[00:00:00] Welcome back, coaches. This is the Football Coaching Podcast. I am Daniel Chamberlain, co-host. Here with Joe Daniel, as always. What's up, coach? It's like five or six years now we've been having the same intro, and I love it every time. I screwed it up last week, which I guess we haven't actually put that episode out yet.

They have when they hear this one. That one's out. Yeah. 'Cause this one's out. Anyway. It's all about consistency. There we go. It's good. It's easy. Uh, real quick, get through our Power Minute before we talk about other things, 'cause, you know, that's what we do here. So now we're talking about defending the flexbone offense, uh, fitting the umbrella to the flexbone.

We're gonna talk about game planning for the flexbone, and then that in-game adjustment period, what you gotta do to stop them if they've found a weakness. Last week we talked about offensive line drills, the greatest episode of all time probably. I don't know. Next week it's off to practice team sessions, which is gonna be the greatest episode of all time.

You'll have to go listen to find out on your own. Uh, Joe, right now, man, football season is [00:01:00] rolling. We got some people that are 1-0 and 2-0, or 0-1 or 0-2. Georgia just finished their state finals. Uh, they are crowning champions in Georgia. I know. But, uh, geez. Got a couple states that are on, like, week three right now.

Yeah, they're w- Starting to get- They're so far. Yeah. I talked to, uh, Coach Chip this weekend, and he's a Alabama guy- Alabama. Mm-hmm ... that's in Georgia right now coaching. Okay. And, and he was like, "Oh yeah, we've got..." I think he's got three in the books. I'm like, "What are we doing, man?" Anyway. Yeah. Uh, film is out.

You got, you know, film's real. The mistakes are real. Every week we get something new to kind of fix. The podcast has been helping you guys do any of that, if it's O-line drills, if it's, you know, defending a certain offense, if any of the stuff that we've... This has been a really neat season. Uh, we're 10 episodes in, this is episode 10 this season, of, uh, you know, just kind of problem-solving on the fly, and I've really liked this one this season.

It, it stands out for me. Anyway, if this one's been helping you out, you know, share it with other coaches. Or if something from the past helped you and you just keep hanging around, we, we appreciate you guys too. Joe, [00:02:00] let's pay the bills and we'll, uh, we'll get into the conversation. Yeah, so just wanna mention that we are opening enrollment on our Game Film Masterclass during the, uh, month of September as we get into the season and you're working on breaking down that film.

You guys in Georgia getting ready to break down your playoff film. Um, as you're breaking down that film and everything, you need a system for it so that you can pull all of the important information out, but do it in a reasonable amount of time. So if you feel like you're watching film but you're not really learning what you need to learn from that film, or if you feel like your film study just goes on and on and on, you're staring at the ceiling on Thursday night before a Friday game thinking, "I j- I gotta get up and I gotta watch more film."

If you're just obsessively watching film but never pulling the real good stuff out of it, then you need a system, a system that has a start and an end to it, and the Game Film Masterclass is the place to go. Self scout, offensive and defensive opponent scout, and special teams. So there's five big [00:03:00] components to it.

You have full video tutorial walking you through each one of these things, but you don't have to watch it all. They are step-by-step workbooks, basically, frameworks for breaking down the film. And I've cut down... I know for myself, when I started using this system, I cut out about 11 hours of film study. Um, and as I've talked about before, my system is I do the self scout on Friday night after the game 'cause I stay up late.

I do nothing on Saturday. On Sunday afternoon, I do the opponent scout. I got tired of worrying about, you know, planning to do it on Saturday morning and then the other team didn't send the exchange or something like that, so I just quit bothering with it. It's like, it'll be here someday. And on Sunday night, meet with, meet with the staff, done.

Done after that meeting, make a few changes, put together the game plan as a coordinator, done. That's it. Sunday night, ready to roll. Um, and that's the system. So Game Film Masterclass is open for enrollment right now. Uh, joedanielfootball.com/gfmc to get into the [00:04:00] Game Film Masterclass. Closes for enrollment, uh, midnight Pacific on September 30th, so the end of the month.

It's basically available through the month of September Well, it, and, and I really do like that you talked about a system there, having a system to do it, because we also wanna talk about Athletic Speed and Movement, and that is yet another system. I, I feel like these things bleed over almost into your culture, right?

You talked about how you just, Saturdays can be family day now 'cause w- they never, other guy never sends film anyway, and so now your system and your culture are, "Hey, we do all of our coaching on Sunday, all of our prep," right? It becomes a thing. And I, I think that's really what Athletic Speed and Movement has done as well, is you get into this, like, o- one, we train speed in-season, we train speed every week, we train speed twice a week.

And the kids know, like, "Hey, on these days we're gonna get out and we're gonna get after it early. We're gonna get our sprints in." You get it done. It's fairly light. You're not out there trying to run 100 or, or 10 110s or any of that crazy stuff. Um, and then all of a sudden it's done, right? And so it [00:05:00] becomes that culture.

And then you get in the off-season later, I realize it's in-season, it's hard to start, but guys, it's so easy and it's so fast, um, as your players will be. And then you get the off-season and the, the kids just know. It's just part of your culture. It's what you do. So having that system that trains anything or does anything is great.


Understanding the Flexbone Offense
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Uh, using it to train speed is, is just yet another benefit. Athleticspeedmovement.com, you can go figure out what I'm talking about when I'm saying an in-season program, uh, and a, a system for speed. All right, man, uh, let's jump into it here. So the flexbone offense is ... Look, I've had, like, three introductions to this offense and, um, I'm just not a fan.

I'm not a fan of the offense. But I have to have episodes like this from you, Joe, because I truly don't understand the flexbone offense, right? It's not ... I, it's so boring to me, I've just never gone out and studied it. And I know, I ... Look, if I'm making you angry 'cause you're flexbone, good. Write me a firmly written-

worded email, [00:06:00] right? But I'm not saying it's a crap offense, I'm just saying I've never seen it ran well. And

Therefore, I've never been kind of indoctrinated and I don't know the ins and outs. So if I'm gonna go scheme up an 11 P, you know, gap scheme, zone scheme, a pistol power offense, um, you know, whatever the system of choice is out there right now, most of them, you know, I've got... I, I kinda understand what they're trying to do.

The flexbone is one that evades me due to sheer boredom, so I have to have episodes like this. So I think it's gonna be a, a fantastic episode for people that are like me. Like, all I've ever done is run the spread, and now this guy's running the flexbone on me and I have no idea what he's really trying to do, right?

What's his intent? What are his tools? What weapons does he bring to this party, and how am I gonna stop him? So I'm excited to kinda hear about that, Joe. Um, first we, you know, as we always do, we kinda gotta fit what we do to it, so let's talk about fitting that umbrella, uh, the umbrella run fits to the flexbone offense.

Yeah, and I mean, just to be honest, you know, I'm [00:07:00] probably of, of anything... Maybe not anything that we talk about, but it's up there. Of the things that I have invested my time in, um, the flexbone is among those that I have really invested the least amount of time into. Um, I've coached against it. I have, uh, had ser- terrible fa- failures and great successes, both.

Uh, like you said, I think there's good flexbones and bad flexbones. There's good game plans and bad game plans. Uh, there are a lot of different ways to look at it. Um, you know, when we look at the flexbone, uh, I think the big thing is that what we... We've been getting more and more on it. Um, and I'll mention that the, the school that I was coaching for, I'm not currently coaching, um, but they moved to a flexbone [00:08:00] offense and the head coach, a good friend of mine, um, he really l- likes it.

I don't know if I can say that he loves it yet, um, but he definitely likes what's happening there. They're in their second year. Um, they went and learned from the Kansas... Was it Harden, Simmons? Whatever. Who'd ever... Who is it? The, the big flexbone dude. I don't know. I'll have to look up. I'll see if I can find it.

E- everyone's following the, that. So every time I talk to somebody from Kansas they are either running the flexbone on offense and they've come to me for defense stuff, or they are asking about the flexbone. We're getting more and more of it. Um, I've only known two teams here in Virginia or, you know, a handful of more than two, but just a handful of teams that ran the flexbone, um, including this team now, and, um, you know, it is...

They, they've both been able to move the ball. Uh, and they've both been teams that didn't have, like, a ton of talent. And so, uh, i- in that way, you know, I respect the flexbone in that it is a, [00:09:00] uh, has managed to move the ball For teams that might otherwise struggle to do so. For me, um, and what I work with with our coaches from the defensive side of the ball, so I think it's important for me to point out, I'm not a flexbone expert.


Flexbone Formation and Personnel Alignment
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I have not done, uh, a massive deep dive on the flexbone, but my understanding of the base flexbone, and like anything else, there's multiple types of flexbones. But when we're talking about the flexbone, we are talking about primarily the way that we see it now, five offensive linemen Obviously two wings, a wing to each side and split receivers to each side.

So it is a balanced formation. Quarterback can be under center or pistol, but usually q- under center or pistol, run back behind him. Fullback, whatever you want to call it. Um, a lot of coaches will refer to this [00:10:00] as the double wing because there's two wings, but I think it's important to point out this is not the double wing offense.

The double wing offense and some pe- some people will call this the double wing and then they'll call it the double tight double wing. Is... The two tight ends and two wing backs balance formation, that is the double wing offense. That, period, that's the double wing offense. This is the flexbone. Okay? Um, so you know, and I think it comes from...

I've done... I think years ago I might have done some research on it more, more so than now, um, going back to, you know, the veer offenses, not split back, you know, split back veer and the wishbone, and now you take the wishbone and you move those two wishbone guys out to the slot rece- what they call slots, um, wing back positions.

Uh, you've flexed your wishbone basically I think is where it comes from. I'm not 100%, um, but that's... If I remember [00:11:00] right, that's where it came from. Wishbone obviously being a triple option offense, this being a triple option offense that has a little bit more flexibility. Obviously you can do things like run four verticals out of it.

Um, you know, just as one example, you have a little bit more flexibility in the passing game, uh, a little more flexibility in some of the things that you can do because of that alignment. Um, but at the heart of it, generally when we're talking about the flexbone, we're talking about teams. It's not the formation when we talk about the flexbone offense.


Flexbone Base Plays and Concepts
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We talk about the flexbone offense, we are talking about basically veer option offense, um, being the base play. So we're talking about a team whose base play is triple option. Uh, and most of the teams that I've been familiar with have... They, they have different names, they have different ways of doing it, but essentially there is a triple option play which is half or more of their [00:12:00] offense.

There is a dive play, a zone dive or whatever they call it, where you're just running straight up the middle. There's no option. You're... Um, and I know from studying other triple options that that's really a setup play, um, to, you know, show the dive and, and start to set up the triple option. Uh, then there is a...

The triple option obviously handles most of your off tackle work. That's the quarterback going off tackle or through, you know, outside, whether it's inside veer, outside veer, however you do it. Um, that's more of your off tackle play And then you have a straight toss play, which is, you know, a toss sweep type of play, um, to get outside.

So that's your outside run play. And then there's usually a counter or multiple counters. Uh, a lot of them don't pull anybody. Um, they will run basically like a speed option. Uh, this is a wing T thing too, where they'll fake the option one way, [00:13:00] they'll fake the dive one way, and the quarterback will just reverse pivot out.

And then it's essentially a speed option with the wing back coming across. Uh, but they also... I mean, I'm sure there's some that do double handoffs and things like that. But for the most part, that's the one that, uh, you know, I've seen different variations of, of the, the counter. Um, different ways that you can do it, different things that you can do.

Uh, I've seen people hand off to the wing underneath, run the speed option kind of play over top. Uh, then there's play action and, um, a lot of the ones that I've seen have the ability to run essentially the, the basics of three-step passing. They can run a hitch, they can run four verts, they can run maybe a slant or something like that, slant ar- slant flats type of things.

Um, obviously they, that's the base of the offense. Neither one of us being total experts in it, um, the important thing is In our systems and everything that we talk about on the podcast and everything that we teach inside JDFB premium coaching systems, the questions I get a lot are, [00:14:00] "What do we


Why Your Base Defense Stops the Flexbone
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do for the flexbone?"

Or, "What do we do for the double wing?" I'm like, "Tell me about your double wing." And they're like, "Well, it's this, that, it's..." Okay, that's flexbone. Nothing special, and I think that's the important thing is nothing special. That's... Th- And I say that knowing that it's a great offense. Um, uh, there's been a lot of teams, a lot of coaches have won a lot of games.

I've talked before, essentially the, the Muskie gun that we faced from Tony Anese when I was at, uh, Ellsworth Community College in Iowa, uh, Grand Rapids, I think, won the national title that year. They ran a, a pistol flexbone. Um, so that was... We gave up 77 points because I was linebacker coach, Ricky Koon was the, uh, defensive coordinator, and we were overruled in our plan for stopping the defense, and we ran a gimmick and th- that doesn't work.

And I think that's where a lot of the flexbone success comes from, and that's why when coaches come to me and say, "What do we run for [00:15:00] the flexbone?" Your base. You run your base. Because I think what they feast on is guys trying to invent and, um, you know, find different ways, and you have to have a system where the run fits for the triple option are built in.


Fitting the Umbrella Defense to the Flexbone
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And so basically what we recommend is we run an indie front, double two eyes, so that the defensive ends can squeeze down. We us- we used to do things like, "Hey, should the defensive end be lined up on the wing?" And realized years later, no, because very simply, he can't key read the wing. He has to have that key read, that immediate feedback from the five tech, and so he has to be there to get that so he can squeeze that down block.

And so, um, you know, we, we really, really focus on the umbrella. And the second [00:16:00] time that I remember seeing a flexbone, uh, again was a pistol, um, back in Virginia and it was the second year in the four-two-five defense system We were getting prepared to face a team. Now, to be fair, it was their first year installing it and it was their first game in it.

We had a couple scrimmages, but it was their first game in this offense. We went out, second year in the 4-2-5. We saw a couple of sloppy zone reads and stuff the year before, but no real option, triple option type thing. So we go out and we've had our couple scrimmages, and we're getting ready for game week, and the typical thing that we did, and the typical thing that everybody did, probably still does, we go out first practice of the next week and we line up their offense and we walk through their best plays and we talk about how we are going to fit [00:17:00] these plays.

And we lined up and we walked through, and we lined up in our 4-2, and the offense starts to walk through their down blocks, veer release, whatever it may be. And the running back is walking through the dive and the quarterback is, you know, doing what the line said on the card. We were still doing that.

This was years ago. And we stopped them. It's almost like a bird walk. We stopped them. We said, "Okay, who's gonna tackle the dive?" And the defensive end is bending down the line of scrimmage because he's gotten a block away read from his tackle, and he's going me, 'cause I'm just gonna go straight down the line of scrimmage and who am I gonna run into?

Dive back. So he's on the dive, and of course the defensive tackle is on the dive So the, [00:18:00] uh, and we're in that two-eye look. So the next couple of steps go through. We say, "All right, who's got the quarterback?" And our linebacker who'd started the previous year is like, "Well A gap's closed, B gap's closed, so I'm gonna be there."

I goes, "That's right. You have inside half of the quarterback." Again, he's a spill defender, so he's gonna tackle the inside half. So he's on the quarterback. Who's got the pitch? I got my safety standing out there, seven-by-three at the time. We're five-by-five now. Standing out there at five-by-five. And the safety says, "Uh, nothing gets outside of me."

That was the words we used. Now we had him come up with the force or change of direction. But he's not getting outside. I got him. He's coming out here. This is where I'm at, at the pitch. All right. Free safety, uh, I'm gonna go downhill to the quarterback. Okay. [00:19:00] And if you're on the way to the outside half of the quarterback, because that's...

He's the last spill. He fits outside the last spill player, and that has become the Mike, so he's gonna go hit the quarterback. If the quarterback pitches it while you're on the way down, what are you gonna do? "I'm gonna go to the inside of the pitch." Okay. So we've got two on the dive. Tackle in the end, in this case.

We've got one-and-a-half on the quarterback. Mike linebacker. And again, this is running to the strong side. It'll be the same on the weak side. They're balanced, we're balanced. Mike linebacker, free safety. Mike linebacker on the inside half, free safety the outside half. If the pitch happens, the free safety breaks to the outside, to the inside half of the pitch, and the force player has the outside half of the pitch.

So we have one-and-a-half on the quarterback, one-and-a-half on the pitch. They knew it because it was natural. Never did another one of those sessions again because that was when I realized that the way that we had learned to run fits from TCU, from the umbrella, the way that we learned [00:20:00] that and the way that we installed that, it fit the things that we needed to fit naturally, including triple


How Run Fits Handle All Option Offenses
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option.

So from that point on, once they understood option, we could show them everything is just option. Power read, zone read, split back veer, wishbone option. Doesn't matter. They're all just option. It eventually extended into RPOs. It's just option. It's different ways of running option. Speed option. Speed option has a quarterback running off tackle and a pitch.

That's it. That's it. These are just... They're built into your run fit system. And so, of course the conclusion of that story, as I've told many times, is we go out in the first series. We, we, we do it pretty well in the, um, in the scrim- i-i-in practice. But again, we, we do... We run the entire thing with no ball and just fitting everything because we can't simulate, we can't read.

Or what we do now is we just call it. So we run the pitch, we run the... You know, we, we tell them who's gonna [00:21:00] get the ball so that we don't have to sit there. You know, we don't have a quarterback. We can't actually read it. Um- So we go out, get to the game, line up, we're all ready to go, and they line up in the pistol flexbone, and they drive down the field and score on the first drive It's not good No, it's

not And we get my two linebackers who are both straight defensive players, bigger school that I was at then. All they play is defense. They come over, great kids, and one of them, Kyle, I said, "What happened out there?" He's smiling. We just get, we just gave a, a, you know, a long drive, obviously it's flexbone so it's a long drive, but like something popped.

It was just, you know, three yards, five yards, seven yards, two yards, that kind of thing "Coach, it's exactly what you said it would be." "Cool. What's, what, what's the problem?" "Oh, we just didn't believe you, Coach, [00:22:00] but we see it now. We got it Okay. Thanks. And I'm just like, "Well, no adjustments to make right now because they say they've got it."

And sure enough, we shut them out. We won 14- we shut them out the rest of the game, won 14 to seven. Um, but it was a little nervous for there, there for a little bit. But again, it's built into your run fit system. So if you have an offense, or excuse me, if you have a defense where a flexbone triple option with a counter and a dive and a toss causes you to install a whole new defense That's not


Avoiding Gimmick Defenses Against Triple Option
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good.

You have a problem. You don't have a system. Your defense is fundamentally broken- Right ... or your understanding of the defense is fundamentally broken, which is okay, but you gotta get that fixed. So there are n- y- you don't wanna be in gimmicks. You don't [00:23:00] wanna do a ton of blitzing and a ton of crazy stuff.

You just want to be able to line up in your base. There are times for that, but primarily you want to be able to line up in your base, and we do tags and things to change the read, blitzes that change up the read, but for the most part, you wanna line up in your base and be able to stop it, and be able to fit it, and not have to confuse your players.

Because the triple option is complicated. It is deception. It is... If kids are trying to figure out who has the ball, it's almost impossible to stop. To whereas, if everyone's just going to their fit, basically tackle everybody, then you're okay. That's, that's what you have to do, uh, for that, is, is build around your umbrella run fits.

Um, you know, stop their base stuff. If they run a counter where they pull a guard, you should be in the place. If they run an inside trap instead of a dive or instead of a wedge or something like that, or whatever they may run, you know, you follow the puller and you fit it. All the fits are natural. All the fits happen.

[00:24:00] Um, you just, you, you don't have to do anything wacky to stop it. Um, again, it's probably better if you don't, because when you start doing wacky stuff, they eat you alive. I looked up the, um, team in Kansas, I think. Now, this is Addie, my AI. If y'all don't know, we've named the AI Addie. Uh, she tried to name herself Atlas, but she speaks with a girl voice and I was like, "Nah, cuzzo, uh, you're gonna be Addie."

So she is. Anyway, she says... And if you think it's weird I gave my AI a, a name, well, ask your AI what it wants to be named, okay? That was the- Mine, mine's named Bolt ... that was the prompt I gave it. Bolt. See? Good. I like it. It keeps me from saying, "Yeah, uh, ChatGPT said..." Now I can say, "Hey, Addie said..." It's a- it's just, I humanized it.

I'm gonna get a robot too, and when, what We Are Robots or I Are Legend or whatever that movie are. Anyway, [00:25:00] I'll just die. I don't care. It says, um, the coach recently changed, but it was Hutchinson High. He won seven- No, we're talking about college. Oh. Well, okay. He, uh, it said he won seven state championships in eight years and then took it to St.

Thomas Aquinas, I assume. Uh, but it said there's also, um, he has spread it out to Friends University and Wichita Heights are all from his tree, and those OCs have gone on to run the flexbone. And it says, uh, Friends is now running the nas- one of the nastiest modern flexbone offenses in the country, so. I mean, it's very popular in Kansas, I know that.

Yeah. I mean, it seems so. There's several colleges and- The guy won seven out of eight championships, so there you go. Um

The, you know, once again, it just proves that like the system, the system matters and, and having the umbrella matters and I, I l- [00:26:00] I really like what you said. They feast off of people trying to run defense of the week, right? Trying to change things up. And I know it's, that's part of the, all of those, I'm, I call them antiquated offenses.

I realize people run them all over the place. Look, a, a friend of the show and a friend of Joe's and I is Kenny Simpson, and Kenny is Uh, the gun T guy, right? Which is just the wing T, which is another one of these offenses. But he's the same way, right? He eats people up that wanna show up and run the thing they've not ran all year, and he gets film and he's like, "We don't even watch defensive film anymore because we know they're gonna show up in some trash defense."

So we just have rules and we just take care of whatever. And so, you know, uh, you're way better off just going in with what you do, even if it doesn't fit perfect. But in this case, it already does. It does fit perfect, um, with the umbrella run fit. So not having to go out and make a big change. 'Cause that, you know, I get that question a lot too, [00:27:00] Coach, and that's just being associated with the podcast is, you know, guys message and they're like, "Hey, d- how do you...

How do we line up to the flex bone?" I don't... Just run defense, man. It ain't- Yeah ... right? You don't have to g- I, I realize the double wing is the one that adds a gap, and you gotta figure out how the heck you're gonna fit an extra gap, right? Different, different deal. It's different. But the flexbone ain't that.

No. And a lot of it is just be simple and base, 'cause they're gonna muddle huddle you anyway and come out and, and try to maybe get a tight end on one side or the other, right? And try to throw you off a little bit. So just having something that fits, it's balanced, it... The umbrella run fits, just stays, stays working.

So don't overthink it, guys. Um- I'm being told Harding University, which is in Arkansas, but then- Harding, yes ... went to Friends University in Kansas, and that's, that's the tree. Yeah. So Harding is, uh... Shoot, I think they won the national championship last year, and they've- Yeah ... been in it, like, two out of the th- or three out of four years.

Uh, Kenny's son just actually went to play will linebacker [00:28:00] there. So, um- Good ... anyway, yeah, Harding, big, big stuff. Good, good stuff. Mm-hmm. And I understand they run it really well, and I'm not... That's why I don't completely just- No, it's successful ... poo on this offense. It, it is a- an offense you can run. I've just never seen it done well.

Well, I think that's a big, that's a big distinction ab- about any offense, and it's... This isn't really about... You know, it's about defending the flexbone. It's not about the merits of the flexbone necessarily. And again- Right ... I don't think either one of us knows enough about it to have a deep discussion about the merits of the flexbone.

What I can do is have a discussion about the merits of any offense. And they're... All of these offensive systems, just like the defensive systems, there's, there's no real advantage to... E- especially at a certain level. Like, if we talk about, like... You know, we talk about why a lot of the option stuff doesn't work in the NFL, 'cause of the speed of the players, the ability to cover ground, all of those things.

Um, [00:29:00] but, you know, at a certain level, you know, whether it's high school, you, you know, let's say high school for, or smaller college or whatever it may be, at a certain level, there's, there's no significant advantage to any of these offenses, um, whether it's air raid or flexbone or double wing, uh, or, um, you know, wing T or any of those.

It's not that there's a significant advantage to any of those. What there is is how well you can learn it and teach it. And so one, I think one significant advantage is if you have access to a really good teacher for any of these offenses, pistol power offense included, which is, which is a one-back offense.

Um, any of those, if you have a really good teacher who's gonna teach you the details of it. And on the other side, if you have a [00:30:00] really good, uh, coach or coaching staff that can teach the details of it and learn the details of it and stick to the details of it, I think that's one of the places, as we've discussed, you know, many times, but like, you know, discussing it here, if you're seeing a team that is a crap flexbone, they run flexbone but also And they don't run any of it particularly well.

That's very different. Um, I played multiple teams a few years ago that ran the double wing offense. Double wing, double tight, the real double wing

We beat All of them But some of them were easier than others. So the team that lived in double wing and had for 10 [00:31:00] years, that is tough. We were lucky that they were a down year that year because the two years before we had given up 50 and 45. I think the first year we just got destroyed by them. And the second year we won a shootout, and the third year we had better players and they were young and they were rebuilding.

That's the one I talk about we beat them, um, and then they b- scored 80 on the next two teams they played 'cause they were mad. Um, the other teams were dabbling in the double wing. And the double wing is the same type of thing. Super power wedge or some sort of, you know, trap or wedge or some sort of inside run play.

Super power is the off tackle run play. A sweep, a toss sweep is the outside run play and then a trap or cou- or a counter. And that's, that's the basics of offense. That's what we teach in our quick start guide is an inside run, an off tackle run, an outside run, and a counter. And you get great at those things and then one play action off of them you have yourself an offense.

You can attack all parts of the defense, you can look at what they're doing, you can build around one play. Most of the double wings [00:32:00] are building around the, uh, super power. Most of the flex bones are building around the triple option. Okay? You build around that play and then you have your couple of other plays for, you know, kind of setting them up or taking advantage when they over-adjust to them.

So if you are trying to defend the veer and you're y- you know, um, start collapsing all of your guys in, they'll just, you know, reach you and, and get outside. Right. You take your... You know, you're just running your guy up the field for the pitch, they'll just hook that guy and r- and get out of there. So, you know, if you start getting corners involved they're gonna play action, throw over his head, and you're gonna give up 60 yards to a team...

A 60-yard pass to a team that can't throw. Um, that's, you know, that's what you want to avoid. So, um, the, the offense itself, and again, this, uh, not to be a, a discussion of the merits of the offense, all of these offenses are good. All of these offenses have had success. Do you have somebody that can teach it?

Do you have somebody that will actually stick to it? Um, [00:33:00] we have talked before about, um... I actually talked about it in the, in the loss letters. The, the, um, the manual that we just put out, uh, this month with the collection of basically problem-solving techniques but they're... And tools for problem-solving, but it's the, the newsletters that we published a couple years ago, um, that are now available at JoeDanielfootball.com/lost.

Um, one of the things that I talked about in there was we have people who sign up sometimes for JDFB, and they go in and they watch all the videos on a, on a 14-day trial for a dollar or something like that, and they watch them all and then they cancel. And- They try to run it ... I'm sure they feel like they got over on me and, and that's the offer.

The offer is go ahead and watch it all, do whatever you want, and then at the end of- You know, 14 days if you feel like it wasn't, you know, worth paying for, you leave. Obviously, if you sat there and you watched 10 hours, [00:34:00] 15 hours, 25 hours of instruction in 14 days- Right ... it was worth it. You probably didn't catch it all.

But the key is you're not going to be successful in it. So I, I don't care. Um, I don't feel like you stole anything from me. You watched it, you consumed it, but you didn't get the nuance, you didn't get the detail. You might have gotten the alignment of the defense, or you might have gotten the plays and the offense, but you didn't get the play-side number on backside number and the front side number on the, you know, the money's inside and how we're gonna break this power for a bigger play by getting the backside number of the backside linebacker and cutting back in- inside of him.

You're not gonna get all that. You're not gonna get all that nuance. You're not gonna get all the nuance of everything there. So we don't care. Well, it's the same thing. You'll see people lining up in a flex bone because they saw it and it looks cool and, you know, maybe they found a playbook online and they're running that.

Those aren't the teams you need to worry about. And if you played a team and you... I, I used to deal with this all the time when [00:35:00] I used to read Facebook comments and as a... I, I don't look at Facebook anymore, but I used to read Facebook comments on things that, that I would post 4-2-5 can't stop this. We scored 67 points on a 4-2-5.

You played one 4-2-5 defense, right? What are you talking about? You- that's, that's so, it's beyond anecdotal, it's silly. And so if you played a bad flick- flexbone and you don't think that it can work, go play a good one or go watch a good one and you see that it can work. So we talk about these things, um, and obviously I think one thing to be, to, to, that's really important here is we, you know, kind of just going into the next step The game plan, and we kind of have, have put it all together, the game plan is relatively simple for your basic flexbone, but you've got to watch the


Game Planning for the Flexbone
---

film.

Anybody who says this is the defense for the flexbone offense, they're not all [00:36:00] created equal. Right. There, there are teams running flexbone with, I don't know all of this stuff, but I imagine, and I, I know we've talked to coaches who, okay, they do that, but they also do, you know, something in their passing game.

They have an RPO element. They've evolved to do some unbalance. They've evolved to do, you know, to include... Especially where it's dangerous is teams that got really, really, really good at coaching the base flexbone and have been able to add some outside elements that really unlocked a- another, um, phase of the offense.

I, I've always

I feel like so many teams do it wrong. So many teams that I've seen, and one just pops into my head and it's like how good could they have been? So many teams that I've seen are, you know, a wing T let's say, but they've decided to add passing to their wing T. And so [00:37:00] that year, the next year they decide they're, they're gonna throw more, and what they end up with is a worse wing T with a bad passing game.

It's not as easy, but now you, you run into a master of the flexbone, then that's where everything gets... Like you've got to game plan for that stuff, and it becomes more complicated than what we can do here and say, "This is how you defend the flexbone," because that's evolved past a base flexbone Um Game planning, I know you said we kind of, we kind of put all this in there, but game planning the flexbone, I think it highlights the coaches that can live in the mundane and be happy with the boredom, right?

Of just run your base. I, I love how you said, like, it's the guys that wanna add to. "Oh, we, we're really good at this, we're kinda good at this, but we're gonna add another piece," and then they [00:38:00] screw it all up for themselves. And so your game planning, sure, they added, I want them to spend more time having to break down a passing offense and, and, you know, they gotta spend more time with other coverages because we're gonna run, we know what they're gonna do.

They're just gonna drop into cover three behind there and, and we're gonna have a cover three beater ran out of flexbone, whatever. Great. You wasted a little bit of my time and you wasted a lot of your own time, right? Like, so that's ... But game planning generally, you know, I, I think it, it, it does fit so well, um, with just a base game plan.

Just go in there, run your base. I... Maybe it's because, you know, the option does prevent you from If you know what they're reading and you can kind of guess who they're reading, you know, you can, you can do some echo calls and you can do some stuff to force reads- Mm-hmm. Right ... and get the ball where you want it.

If they're running midline and outside veer and... [00:39:00] Look, you're not, you don't have a special call for your three tech who's trying to go play the dive, and they're just gonna read him. Um, and what are you gonna do? Run him away from the ball? That doesn't make any sense. Right. Why would I want him to give the...

No, I wanna string it out. We're a spill defense. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, I guess I can just pinch him every time. But my point is don't overthink it, man. Give those kids their key reads. Let them read. If they're gonna read your dude and make him wrong, fine. Err on the side of getting it to the edge is, is kinda my opinion.

I, I wanna spill that bad boy out there and string it out, and see can he make the right read, run down there past the defensive end, pitch the ball off of a read, and do that a bunch of times successfully. Right? I'm gonna make him operate and, and, and... Look, some guys can. And you know what? I, I watched, to give the offense its kudos, I did watch, uh, Army at OU live.

I was, I was in Norman at the game, and watched them walk up and down the stinking floor or the, the [00:40:00] field over and over again. I think OU won the game in like overtime or double overtime, something stupid, and it was by like one score, maybe even a field goal. Um, that was frustrating as a fan. Like, I... It can do great things.

But also, um, if you just stick to the basics, make them- Mm-hmm ... do that over and over and over and over again. It's no different than forcing an offensive coordinator to throw a hitch. See a hitch, throw a hitch all the way down the field. They won't. They'll get bored and do something else. They'll try to sneak one in there on you, right?

Or a kid's gonna drop a ball. Now they're behind the chains. Um, all it ta- it's just, it's one bad read. You're one bad pitch, whatever, away from them being behind the chains, and that's kinda where you gotta get them, right? So it's just play the base, play the numbers. The odds are in your favor. Uh, and I'm sure there's somebody out there that's like, "Ah, yeah, we just run dive on you 100 times."

Like you said, Joe, like it's... That's, that's what it is. That's the mentality. And I think we all have that [00:41:00] mentality. You better. Yeah. If you're in this and you don't think your stuff's successful, um, you're, you're doing it wrong, my man. But- No, I know that the, the- ... game plan doesn't take a lot of, a lotta fans.

It... Not a lot of sugar to sprinkle on top of this bad boy. Yeah, I mean, the, the, the flexbone coach who looks at, at this and goes, "That's not gonna work," it's like if you're- If you are a masterful teacher and executioner of the flexbone and, and you have a, a defense with lesser players, probably won't. But what we- what I've seen over and over again, and, and again, you've got a game plan and you've got to look and you've got to see what the deal is.

What I've seen a lot of flexbone teams is they don't... And, and I've heard coaches say this at clinic. Okay? I've heard, I've, I've, I've talked to coaches who ran flexbone. I've heard coaches say this at clinics, is, "We don't wanna pitch." Like, they don't wanna [00:42:00] pitch. Now, talk about watching the academies and stuff like that and they, they can get to a pitch phase and that kid gets the pitch, and if...

The, the thing about the pitch is like you don't wanna pitch, but if they force you to pitch and you pitch it out there, that's the spread, right? That's the guy in space potentially in a one-on-one. That's where the home run plays happen. So I feel like there's two different versions of... And this goes for any, you know, triple option team.

There's kind of two different versions here. There's the version who doesn't want to pitch because of the danger of the fumble. Uh, I remember a coach, this is years and years and years ago, um, he was running a wing bone offense, so he had combined some wing T elements with, with flexbone. That's fun. And, um, I remember him talking about, you know, we pitched the ball.

You know, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was essentially like we pitched the ball one time and I caught it, you know, hitting the coach. You know? That's not good. And he was like, "No, don't pitch [00:43:00] it again." Um, you know, a- and, and I know a lot of coaches who say like, especially early on, "We don't wanna pitch it," because that's the danger part.

But then we have the teams who are really good at it and become the machines and they're like, "I can't wait to pitch it." Like, if we get, if we get your two guys down and we can get your free safety committed, you know, get your Mike linebacker, we would pick off your Mike linebacker with our wing back and we, uh, get your free safety committed down to the quarterback and we pitch it and now he's in a one-on-one in space, or even better, if your, uh, overhang isn't disciplined and comes down to the quarterback as well and we pitch it, um, we're, we're in business now.

Stock block the corner, you know, we're off to the races. Even better if the corner starts trying to get involved. A lot of teams will do this, so I've, I've heard many, many, many, uh, coaches say this, "We're [00:44:00] going to play the pitch with the cornerback." No- No. You don't think they've seen that? You now have no stay in coverage player and you're giving up a 75 yard pass to a team that can't throw.

So no, don't do that. You have to have your stay in coverage defender. Let your free safety be aggressive, keep your corner stay in coverage. Um, so you know, just as far as the game plan goes, you do need to look at, uh... And, and then as far as the game plan, I'm, I'm kind of moving that way Even the most elite of flexbone has the star player in the


Stopping the Flexbone Star Player
---

deal, right?

Is it the quarterback? Is it the running back? Is it the fullback? Is it the left wing or the right wing, or whatever letters and numbers they give the wings? Which guy is the one you don't want to let beat you? And then in your game planning, yes, we start out very vanilla, very base, very much this is, you know, one and a half on the dive, one and a half on the [00:45:00] quarterback, two on the...

Or, excuse me, uh, one and a half on the pitch, one and a half on the quarterback, two on the dive. We start with that very base concept, but who is the guy? Who is the one we're not gonna let beat us? And so then we start to look at, like you said, when we game plan, we start to look at how can I force the guy that we don't want to have the ball to not get the ball?

So if I know that we want to take the ball out of the quarterback's hands and we feel okay defending the dive, we can squat the defensive end, like you said, and that gives an automatic give read. And so now we're playing the dive, and if we're okay playing the dive but we don't want the quarterback getting out in space, then we do that.

Um, if we've seen you pitch the ball eight times and six of them went on the ground, sure, live dangerously and take that guy, take your overhang safety and dare them. Slow play the quarterback, dare them. Pitch it. Let's see it. Pitch it. Come on. You won't. [00:46:00] Like, you can game plan that if that's what you see.

So you can game plan who you want. You wanna crash the defensive end if you wanna see that quarterback, especially if you feel like you can get over the top and scrape and let your, your backer make that play and get your free safety downhill to make that play. Um, those are the things we wanna look for.

We wanna make sure that, um, you know, we're ready for things like their counter if they pull a guard or if they trap and they pull a guard. We're ready for those things. We wanna make sure our corners are aware of the, what their con- passing concepts are. Um, we wanna make sure that our safeties are taking time and learning to read the quarterback so they know what the action looks like of ball up, ball down.

'Cause it almost all looks like ball down at first other than maybe a toss sweep, which is an immediate ball down read. So, um, immediate run read. So, you know, there's little things that we can do in there, but I don't think you're ever going to have a, you know, a big time, you know... You might do some [00:47:00] multi-front stuff with some 50 fronts maybe or some, um, you know, some different things like that.

You've gotta make a decision on can they really pass the ball? How well can they pass the ball? Do they wanna pass the ball? You know, how much do we need to be worried about that or how much can we just, you know, essentially, you know, press cover the guys on the outside and just go, like just, just get involved?

Like how do you wanna do it? Um, so when you're game planning you wanna figure out A, a flex bone is not a flex bone is not a flex bone. There's coaches, there's players that all get involved in the execution of the, of the deal. Can they pitch it? Do they really block the dive really well? Do they... You know, is the quarterback dangerous with his legs or, or not?

Um, so getting into the game plan of it, that's kind of what we're thinking about, what we're looking at, and how we can maybe dictate a little bit of what you do. Yeah. Um, I love all those ideas. Uh, uh, you know, I kind of like what you said about reading. There's something I do in our game planning and, and that's track [00:48:00] targets by number, explosive plays by...

And I'm talking jersey number, right? Uh, explosive plays by position. Do they like going to the weak or the strong side? Now, we're, we're, we're basically talking about flex bone with complete balance, but a lot of what we see down here is a tight end on the field, so- Mm-hmm ... I guess it almost would be a single wing but, um, they're running flex bone principles, right?

Mm-hmm. So, um, do they wanna run strong or do they wanna run weak? If someone- Yeah, I think the base flex bone uses a flexed, uh, they use a tighter alignment a lot. Yeah. The, some of the, some of the flex bone stuff uses like a, like a nasty split tight end, like the tight end then the wing, or the wing then the tight end right outside of them, that kind of stuff too.

Right. So you see different, you know, different flex bone type stuff, um, where it is heavier. Yeah, so figuring out what is the guy you're going against this week, what type of those does he like, and why is he using them? You know, that's one we always wanna look at for when we start game planning them because it does tell you something.

Now, the issue for, for you guys as you get this, and this is another reason why I say don't sprinkle a [00:49:00] lot of sugar on this thing, is you don't have a lot of time to react. Like I said, they're gonna muddle huddle you. Sure, they'll send out their one or two receivers because, and maybe the center, right?

It's 'cause they, everyone else though is on the fly. So it may be, it may be unbalanced right or left, or it may be a tight end wing on one side and not on the other, but you generally don't have time to assess that too much. So you're not going out there with like a bunch of if-thens. Once again, you gotta keep that- Kind of keep things fairly simple so you can react on the


In Game Adjustments Against the Flexbone
---

fly.

Um, let's jump into the last part here, Joe, and this is kind of where it gets so, uh, once, once saying, you know, there's no, no sprinkling any sugar on the game plan, but now we get in the game and our base stuff isn't working, or they just are getting a little bit of an advantage somewhere. So what do we do for making adjustments in game?

I mean, one of the toughest things is that if we're talking about, you know, when we're talking about the flex bone and what we've talked about with just playing your [00:50:00] base, your base umbrella, your 4-2, your 3-3, um, you know, the 3-3 gives you a little bit more option because you can create some different fronts, give different- Yeah

looks. You know, I would use it to create that, um, you know, pinch with the double bullets, C gap bullets, sending both backers to the, to the C gap, just going ahead and declaring, "Okay, we're gonna, we're, we're, we're gonna get the q- the keep, and we're gonna send it straight to the quarterback, and the free safety's gonna come down to help, and, and we're just gonna do that with the 3-3."

With the 4-2, that's tougher. Um, with the four, with the 4-2, you are looking at, you know, you can adjust some things. I know some coaches do things like running heads fronts. The problem is when you do that, you, you slant. You know, I wouldn't just slant. I wouldn't run necessarily, like, fives with a toro and an A where we're slanting two or away.

The first thing is we have to figure out what's the strength, what's the two or away that we're doing. That can work if you start to get a strong tendency [00:51:00] on, for example, a lot of triple teams wanna run to the field because the, you don't wanna run your pitch guy into the boundary necessarily. Right. So they might run the triple into the field.

Um, they might just be running a ton of, of one thing or, or they're killing you with one phase, and maybe you can start to dictate that with your play calling, with slanting or with, like you said, with an echo and cut slanting to the inside or an L, an N loop, or a Q tag, what we call it, where the end just squats and doesn't give that read.

Um, you can try blitzing a backer to get an extra guy on the dive so that he doesn't have to worry about being confused. Um, you know, the problem is- Your base defense has failed. And the best defense is your base defense. So it should be both in defending the flex bone and in general, you should execute your base defense at a higher level than anything else you have on the, on the call sheet.

And everything else is essentially a risk reward. [00:52:00] Everything else is trying to show something different. And like you said, most of these teams don't give you a chance to stem or, uh, disguise. They're gonna come out, they're gonna hit the line of scrimmage, and they're gonna run it, and they're coming at you.

And so, you know, they take that, that ability away from them. So it's, it's really difficult. Obviously, you don't throw your hands up. You start looking at, how can I dictate the read? How can I get the ball out of the hands of the guy that's hurting us? You can look at how can I add numbers, but when you add numbers, you know you've gotta have a good tendency.

Like I said, if you feel like they're running to the field all the time, all right, let's start to, you know, bring the strong safety and tell the free safety he's got the pitch. You know, just as an idea. Um, you know, it's basically a zero call, and, and when the wing crashes down, he's gonna be able to loop.

Um, you know, the problem is, man, your, your base defense has failed you. So it's just about adding [00:53:00] numbers or deciding what phase you can ignore a-and, and that's a, that's a tough feeling, right? There's not really a great adjustment. Um, you could get, like we said, you could get into a 50 front, like our charger bolt type of thing, but that's not really built for this.

Right. You know, you're not gonna be in a good situation in that like you would be in against a double wing. It's not good for it. You could get into a goal line front and just play man. Um, you could run Tiger Cat, those types of things that we have in our playbook. Tiger Cat might be the best answer, question mark.

Um, you know, calling your strength to the field. But Tiger Cat is not a blitz where you pin your ears back. Everybody's still reading the run. They just don't have to worry about a pass, so you're basically running your base. Right. With just, you have an extra guy if you need it. Because they're not gonna pass, right?

That's the- Yeah ... that's the, the concept. And so, um, I mean, it really doesn't change too much. So [00:54:00] it's... I think probably More than any of the, the, the things that we look at, I think this is such an offense that at least from our standpoint, and again, from the 4-2-5 standpoint, you know, the 4-3 is an unbalanced, you can do some different...

In the 4-3, you can get in the under front, you can get in the over front, you can make those adjustments. Um, you can change up your coverage checks, you can switch to a cover three, maybe something like that. You can slide to essentially a 4-2 look, um, and get different guys on the edge. So the 4-3 has a little flexibility.

The 3-4 obviously has a lot of flexibility. You can try different stunts, different slants, uh, to give different looks, but you got to have tendencies to know how you're gonna do it. The 3-3 allows you to create the different fronts with the blitzes, um, and put guys in different gaps and put guys in different spots.

Um, set up match-ups with your 3-3, with your slants, with, you know, there's lots of options there. And the 4-2, you need to be really good at your base defense [00:55:00] because the 4-2 is a coach simple defense and there's not a lot of elaborate, crazy things that you can do that are going to put you in a better position than your base.

If your base didn't work, what are you gonna be better at?

The, um, even in the four two you get some extra fronts up front, right? And that's what little time I've spent in the flex bone I understand that, like, like if they're killing you with midline they're trying to run that to a certain side. It's no different than- Yeah ... what, what us having- We see so little midline though

red and white sides, right? I've seen so little. I, I haven't even considered midline, but yeah. So- Midline, yeah, you can change your front for midline, sure. Yeah, and you can take away that read. If they were trying to read a three tech don't give them a three tech. Put him in a two I. Mm-hmm. Right? And change it or, or a head up or whatever.

So you ... There's, there's still ways. We often talk about building fronts, like there are still other ways to build fronts in the, in the, in even front, in four two five. Um, you, you are a little bit more limited, [00:56:00] but you also got a lot more dudes- Yeah, you just have to be really careful because a lot of the things that people do to build those fronts, a lot of it, I've seen it over and over again, a lot of those things

Now, you could, you could do things like bringing out, I mean you could bring out the safety but now you ... And bring in an extra defensive lineman, but you don't have the safety now. So now you're- That's pretty scary ... you know, that's fine if they're, if they're killing you on the dive getting a bear front or something like that.

Okay, maybe that's it, but, um, a lot of what people do is they try to get the overhang safeties or the corner involved inside. They have an answer for that. Right. It's called toss sweep. Everybody runs it. That's right. You bring that guy down, that wing is in such a good position to hook your guy out there and you're in trouble.

This is a great place to have a good box coach. Hopefully they can kinda let you know what they're doing, right? I m- even if you can just read the quarterback's eyes, whatever they're killing me on, wherever he's looking is what they're killing you with. So, you know, changing that read once like, like I said earlier with your game plan, like having ways to [00:57:00] change reads.

And maybe you didn't go in with that as your we're gonna do this tonight a lot and ... but they, they get you in a pickle. They get you in a bind. Um, three yards and a cloud of dust works great for an offense but it works great for a defense too. Like I said, we're waiting for one mishap. Yeah. Okay? So I mean, unless you're giving up eight yards a pop on dive or on whatever it is, um, ride the storm, man.

Right? Mm-hmm. Like, don't, don't, don't start yanking levers just yet. Let's kinda see how this plays out a little bit. They're going to control the clock, that's what they're out there to do. That means when you get the ball back you gotta go do good things, but defensively understand, like, you're gonna be put in that situation of they're just driving and gouging and gouging and gouging and then you're gonna get your opportunity.

So don't ... If you're really good at the basics and you're really good at being bored and you're really good at simple, when that opportunity arises you'll, you'll be able to take advantage of it

All right, man Bad [00:58:00] Yeah, I think that's it I'm tired of talking about this offense. Right. Uh, I think we've checked all the boxes tonight, man. Um, real quick, guys, I know everybody's kinda setting into their familiar in-season rhythm. Like I said, most of you've got a game or two under your belt. We got Friday night you got the game.

Saturday it's off to kinda watch your film and break it down, unless you're like Joe and you do it Friday night. Uh, uh, wild man. Uh, Sunday start solving that next problem, then all of a sudden it's Friday again, right? That is our, that's our rhythm kind of in season. Evaluate, adjust, teach, repeat. Um, hopefully this show has kinda given you a few ideas to make that process a little easier, whether it's game planning an oddball offense or it's, you know, last week we were O-line drills, next week we're doing, um, practice team sessions.

So hopefully whatever it is, uh, we're giving you some help. If we are and y- this episode or any other one's helped you, please do send it out to another coach. Let's help we kinda grow the game. Uh, tonight we talked about defending the flex bone offense, fitting the umbrella to the flex bone game plan for the f- flex bone, and adjustments during the game.[00:59:00]

Last week was offensive line. Next week, like I said, practice team sessions. We're off to our level up. Joe, what is your level up, good sir? I finished a book, an audiobook, um, called The Five Types of Wealth. Uh-

I like it It's a good book. Uh, it is by a fella named, um, whoop, I don't know his name because I don't have it in Audible. Uh, I have it in Sahil Bloom, um, The Five Types of Wealth, and basically, you know, the five types of wealth are, they're, they're on the cover so it's, it's, uh... Well, I'll just read them. Uh, the five types of wealth, uh, time, time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth, physical wealth, and financial wealth.

Um, and obviously- A lot of them ... what most people think of is phys- is financial. Right. But, uh, a [01:00:00] lot of it falls into the idea of like what good is it to be, you know, rich if your body is broken down? Um, what good is it to, you know, live a long life if you're completely miserable, if your mental health is not well, if you're not taking care of yourself in, in that way?

Um, you know, time being one of the biggest things and, and you know, if you don't spend time... So one of the things that, one of the big kind of stories of the book is, you know, he was out I think in California making lots of money, living a great life and says, you know, uh, something happened and gave him a realization of like this, this time is, is short.

Um, and you know, moved back to Ohio or wherever it is to be close to his parents to, um... It was one of the things, there's, there's, there's, this story gets told in many different ways but- Yeah ... um, [01:01:00] the, the idea is, you know, if you see your parents four times a year and your parents are 70 years old and the life expectancy is 80, you're gonna see your parents 40 more times before they die, and it's that realization of like that's not...

And, and I'm in that. Like I, I'm in as... You know, my dad's in Myrtle Beach. He's 81. Uh, I don't get to go there as much as I'd like and so it's like those things kind of hit you of like, okay, time and the importance of, of that. Um, obviously social is like, you know, your friends, your connections, your, your life, your family, all that, not so- not your family but, so just all of the things that are important.

And I like the concept. It's not far off. Obviously I, I am strategic coach and Dan Sullivan and that teaches four types of, four... It teaches the four [01:02:00] freedoms, which are essentially freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationships, and freedom of something else I can't remember right now but it seems important.

Um- ... uh, you know, the, this is not one that I've done the best with, but uh, you know, the, it's not an idea that's... It's a good book. It's not some... If you've been- in the personal development, self-help, whatever it is, book space for any length of time the ideas get laid out and you pretty much got it. And then you're listening for the next, you know, eight hours, it's 10 hours to listen to or you're reading.

You pretty much got it in the first couple of hours and it was good and I was like, "Oh, this is good." And then it's just like another personal development book. It's, and it's It tries to give you... And it has some good stuff. I'm not saying that it doesn't. It's, it's, it's worth it if you're, you know, just [01:03:00] to get some ideas here and there.

Um But I feel like a lot of these books try to be like, "This is your manual for life." And if you wanna use this as a manual for life, that's fine, but it's basically the same manual that you get from a 50 other personal development type books. Like money's not the most important thing, take care of family, take care of your health, you know.

It has suggestions on your health. I always hate that. Right. I always hate that because I'm like, I compete in weightlifting. This stuff about like functional, like get out and walk, and like this is... What you need to do is go for a walk. And I'm like, you need to shut the hell up.

But, um, you know, and it goes through like financial wealth. It goes through like the basics of financial advice of like [01:04:00] invest in the S&P 500 because that's gonna go up X amount every year, and you know, risky investments are gonna be risky, and you know, bonds are gonna be low risk. But you know, it just goes through basic financial advice.

So it turns into this like-

Um, jack of all trades, master of none. And I like the stuff that really gets, gets into something and tears it apart, at this point. If you're new to personal development, this is a good book to start with. Yeah. But if you've been down that road, I like the things that get in and tear it... I mean, E- Extreme Ownership is a great example, right?

It gets in and tears this one idea, and there's a few things where you're like, "Okay, enough, we get it." But, like, 'cause you c- apparently you can't put out a short book, that doesn't work, so you gotta make it 300 pages or 400 pages or whatever it is. But, like, Extreme Ownership is basically hitting on that one idea the entire time, and it's a relatively...

It's not... They're not the [01:05:00] first, it's not the only. It's, it's one of. It's the one that made it popular, so it gets that credit. Um, you know, and it explains the thing that you can then take and make, like, a principle in your life. And I don't know that there's anything in here that you can make a principle in your life that hasn't been made a point by a billion other places.

But Five Types of Wealth, it's okay. It's not gonna be life-changing. There we go. Uh- I would say it's a level up in that I, I did it. And the first hour... Now, you- there's a guy named, uh, Naval Ravikant And he says he reads 100 books or 1,000 books a year. And people go, "Oh, that's impossible." But he's taken this and he's gone a step further with it.

He speed reads, and he also will speed read the first two chapters and go, "Okay, got it," and puts it down. And you know what? He got it. He got it. [01:06:00] There's nothing else. There was... You start reading these books and you start to realize, I wish I was better at it. I talked to a, a level up a few weeks ago about like, okay, I, I saw enough and I put it down.

I remember that. I wish I had the ability to just go like, "Got it," put it down Um, I've got two and they're a little shorter. Um, the first one is, uh, because I'm continuing in my kitchen experiments with, uh, AI. So y'all don't know, I'm, I'm doing a kind of... It's as carnivore as I can possibly get. It's, uh, I'm not eating any vegetables.

I ate cheese, which is on the original carnivore diet, right? Like as a fat. It's keto, okay? Um- And doing very well with it. Very, very well. I, I don't even know how many days I'm in because I didn't really pick a day to start, it just... I had some friends over, we ate like hogs, and then the next day I was like, "Oh crap, I'm 195 pounds, it's time to lose some weight."

And so I just started, [01:07:00] and I have no idea what day that was. I have to go back and count. But, um, I have been using AI, and I told y'all last week or two weeks ago that we inventoried our whole, you know, all of our meat freezers and all of our pantry and I need to get the refrigerator done, because that would help the most.

But I tell it when I move things from the meat freezer to thaw out or, "Hey, this is in the fridge for three days," it's like, "Reminder, don't, don't let that crap go bad." It's saving us money already, because I don't go double by, I don't waste food as much, um, by just letting the... Anyway. But another thing it's doing for me is, like, my cooking skills have skyrocketed.

One, I'm having a blast, because I'm doing things I've never done before. Now, when you first get started, if, if you use your AI to do carnivore, it's a lot of braising meat. It's a whole bunch- Mm-hmm ... of like sear it, put it in the oven, pull it out in 45 minutes and you've got very tender meat. But honestly, like, it's a very easy way to make delicious meat, right?

So, um, so I've taken it down the... I've started eating a lot of oriental [01:08:00] foods. We made Chinese food this weekend, so I had like, uh, General Tso chicken, um, and it was delicious, and it was all keto. And then I have a recipe for orange chicken. I haven't made it yet, but I will. Tonight I made curry, which I needed more curry sauce.

It didn't come out as good as I wanted, but my wife did, and I made her, like, restaurant quality... And of course it's not on keto because she's not doing this. I made her restaurant quality freaking, uh, pumpkin chicken curry. Like, it was fantastic. I, I dipped my finger and had a little taste. It was great.

But like how to fry eggs in a cast iron s- I have two cast iron skillets, mainly all we use. Um, and I'd always heard for years like, "Oh, it just gotta be ripping hot," right? "Ripping hot and get any... That keeps stuff from sticking to the metal because it's so hot." Turn out, no, that's not how you cook eggs in a cast iron skillet.

No. I had no idea. So I'm, I'm challenging a lot of my pre-known things, like, uh, things I thought I knew and, uh, and I'm learning a crap [01:09:00] ton. So it goes back into my be a lifelong learner. I always thought I knew how to do some of this stuff, and I always wondered why it kinda came out shoddy and, uh, look at it go now.

It's, it's doing great. So challenge your, uh, self, man. Grab AI and, and let it teach you stuff. Um, you don't have to get super personal if you don't want to, if you're freaked out about the transformers or the, uh, uh, terminators coming back or whatever. Like- Cool, I understand. Um, but man, uh, there's a lot of stuff we think we know with football too, right?

Like, we, we think we know stuff in football, I got that down, and then maybe, maybe the way you've been doing it isn't the best way. So it's cool to learn more. Last thing is, uh, be okay with admitting that you're wrong, and, and this one actually has hit me twice with the same problem. Um, you know, I'm coaching six, uh, six-year-olds in first grade, first graders.

They're, they're different ages, but most of them are around six, and I'm trying not to be block the T coach on the O line, [01:10:00] and so we have, uh, basically every play sweep. And the issue we'd been having with it is linebackers and safeties getting to the edge faster than or as fast as the football because There's only two plays in, in eight-man football realistically at this level- Mm-hmm

um, 'cause we're all blocking the T. And so in the beginning of the season it's like, okay, we're gonna block a man over, just kinda like reach or, you know, rip and run. Um, and I didn't like it then 'cause the kids didn't know what offensive line was. They didn't know what offense was. They didn't know what defense was.

Well, now we're four games in, we're three and one, we're blowing some people out. Uh, we- our one loss, we lost seven to nothing. It was just a fistfight. Um, I was like, okay, it's time. We got a bye week this week. Everybody's off for Labor Day this weekend. And I was like, well, let's, let's give it a go. So we kinda tried to go back to it this week, and the kids still just don't possess the skills.

They're not fast enough off the line, and so, like, my [01:11:00] tackle is running around the defensive end to get to backer, or really just kinda getting out in space out there, and the guard can't get to the defensive end fast enough, and the guy that he's leaving, the center, can't get to fast enough. So we went from, like, a backer might scrape over, make the tackle, to every defensive lineman's in the backfield making the tackle.

So, uh, without the ability to coach complex combos and even... Look, even if it was our zone rules and it was covered and uncovered, they're all covered, right? Yeah. It's, it's a five-man line, and we have twos and either fours or fives. The coach gets to choose. But it's twos and fours essentially on each side.

So you would still get a covered call and you'd be blocking that guy. It would just be what shoulder you were going to. Um, anyway, so I have abandoned yet again. Uh, we tried it for two days and it's, it's not that the kids can't learn it. I've, I've loved that. Like, they really picked it up and made- Mm-hmm

secret code calls so they [01:12:00] can... I mean, they, they're not super... It was Lucy and Ringo. I mean, they weren't secret, but they were calls, by God. And, uh, they could remind each other what direction they're going. Like, it was going really well, it's just it doesn't fit. It turns out if you put six people in the bo- or five people in the box, um, and they're all just head up on your lineman, like, it's kinda hard to, to play outside.

So anyway, I am at, I am 100% okay with admitting I was wrong a second time on the exact same thing, and we're gonna get back to blocking Ts and doing it super good. Sure. Uh, because that's all you can really do. Six, yeah, I mean, six-year-olds is just... I've always said, um, I used to put the line at 10. I've worked with some eight-year-olds.

Ei- eight- eight-year-olds get a little bit easier. Um, but I used to tell people, like, I, you know, 10-year-olds and up are stuff, you know, [01:13:00] I, I got you. You can do this. I've seen teams do it, I've seen it work- Yeah ... I know it can work. But quite honestly, you go below 10, especially you go below eight, I'm like maybe, but probably not.

Dude- Yeah ... all you can hope is you get more than one kid that can just absolute get it, and then you personnel the crap out of him. Like- Right ... like I said, our best, and, and we may, our free safety and our defensive end are the fastest two guys and they're explosive, quick, right, bursts. Mm-hmm. Um, they might be p- both be playing defensive end from now on, because I put my free safety at defensive end and tried to block him with three people- Right

and he's just so fast off the snap. Like, there, so it's, that's all it is at this level. You can't, there, it's, even the most simple com- uh, uh, concepts to us are- Yeah ... like y- four years beyond. So it's a, it's a, you're, I'm going backwards in time in coaching for sure, but it's, it's making me a better coach.

All right, man, let's get out of here. Let's close this thing out. Um, do-do-do-do. [01:14:00] You already talked about this, things are coming open, the, it is the Game Film Masterclass. So if you're looking for... Here's the cool thing about the stuff at Joe Daniel Football, you might have a way that you do things and you might be a forever learner like I am, but also hard-headed enough like I am that you're not gonna go get into someone else's stuff.

But there's nothing says you can't get this and give it to a new coach or give it to another coach on staff and be like, "Here's a fresh way that you're gonna watch film." So even if you don't think you have the time, 'cause now you're in season, you're a coordinator, you're doing a lot of stuff, get this program and get it to one of your, one of your guys, one of those young ones that's really coming up, the guys that are really putting in a lot of effort.

Get him in the Game Film Masterclass and let him kind of open your eyes to what you're missing in film or why, where you're wasting time in film, how things aren't efficient. Um, I, I think that's probably the best way to do it right now. Mm-hmm. Yep. All right, sweet. Uh, let's see. Social media, I'm @CoachChamboOK.

You [01:15:00] can email me at chamberlainfootballconsulting@gmail.com. Joe is, uh, joe@joedanielfootball.com. That's correct. And, uh, you can email him or come to joedanielfootball.com, get signed up, jump in the chalkboard or the f- uh, the forum, or you can jump on the Chalk Talks every Monday night during the season. I missed last night, I'm sorry.

I tried to be there, but practice was- It's a good one. It's a good one. Yeah ... practice was a good one. I did homework with a kid after practice 'cause his mom- That's good ... was like, "I can't get him to do homework." So we did a practice spelling test. How about that? I always enjoy in season because it is, um...

Obviously, we do it every single week because it's, you know, it's happening now. But also- Yeah ... it's not theory. Yeah. It's like, "This happened to us last week," or, "We're d- we've got to stop this this week," or, "We're trying to run this and it's just not hitting." And it's like, "Okay, have you done th-..." And a lot of times, you know, it's, it's in the off season we can say like, "All right.

Well, when that happens you do this." But especially when you're working with coaches who have been in JDFB for [01:16:00] years, and, you know, you start down the path of like, "This is the normal answer." But, you know, more and more I know that we've put this stuff out there, we archive all the Chalk Talks, they've searched the Chalk Talks, they've checked the chalkboard, they've looked at the videos, and now they're coming and going, "I did that and that didn't work either."

It's like, "Okay, what's the next thing? Let's go to the next thing." And I enjoy that because that's where you start pulling levers and- Yeah ... and solving problems in like a real world coaching, coaches meeting type of situation, rather than just like, "Do this." Yep. I love it, man. That, it's, I do enjoy jumping in there, uh, sometimes 'cause we have problems.

Joe's helped me with the, uh, the youth stuff. So it's good, man. Please. If this is your first time watching... excuse me, listening to the Football Coaching Podcast, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. You can find us on your favorite podcatcher, especially Spotify and Apple, Apple Podcast.

Uh, if you're on, anywhere you are, just please leave us a review. Um, we like good reviews. If, if there's an issue, um, you don't think we're five-star quality, shoot us an email, man. Holler at us. It, it's probably, [01:17:00] uh, something small. Uh, maybe not. I don't know. Maybe it's just who we are. We appreciate you for listening to this episode of the Football Coaching Podcast.

And remember, coach simple, play fast, win.


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