Coaching Football's "Little Things"

This was too good not to comment on!

With your football season coming to a close, I know that there are those of you out there who feel dissatisfied or downright disillusioned. It’s not a good place to be. You threw yourself into your coaching starting back last winter in the weight room; pushed through summer work-outs and now are finishing your season. Yes, it’s a time to look back and evaluate… not sulk!

I love the verse in the Book of Genesis, Chap. 4, vs. 25. It says: “God has appointed another (future) for me.” Satan’s plan was to infect Adam with the virus of sin before his first son was born. That way, he could get the rest of us. And it worked! Cain, Adam’s first son, murdered his brother Abel. But God wasn’t finished. Adam and his wife had another son and named him Seth, “for God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel” were their words.

For everything that you’ve lost this season, God has something else for you. For everything that’s been stolen from you, God has something else. Your “seed” is your future. God has another one in mind for you. The situation that you are in right now is NOT the end of your story. God wants to write a new chapter.

The devil knew that God has a plan for you; that’s why he tried so hard to wipe you out! He doesn’t want you to live long enough to fulfill God’s plan. But the fact that you are still here and able to read this means that the devil failed…. and that God is not finished with you yet.

Notice the word “appointed.” There’s an appointment on God’s calendar with YOUR name on it. “God has appointed another (future) for me.” There’s something good just over the horizon— something for your career, your team, your marriage, your family… your life! I am confident that God has an appointed task for you to accomplish and appointed blessings for you to enjoy. He has called each of us with an “eternal purpose” and IF… you are willing to commit your life to living FOR Him, He will bring it to pass. He won’t reveal much of anything until He knows He has you. Are you interested in seeing God’s Plan worked out in your life? Then it is necessary to first give him control of it— your life, that is!

There are a couple of important questions to ask if you’re not sure about all of this. The first is simply to ask: “Who are You (God)?” He will reveal Himself to an honest seeker. The second is: “What do You want me to do?” That’s the key: letting Him know that you are willing to trust Him with your life. I have a lapel pin that puts it all in perspective for me. It says:
Jesus Is My Head Coach!

Think about it. If you want to talk about it, please use the Contact Form and let me know what’s going on in your life.
Blessings,
Lew

“Don’t try to do too much… too soon!” I should’ve listened to my own advice!!! Instead, I came into a new school and program that had NO idea how to install and implement our offense. Whether it’s Wing T, like us, or Pistol or Spread…. a new system requires an adjustment period by everyone involved.

It starts at the top. I did not push my staff once they were hired to really dig into our playbook. They sort of waited for practice to start and “learn it on the run.” My bad! It meant that we weren’t getting a lot of meaningful individual work early on. Once our coaches learned what’s needed, we have improved 100% in the last 4-5 games. The first 2-3… we were struggling. Now that the coaches know what’s needed, they could pass it on to the players. It’s all the little things, guys, that make the BIG difference! As my good friend and colleague has told me dozens of times: “pay attention to details.”

If you are a Wing T guy, this might be helpful. For 4 weeks now, the first thing we do on Monday is get out all of the “Bertha” bags from the shed (if you don’t own any of these 110 lb. bags and you run the Wing T, you MUST get some!) and everyone (QB’s included!) hits the Bertha’s for 15 minutes! We bird dog it then gap block it. We bird dog and down block. We bird dog and “X” block it. We just repeat and repeat and repeat! It has revolutionized our blocking on offensive plays. If you want more info on how we set up this drill, email me!

The other thing I did (regrets to my friend in Montana) is we dropped our Shotgun package and went back to basics. We are running 20, 30 and 80 series (7 plays) from a couple of formations. We’ve gotten really good at them too! My coaches are also beginning to see how we attack defenses with certain plays based on what the defense is trying to do to us. I’ve revitalized 33/37 Criss Cross! It is averaging about 15 yards every time we run it. We run it 4-5 times a game.

I curtailed our passing game. We’ve gotten real good at our reads on Waggle and Keep Pass. We are starting to throw more and our pass completion pct. the last 3 games is around 80%. The line understands what’s required of them with their blocking; the backs are picking up their blitzes and, most importantly, our QB’s are making good decisions. Now people can’t sit on the run all game.

It all came together 4 games ago when we rushed for 340 yards against the #2 team in the state. We couldn’t stop them either so it made for an entertaining game (if you don’t like defense!). Our kids realized that this offense works and we can move the ball on anyone. We have “rolled” since then.

Back to basics guys. That holds true in life in general. When you feel like you’re over your head, get back to basics. For your spiritual health that means taking the time to pray for a while each day. Reading your Bible for a few minutes to get your spiritual vitamins and live in a way that’s positive and healthy.

I like to share things with others that impact me. If the Lord uses it to motivate, encourage or just cause me to think about things… then I’ve learned that He wants me to “pass it on!” This is from my daily devotion booklet, The Word for You Today by Bob Gass ministries. I hope the words inspire you!

To succeed in life (doing it the right way), you must do 3 things: 1- Decide what’s important. We have to prioritize our life. I heard a pastor say once, “if you want to really know what’s important in a person’s life, look at his checkbook and his datebook!” Where we spend our money and our time tells us what our real priorities in life are. The story goes of a family who moved to the country to escape city life. They bought a ranch to raise cattle. One day a friend visited and asked what they’d name the ranch. The father said, “I wanted to call it the Flying-W, but my wife wanted to call it the Suzy-Q. One of our sons liked the Bar-J, but our daughter preferred the Lazy-Y. So we compromised and just combined all 4 names.” The friend asked, “How are your cattle doing?” Dad replied, “We don’t have any. They didn’t survive the branding!” Come on folks— decide what’s important to you.

2- Prioritize your time. Too many of us are like the store owner who got so busy trying to keep the place clean that he forgot to open the front door. The reason someone’s in business is to serve customers and make a profit… not get distracted by secondary things. I LOVE the saying: “The MAIN THING is to keep the MAIN THING, the main thing!” You need to base your life’s decisions on your priorities. And, if you need help figuring out what your priorities are, ask God: “For the Lord God gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” (Prov. 2:6)

3- Learn to motivate yourself! WOW!!! This is sooooo important. Why? Because most times, nobody else will. When tragedy struck his life, we read: “David encouraged himself in the Lord.” (1 Sam. 30:6) We need to learn to do this too. In the Book of Jude, he writes: “Building up yourselves… praying in the Holy Spirit” (Jude, vs. 20). To succeed in life you must learn to encourage yourself, pray and with God’s Strength… He will build you up. Don’t try to do it alone. Jesus is there to help us all along the way.

What a difference a week makes! We got our first win on Saturday… the kids were verrrrrrrrrrry excited. So was their coach!!!!

For those of you who are struggling, let me confirm what I’ve been “spouting off” about for years now: when things aren’t going well on Friday night, consolidateand stick to your guns! We were simply trying to do too much on offense. We have very smart kids; but, even they were overloaded when it came to learning all of the stuff we were trying to execute. I jettisoned a bunch of stuff after our second loss and focused on the “magnificent 7” base plays of the Del. Wing T that next week in practice. The next game we rushed for 222 yards. The next game, we ran for 411! and this past week-end, we rushed for 296! We consolidated and focused on improving our execution of the Little Things and it’s made all the difference in the world. Our kids believe in the offense now and we are pretty much hitting on all cylinders.

So whether you’re Wing T or Spread or I… find a system and stick with it! Don’t start changing cuz it doesn’t work. It’s never going to “work” until you work out the kinks. If you keep changing, your players will stay confused and will lack the confidence to perform at their best. Make sure that your coaches are teaching it the way it should be taught (it starts with coaching!) Don’t blame the players for poor exectution when it may be poor teaching on the part of the coaches! All the more reason to consolidate— it”s less to teach.

I saw a HS game one Friday night (it was a play-off game… so it was 2 very good teams) where the Wing T team actually only ran 3 different plays the entire game! And rolled out and threw 1 pass the whole night. And won 35- 14! They were like a machine on offense. And this was not a huge, hulking football team. They had a couple of good backs and a nice TE but the rest of the team was just good, STRONG (great wt. program at that school!), tough— mentally and physically— high school football players.

Hang in there Coaches. The Bible says: “those who HOPE in the LORD shall renew their strength.” Put your hope in God!!!