Many of the coaches who send me email are rookies, entering coaching sports in general or football in specific for the very first time. A large proportion of these newcomers have found their playbooks and selected their defensive systems, but this is only half the battle.

How you install your program can in some cases be more important than the system you've chosen. It can mean the difference between an orderly introduction of materials that builds every day on the skills and knowledge your players are accruing, and a confusing mishmash of information with no rational format.

One can lead you to a championship, and the other can result in a dismal season. Even the best possible system needs to be introduced in a logical manner.

Offensively, you must determine which of your plays are "core" and which are secondary. If you have followed my advice then you probably have around 4-7 offensive plays, depending on your system and the age of your players. One or two of these plays are the hub of your wheel. Almost all of your misdirection will start with these plays, and you will likely call them 60-70% of the time.

For example, consider the powerhouse University of Oklahoma teams of the 1970's. They were famous for running the option, which they did with a considerable amount of skill. Since it was an integral part of the offensive system that they ran more than 75% of the time, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what plays Head Coach Barry Switzer installed first.

No matter what offense you choose, you'll have one or two plays that will be key. For example, consider the Wing-T system. Figure 1 shows the "20" series from this system.

Figure 1: Wing-T 20 Series

Notice that the very first play of the series is the 31 dive. Also note that each additional play in the series starts with the same movement: the fullback diving to the left of center.

The misdirection of this series starts with forcing the defense to react to the dive fake. If they do not have sufficient reason to fear your dive your sweep will be less effective, therefore, to truly make the series work, you must first install the dive and rep it to perfection before you can work on the sweep.

Most youth football coaches don't really have much of an understanding of misdirection. It is not just a matter of showing the defense one play while you run another. It is crucial that the play you show be one that they know you can be successful with. Otherwise, why would they bother to defend the fake?

For example, the "30" series sweep depends largely upon the linebackers and outside contain men biting on the dive action. If you run the dive six times for a total of two yards, the odds are low that you will fool the defense when you fake the dive.

Therefore, the very first play I would install on day one is the dive. I generally operate on a one play per day pace of installation, so I would begin with teaching the play to my primary side (my team is left handed) and then the secondary side. By the end of our twenty minute play period I want the play fully installed, which means that we are able to run it against both even and odd defensive fronts. Obviously, if you have more plays than I recommend, you'll need to operate at a two or three play per day pace. I would advise not moving much faster than that, however, unless you have a supremely talented group of mature athletes. (You should really make every effort to keep your play list under fifteen, counting plays to both sides.

I suggest beginning with a chalk talk. There are a couple of different ways to chalk. One method is to sit the kids down in front of a white board or a chalk board and sketch the play for them.

Personally, I don't like this method. Not only is it time consuming, but lecture is the most boring teaching technique from a learner's point of view. (It ain't so great from a teacher's, either.) The kids tend to lose interest and start screwing around. This in turn tends to frustrate the coach, who usually responds by yelling at the players. It can be a recipe for disaster.

If you use this method, resist the temptation to go into too much detail. Draw the backfield movement and your base blocking scheme and leave it at that. Two things I would do are set a timer (I carry a small cooking timer on the field with me for precisely that purpose.) and rehearse. Treat this presentation as if you were addressing the board of directors of your company. Speak for no more than five minutes.

The method I prefer is to teach by doing. My speed teaching article will give you an idea for quickly teaching blocking schemes and running paths. Without giving too much away (Hey, I put a lot of time into that article!); I start my players on blocking from the get-go by lining them up in the formation and moving them step by step through the play at a slow walk. Gradually, we increase the speed to a jog, and then a full-bore run. I do my "chalk talk" during the walk through, explaining the types of defensive fronts they're likely to face, and what to look for.

I find that after teaching a play to one side, teaching its reverse is generally much faster. Coach Hugh Wyatt, of Double Wing fame, recommends having the guards, tackles, ends and halfbacks teach each other their new responsibilities. I think this is an idea best used at the higher levels, such as 12-15 and high school, only because of the maturity level of the players involved. Younger kids will chat and play rather than concentrate on the task at hand.

I practice both offense and defense at every practice. There will be times when your players must miss practice for one reason or another. Although I am a bear for unexcused absences, there are legitimate reasons for missing practice. A team that practices offense on one day and defense another is in real trouble if the starting quarterback misses the offensive practice day because of a dental appointment. With only three practice days a week, that kid is going to have problems catching up. You can't afford to sideline a talented player because he missed a practice. (Of course, if this is a chronic thing he needs to be disciplined, regardless of his abilities on the field.)

During our install week, we spend a majority of our time working on getting reps of our plays. I absolutely refuse to call a play on game day that has not been run at least 50 times correctly in practice. Note that I said 50 times correctly. You will probably have to rep it 75 to 100 times in order to get those 50 perfect ones, and complicated plays may take even longer to get right. Bear in mind also that 50 is a minimum, and there is no maximum. By the end of the season my core plays have been repped somewhere in the thousands. 

We practice offense first. Then we enter our defensive period. Both periods are 35 minutes. (Tackling is a team drill done at the start of practice. Blocking is done during offensive time, generally while receivers are doing pass catching drills.)

Following our defensive period is a 30 minute special teams practice where we work on two special teams a day, such as punt and punt block, or kickoff and kickoff return.

After these periods are complete, we revisit our offense with our fifteen minute conditioning and clock management period. Even though the kids only know that single play on the first day, they at least know one play.

We start the conditioning period by throwing a ball on the ground at one end of the field. We make a player recover it like a fumble, and then go ballistic cheering and yelling for him. (Note- this also gives us a chance to teach each kid the proper and safest way to recover a fumble. We pick a different player for this every night.)

Then we assemble the remaining players and tell them the situation; i.e. we're down by four with three minutes remaining in the game on our own twelve. Football is very much a game of situations, so practicing those situations is crucial to a successful season.

We get the offense on the field and run a two minute drill, running against air and blowing the play dead after 3-5 yards. (We, as coaches, stretch that two minutes to the end of the fifteen minutes.) We get in a lot of extra reps, condition our players, practice high speed substituting, and best of all, reinforce the stuff we taught at the start of practice. It's a win-win scenario. On game day that becomes literal.

Day two of the installation period starts with offensive review of the play we taught the previous day. After three or four reps to each side, we then begin teaching our second play. We follow the same procedure as the day before, except that we run a "four minute" drill instead of a "two minute" drill. The difference is that in a four minute drill, your situation is "Ahead by one point and trying to kill the clock." You won't get quite as many reps, but the extra clock management time is worth it. Your players really need to be taught how to respond to clock management situations no matter their age. Players as young as 6-7 have won games because their coaches carefully taught them to get out of bounds when they needed to conserve time and stay in while trying to run out the clock.

Day three we install a third play after reviewing the first two, and we will go back to a two minute drill. We will alternate between these drills every day for the rest of the season.

There has to be a specific order in which you install your plays. Everything should build on what you have already taught. To determine this order of installation, ask yourself the following questions:

1) Is this play a core part of my offense? How often will I be calling this play?

2) Is this play a misdirection play that comes from one of my core plays?

3) Does the play require tricky ball handling, careful timing, trick blocking, or passing?

Obviously the core plays must be installed first. These are the plays your offense is built around. When you are stumped on game day, these are the plays you will fall back on. Because of this, these plays must be perfect. These are also the plays your opponents should be the most afraid of, and most concerned with stopping.

Following the installation of the core plays, you need to next consider any misdirection plays you have in your arsenal that are designed to look like your core plays. These plays will require some additional reps to stress the importance of proper faking to your players. They should be installed next.

Finally, any plays that will involve extraordinary ball handling, such as option plays, reverses, forward passes, etc will require a great number of reps to get right. In fact, I strongly recommend that you practice certain aspects of these plays daily. For example, if you run the option, you must be able to rely on your quarterback to pitch the ball correctly. I recommend that you seek 150 correct pitches every day from the start of practice. I feel you also need a large number of reps for passes as well.

These can be obtained during your drills period. For just installing the plays there are a couple of approaches you can use.

A successful coach I know installs his trickiest plays on day one, but only reps them five or six times in slow motion before going on to his core plays. Every day after that he reps them six to twelve times. On the day he would ordinarily be installing those tricky plays, he runs them full speed. I don't really like this idea for my program, because I am too anal-retentive to stop repping a play before it's done like he does. I can't argue with his fifteen straight winning seasons, though, so you might want to consider the idea. In just a few minutes every day he manages to get 80 extra repetitions of his highest maintenance plays just in the first few weeks of practice. That counts for a lot. He informed me that his primary misdirection play, an inside trap, goes for a touchdown roughly every fourth time he calls it.

I believe that my normal plan of implementation is effective enough and efficient enough to install my entire offense and perfect it in just a few practices. I don't use a lot of passing, and although I love the option, it doesn't really fit into my offense, so my tricky plays are few in number. They can be practiced as part of my normal offensive schedule.

If I did run the option, I would be forced to consider that my core play and install it on day one. A point to consider is that teams that have been the most successful with the option are those like De La Salle High School in Northern California, which has the nation's longest current winning streak at over 120 games. They run the option 80-90% of the time, which not only makes them extremely good at it, but also forces defenses to always be concerned with covering it.

If you choose to run the option, I strongly urge you to make that your core play, and treat it as such. It takes careful coaching to be successful, and part of that is numerous repetitions. Do not expect to run the option once or twice a game and be successful. In the first place, that's a lot of wasted work and effort for a play you run twice a game, and second, you probably won't force the defense to cover it the way you need to in order to set up your misdirection.

If you have the talent and ability to coach it, you may be interested in installing a passing game. I don't think this is a good idea to rely on, but it is an important part of offensive football. Just don't go overboard and try to use the Run and Shoot with a team of nine year olds! (I really shouldn't have to say that!)

Practicing passes is relatively easy if you do it right. Your best passes will usually involve some form of play action. This means that most of your players already know their jobs, so you really only need to be most concerned with teaching the pass routes to the receivers, the read progressions to your quarterbacks, and any new fakes or blocking assignments to your running backs.

I would leave your offensive line's base blocking assignments alone. In the first place, it will help sell your play action if you change as little as possible from the run to the pass. In the second place, it reduces the skills you need to teach if you don't add traditional pass blocking to your offense, and finally; run blocking is aggressive while pass blocking is passive. I don't know about you, but after I spend weeks trying to get my linemen to block aggressively, changing that mindset is not an idea I favor.

As long as your base blocking scheme does not involve offensive linemen going downfield more than five yards, your base run blocking should be fine for a play action pass.

Do not go crazy with passing just because I said practicing it was "relatively easy". Creating an effective passing game at the youth level is still a difficult, time consuming, and generally thankless task. Passing is high-risk, and generally results in a turnover, either immediately, with an interception, or at the fourth down, with a punt or turnover on downs.

Installing an offensive system is a matter of repetition. You must give each player on your team correct instruction and a chance to run the plays. Keep your system simple enough to teach effectively, and your playlist short enough to maximize your practice time and you'll do fine. Remember, when in doubt, chop it out. Having too many offensive plays is the number one cause of offensive failure at the youth level. 

"Chalk it. Walk it. Rep it."

Good luck.

~D.