Subject: 3 Tips for Young Football Coaches
Date: September 14, 2026

If you have a staff full of veteran coaches who have seen it all, don’t waste your time reading this email. Inexperienced coaches who think you know it all… this won’t help you either.

This is for the coaches with a big drive to win. But not the years of experience to back it up.

Especially for you if you were thrust into a coaching position way before you were ready for it. Bonus points if you are just now finding that out.

Many of my new JDFB Premium Coaching Systems coaches fall into one or
more of these categories. First thing I tell ‘em…

You are in the right place.

There’s a sea of coaching advice out there that over-complicates the game of football. Step 1, get off YouTube and Twitter. You can go back when the season is over.

The only acceptable YouTube content is if you watch The Football Coaching Podcast there - like this week’s episode on Defending the Flexbone Option.

To be safe from dangerous rabbit holes, watch the podcast on my website:

Watch the Defending the Flexbone Option podcast now >>

The other stuff is too much noise. Too many shiny objects.

Too many goofy drills that don’t translate to the field. Too many new plays that do not fit your system right now.

Avoid it all.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s the 3 tips to stay on track as you navigate this new-ish world:

Tip #1: Simplify Everything.

Apply the Coach Simple Philosophy. Live it. Keep it simple so that you and/or your less experienced coaching staff can actually confidently teach the material.

When I went back to teaching high school after one year coaching college ball, I had to get a math teaching job. I had 7 years of history teaching experience, but this was new.

They didn’t give me the calculus job. I could do calculus, but I wasn’t ready to teach it. I taught Algebra I. And I did a pretty good job staying one day ahead of the kids.

Were you a good football player? That doesn’t mean you’re ready to run an NFL scheme.

The Coach Simple Philosophy is the foundation of every single thing we do inside JDFB Premium Coaching Systems.

Tip #2: Organize Your Teaching.

After you simplify the playbook - tearing pages out if necessary - organize how you are going to teach it. Plan out the exact words you will use. Be sure the entire staff is using those same words.

Nothing creates confusion faster than poor communication. Players hearing
the same idea taught one way from one coach, and a different way from another coach.

Or worse, hearing two different ways of doing it.

Confused kids play soft, slow, sloppy and scared. They also lose all trust in the coaching staff.

The framework we use for teaching players how to execute on every play is ASKA: Alignment, Stance, Keys and Assignment.

ASKA is a pre-snap checklist for the players. More importantly, it is a tool for coaches to organize and keep it simple.

Tip #3: Commit to the System.

If you were hired as a way-too-soon Coordinator and you decided on a System to run, stick to it. For now.

Assuming you chose any of the dozens and dozens of good systems out there, commit to it. You can simplify any system. Don’t throw it out the window mid-season.

What if you started the season with no system, just a stack of plays? Or a memory of “the way we did it when I was playing” that isn’t working?

Find a system that fits closely to what your vision was at the start. Inside JDFB Premium Coaching Systems, I teach ONE system of defense… but it works for any front.

JDFB can help you fix the system under the hood, without disrupting what you’ve already taught to your players. You just need to commit to it.

The single biggest error from enthusiastic but inexperienced coaches is to try to do too much. Every week you have an entirely new plan. You’re hoping to fix the problem with another drill, a new play or an entirely different scheme.
(Flavor-of-the-Week anybody?)

Simplify. Organize. Commit.

One way to organize is to systematize your game film breakdown. My game film system is inside the Game Film Master Class:

Get the Game Film Master Class now >>

Enrollment is only open until the end of September.

~ Joe Daniel