I personally think we waste too much time running plays and the kids get bored.  I will be spending the next couple weeks working on my pre-game warm ups.

If you have any suggestions please comment below.

(See Also) Pre-game Warm up Preparation

Practice Optimization

I will say that this past season  we had very high energy, past-paced, and enthusiastic practices. It was probably our most productive practice year we’ve ever had. This off-season I will be working on how we can be even more productive.  I am always looking for some new drills that I can use.  It’s always good to change things up with some fresh new drills. When the players have to execute the same drills every day the kids will become bored. When you do the same drills over and over they become really stale. I will attending some football camps so that I am exposed to some new drills.

(See Also) Practice Optimization Guide

Create More Turnovers

One of the few disappointments from last season was our inability to create turnovers. We did have several interceptions and a few fumble recovers because of our hustle to the ball carrier, but it wasn’t nearly enough.  This upcoming season we will be focused on generating more turnovers. We will implement a turnover circuit that the kids will do every single practice. If we want our players to create turnovers in the game we have to practice creating them during the practice week. We have to develop that defensive mentally that we are going to get to the ball carrier and cause turnovers. We’re going to work a ton on that this upcoming season.

If you have an suggestions in regards to creating turnovers please comment below.

(See Also) Defense Philosophy

(See Also) 5 Basic Practice Optimization Tips