You're listening to the Football Coaching Podcast. I'm Joe Daniel, host of the Football Coaching Podcast and the founder of JoeDanielfootball.com. I don't remember what I used to say. I haven't done a solo episode in years. Everything is fine. Daniel is fine. Daniel is better than fine. Wanna congratulate Daniel Chamberlain, our co-host, on the birth of his daughter who was born in the middle of our normal recording time last week.

And so, Daniel is obviously very, very busy. Will be back with us on the Football Coaching Podcast next week. But since we are ready to record the zero episode, which is kind of the episode that doesn't have to fit into the larger canon of the Football Coaching Podcast, saw it as an opportunity to step in and just do a solo recording so we stay on schedule and don't miss any time getting in with the podcast every single week as I've been doing...

Ah, it wasn't every single week back in the day. I didn't always make it, but since two thou- January of 2012, so we are coming up on year 15 of the Football Coaching Podcast here soon. Think that math is right. So, this is going to be a solo episode, and I'll probably skip a lot of the things because I'm not the one who does the script and the schedule and all those things.

Instead, what I decided to do on a little bit of short notice, I still spent more time preparing this than I used to spend when I did solo episodes, so there's that, and I got two monitors. We're gonna talk about 21 things in celebration of episode 21. It started as being a top five and they just kept coming, so, y- you know, you do something for 17 years and you find a lot of things that people don't like.

So I came up with 21 things that coaches have disagreed with me about, and probably I've disagreed with myself sometimes. These, these are Like some of them are the tried and true, like, you know, this is just the way and I'm some rebel. I, I probably didn't come up with any of this, like, I didn't invent any of it.

I've just figured things out along the way, and so I wanted to share the 21 things that, you know, maybe in a way these are kind of the things that separate Joe Daniel Football, myself, from, you know, everyone else and all the things that are out there. But I wanted to get into those today and talk about them.

So again, this is not a normal... If this is your first time ever tuning into the Football Coaching Podcast, maybe jump back a week or two and listen to one of our more polished episodes. I'm actually using, like Daniel always runs the software. I of course can't just come in and be normal and just like record a podcast.

So I'm like, "Hey, since Daniel's not gonna be there, I'm going to do a little screen recording thing and we're gonna have the screen up there and I'm gonna draw some stuff up." But if you have attended any JDFB Chalk Talk Q&A calls we do with our JDFB premium coaching systems clients, or watched most of my older videos on YouTube or been to a JDFB webinar, you know that normally when I draw stuff up you are going to see that on a nice cool-looking, Blackboard PowerPoint thing, and people always ask, like, "What is that?

How do I do that? I wanna share that with my players," and it's like, well, it's just a blackboard background in PowerPoint using screen annotation and my trusty old friend, the Bamboo tablet. And as I went to do this recording after... I don't know how long I've had this. I wanna say that I got this when I was still teaching math, so 2012 maybe.

My Bamboo tablet will not hook up. It will not register. It's... Nothing's happening. So I just used this for a Chalk Talk this past week, and it might have been the last Chalk Talk. It might have been the last one ever for the Wacom Bamboo tablet the CTH-470. It's old, and it wasn't gonna last forever, but I kinda thought it might.

So I gotta get a new tablet, and instead, speaking of old instead if I get a chance to draw something up as we move into the 21st century and put a little more investment into the video side of things here in episode 21, I'm gonna be using my copy of PlayMaker Pro from 2008. PlayMaker Pro, just the best software.

If it's still available, I have no idea. You know, I talked to the owner a few years ago and, you know, just kind of... He's, he's kind of over it. He's older and not trying to do anything new with it, but I love drawing plays up in PlayMaker Pro. I have no... There's, there's no, you know, affiliation or, or, or anything that I can get out of this but I did love drawing up those plays i- in Playmaker Pro and I still do.

It's the fastest thing, I think it's the best, it's the simplest, and, like, literally hasn't changed much. It has a, had a great upgrade for the Mac store that I got a few years ago. But you know, it's, it's just outdated now. I still love it. I still use it all the time, so Playmaker Pro, I'll draw some stuff up for you.

But here we are, season 21. 21 things that coaches have argued with, disagreed with, pushed back on. Sometimes it's coaches who listen to the podcast and say, "Well, that's stupid," or they read an article and they say, "That's stupid," or they bought an e-book and said, "That's stupid." Sometimes it is coaches who are just set in the way we've always done it and they just, they didn't wanna do it different.

And, or th- more commonly, coaches who have been listening to the Football Coaching podcast, and this may be you, you listen to the podcast, you like the ideas, maybe you join JDFP Premium Coaching Systems, you want to install the defense, you want to install the offense, but you've got coaches on staff who are just so committed to the way we always did it Some of these I'll have little stories about the disagreements with me, and as I said, I will try to draw up some things.

My thought for the season, I, I've always avoided drawing diagrams during the podcast. I would probably draw some things up ahead of time, but again, we were just kind of short notice here because when we- we've always been focused on the audio side of the podcast, and it's not great radio to hear me drawing.

Right? And I, I'm concentrating. So with Daniel, Daniel can kind of fill in the silence. But, you know, here we are. We can probably share a board. There's probably things in this software that, like, we could use that would do cool stuff and I don't know them. I don't know this stuff, so we'll find out.

We'll find out later, but we'll give it a test today. Again, it's season zero, nothing counts in season zero, and if this... Or season zero. Nothing counts in episode zero, so if this is your first time, maybe go back and listen to another one first before you listen to me kind of, ramble for a minute. So we are going to go ahead and jump in.

I would not have anything necessarily to say, you know, I'll, I'll mention places where you can read more about some of the things that I'll talk about, but it's all gonna be at JoeDanielfootball.com things that I teach in JDFB Premium Coaching Systems. What I will be talking about is our Coaches Edge membership.

It's brand new. This past month in June, we started doing our Coaches Edge workshops inside JDFB. All of our gold and platinum clients get access to all of the, the Coaches Edge workshops. When you join, you get access to all of the ones that are there. We're doing them, doing them every single month, and it's an effort to say to our JDFB coaches, "This is what needs to get done right now, and here is the step-by-step workshop to get it done so that we have everything ready for the season."

And so right now, as we're getting ready for the 2026 fall season, we put together your five-day install plan, one of the things that I'll touch down, touch on later. We did that in mid-June. The recordings are in the Coaches Edge on your courses page if you are already a JDFP Premium Coaching Systems client.

In July, we'll take that install schedule and we will create, use that to create our practice plans for our five-day install so you'll have your first five days of practice planning done here in mid-July so that we can focus on the things that count, and we're gonna be working on depth charts and choosing the right position players.

We're gonna be working on making adjustments. That's gonna be August and September. We're working on making adjustments in season. We wanna do these things ahead of time so that we can focus on what's happening there. We're not creating practice plans every single day. We're gonna get the, the five-day install plan, we're gonna get your practice plan shell all ready.

If you're not a JDFP Premium Coaching Systems gold or platinum client, you can go ahead and join up and you will get access to all of those at JoeDanielfootball.com/membership. But- We have created a new tier. I know that not everybody wants or needs all the playbooks and all the systems and all the stuff.

So we've created a tier if you just want to be able to take the things that I teach and Daniel teaches and we teach in the Football Coaching Podcast and throughout JDFB and get help applying those to your current playbooks, to, to your spread RPO junk and your air raid and your 3-4 from somebody else, whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

You already got that, you've been doing it for 20 years, but you wanna apply these things. You wanna create your install schedule, you wanna create your practice plans, and you want help doing all those things, we've created the Coach's Edge membership, and you're gonna get access to the Coach's Edge workshops.

You're gonna get access to the JDFB Quick Start Guide, the Roadmap to Victory Quick Start Guide, which is kind of the pillars of JDFB. We'll help you look at the things that you have now. You're also going to get access to the Chalkboard Coaching Community Forum, where you can ask questions with me and other like-minded coaches.

And finally, I'm going to include the first module of all five JDFB premium coaching systems so that you can look at those and just see the, the core structure of each one of those, and if you decide that you want to add it, you wanna, you wanna go further with it, you can always upgrade. Right now it is $19 a month, and you can get access at joedanielfootball.com/edge, E-D-G-E.

So I'll be talking a little about some of those install plans and the Coach's Coach's Edge workshops. They're really, really step-by-step, creating something. It's not like we take a br... You know, go work on this, take five minutes, go work on this, we'll come back and we work on it. We talk about the next thing.

So, joedanielfootball.com/edge if you wanna check that out. All right. First thing, the number one thing that coaches, probably not the number one thing, these are in no particular order. They're on note cards. I mean, I, I, I spent like an hour preparing. Keeping it simple sort of the biggest thing that coaches disagree with me.

Everybody says, "Oh, no, no, keep it simple. Oh, yeah, you got to keep it simple. Keep it simple, stupid." You know, the KISS method and yeah, coach simple, and that's what we're doing and, and we're totally bought in on that, sometimes people tell me. But the reality is not a lot of coaches really truly believe it.

I always remember the first edition of the 4-2-5 Defense manual Coaching Football's 4-2-5 Defense, of which the second edition is completed and probably out next week in print form, where you'll be able to you'll be able to buy the, the PDF as always, but we're actually gonna have the print manual, which I might have the first copy close by.

I'm super excited about it. It looks awesome. It came out it's gonna... We had to make a few little changes, but like it is, it is good. It is... We did a we did a early access back in March and then took the feedback from that to really create the manual, n- to update the manual. I'm super excited. It should be out next week.

But I sold the first edition, which was... I mean, it's simple. It's cover one, cover three, four two five. Like, it's, it's simple. And I remember a middle school coach just re- he was from Texas, granted, but I just, it'll always stick out in my mind. You always remember the mean things people say. But wanted a refund on it.

It was one of the first times it had ever been refunded. Very, very few... I, I get very, very few refund requests and on anything really. But this was a refund request on a, I think it was $12 at the time or something like that. I mean, this is a long, long time ago. And it was like, "This is just too simple.

Nobody can, you know, no- nobody can win with this." I was like, "Wow, your middle school team? Your middle school team?" It's just some coaches are so hung up, and maybe this is a wild middle school, but I can tell you the middle schools are winning a lot of games with that four two five manual, even before the updates, even before the, the completely re- The second edition, by the way, is completely rewritten.

E- everything, 100 diagrams, of which that was one of the biggest delays was getting the diagrams fixed up right so they, they look good in the print manual because I drew them in PlayMaker and then just did screen captures. But man, people always push back on the Coach Simple thing. It's like, "This is too simple."

Or e- even if you s- you know, cover three, you can't win with cover three. A lot of teams are doing it. Cover one, cover three and cover one. No, that won't work. We gotta be split field, do this, do that. We teach split field, but like I say, there's so many teams that don't need it, and that's one of the things I get the most pushback on is everybody thinks, "Well, we're the team that needs it.

We're the team that needs that advanced level you know, split field coverage." And so we teach i- in the manual this, this four two five base alignment. This is against a pro twins formation if you're looking at the video. And, you know, there's nothing really special to it. This is a cover three. The cover one alignment isn't much different.

You know, I like press coverage. That's not a big deal when we play cover one. But there's, there's just not a lot to it and I admit that. It's more about the, the teaching of the technique a- and the investment in the confidence of your players. So one of the biggest pushbacks is we need this big playbook, we need all these plays, we need all these things, and it's i- ignoring the fact that your players went out there last year and ran your big playbook and they executed like absolute trash.

Now again, everything is situational. Simple is not a one thing. So like 4-2-5 cover three or 4-4 cover three which is basically what it is, is, I mean it is what it is, I call them safeties because it makes them feel faster. 4-2-5 cover three, 4-4 cover three, yeah it's simple and it, it has won a lot of games.

It's not right for everybody. Would that be what I'd run at a division one level? No. Would that be what I'd run at a gigantic school in Southern California or Atlanta or Dallas or Miami? No, probably not. Like, that's not most people's reality. I'm working with a bunch of schools that are... I'm working with middle school teams, I'm working with youth teams or I'm working with teams that are you know, small schools in Illinois, in Indiana, in Wisconsin.

I'm working with teams that are in Massachusetts and they're, you know, private school in Massachusetts and they're, you know, just teams that are trying to win games. I'm also working with smaller medium-sized schools in Virginia that I coach myself. We're on cover one, cover three, and it works. It's run a, won a lot of games.

But almost everybody starts with, sometimes it's subconsciously, sometimes it's the direct pushback of like, "That's too simple, we gotta be split field, we gotta have 9,000 exotic blitzes. We've gotta have 10,000 stunts and stuff." Sometimes it is, and again, we gotta be multiple front, and on the offensive side it's a whole different, you know, RPOs and passing concepts and tags and all this stuff Of which I like a lot of the stuff, but just buying into the Coach Simple, like you're...

I guess the biggest thing that I get pushback on, and again, nobody says to me that's wrong when I say it, but their actions say differently. Scheme is almost never the solution. Scheme is almost never the solution. When I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about on the podcast on, on my, my solo mission, I thought about, like, maybe I can talk about what my coaching journey has been like and the things that I wanna learn and things that I wanna do.

And one of the things I thought about was, you know, I used to be so into all of the, like, news, every new thing there was, and I'm very disinterested, and it started with it's not that I don't wanna learn. I love to learn these things and I love to look at them, but sometimes I'm scared of the s- the shiny object and I, I, you know, I just sent an email out yesterday, is when this podcast comes out, that a lot of coaches that I get with on our, on our coach calls during our Coach Simple process for new clients as we're onboarding is they'll...

You know, "What's your biggest obstacle to achieving the goals that you want to achieve?" They'll say, "Me. I'm the, I'm the one that gets in the way 'cause I wanna do all of these things." And I'm like, "That's me." I don't wanna go study. Like I, I almost hesitate to go to clinics. I still like to go to clinics and you know, I like to learn new stuff.

But one, it starts to infiltrate like the things that I teach, and I'll overcomplicate what I teach, but also I'm gonna wanna do all of it, and that's natural and it's normal. It's... The, the fact is scheme is never the solution. It is getting better. If, as long as you have a decent scheme, a decent scheme, then just getting better at the fundamentals of it for the vast majority of teams would, would pay huge dividends.

Simplifying and getting down to the core and just getting better at that would pay huge, huge dividends. But we all wanna install more, we wanna install more. I said I was gonna go fast and I got hung up on this one, so let's jump on to number two. One of the ones that I got the most pushback on and it got the most downloads, and it, it came from...

I remember there was like a discussion with Justin D'Ottavio who's gotten me in trouble more times than not on these things. But I published an episode, it was Joe Daniel Football, it was episode 80. You can't go, you can't find it like on the website because when we moved the website a couple years ago we didn't move everything.

But it is in the feed and it is episode 80, and it is an episode where I explain that there are only four types of defenses And again, this is oversimplification maybe, but it comes from my, the way that my mind works since I've adopted this Coach Simple philosophy. It was actually even before, if I remember right, I think it was 2014, it was before I even started putting Coach Simple, Play Fast, Win on the website.

That was 2015 But the idea is that there's only four types of defense, and I've become even more simplified now, and I'll talk about that later. And I said, "Look, there's, there's odd fronts and even fronts. There's seven-man fronts and eight-man fronts." And so it's ridiculous, and a lot of this came from an offensive line standpoint, an offensive line mindset for me, is that we don't block these any differently.

It's ridiculous to get into, well, we're a 5-2 or we're a 3-4. It's super ridiculous to get into we're a 4-4 or we're a 4-2 when you've got 23 players and you're like, "Well, we don't have safeties out there. We've got linebackers." It's like what are you talking about? You just have your 11 guys, and you don't even call them linebackers or safeties.

You call them birds and bats and bees and dogs and hornets and whatever. Who cares? Even or odd, seven-man or eight-man. If it is eight-man, you have enough guys to fill up all the gaps. If it is seven-man, somebody's two gapping. If it is odd, you have three down linemen who are, you know, in various places, but three down linemen.

Even when you run a 5-2, usually you stand up the outside guys. Same thing if you run a 6-2 on an, on an even front. If you're even, you have four down linemen. They aren't even all the way down. So it's like we're, we're gonna start picking on like, okay, somebody stands up, and I have a lot of coaches that do this and I've done it, stand up their weak side defensive end because he's just, like he's a skinny kid that could go down there and play.

He was the safety who didn't win the job and, but he's a playmaker and we put him down there and he was causing chaos during scout team and I put him down there, and like he's standing up, so is he not a lineman even though he's in a five tech doing all the things that linemen do? Like if a linebacker walks up to blitz, is he a defensive lineman?

Yes, effectively he is. That's why you don't want to blitz every down, because your guys are effectively defensive linemen. That's why if you're a 33 stack team and you're gonna be blitzing a lot, which you should be blitzing somebody on every down for the most part in a 33 stack creating your fronts, you need to cross-train those guys because they're gonna be doing interior blitzing where they're going to have to read like a defensive lineman if you want them to not get kicked out.

And I coached in the greatest game ever played where we lost 56 to 42. That was even my worst, I mean, the most points I've ever given up. But we lost that one and we called it the track meet, and I've told that story before. But one of the things we were doing is we were blitzing linebackers, they were in the right place but they weren't squeezing down and they were getting kicked out by a power counter team that was basically running a version of Coach Mountjoy's pistol power offense.

Okay. Number three thing that coaches always disagree with me on, and, and again, it's not like they, they just do it. Defensive ends, I never, never is not the right word because we do it in our Tiger cat, but never in any base defense will I force- Well, I use the defensive ends as force or contain or box or whatever, because I don't think that they're in a position lined up on the line of scrimmage to be the force defender.

And again, we did a podcast a few episodes ago on umbrella run fits, so if force, alley, spill or, you know, all those words don't make sense to you, listen to that episode on the umbrella run fits that we teach. It's a good one to listen to. But I just don't think defensive ends are in a position to force when they're gonna throw a toss to the fastest guy in the county or on the field, or whatever it may be, I'm gonna be chasing him because he's already gonna be basically outside of me, unless I go running up the field on the snap, in which case I'm just kick out bait.

And so they're not even gonna try to toss, they're just gonna kick me out all day or run underneath me, which we've done plenty of that. So I just don't think defensive ends are in a good position, especially when we're talking about, you know, four down lineman defensive ends. Like, if you're talking about a six-two, like, and you call them ends or a five-two and you call them ends, they're still not in a good position because I don't like them up on the line of scrimmage.

But, you know, really when I'm talking about a, a 40, 40 front defensive end, I would never force with that guy because he's not in a good position to force. And then going from that into number four, the five by five alignment that I teach for force. Many, many people think that it... And especially when you add in the slot and we don't apex, we line up five by one.

You know, again, I just don't think that when you put a safety, whether it is, you know, a defensive end, and I call them safeties, you call them defensive ends, you call them outside linebackers, you call them ever- whatever you want. I don't think that when I put that guy down there and put him down tight, whether I'm calling him an end, whether I'm calling him a safety, it doesn't matter, and they run, you know, a toss play where that guy on the snap is sprinting to the line, is sprinting, you know, to the perimeter, I just don't think that I can really really be in a good position to force both as a defensive end and as a and as a linebacker sitting three by three.

I know that's the traditional alignment, but it's, it's too tight. It's too easy, especially if you bring over an H-back or something. That's the worst time because then that three by three alignment, he is so, so easy to get hands on, and all you need to do is get him a, get a piece of him on that toss play, and it's out the gate.

So I don't like him being there. And, and I learned this from Jim Reid who was the defensive... When he was defensive coordinator at Virginia, great, great football coach. And Coach Reid was also, you know, z- defensive coordinator at Iowa. And he said, "Align where they're going and meet them on the way."

If this guy is the fastest guy on the field running that toss play, then align where he's going. Align wide and just be there to meet him when he gets there, rather than a- being aligned tight and having to, you know, turn and redirect and chase him and risk being outrun to the perimeter. So that's, that's the thought process.

But also the five by five puts us closer to... And again, this is mainly zone coverage, especially cover three. The five by five puts us closer to getting to the flats, which is our secondary job. And our third job is being able to fold in and help inside, and that's where a lot of coaches push back is they're like, "How is he gonna help on the inside?"

But that's not his job. If a play pops on the inside a- and he's five by five, he can still fold in and make a tackle for three or four yards. The free safety's there, linebackers, they're there. That's their job. You know, we're okay. If a play beats him to the perimeter, and coaches all the time will say, "You know, our biggest problem is we can't set an edge."

"How wide are your guys?" "Well, he's up on the line, one by one." Well, no wonder. Then I say, "Well, move him to five by five." "Well, he can't do that. He's too far out." Your biggest problem is setting an edge. I'd put him at seven by seven, 10 by 10, and make sure that we get a, you know, force a change of direction, make him cut back inside, and then slowly move him back in until we can't set an edge anymore.

Nobody wants to do all that testing. You don't have to. We've done it. We've seen it. Biggest pushback that I see Number five, numbers don't matter. Run fits matter. So this goes back to the this goes back to the discussion on the only four types of defense, and I said that I've gotten even simpler with it.

And that is that the numbers aren't the deal. 4-4, 3-3, 5-3, and I promise we'll talk some offense stuff, don't worry. I don't care about any of that. What are your run fits? What's your run fit system? And, and so many coaches are like, "We run this defense because it's better at stopping the run." Okay, what's your run fit system?

I don't, I don't know." W- So you just, it's a front, it's just numbers. And again, the difference between a 5-3 and a 3-3 and a 3-5, it's what you call the outside guys. Maybe where you align them, but like I don't really care. W- I mean, I care where you align them, but I don't care what you call them. And again, everybody's calling them birds and bats and bees and dogs, so who cares what the defense is?

Numbers are irrelevant, but I go even further than that. Not only is the difference between a 3-3 and a 3-5 and a, and a 5-3 irrelevant because it's all an odd eight man front, the difference between a 4-2 and a 4-4 and a 6-2 irrelevant. Daniel is here. He's on the call. He's on my ... So I'm using it, I'm using

Like we gotta, we gotta drop in. Yeah. I'm doing 21 things people have disagreed with me about. Awesome. For season 21. I love it. And I threw this in. So, the the one we're talking about right now is the, the numbers don't matter thing, that the difference between a 5-3 and a 3-5 doesn't matter, but also the difference between a 3-4 and a 4-2 doesn't matter because what matters is your run fits.

Who's your spill, who's your force, who's your alley? And then everything else is secondary to that. And if you want to be able to be multiple front, that's it Yeah, the the numbers definitely don't matter and the, and, and I think that's something that came with getting deeper and deeper into football studying all those different schemes.

About the only place I found out it matters, Joe, is if people wanna differentiate between spill and box. And at that point, you probably don't need this podcast because you're doing things that are way too advanced anyway. Or maybe you do need the podcast because you need to quit trying to box things.

I don't know. I don't- I'm saying it's been a long- I mean, the box thing is, is like kind of... You know- Yeah ... it's a different, it's a different deal. But again, if you, if you're doing that, that's fine. You have a run fit system, and so you have a system. Like- Yes ... now, like you said, the next issue is, is your system working for you?

And if that's the case, then, you know, if it is or it is not. Daniel, the other thing that I have implemented today, I sadly, I'm getting Daniel caught up live on the podcast My Bamboo tablet died. No. I'll send you mine, Joe. I don't even use it. My thought was... My, I'm gonna get a new one. My thought was that because you weren't gonna be on this podcast that I was going to use it to draw stuff up, but my Bamboo tablet died, so I am drawing things on my Playmaker Pro.

Love it. So- Love it ... we have had a very advanced podcast today. I'm gonna continue on because we got, because it took a long time to get through the first five. Inside zone blocking with smaller linemen, you can do it That's one that nobody's like argued with me like, "You're stupid, that can't work."

But I've had a lot of coaches say, you know, "Just not even try it. Just not even... Like, ah, it just doesn't work. It won't work for us," or something like that. And the... I guess the thing that, that I see with that I still think a lot of coaches, and not all, because we've talked to some really good coaches.

We... You know, Lynn Shackleford was one who, he solved the problem with RPOs. I think what a lot of coaches are still trying to do with inside zone, with you know, whatever it may be, is they are trying to, to... This wasn't a really good inside zone formation. They are trying to get that five-yard down the line drive thing.

They're, they're trying to get on a sled, and you're right, you cannot do that with smaller linemen. It just won't work. But, 'cause, 'cause if they got bigger linemen, you got smaller ones. But if we start to talk about playing horizontally, and we start to talk about displacing linemen and, "Okay, he wants to go left, I'm gonna take him left and stay in his way."

And then the other guy's gonna come off, because if he goes left, the down lineman goes left, then the guy that we're comboing to probably goes right. And when he goes right, I'm just gonna kick him right. And so when I take the guy who wants to go left, and then I kick the guy who wants to go right, we create a seam.

And, and that stuff happens late, and a lot of guys are trying to make this combo, push the combo to the linebacker and vault off, and it's more about, I think you wait for the linebacker, the defensive lineman and the linebacker to commit, and then just displace them. And it's about playing horizontal, not vertical.

Not trying to push guys down the field, not trying to drive the sled, not trying to win a board wars, but trying to have great footwork and stay in the way and let that athlete that you got, even if you only got one of them, let that athlete that you got sort it all out, and that's why I think you can run zone with lesser athletes.

But it does take work. You know, an- another big point there, Joe, is it takes a lot of teaching of the running back. Like his reads should be able to make any situation profitable in yardage, right? That's, that's the whole point of these zone plays is you get into that no- non-negative play mentality.

They don't wanna get a yard or two, but he should have a non-negative play if his reads are done correctly. And I don't really care if you're inside zone, outside zone. For example, we have both worked with Flo over in Germany. Obviously I've been working with him a lot this off-season- ... watching film.

Even done some live calls to just go over stuff. But he's, you know, at 13U, I believe, is his... Maybe 15U. I can't remember. Flo's getting that high. 14. Wa- You were close. 14. There you go, right? And so he's got guys that still don't understand, they have no aggression in their body. They stand up and put their hands on a defensive lineman, but two of them can do it together and then pick up the linebacker as he fits a gap and let the running back make it right.

Now, he's running a lot more outside zone, so I'm not gonna act like that's the perfect example. However, it's the same con- you know, k- same concept. If your kids know how to put their hips together and keep a guy from penetrating and breaking the double team, wait on the next guy and the running back makes them wrong, you don't need to be five yards down the field making that happen.

I thought one of the biggest breakthroughs in our inside zone was the fact that we were too small to push anybody. And for me, going, realizing, you know what made it work was the fact that we couldn't push anybody down the field and we couldn't come off of the big guy until the last second because if we did, they were just gonna manhandle us.

And it just, it actually was a benefit. Keeping it going. Quarterback alignments don't equal an offense. This is a weird one. Again, this isn't like hugely, but like who cares if you're in shotgun, pistol, under center? It matters from the offensive standpoint as far as like what is your best, You know, you're best for getting the play off.

Like, you know, for toss, I like to be under center. For, for any run play, most run plays, I like to be under center. But, you know, for passing I like to be in gun, and that's where pistol became the sweet spot of, like, we're not giving it away. We literally had a season where we were 90% ... We were 100% pass in gun.

We were about 90% run under center. We didn't do pistol. And you know, play action was the only thing that we had different, and only one team figured it out and we actually played them week 10 and we ni- we played them the second week of the playoffs and we put in a draw play from gun- ... and ran for 165 yards.

Now we lost the game but they, they hadn't ... They were, they were the best team in the state. I think they went to the state finals. But we had 165 rushing, rushing out of that. So there's, there's ways to use it. There's definitely a philosophy there and, and, and I think it starts with how much downhill you want.

How ... I mean, what can your quarterback handle, right? All those things. But I love the way you put it you know, that does not make your offense. Diversifies your play calls and it may intensify some play calls. We just got done talking inside zoom. With that back getting straight downhill, you may see a little more success there versus the gun.

Yeah. But you're right. It, it does not ... I love the ... In, in my package that was a tag for us, you know what I mean? Yeah. It was, yeah. We based out of pistol, but absolutely you could go gun, you could go under center and that's just a tag. So I love it, man. Yep. And, and I think it's just some coaches, you'll ask them what their offense is, "We're a shotgun offense."

It's like, "No, you're not. Are you gap? Are you zone? Are you ... Like, what are you?" Yeah. That's who you are. That's your, your plays. Th- this is just a quarterback alignment. And also sometimes coaches will define from a defensive standpoint, they will define the team from their alignment and it's like, just because that guy's in gun doesn't mean they're not gonna get, you know, in a three-point stance and, and beat you up.

So, you know- Things to think about there. Number eight, take Saturday off and get the film done by Sunday. I, you know, not a lot of coaches wanna do that, and I understand, like, if you're the new guy on staff, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't be like, "I can't answer your calls. I'm, I'm out of work on Saturday."

But in season, I do very little, very, very little, because we've gotten so advanced with... I mean, we're getting the film. We're, the film exchange is done, like, before I get home. You know, we used to take days. We got the film. Friday night I will watch the film. Now again, you may not wanna do that on Friday night, y- but I will come home, everybody's in bed, I'm amped up, I'm gonna go ahead and watch our self scout, and I may even get the exchange.

But on Saturday I'm gonna be with family, I'm gonna do, you know, that stuff, and that's a new thing for me. And then Sunday I've got, you know, our game film masterclass program. You know, we know exactly what we're gonna do, how many times we're gonna watch it, fill out the worksheets b- and be ready for a Sunday night meeting, which we do over Zoom and don't sit in an office all day, and have our plan.

And film is done Sunday night. Film, all of it. I mean, you'll go back and look at some tendencies and little things, but the main part is done. I remember when I first went to work for Coach Blankenship, and, and that was kind of a conversat- obviously he's an old school guy. He grew up, like, seven days a week, and, and that's just how you did coaching and football.

And he said when he started at Owasso, that was one of the things. They were like, "We, we don't, we don't do things on Saturday." And he had to kinda change his philosophy. And he's like, "You know what? I've won just as many games since giving up my Saturdays as I did before." So it's successes on both sides of that coin.

Yeah. Yeah, the, the, the grind all the time thing doesn't necessarily win you more ga- outwork everybody. It's like, well, if you're just... I remember he was a good football coach, but I just, I, you know, I remember we had a coach that was young and really hungry and he would sit up and watch film and literally fall asleep with the, you know, the, the remote in his hand watching film.

This is back in the day when we had to be in the office because you couldn't take it home with you. And he would fall asleep in the office watching film 2:00 in the morning, and it's like you're not- You're not processing any of that. You're not gaining anything from that when you're so dead tired.

You'd be better off, and I just finished the book Outlive, which is a great book, but, you know, chapter in there on sleep is absolutely terrifying. I might save that for a, for a level up. Chapter on sleep is absolutely terrifying. You're better off sleeping. Go sleep, spend time with your family, sleep, all those things.

All right, number nine, 90 minute practices, five day installs. Goes without saying, a lot of people think that's, you know, you can't get it done in 90 minutes. It got a lot easier when some other dude said 90 minutes and he won a national title, but- ... you know, for a long time nobody wanted to do 90 minute practice plans.

More and more coaches have bought in. It's easier to get other coaches to buy in. When I did it, it was literally on a dare from Justin Dottavio, who I've already mentioned. "You won't do 90 minutes." "I bet I will." And my coaching staff hated it at first. We cannot get anything done with this. The first week was kind of a mess.

Luckily we had a pretty seasoned team. But by the end of the season when you're, you're, you're feeling fresh, you started with 27 varsity athletes, you have 27 varsity athletes ready to go, healthy for your second round playoff game, like you can't beat that. We've talked about it to death, and you can see re- listen to the most recent podcast I believe is on the 90 minute practice plan.

So check those out. But it, buy in, at least buy into the container. Don't let practices just swell to the size that they swell to. Is if it's two hours, it's two hours. I always talk to our middle school and JV and youth coaches who are like, "We only get two days of practice." It's like, by all means, do two hours.

That's a tight container on you when you only have two days. But make sure it's a tight container that, that, that you have to fit in. Yeah, that's, that, I think more than anything is finding the containers and start conditioning yourself to the less is more. Get good at a few things and quit trying to put in the whole playbook in week one of fall camp, right?

It's ... It doesn't make sense. Five-day install plan. Who's like Leach and those guys did a three-day install plan. I love talking to Ron Mackey about that. Yeah. Ron, yeah. It's just a stinking cons- a container. That's right, it's constraint. Yeah. Fit, fit it so that you start thinking about efficiency over volume, and I

Any of those numbers, man, just make it work. Yeah, make it work. Number 10, the free safety is the most important player on the defense. The traditional, you know, the linebackers, the linebackers, the linebackers, and I get it. They're difference makers. But, and true, maybe you do something different, but in our system, in the umbrella run fits, spill force alley, the alley is the thing that ties the spill and the force together.

If you are great at spill and great at force, there is still a little space between them, and if your free safety is sitting back at eight yards, they pop that little space and go for eight yards. If your spill is bad and your force is bad, there's a five-yard space between them, and if your free safety is a stud He's making an open field tackle and he's the best athlete on the field, you're still gonna have an okay defense.

If your spill is average and your force is average and your free safety is a stud, you're gonna be really good. You're gonna be really good. And that's, that's where that thought process comes from. I think a, a lot of guys get caught up on this one, Joe, with that it ... well, you can't hide a linebacker, right?

Y- that's gonna immediately, like a sore thumb- Yeah ... it's gonna stick out. But that's any, honestly, any of the 11 guys. It's really hard to hide someone on defense. The higher level, you get, yeah. You need a ... Yeah, you need 11 guys that can at minimum get a, a base read and be going the right direction. If your linebackers don't fit, sure, your weakness may look like the most important, but in the grand scheme of things, all things included, you know, if you have a- an average team and you can put a stud somewhere, absolutely.

The guy who has to get not only a run-pass read, but a left or right read and then come sew the whole defense together, he's protecting two verts down the, down the seams, and he's protecting anything left and right. Like, he's absolutely is the most important. I'm not even sure how you can argue that. And I think one of the pushbacks comes from the, the name safety, right?

And the idea that the safety is the last line of defense, and he's just not. He's your ninth run player in your box, in the box, and the most important one that there is. And that's modern football. If you pl- if you are playing three guys as stay in coverage in a cover three, like, you're in trouble.

That safety terminology, that's fine for cover two. But- Yeah ... our safeties are, are the umbrella, and they're the most important thing. All right, gonna rapid fire a few of these. Number 11, don't run the 4-3 defense in youth and don't run it at your rural school with 23 guys and three coaches who have very little experience.

Again, don't get caught up in numbers. We've got, you know, we need a 4-3 to stop the run because 4-3 equals more than 4-2. That's not how it works. That is not how it works. I know that's some guy's reasoning. "Well, we run a 4-3 because we gotta stop the run." No, no, no, no, no. The 4-3 Is a high level defense and I've said it over and over again, if I, if I could recruit, if I was at a college, if I had a great staff, I would run the Miami 4-3 defense.

But it is a, it is a beautiful dance, it is a machine. Any piece of that machine is not firing on all cylinders, you are in trouble. In the 4-2, if we don't have a certain position, we need one guy and he's at free safety, your best guy. You need two really good guys at the strong safety and the free safety in the 4-3 if you're gonna run quarters.

If you're gonna run cover two, run cover two, that's fine. If you're gonna run split field quarters, that's great. If you need it, you gotta know if you need it. If you're not, if you're gonna run cover three, if you're gonna run cover one, it's insanity to be in the cover... be in the 4-3 because you're, you're essentially using a one gap situation with a two gap front and it's, it just doesn't match up like I said, I'm gonna move a little, through a couple of these.

Jump in any time. Never change the system just to fit your players Just changing your system every year, you never get better at it, you never learn it. And again, this is getting caught up in numbers and it keeps coming back to this. Don't get caught up in numbers. Don't go, "Well, I don't have that many linemen and so we're gonna run 30 front," and then, you know.

The system, the system, the system. And again, if you're a JDFB coach and you decide you wanna do that or maybe you're the defensive coordinator and your head coach doesn't really understand all that we're doing, but he says, "By God, this year we're gonna go to a 30 front." You can say, "Sure, okay." Because your system is the run fits.

JDFB, I don't teach four defenses. I teach one defense from four different alignments. Each one has different advantages and disadvantages. But, but don't change your defense every year because this is who we got this year, next year we're gonna have these guys and we're gonna put in a whole different thing, 'cause you will never master it.

You will never learn all the ins and outs and how to teach it yeah, I, I, and it, I'm gonna jump in here. I think this comes back to your system shouldn't be the numbers on the field. The system should be what are your run fits, what pass coverages are you gonna get good at, what, what expensive things are you gonna invest in?

That should be your system. It shouldn't be, "Oh, we're a 4-2-5. We're a 3-4." All that should be built out in your run fits and, and then like you said, Joe, any alignment. One defense, multiple alignment. All right, number 13. I am gonna go faster, I promise. Sled, chutes, ladders, boards, all a waste of time in your actual practice.

We talked about the sled, driving guys down the field. Chutes, work on footwork. Leverage is kinda overrated. Get in the way. Ladders, Dale Baskette, Athletic Speed and Movement. Go to athleticspeedandmovement.com. This is the pitch. We are going to be putting in more in-season for you. Dale is working on stuff all the time.

That, that is how you get faster and more agile, with Athletic Speed and Movement from Dale Baskette, not with ladders. There's no ladders on the field. There's no boards. Just, that's agility stuff. Focus on your focus on your football stuff during practice time. Number 14, don't give your players a playbook.

Don't print playbooks for your players. Don't ask them to go home and study. Don't ask them to... Daniel has moved into rural Oklahoma here. Don't ask them to study at home. You can make it available to them, and I think that's great, and that's the beauty of Hudl and QuickCut and things like that is make it available, but they don't need to study at home.

Teach it on the field in practice

There we go. We're, we're taking a walk. Number 15, average athletes can play press man coverage. You can do it. Teach, teach the technique. Don't just discount it because your guys aren't all going Division I. If you teach good technique, one of the great things about it is, number one, you limit the number of routes that they have to defend.

Number two, very few high school receivers are adept at getting off of press man coverage. They just don't have that skill set, and so you give them a different look. They're used to seeing bad press man coverage. They're used to seeing guys throwing hands and punching, and that's not what we do. We stay over top.

​So pr- press man coverage can work for your football team. Number 16, we talked about it, touched on it a little bit. Daniel's in the war room. 30 fronts are not better just because you have less linemen. Again, if your linemen aren't as good