[00:00:00] Welcome back coaches. This is the Football Coaching Podcast. I'm Daniel Chamberlain, co-host, here with Joe Daniel as always I, you know, I wanna say something else. I did, I just said, "What's up, coach?" I was like, I, I wanna say something else but- Do it. What would it be? I don't know. I don't know, it would be like, you know, "You are listening to the Football Coaching Podcast.

I'm your host, Joe Daniel, here with Daniel Shanahan." Oh, you wanna ... We gotta change it now. No, no, no, I don't wanna be in charge. I don't. No, I'm good. Just, I had a, I had this weird like momentary like, I wanna say something else, but then ... I listen to podcasts, like I listen to nerdy podcasts, as you well know, and I talk about that a lot.

But I listen to like gaming podcasts and retro gaming podcasts, and they seem to all do this. I only listen to two really, but they seem to, you know, have this thing where whenever they're reviewing a game that has funny lines and stuff, they'll introduce the panel and each person in the panel says like a funny line from the game.

We don't really have funny spread option offense lines. Right. I mean, we could, we could pull [00:01:00] some like, like, I mean what are you gonna pull? Like a old- Gummy Bears ... whatever quote. Gummy Bears. What, where do they rank? Yeah, I mean, yeah. When, when we do the air raid one we can just, we can just- Mike Leach would have to be- Yeah, when we do air raid we can just fire off Mike Leach coaches.

Like my favorite Mike Leach clip was the one where they asked him if Austin was the loudest stadium he'd ever played in, and he just started listing SEC stadiums. He's like, "Yeah." And it was, it wasn't even like, you know, it wasn't even like Alabama, Georgia, it was like, "Well, you know, South Carolina's pretty loud down the goal line."

And I was like, this man is just beating on it. When they did the one on coffee, right? And he was like, "Ah, I hate it. I drink it, but you just gotta s- drink it really fast so that you don't have to taste it for very lo- " Oh my God, he's, he was so good. I gotta, I gotta go down that rabbit hole again. Yes. I, I think when he passed away, I went down for like three hours of just- Still weirdly the only celebrity death that I've ever felt like an attachment.

Like I sh- I, that's the guy I needed to talk to. Alan Alda would be the other one. I could, I could see that, yeah. And Alan Alda, Alan Alda's [00:02:00] very opposite of me in every ... He's- ... very liberal. I'm obviously, you know, I say obviously not, we don't, we don't talk politics, but he's, he's far left. And- We'll get to that later

and I, and I don't, I don't, that doesn't bug me, but I, I wanna meet him 'cause I've watched MASH for 13 years- Yeah ... every night of my life or something, right? Like- Yeah, yeah ... Alan Alda, I need to meet you. So Alan Alda, if you're listening to the Football Coaching Podcast, or if any of y'all have his number.

That would be wild if they did. Your brother. I, the only, the only, ... I really, and I actually had talked to him, but I got irrationally emotional when Dusty Rhodes died. And here's the thing. I met Dusty Rhodes because I'm from Marietta, Georgia, and Dusty was in WCW, which is based out of Atlanta. They all live in Marietta.

Cody went to Lassiter, one of our rival high schools, so- I'm in the haircut place, you know, the, the barber shop as we call them. [00:03:00] And- We can call them that ... Dusty is in there getting his hair cut, and I'm like 10 years old And I said something like, you know, "Hey Dusty big fan," or something like that. You know, I don't remember what I said.

And he said, "Leave me alone, kid, and get my heck out." Or, "Stop bothering me," something like that. And I was just like, "Okay." And I met Ric Flair, and I will probably be irrationally emotional even though he's a terrible person, and I accept that. I, but I will probably be irrationally emotional because of the attachment that I have to him as a wrestler.

But I met Ric Flair, and he was drunk as a skunk and was a total jerk. And it was... I'm just like, "Ne- I, I, I should never meet these people." Yeah. But yeah, Leif- Weird, right? I remember being in Key West, and they were like... This is back in 2014, and he had, you know, his bar stool. I don't remember what the bar was, but you, you can cover all of Key West in an hour.

Like, you can see it all. He had his bar stool in one of the bars that we stopped in, [00:04:00] and I was like, "Oh, that's cool." This is before. I mean, 2014 he was a guy, but he wasn't the guy. And I remember being like-- And they were like, "Yeah, he was in here last week," or something like that. And I'm like, "Well, that's odd.

It's October." You know, like, "He really shouldn't have time to do that, but okay." And, and I was like, "Oh, that's, that's too bad." And I, but I never got to meet him. So yeah, I, I do kinda feel that as well. The, the Earnhardt Jr. will be a big one. I know he's my, he's like older than me, but not much, 'cause my dad was like into Earnhardt, so when- Oh, Earnhardt crushed me.

I, I literally- Yeah. And I've- Other than during COVID, that's the only time that I ever got back, seriously back into NASCAR, was when it was the only thing on for a couple months. And my- Yeah ... my friends, we would, we would watch them on like, you know, they'd race on Wednesday nights and stuff, 'cause what difference did it make?

Earnhardt, literally I was a huge Earnhardt fan, and that just pretty much ended NASCAR for me. A lot, yeah, a lot of people. Junior's a big podcaster, Joe, so it might be a little crossover there. It's weird. I think if he had been more... If he had been, [00:05:00] you know, he would've almost had to be dominant like his daddy for me to like...

I tried to be a Junior guy. Yeah, he would not be, he's not the Intimidator. He was the- But no. He won a few. Yeah. Yeah. Better than Kyle Petty maybe, but you know. Now I hate people that are bullies and just drive recklessly, and back then, boy, I was an Intimidator fan, so. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right, let's talk some football.

We've talked dying celebrities long enough. Guys, first of all, power minute n- now that we're five minutes in or whatever. This is a go watch it on YouTube episode. Joe is gonna do some drawing later. We're talking defending the spread option. If you're, if you're listening on Thursday when this comes out, the YouTube usually comes out the next Monday.

Still the same way. Yes, Joe? No, it should be coming out the day. Pfft. It should be coming out on Thursday. Same day. Never mind. Go watch it on YouTube. Just click over there. Watch it on YouTube. Or it may be in video if you're listening on Spotify or any of those that, that do- Timestamp's on there, so if you just wanna see the drawn up stuff, you can listen to it now and go find it later.

It's not a big deal. Tonight we're talking about defending the s- the spread option. We are gonna talk umbrella run fits, how you fit all op- you know, the option play. Stopping the spread [00:06:00] option out of your base defense, not having to get too crazy, and then preparing your players in practice for the chaos that is spread offense.

So, hopefully you guys are buckled up and ready to go through all that. Last week we talked about the only defensive line drills that you're gonna need. So go back and listen to that one. Listen, as I've... As, this is not a shot at anyone, but I've joined the youth ranks now. I've talked about it a few episodes in a row.

Guys, that episode, I don't care if you're youth to varsity, I've seen it, that episode be valuable at every single level. If you're a dad and you've never coached and you're like, "What's the fancy drill I need to..." No, stop. Don't, don't go get a fancy drill. Go listen to that episode and understand that drills are just miniature games of football.

Here's an unexpected application of that episode. I talked to a coach today about Getting the scout team offense to, you know, give them that look. And we talked about the way that because our pistol power [00:07:00] offense is we, we can do gap, we can do, and how we don't try to be the opponent. We can't run the wing T the way that a wing T does.

We can't run the spread option. We can't run you know, we can run the spread option actually, but you know, we don't run buck sweep, for example. Right. But we do down block and we do pull. And so when they run buck sweep, they're not running buck sweep based off of what it shows on a card. They down block left.

Okay, I can down block, and then we can evaluate their down blocking ability, and we can look at them and say, "Hey, you did a really good job down blocking. I bet you could do that for us on Friday night." And so now our seventh, eighth lineman is developing into an, an actual... But we were talking about it and, and he was saying, you know, "We, we, we actually are a triple option, so it's hard because they don't really run gap scheme and stuff."

And I said- Wow ... and he said, "But you know, we do down block." And I said, "Well, look at the defensive dr-" 'Cause, 'cause my point was you just need to show your defense what they need to read. [00:08:00] Yeah. So can you pull? Then you can show the linebackers if he pulls follow, if he doesn't fill, and you line up in the formations.

So if you pull or you can teach them to pull if you need to, but from a defensive line standpoint, my defensive lineman, do you in your offense block two and block away, do you base block, reach block, and down block? Then use base block, reach block, and down block to create whatever offensive play you're seeing, and I guarantee you, you can do it, and your defensive lineman will get all the key reads that they need.

And so it, it actually extends further to take that drill, that one-on-one game, and build your scout cards around. Don't build your scout cards around what they do. Right. Build your scout cards around what your guys are seeing, and don't try to give them something wacky. Base block, down block, you know, reach block.

That's it. Pass set, screen retrace. That's ball game. So that's all, that's all that your... And obviously block away [00:09:00] is, you know, a pull is a block away as well as a down block. But you know, pull is just he's block away. That's all that your scout card needs to have on it, right? That's all that your scout offensive line needs to be able to do is base block, down block, reach block, and then your pass stuff.

Yeah. That's, that is it just becomes another learning to- or teaching tool, I guess you should say, right? Like that's... I like it. Yeah, I mean, if you think about it from an offensive line standpoint, if your guys can base block, down block, and reach block, they can, and pull, they can- And nothing you can't run

They can run, you can run everything. Just doing it in a different sequence. I love it. Yeah. Oh, next week. See, I got thrown off of my power menu. Sorry, I jumped in. Hey, that's okay. Next week's topic, we're talking practice planning and group passing drills for game day execution. So jump over there. We did group running drills not too long ago, so we're kind of hitting the other side of that coin going to the passing drills.

Guys, one more scrimmage this weekend. Most of you have got your last scrimmage. Game weeks are upon us. I know Oklahoma goes to zero week that last Friday in August, [00:10:00] I'm pretty sure. Now I gotta think about it. Anyway so it's just one more chance here to clean things up to get through scrimmage season.

If you are playing week zero, great. If you're not you know, you get an extra week to prep We're just glad that you're spending some of your prep time with us. So, if you are listening today and your, your, your team's going on the road or, or whatever it is we're glad that you're here with us kinda just getting your mind right.

I'm a big central nervous system primer guy. I like lifting on game day, so there's nothing wrong with listening to a podcast on game week to kinda make you think things through. So appreciate you guys. Let's pay the bills and move on with- Everybody, by the way, is all over, just for scheduling, everybody is all over the place.

Oh, a- 100%. Coaches in Florida- I, I just, I base off Oklahoma's and then just put it in the- Yeah, coaches in Florida are scrimmaging, like are, are playing next week. Yeah. Coaches in, you know, I wanna say Massachusetts, but maybe not. Coaches, strangely that we do it complete opposite of where, of the way we probably should.

The teams further south should probably start later, but whatever. And teams in, like, Maine and stuff are, you know, haven't hit the field yet, or probably have by now, [00:11:00] but... and then of course we have your youth and everything. So okay, yeah. We, what are we doing now? Paying the bills? Paying the bills.

Paying the bills. Okay. So we we need to pay the bills, and this podcast pays the bills, so I should know what bill we're paying. All right, 4-2-5 defense. I want you to go to, I had to check and see what we were gonna talk about here. I almost said it pre-show, and I was like, "Nah, he's, he's been good for a month.

We're good." Go to 425secret- joedanielfootball.com/425secrets. Just n- no spaces, number four, number two, number five, secrets. I've got a video series there that teaches you the three quick start secrets to dominate on game day with the 4-2-5 defense. It's a free video series that you can get. Walks through a lot of the tools we talk about on the podcast, the ASCA, the things we're gonna be talking about today, especially the umbrella run fits and how that applies to a 4-2-5 defense.

ASCA, levers, umbrella, all those key concepts, Coach Simple philosophy. Free video series, go to 425sec- go to joedanielfootball.com/425secrets to get that. I... So [00:12:00] number one, athleticspeedmovement.com, go there today. I watched a video. I left my light off and it's driving me crazy. He's gone. No. I'm here.

I swear to God I'm here. I watched a, or I had a Twitter thing today. Justin Ottavio posted about this poor team, and I don't know where they were. And Coach, if you're listening, brother, do we have a thing for you. But the news report was, like, returning wide receiver is expected big breakout season, the best returning in the team, some, some stuff like that.

But I, I guarantee they was running wing T or, like, because my God. Listen, I, when I run a route, I look like a white guy running a football route, okay? That's what I look like. I am awkward, I am not... I'm, I'm pretty fast, but my cuts aren't clean. This was so bad. Two receivers in a row, and it even had to verify that like, "It's not the first one you see, it's the second one."

I was like, "Oh, okay. Well, the next one will be really good." Also not. But Tavio posts on [00:13:00] there, "Daniel, he needs Athletic Speed and Movement." And I was like, "Yes," and so I tagged it. If you go to athleticspeedandmovement.com, I know that it'll send you to joedanielfootball.com with some other stuff, but athleticspeedandmovement.com is the place to go.

We can help you. Coach, if that's you, if you're listening and that was your wide receivers, number one, the news did you dirty. Two, we can help those guys where they can be breakout players for you this season. They can be a guy that's returning that, you know, draws some attention, draws some respect starts earning double coverage.

Whatever it is that you need, Athletic Speed Movement can get you there. So guys, if you have s- a kid that's just awkward, look, I'm awkward. My oldest is gonna be pretty awkward. My youngest is gonna be the next Deion Sanders, I'm pretty sure. But that's not all of us, okay? And we need a thing to teach us.

Our bodies get weird. Those kids that are on your team, they don't know where their appendages are at any given time. All right? They don't have that body awareness, spatial awareness. Athletic Speed Movement is what will get them there. It is the ultimate tool. And the longer I'm in it and the longer that I kind [00:14:00] of talk about it and go through and study it, man, it just really shows up fixing those kids that have gone through that awkward growth spurt in the summer.

When that kid leaves and he's five foot seven and he comes back and he's six foot one- ... he has no idea where his freaking body is. Athleticspeedandmovement.com. Jump over there, sign up today. I know we're in season, and I know you think, "Coach, I don't need to..." Yes, you do. We have an in-season program. As you get to the playoffs, you'll be the fastest team that you possibly can be.

It is the best system for building speed for, to show up on game days. Athleticspeedandmovement.com. Also, game film analysis, and I only say this because I've been working with our friend over in Germany, and Flo is a really cool guy to work with 'cause he's a youth coach just like me. What are they, 14U?

And I know I've talked about him before on here. They keep getting older, yeah. You keep moving with them. Is it 13? I think it's 13, but

Might be 14 now Heck, I don't know. Anyway, he teaches to that range, some teenage kids. They're not varsity football and they're not kids kids. Anyway, [00:15:00] I got, Joe, I got your email the other day about game film analysis. So if you're a platinum member of JoeDanielfootball.com, if you're not, jump over there and sign up.

But one of the, the, I think the best benefits is game film analysis, and you get to send in your game film every week, and we analyze what you can do better to be, to win more games. To each position group, if it's a certain player you need to focus on. You kind of tell us where you think you're weak or what you want us to look at, and we spend 20 minutes telling you about that or in general.

And I only, I only remember the email 'cause I read a lot of them, but this one stuck out because you broke down your four different guys, and I thought, "I wonder if anybody's ever been like, 'Give me a different guy this week.'" 'Cause Khan is a run base. Is it Bill? Bill is, yeah. And, and he's, he's kind of in there, too, right?

Like- Bill is wildly de- I mean, very, very detail, like each... When we talk about the things that they... Bill's, Bill's team is precision, and Khan is along those lines, too. A little more a little more d- a little different, but yeah, [00:16:00] both of them are very good at especially 4-2-5 base, Detail, like that's it, which is what a lot of our teams really need Yeah.

And then Joe is the, the master of it all, and then Daniel. And it was like, "If you're looking for creative ideas." And I was like, "What does that mean?" And I was like, "No, it is what I do though." Yeah. Like, I think, I think outside the box all the time, and so it is fun. I b- I think you should get each of us and, and try out and see what each of us says, 'cause...

But we all do things a little bit different. Anyway. So go be a platinum member, shoot in your game film analysis, and the next week ask for a different reviewer. Hopefully by now we will be able to accept Huddle. I have been round and round with Huddle. I'm not gonna badmouth them, because I need them to talk to me right now.

And you can send your files via email, right, to go straight into Quick Cuts. So there, there is a way- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we can do delivery ... we can get your film. We're trying to remove all of the barriers there. Yeah, for sure. All right, man, we've paid the bills. Let's let's, let's get into it here. Part one, we're talking about umbrella run fits for option, and, and Joe, what, how does [00:17:00] the...

it, it, it works for everything. It's... I don't understand how everyone doesn't use umbrella run fits, because it really does fix every problem in football with the run game. So walk us through how we're using it to now stop yet another run scheme, and this time it is the option play. Yeah, when you teach the umbrella you know that we talk about a- and I'll go ahead and, and get the board up here.

The, when we teach the umbrella, it's n- it goes beyond spill force alley when we get here. A couple of the pieces are simplified by the umbrella, but, you know, everybody that's under the umbrella is a spill defender. That means that they're going to be not playing the pitch, right? That, that's the first thing.

But as we see Any option play, we know that A gap, B gap defenders are gonna be on the dive. So whoever is responsible for A gap, B gap is a dive player. Whoever is responsible for C gap is a quarterback player. And then our force defender is gonna be on the pitch, and [00:18:00] we tie the alley in quarterback to pitch when we get to.

But what happens with this, and right now I'm in an indie front from our 4-2-5 and we do that a, a lot against the spread, especially spread option opponents, because it allows for our defensive ends to squeeze down. So when we get, you know, a base zone read option play here, and they're going to be reading on that backside defensive end.

So he gets a block away, and as we talked about with the defensive line, block to, block away. So we're getting base blocks, you know, ba- you know, nose is fighting a base block. The tackle is fighting a base block. The end is fighting a base block. The weak side end here for those who are watching on the YouTubes, he is getting a block away, so he is bending down the line of scrimmage, which means that he closes off that B gap and becomes in, in the zone read option, becomes a, a dive defender, and it's how this plays to all options.

It actually works with, with under center, [00:19:00] triple option, it works with power read, it works with everything. And so because of his reactions that are built into the defensive drill system, built into his ASCA built into his drills, he is down the line of scrimmage. Well, the will backer now, his... He's not responsible for B gap.

He's responsible for first open door. He gets a no pull read, so he's now looking for first open door, which is going to be the C gap. He's the quarterback defender. The point of this is that it's natural. You don't have to spend time teaching this. You don't have to spend time talking about when we see option, and that's the worst thing that you can do is say when it's an option.

I don't know what the hell it is before the ball is snapped. And then I'm supposed to figure it out in a split second? No, this has to be natural. This has to be built in. And in our systems, 4-2-5, 3-3, and I'll talk more about 3-3, 3-4, 4-3 is built for, 4-3 is built for the option. I've, I've had coaches come to me and go, "You know, we gotta switch to this because we're a 4-3, but we see a lot of option."

You [00:20:00] have no idea what you're talking about. And I'm sorry, I'm telling you right now, the 4-3 was built to defend the wish. But Miami, Miami 4-3 defense, not the BS 4-3. There are other good 4-3s, by the way. But what most coaches do is they stick four linemen and three linebackers, and they're over the gaps. And yeah, your defense is broken in that case.

But the 4-3 is built for the option. We won't get to the 4-3 as much. I generally don't recommend it for most of our coaches. But What happens now is that we have the nose and the end in this case on the weak side, they are responsible for the dive, just natural fit. They are responsible for the dive.

Obviously our front side of a zone read option are all just defending zone. So they're, you know, if we call the, the zone back dive, they're all dive defenders. So they're, they're defending the zone. The will in this case as the zone has run away from him, he does a natural gap exchange. I hear a lot of guys saying, "We tag a tango," or we do this or we do that.

No. No, this has to [00:21:00] be natural. Yeah. It has to be built in. It has to be if they show up and all of a sudden they've installed spread option, we can just line up and play it. And so the natural gap exchange puts the will on the inside half of the quarterback because that's his umbrella run fit. He's a spill defender, so he's gonna fit tight and he's gonna attack the inside half of the quarterback If they were to add in a pitch element which sometimes you see and sometimes you don't, sometimes you see the pitch element being a bubble instead which case either way the person responsible for that is your force defender.

So he is now going to be playing the pitch. So what happens is we have now, at least on the weak side, and we play any option, we say that we have two on the dive, okay? We have a will and a weak safety on the pitch. The free safety now plays to the quarterback side of this where [00:22:00] he can run from quarterback to pitch, and what it does is it gives us two on the dive, it gives us one and a half, the free safety playing the outside half of the quarterback and the, the will playing the inside half of the quarterback.

It gives us one and a half on the quarterback and it gives us one and a half on the pitch. And so we have the numbers game now without what a lot of coaches try to do involving the cornerback, who should be a stay in coverage defender. All of this happens naturally within our umbrella run fits within the ASCA of all of our defensive systems, not just the 4-2-5.

I just drove the 4-2-5 because, again, the, the majority of our coaches are doing the 4-2-5 system. We have the 4-2-5 manual that came out this year at four... It came out last month at 425Defense.com. You should go get that if you don't have it yet. It's a beautiful print, spiral bound. You get the PDF as well. You [00:23:00] should get that, 425Defense.com.

But this stuff is natural, and I think that's the biggest thing about this episode as we get into it and we... Everything that we taught, the basics of it that we talked about in the wing T episode. So if you go to JoeDanielfootball.com/defendwingt, no spaces, or if you go to JoeDanielfootball.com/defendspread either one of those either one of those is going to be teaching the same core principles of defense.

It's gonna be teaching the same umbrella principles. So none of that is going to change here. And that, that's the key before we get into anything, is this is all baked into the base of the defense And again, all the defenses at JDFB are essentially one system. We can go multi-front because it's, it's all the same spill force alley and, and stay in coverage.

So, that's, [00:24:00] that's the, the number one thing is this is baked in. We don't have to teach. I learned this the first time that we played. We ran the 4-2-5 for a year. We didn't see much option. We saw a lot of bad option. We saw some spread option. But I really didn't totally get all of this the first year that I ran it and started applying these TCU principles.

The second year, we opened the season against a team that was running a pistol flexbone. Flexbone pistol triple option. Okay? I get out there and we do what we always did, what many of you probably do, and we start the first m- yeah, that Monday practice and we line up the scout offense and we line up the defense and we start walking through their plays to talk about how we're gonna fit these run plays.

And so we line it up and we're using the indie front which is double two eyes rather than the base over front against teams that run a lot of option because again it lets... If we don't, if we use the over front we might have to stick the end where he can't bend because the mike have to, might have to be in A gap.

That's the only change that happened is the end, if the end has a guy in s- in B gap [00:25:00] he can't bend he has to, he has to squat or we can tag him with a Q tag. All different stuff. So we're out there and we're walking through it and we veer release, we, we, we, we veer these guys down and they, so they're blocking down basically and we go, "Okay."

And th- they're walking through it and we go, "Okay, who's gonna be on the dive?" And it's like, well the, you know, the defensive tackle's like, "I'm in A gap so I got, you know, he's coming right at me. I've got him." And the defensive end is like, "Well, I'm getting block away, so I'm gonna come down the line." So everybody's just walk- we're all just kind of bird walking it almost.

But we're not, we didn't, we hadn't gotten that far yet. I hadn't learned that part yet. So he's coming down and he's like looking at the... He's like, "I got dive?" "Yep." And then the Mike linebacker is like, I'm like, "Who has the quarterback?" And the Mike linebacker's like Well, those gaps are filled, so I'm gonna go here.

So I got quarterback. I'm like, "Who's got pitch?" And the strong safety's like, "I- nothing gets outside of me," right? Force. I got pitch. [00:26:00] Free safety. You know, this is the alley from the quarterback to the pi- it was just built in. And it was like- Yeah ... I, I don't think we ever did that again. We was just like, "We don't have to do this now.

We don't have to talk about how we're gonna fit the run this week because it's baked in, and if we can play a flex bone triple, we don't have to do this." And then of course the story goes, the first series we go out and they run the exact pistol flex bone, and they go down the field and they score. And I have my two middle linebackers.

I swear they got better at this. I get my Mike and my Will, neither one of them plays offense. And I get them over on the sidelines. Great kids. They, they, this was their second year starting for us, I think. Maybe one of them might have been third. And I said, "Guys, what happened out there?" 'Cause they just kind of chunked down the field.

They didn't break anything, but they just kind of chunked down the field. Four yards, eight yards, two yards, four yards, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. You know, 11 play drive. "What happened?" And Kyle, who's one, one, one of the favorite kids I've [00:27:00] ever coached, great kid, one of the crazy kids though he goes, "Coach," very excited when he tells me this, "it is exactly what you told us."

And I'm like, "That's awesome." He's like smiling, and I'm like, "That's great. So what, what's the problem?" "Oh no, Coach, we got it now. We just didn't believe you." We won the game 14-7 They just, they had to see it. They didn't believe. But once they saw it, they were like, "Oh." Because the first drive they were like, "Oh, we're gonna...

We're just gonna forget all the stuff." First game of the season. And then at the end of the first drive, they're like, "Oh, we gotta do this stuff that we worked on in practice for three... Oh, okay." And just, just shut it down from there. Yep, that's it. That's good. I, I really love that the umbrella run fit does this so well against the option because once again, it, it kinda shows up against everything.

I don't... If it's a counter team, it's a buck sweep team, it's an option team, doesn't matter what they wanna do, you continue to have the answer you need, [00:28:00] and we're multi-front. So I don't care what world you wanna live in. "I feel like I need to be a 3-4 this year because my personnel," great. Do that, you still have all the answers you need, right?

You wanna be a 4-2-5, you wanna be a 3-3, doesn't matter what you wanna run, you continue to show up every single week, like you were talking about, Joe. You don't, you don't have to go out and walk through their top three run plays. Yeah. You still can for a look of what guy really is the, the, the backbreaker- Yeah

of it. I do show it on film, but I show it on film in 10 minutes. "Here's their top three run plays. How do we fit it?" We just talk through it, and then we get- Yeah, you don't have to go out and, like, waste a whole bunch of time. Right, it's not a 20-minute walkthrough period. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that, that, I love that.

Let's jump into part two here, Coach, and, and we're talking about stopping... So now n- we're taking what we just talked about. The, your base umbrella run fit stops the option. It also stops inside zone, outside zone, power count, or whatever they want to run. But now we're kinda talking about the rest of the spread option, so all the pieces.

You just talked about they, they're running a guy over, the, they got all this stuff. So how are we doing that with our base defense? And is there anything, any [00:29:00] wrinkles we have to have? Well, the, the first one that I mentioned is that we you know, we like to run the indie front and the 4-2-5 so that those guys can bend down the line of scrimmage.

Now, that doesn't apply as much. All of these fits, you know, certainly apply in your, your 3-3. And this is PowerPoint. I know somebody'll ask in the comments. This is just PowerPoint with a cheap tablet off of, I think it was 50 bucks. It's not a Bamboo anymore. That died after- Sad. Sad. It is sad. I had it for I think 12 years, 13 years.

I don't know why I even bought it anymore. I spent good money and I don't even use it. It's sad. I had no idea those things were $200. I got this one for 50. It works great. So you don't have to spend that much money on them. I should've told you that before you did it. But I didn't know. Yeah. You know, I've been recommending them for years, and coaches have been like, "I can't afford one of those."

I'm like, "Really? I thought they were 20 bucks." So, you know, here is a, a 33 stack against it, and one of the things when we run this is we're just slanting to a shade and, and all of the rules still apply. So, you know, if we get, again, just a base zone read option play [00:30:00] in a 3-3 stack you know, we got a base block, we got a base block, we got a base block for all the defensive linemen that are slanting in this case to the direction of the zone.

And if we blitz the will backer, or even if we didn't blitz the will backer, he would fill downhill first open door. The Mike would be filling first open door on a no pull read and so the same thing applies. We've, we essentially have the same fits where we've got you know... Or sorry, I didn't draw a very good umbrella.

There's Spill and he's gonna end up on quarterback. These guys are gonna be dive, dive, dive, you know, of course across the board. He's gonna be alley fit and he's gonna, you know, weak safety's gonna be force. Free safety's at the alley running quarterback to pitch. So this applies across fronts and acro- applies across coverage packages really.

The only thing that changes is who your force defender is. What we wanna think about now is how we can, dictate what we want out of the quarterback. So as we go to [00:31:00] defend the option and I've, I've only drawn up zone read option, I'll do some other things, but as we go to defend this, one of the things we wanna think about is how we want to affect the quarterback's read.

We have the ability to determine what we want if we understand what they're doing. So if they're a really good zone read option team as an example which again is the easiest example, but th- this works against everything. I will say the only problem, and I actually had a talked to Brady Bradbury about this.

I need to talk- ... to Brady Bradbury about this. The counter bash you know, is the one that we talk about gives us the biggest problem where the quarterback reads behind the, the two polars on the GT counter. That does mess with our key reads, and we do have to do some tagging with that because we're essentially left with the free safety hopefully saving us on that if we don't do something different.

Now, the free safety can save us 'cause he's our best player, but that's kind of where we're [00:32:00] at. Could be also the weak safety or, or, or strong safety that could do it too. But you know, one of the things we look at is how can we dictate to the quarterback, so we'll do things like a Q tag. If I want to make sure that the quarterback is giving this dive, like I feel better about that because the quarterback is the best player on the field, I might Q tag this guy, and that tells him, "Don't bend down the line of scrimmage."

Now, they could get us on some sort of a counterplay and kick him out, but I'm gonna tell him, "Hey, if you get block away, you just squat." And so now everything goes just natural, and the quarterback gets a give read because the, the defensive end squats with a Q tag if the, if you expect the defensive end to be the read.

So, you know, we can have an impact there. Not something that I would do because I really believe that power read power read is much more effective in getting the sweep. Power read is [00:33:00] designed, in my mind at least, power read is designed so that the defensive end chases the outside read. And so when we get that look, we do not wanna Q tag him We want for him to bend down the line of scrimmage and end up on that quarterback, and then our force defender is actually the one that's gonna be responsible on the power read on the outside run play.

Yeah. So, that's one where we wouldn't Q tag it. We wouldn't mess with the read there. Your biggest problem with power read is that the defensive end sees shiny objects. So what we can do for that, we mentioned the Q tag. The other thing that we can use, especially in the 4-2-5, now you just use your base slants if you're an odd front to create the front that you want, but we can echo tag.

So if I know that I want the quarterback to keep it, [00:34:00] and I know that I want the... I, I wanna create that natural, that, that forced kind of, tango, that forced gap exchange, then I will tag like an echo weak, or I could echo both sides. Echo means end cut. And so if I'm looking again at a zone read

I can just say, "You're gonna s- you're gonna crash inside and squeeze this down no matter what you get," and that's going to create it, and now the will knows I'm gonna be scraping. And so that's one of the things that we do. We also added later on with the 4-2-5, we added a bullet C. And bullet C bullet's weak C is what we would call it.

Bullet's weak C told the will backer to blitz the C gap, because we were expecting that. That was actually an in-game adjustment where we just said, "Okay, we're gonna pinch everybody, and you're gonna go ahead and blitz so that you are there." And, and that's just an adjustment. Again, a 4-2-5 [00:35:00] adjustment, but it is an adjustment you could run off of, off of anything that, that gives you...

puts those guys in, in the space that you want. In the 3-3, in, in the 3-4 by the way, all of these remain essentially the same. The 3-4 is just a kicked over 4-3 if you... or 4-2, if you start thinking about that way. The 3-3 you can create anything that you want but you think about creating fronts. So the things that we create in a 4-2, you can just create with a combination of stunts and blitzes.

Cross-training your linebackers not to just blitz blind, but to play like a defensive lineman if they're blitzing or to read their, read their blitz, all that kind of stuff is gonna be more effective. But you, you're playing the base stuff. You don't wanna get too wild with blitzes, but you can run stunts and, and you can.

There are blitzes that I like against these options. I mean, I, I'll give you one 3-4 look that we ran against an option team, [00:36:00] and I don't remember what we called it, but, you know, we had a really effective blitzer. Really in fact just one of our best football players was down, and I mean, he was 145 pounds, but And I want to make sure I get it right, but I think that it was this.

We would slant the no- the strong side and we would kick our safeties the opposite way. But the, The strong side would slant to the strength. The weak side end would slant out and become the automatic quarterback player, C-gap player, and we would crash the will into B-gap and he would often get, not get noticed.

And so you're setting the end who is the read outside, giving an automatic give read to the quarterback and then bringing somebody in who is difficult for a guard to pick up- Yep ... to, to scrape through there [00:37:00] because kids get laser focused on the guy across from them and that tackle's gonna be looking at the end, especially a head up end.

I don't know if he's going inside or outside, I'm gonna step to him first. And we did a, crashed that and did a lot of good with that. So there are some neat blitzes that you can do. I like some of those outside blitzes crossing inside to give you good looks against different option plays. Again, power read, different animal.

I just wanna play it like power and then handle the sweep and b- and give that sweep read on that. But with a lot of your zone reads your zone read bubbles we're, you know, we're s- we're, we're slow reading it so we should be there when the ball is released. That's your most basic RPO is a zone read bubble.

You know, so those are the kinds of things, just some simple things that we do as far as some, some basic adjustments. The indie front creating the fronts that we want using the Q tag, using the echo tags, But, you know, with our, with our base, with some minor adjustments, we can, we can handle Most of this.

We can handle most of that [00:38:00] option without getting crazy. And, you know, Joe, this is the reason why I love being in the tag world because y- you said, "Hey, we're gonna stop the spread option in your base defense," and immediately started changing the base defense, but we're still calling base- Yeah ... and you're switching a couple people, and that's

We do that with six-year-olds right now. So if you say, "Well, I don't know if my kids can handle tags and changes," my six-year-old quarterback understands if we tag QB keep on a sweep play- ... he's just booking it, and now he's the sweeper, right? Or my, you know, w- so we're tagging it for, for kids who have zero football IQ and, and honestly, we struggle to teach them anything football.

They kind of just keep showing up and running the plays. So if y- you know, you've got guys who you've gone through and installed the base and you can say, "Hey, you two are switching responsibilities," that's so easy. Or- Yeah ... what you talked about earlier, your will back or your mic or whoever is like, "Oh, A and B gap are plugged.

I'm naturally gonna [00:39:00] flow outside." Yeah, 100%. That, that doesn't even take a tag. But I can- Right. Yeah, I don't have to tag that ... create that tag if I want to. So yeah. And what I mean by base defense, by the way, is what I mean y- you don't need to install some flavor of the week junk gimmick and get the snot kicked out of you after wasting an entire week, and then you turn out the next week and you have a wing T and you're like, "Well, I just had to undo everything I did last week because none of that's gonna work against this.

Not that it worked last week." You, you don't need to do all that. This is all in your base playbook, whether you're ... Again, if you're running the 4-2-5 defense, you know, the 4-2-5 manual, 425defense.com, that's the base defense even though there's an entire section of all of the blitz package, all of the stunt package.

It's still the base defense. When we run that stunt package, those guys stunting are still sp- are still spill players, and everyone around the defensive line stunt is forced out. They, they don't care. It's base. They're running cover three. They're running cover one. You don't need special stuff to [00:40:00] defend a spread option.

Yeah. A- and one of the things that I'll ... One more thing that I'll add with the base, the one place that I would you know, be aware of, like I consider in, in our base defense you know, in, in my base 4-2-5 install or 3-3 or, or any of our defensive fronts, tiger cat is usually one of those things. Now, it's not a base call, but it is a base.

I mean, it's ... I've run it 50% of the snaps, 60% of the snaps in the game before. It's a cover zero. Tiger cat's a, a complex. It's in the 4-2-5 system of JDFB Premium Coaching systems. Gold and silver get a ... Gold and platinum get access to all of that. And we go in-depth on it. We've talked about all the adjustments for it, and it's a great call against the option.

And one of the things about it is identifying what you have. I have played spread option teams and again, this is a tweak but it's essentially the base where I don't think you can throw. And so I will put seven in the box. [00:41:00] A lot of teams, and Daniel you mentioned it before we started recording, spread all these guys out and then run up the middle.

If you recognize that a team is spreading all these guys out to run out the middle, don't go out there with them. I mean, you gotta put s- enough out there that they can't just loft it up there, but I'll play zero on the outside and run Tigercat and play a seven-man box. Yeah. No, not even think twice about it.

Or, or take the free safety and drop him down in the box at six yards deep and let him just run, you know, right now, don't even worry about the pass. And so, you know, those are things that now if they have a good pitch relationship on that, that can be a problem. But you know, there are things if they just wanna do this stuff in the box and they can't really attack you on the edges, do it.

Do it. But it should be in your base defense to be able to do all these things. And again, base defense meaning not, not, not the call base But your base package. Yeah. I love it. All right, man, let's jump to the last part here preparing your players in practice. What are you doing? And, [00:42:00] and I know we've talked...

Guys, we've given a ton of hints and keys on how to do this for any offense this season specifically with how your scout just runs yours, if you wanna use wristbands and, and, and how to simplify football back for those guys where, one, who's gotta give up that you're ever gonna be them, you're never gonna be- Yeah

your opponent. I don't... You know, I've, I've been in places where we put our best athlete in the good kid's jersey number and make it red or whatever and, right, to, to highlight him, and that's okay. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that. But quit acting like you're gonna show up and run the double wing really well, enough to confuse your own defense.

You're not. Your kids know what they know. I've gashed some teams running scout double wing. Oh, man. Once in a while. Yeah. I love it. Sometimes, like, that's like the highlight, the highlight of my season as the offensive coordinator, I will also run the scout offense. And man, when I put together those wristbands for double wing week, I'm like, "That's the one week where I'm like..."

'Cause I... Look, I wanna be a double wing guy, [00:43:00] but you can't be everything, right? But during that one week or two weeks or four weeks, one year out of the season where I'm running that scout double wing, I mean, I'll take... I'll, I'll, I'll pick my 11 guys out and, and go over there and we'll work on it because we, we try to make it look good.

But again, it's just down block, kick out. I gotta teach the quarterback a little bit and I've always... A couple years I found a double wing quarterback and I'm like, "Oh, man." Man. It's on. It's on. But anyway How are we p- preparing our players in practice to, Yeah ... to stop this spread offense? The first thing is, like you said, when you're setting up your...

And absolutely we put, you know, put the, the two jersey on number on, you know, "Hey, this guy's two." But the purpose of that, you know, two's the best player on the field, we better know where he's at. We're not gonna change what we do. Now, sometimes we do use some, like, star coverages and stuff where we're gonna double team a guy.

But really, I wanna be pointing out where that guy is every single play. So we always will say, "This is the best guy on the field. You better know where he is." And we're going out there every play and going, "There's two. [00:44:00] There he is right there." Okay? A- and, and so that's something you should definitely do.

But yeah, when you're building your scout team, when you're preparing your scout team, I know they're less talented than your starters on defense. Right. And if you've only got 25 guys, you know, eight of the starters on your defense are also starters on your offense, so, you know, I will do things like move offensive lineman around just to get a b- little bit better look so, so that the one who's not good is over here, like the one who can't pull switches with the one who can pull, whatever it is.

But in this case don't try to be... You know, if you don't zone block, just down block the hell out of them. What you're looking for is, you know, base block or whatever, what you're looking for is- Again, we went back to show the formation, show all of the key reads that

they need. So if he's going to get a block away, by God, give him a block away. What is the ... Like, if he doesn't know what a down block is, put on his wristband, [00:45:00] turn left and run. Like, I don't care what you do, just get out of the way. Do not put a hand on that guy across from you, 'cause you know if you try to do it, they always just, they've been taught, like the, the worst ones have always been taught block somebody, and the best ones have too.

And so they'll block the guy across from you and you're like, "I need a veer release," and they're just looking at you blinking. What's that, Coach? What's the veer? Put on his wristband or tell him, "Run that way." And give me a block away read. That's all that I need right now. I need guys who aren't pulling to not pull.

I got guys who are blocking away to block away. I need guys who are pulling to pull. Okay? That's what I need out of my offensive line. In the back field, I don't need the quarterback to read the defensive end. Dummies, if your quarterback can't read, he's not gonna read in scout team. That's right. So then you just tell him give or keep [00:46:00] or pitch, and you mix it up at an appropriate ratio the way that they do it.

If they have a phenomenally athletic quarterback, don't use your Peyton Manning back there. Like put, put a guy that is- Peyton Manning jumped- ... an athlete back there and tell him what to do. Peyton Manning jumped a bag on the ground every year for 30 years to do it one time in a game. What are you talking about?

He is a- I understand. I've, I've, I know all about- ... pristine athlete. I know. Look, I've, I'm not discounting... I'm talking about Peyton Manning at the end of his career when he couldn't move his neck. Won a Super Bowl that way, so what are we gonna d- what, you know, what do you do? If that's your quarterback, you know, he's not the phenomenally athletic kid that is carrying the ball 25 times.

So yeah, you do personnel a little bit, but just give them the look. Don't try to be the spread option, right? And don't, and don't focus on the outcome of the, Film everything. You know, but build your practice plan. And, and I feel like we've hit on it so much. Build your practice plan. [00:47:00] Your defensive ends are gonna be seeing block two and block away, right?

They're gonna be seeing block two, block away reach. That's what they're working on. That's what they're doing. And so we're working on that and, and you're explaining to them, "Hey, that's a block. That's a veer release." You can call it a veer release. You can tell them, "When you block away, you're screaming down the line of scrimmage because you are tackling, you are unblocked, and you get to hammer the running back because they're trying to deceive us."

So run down the line of scrimmage when you are unblocked and hammer the running bla- running back. If it's power read, hammer the pulling guard who thinks he's just gonna skip pull around to the linebacker. No. Hammer him. Blow the whole thing up so that the quarterback does decide to keep it, that there is nobody blocking the...

Like, block away is, is a field day, and that's what you're working on your i- is that's what you're working in your spread option stuff, right? You're working with your outside guys. You're working your [00:48:00] umbrella drill. You're working in pitch phase in your umbrella drill. You're not just working toss, you're working pitch.

You're working bubble. What are they actually going to see? What's actually going to happen? Build your drills. Don't just run everyday drills. If they're straight up zone read, let's say- I know most teams aren't anymore. Zone read's not as cool as it used to be. But if they don't pull, you might not need to spend much time on guard read drill this week, and instead you can build your guard read drill and your in, out, out drill together, or I will run in, out, out drill with two backs in the backfield and they're running zone read.

No ball because it doesn't matter to us. Our fits are our fits, right? And so the quarterback, yeah, right, and he goes to C gap and he goes ... And they do that, and then we can do a sweep off of the ... You know, we can, we can show different things off it. Sometimes I'll d- show things that don't exist in their offense just to give us a little bit different look.

But I won't do it much. [00:49:00] Like, it's gonna be once every five reps or something like that. But build your drills to show what this looks like. Build your drills to show a backfield that is a shotgun or a pistol and don't just do what you've, what you always do. This is where everyday drills run out.

Board wars has no place right here, or anywhere else. Sled driving has no place here or anywhere else. So, you know, that's what we're looking at here is we're, we're running drills that are going to progress, and then these are great places to go to you know, team run or half line or you know, a half line where, when I say half line, we probably are taking out, like, the free safety and the backs. You know, I can run an eight-man. I can take the corners off for this type of stuff. So I could do this. I'm trying to think of the numbers. I could do this as, like, a 8 v seven type of drill. You know, where, where we're just focused on defending the, the interior handling the, the zone or the [00:50:00] power a- and, and looking at that.

And, and you progress into your group drills, which of course listen to the Group Drills Podca- the Group Run Drills Podcast, half line, 99 outside drill whatever it is that you need to work on in those cases, and then progress into your team and make sure that your team is scripted where don't hand...

I mean, the worst thing that you can do here is hand your 23-year-old just out of college brand new coach, hand him a stack of spread option plays that you've drawn up and say, "Here are the plays." And he's back there trying to run these things with a non-option quarterback, with, you know, an offensive line who doesn't zone block or, you know, whatever it is that they're just trying to follow the lines on the page.

That is just not going to be ultimately effective for you. It's not gonna give you what you need. Also, the, the last thing is do pay attention to [00:51:00] formation splits. You know, a kid who's gonna come in jet motion, a kid who's gonna go in orbit motion for pitch trips is gonna be different than two by two.

Those are the things that we wanna pay attention to, so you can teach your corners and your safeties to pay attention to things like splits and pay attention to what those outside guys look like, especially like we talked about on a team that is spread to run. That guy's going out to the numbers every single time to Block theoretically, and then the one time he comes skipping out there it's like, "Brother, this is a alley screen, a go route."

You know, like pay attention to those little keys on the outside. Way too excited. We had one they weren't a true spread, but we had one a few years ago. Team was in the playoff. Brian Wilby's defense coordinator up at Duesberg and, and longtime JDFB coach and took a team that was struggling and had the number one defense in the in, in their conference and, and took the team to the second round of the playoffs, and [00:52:00] they d- they didn't win the game.

But I did a, I did a, a film... I did a scout film review, which I pretty much only do in the playoffs for coaches and it, you know, if, if a situation calls for it. And we picked up on whenever this one slot receiver or whatever was lined up back, it was I wanna say a bubble. He was li- he was lined up super deep.

It was a bubble. And I, I wanna say they picked it off and housed it. They m- it may have not been... It may have been just like almost picked off and housed it, but I think they picked it off and took it back to the house. But it was like picked up this one little thing, just an alignment thing, because they never do it.

But when the slot receiver was backed way off, it was like, "That's gonna be..." And they jumped it, which is a risk, but jumped it with the, with the s- the safety and- House call ... you know. So you will pick th- things up, especially against the teams that are, are, Remember that a lot of the teams that [00:53:00] do, that go to the spread did it bec- did it initially not because they really like the concepts, but because they think they have to play basketball on grass to get kids to like football.

Which I think is a joke, but they did that. They convinced all of the receivers, "You're gonna get to be a receiver. We're gonna be a spread." They didn't tell them, "We don't have anybody that can throw it to you." So, 'cause our best receiver is at quarterback right now. But the occasion where they, you know, actually get the ball, they're like, they, they, they will have very different attitudes.

So, those are the kinds of things we wanna look for excuse me. I, I l- I love that one, we've given so many tools to coaches to be able to, to do this with their scout team. We know we're never gonna see it, be able to recreate it all. You never know exactly what, what you're gonna see, right? This is kind of the This era the last couple years, maybe it's just me, 'cause mentally I'm there, but it seems like we're getting a lot more [00:54:00] wrinkles, a lot more guys getting outside of their this is what we do every week.

There's still those teams around. I just watched, we talked and you, you mentioned Brady Bradbury. He, you know, I watched his playoff run where the, the three teams he had to knock off to win the, the whole stinking thing were, like, a single wing who ran the oldest version of the... I mean, they unrolled a scroll to find that version to teach it.

I can't remember Vian's exact offense, but it's just like they, there was nobody that lined up and played modern football against them, right? They were all- Well, what's he running? What I... he's, he's kind of like 11 P, 12 P kinda guy. Okay. But- I thought he was like a 1000 ... well, so a pistol power offense essentially.

I don't ever look at his offense, so I- Yeah, I understand. So i- you know, in that small school ball the, what I would call antiquated offenses are still very much alive and, and doing things- They are every... I mean, it's very much- Everywhere else people are, are tagging and, and warping what they do and, and guys even- That's the vast majority of, of the coun- I mean, 90% of the country is still running old school.

Now, even if they are running spread, it's, it's like one team on [00:55:00] the schedule is running spread, and they're sometimes not that good. Yeah. The, the more sop- I think that a lot of coaches get enamored with the sophisticated RPOs and all of this stuff and, and if you really look what you're going to see, and this is just based on one coach who works with thousands of coaches what you're really going to see is you're going to see a handful of the top teams run these kind of highly sophisticated passing games you know, RPO and all that stuff.

You're going to see just as many or more who are trying to do that who are sloppy as crap and are the worst teams on the schedule. And then you're going to see everyone else that is running you know, pro style like we run. They're running they're running wing T variations, wing T pro, you know, pistol gun wing T.

But wing T variations. They're running flexbones. They're, you know, all of that kind of stuff, double wings. We're seeing more of that than anything. We're seeing more teams go back to the traditional than, than in the past. For sure. Up [00:56:00] north you're seeing the dead Ts and stuff like that. So I- Well- ... don't, don't get, don't...

I, I, I just think a lot of coaches get into, and I especially I see youth coaches, these coaches working with like fifth graders, and they're like, "We gotta put in the RPOs," and I'm like, "The hell you do." Don't do that. I think one of the coolest things, Joe, and I well, I'll get back to my point in a minute, about this- No, I like to get you off the point and then just move on

the youth league that we're in right now is they were like, "Here's the only two formations you can use, and you get one defense." Everybody's running the same. Now, this is just first grade level. I'm sure the other grades get some say so- Yeah. ... because I'm pretty sure that I saw some scout film the other day.

Not that we're watching a lot of scout film, but I saw some. Somebody posted on Facebook. Thanks for parents. And- I think I saw two or three tight ends lined up. So- Okay ... like guys are doing different things. Sure. Anyway, but it is nice just to watch guys get... And you're teaching the fundamentals, 'cause a lot of those coaches are new, so you gotta teach them the- Yeah

fundamentals of football just as much as- I think that's a big thing, yeah ... as the kids, and the kids can't learn anything. Anyway, I'm going back to that point preparing your pe- your kids in practice. [00:57:00] Don't Joe's already said, like you don't have to change everything. It isn't flavor of the week defense.

It isn't flavor of the week preparation. Kids are not gonna, they're not gonna react to that very well anyways, right? If I walk out to my six-year-olds right now and be like forget everything you know. Now we are using zone rules instead of, we have to unfortunately just kinda block the T because they, they can't comprehend more than that.

That's our limitation is their comprehension. So if you walk out on Monday and say, "Hey, we're, we're relearning defense," they're, they're gonna be stuck in a, in a gray area anyway. And we talk all the time o- on offensively about I'm just trying to get that linebacker to not believe his rules are gonna hold true, right?

Like if I can just get him one time, if I can fa- do something to make his rules not hold true, he won't listen to his coach the rest of the night. You're doing that for me on Monday because you're going out. So w- what I'm saying is the best way to prepare your players in practice for, to, to stop anything, but specifically right now the spread option, stick to the basics and explain and, and [00:58:00] ingrain yourself in the, in how the fundamentals are gonna carry true, how they're gonna get to Friday night and they're gonna watch this stuff show up.

So, when you go to preparing them, this week is no different than any other week. Go out and do the- That's a big- ... simple things and, and watch that confidence and that I-know-what-I'm-doing carry over instead of putting the brakes on mid-play because, "Oh my God, I was supposed to go right and not left, and that's not my key read anymore," and, "Coach said if 22 moved right or left or I, I can't remember if 22 did a thing, I was supposed to do something."

Like, no. Get over all that, man. Having a new key is fine. Giving you an idea as a play caller, a personnel group or a, a formation, that's fine. But don't, don't get crazy about changing everything up for those guys. Biggest thing you can do is walk in every Monday and, and introduce... I mean, this is what, one of the best things that I, I learned.

Walk in every Monday, show 10 clips of what they do best on offense, different offense every week. Every... I'll, I'll have guy, every once in a while there are some people who play in places where [00:59:00] every week is a spread Almost everybody again in the country is not that. Almost everybody in the country is wing T one week, flexbone the next, spread the next, double wing the next.

And we can walk in with the exception of double wing. We have a, we have a defense for that, but it's still the same spill force alley. It's just a different look. Walk in, show what they do, and the kids know our game plan is we're gonna do what we do. That's right. There's gonna be twists, there's gonna be tweaks, there's gonna be specials, there's gonna be exotics, there's gonna be adjustments, but ultimately it's spill force alley stay in coverage.

It's, you know, whether we're 4-2 or we're multi-front or whatever it is, it's, you know, we're cover three, we're cover one, we're, we're split field. Whatever is who you are, you can run that against essentially everybody. And by the way, we can run our base against double wing and it fits, it works. But it requires a...

I would have to have an absolute division one animal free safety to feel super comfortable doing it. [01:00:00] He legit has a way different- And there's no reason for me back at nine yards 'cause they can't throw well enough. I just need the two corners back there. That's right All right, man. I think that's it, dude.

We checked all the boxes tonight talking about defending the spread option. Guys, I know this week's a little different for you, a little bit different urgency as you get into... If you're going to scrimmage week, you're going into game week, it's a little different right now. So, at the end of the night, we just wanna appreciate you guys for being here with us.

We're almost there, week one. If you haven't already played it, you're getting close. Football season is upon us. Tonight we're talking about defending the spread option, umbrella run fits versus the option, stopping the spread option in your base defense, and then preparing your players in practice.

Last week we talked about the only defensive line drills you need. Next week it's off to group passing drills. So if you, if you enjoyed the group run drills, then jump in next week and listen to the group passing drills. We're onto our level up. Joe, you said you had nine, so it should be easy for you this week.

Last week was a struggle, or the week before. Now you got nine. Yeah, I know. They just keep coming. [01:01:00] So I, I have one that I really wanna talk about just for some reason I, I, I wanna talk about. But I do wanna mention a couple things. Number one, it'll already be out it'll already be on pre-sale is the Coach Simple Volume I: The Lost Letters.

I'm really excited about that manual. We did I did in-depth writings a couple years ago on topics for our members. They were mailed, physically mailed, and printed and printed, mailed, and I've never done anything. They've never been available. There were no back issues. There's no PDFs. Either you got 'em, I think I told a story about the Sam taking all of yours and stacking them in the corner-

Thinking that they were junk. Thanks. It had my name on it, like could've been paychecks, you don't know. But the but you know, they, they, they haven't seen the light of day in, in two years. And so that's gonna be... But was really excited just because we were able to get that pulled together as a, with my team, get that pulled together and be able to release that.

[01:02:00] So that's probably out for pre-sale in your email inbox now. But I'll have more about that later. Number two was that I, this past weekend finally for those, I, I don't know how much I've talked about on the podcast, probably not a ton, but my dad has had throat cancer. He went through chemotherapy back in February, March.

Had a really rough time with it. And, you know, just kept telling me, and, and again, my dad was an Army Airborne Ranger. He was in Vietnam. He was, you know, he's, he's, he's a guy. He's a guy's guy. And he's 81 years old, and basically I had not been down there since Christmas. He lives in, down in South Carolina.

And just 'cause he... A- and also, by the way, as all this is going on pipes burst in his house twice, flooded the house, so the house is completely having to- had to be gutted, new floors, new pi- new plumbing, new everything. So he's living with his girlfriend in her house, and [01:03:00] then sh- she got sick and she passed away in July.

So, but, but really the, the crux of it was he didn't have a house for us to stay in, which we'd be perfectly happy to, you know, get a hotel or whatever. But I think it was more just, you know, everything that was going on and, and not knowing what was happening and everything, but he just, you know, he told us, you know, "Don't come down right now.

There's nothing you can do." You know, "Don't come down." I, I'm not. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, you know, defy his wishes, right? And so finally, you know, the house gets put back together, and he told us we could come down. And or he told us, you know, invited us to come down, so we, as soon as we could, you know, basically a week later we come down and which is great.

He's doing well. He's back in his house. We went fishing for, you know, it was great to go fishing with my son, who's gotten into fishing this summer. And we went out on a dock in Pawleys Island and caught a bunch of little pinfish in the creek there, and he c- caught one. [01:04:00] He caught... My dad caught it.

I... He out-fishes me. And he caught this little caught a a- a red fish, but it was a, you know, smaller one, but still, compared to what we were catching, you know, we were just out there with, you know, shrimp and stuff. And let my son reel it in, and of course couldn't lift it up onto the dock. But, but I mean, it was just a great, you know, getting to fish with him and, and getting to see him, and getting to see everything's good was just fantastic.

You know, he's progressing, and he still doesn't tell me everything. My family has a longtime history of not sharing their, their ac- You have a podcast ... what's actually going on. So I've told, I have told my wife, and, and me and my cousin have told our wives something happens, we don't know if it's genetic.

We might not be able to communicate this the way that we should to everyone. We don't, like... I- I just don't know, so you're gonna have to do it, 'cause I might just not tell, you know, it might be, you know, my son doesn't know that something's going on with me, and, like, you're just gonna have to tell him, [01:05:00] 'cause I might not be able to.

I don't know, it might be genetic. But anyway, that was great. We had a great trip. Things are, things are well you know, as, as best you could hope for, for sure right now with that and, and how he's coming along and everything and, and getting to visit and, and everything. My last one's the one I really wanted to talk about, though, and I could probably save it for next week, but I'll forget.

So I'm sorry I have a long memory. Been there. No, I've been there, dude. Been there. 'Cause I had, like, all these great things that were happening, but then I had the actual level-up, which is, like, the original intent of, like, these are the things that I've been reading, studying, doing to make me a better person or whatever, to level me up, and things that I could share with coaches, "Hey, you should go read this."

I don't know if I can do that. Like, last week I had the one that I quit reading, and this one, I don't know if I can tell you to read it. It's been one of those that I've been wanting to get through, and, and I... It's a, a little controversial. I don't care. It is Jordan Peterson's 12, 12 rules or whatever it's [01:06:00] called.

What's it called? 12, 12 like life rules or- 12 rules for life ... 12 rules for life. Okay. I'd been wanting to read it listen to it, and I'd started it more than once and been like, "This is just..." It's written in a way... And Jordan Peterson, for those of you who don't know not doing well health-wise right now, but I, I guess he's ultra...

I, I've, I've heard people say he's ultra right-wing. I don't think that's the case, but he's definitely leans that way. But he's from Toronto, so, like, what difference does it even make? He's Canadian. Right.

It's... I started listening to it and, like, immediately here's what I got out of it. Very smart dude. Agree with a lot of the things he says. Completely understand why a lot of people hate him, and I kind of do, too, [01:07:00] right? You can be very smart and essentially be right in a lot of cases, and just say it in a way that makes you suck.

And so to be quite honest, it was a slog. It is 12... Mostly, I can't think of anything off the top of my head. I would say the rules to live by are very good rules to live by in general. They are very good rules to live by. They are mostly things that, like, if I just looked at that list and maybe a short summary, I would be like, "These are very good."

And the stories that he tells, a lot of the stories that he tells to illustrate those are very good. What I don't like in a book... So if you, if you can s- if you can... First of all, if you are you know, along those political lines, it may be fantastic to you. I don't think he's as ultra right-wing. I think there are certain things.

He's very clippable. That's what I would say. He's somebody that [01:08:00] you can, you can pull a TikTok one side or the other and make it sound like he's an insane person, but he says both sides. I definitely get the impression of, you know... He has his own... I don't think he, I don't think he fits in a box, but I think that he certainly has been adopted by and stuffed into a box by.

Some people want him in their box, and some people have stuffed him in the other box, and that's what they want. He definitely f- has been stuffed into or dragged into the right-wing box for sure. And some people might think that I'm an idiot for thinking that he's anything else, but that's okay.

I've, I read the book. If you are somebody who can get these rules and ignore the surroundings of it, I think it's a valuable slog to get through. What I don't like, and I'll tell you that I read a book maybe six months ago when I was on my... maybe last year. I was on a big kick on, I forget what it was, but it was around the time I was reading Signal the Noise and some of those other books, and there was one that was like the first two chapters were great, and then there [01:09:00] were seven chapters of his opinions on climate change, which I didn't understand how that fit into...

It was like, it was like, "I'm gonna present this thing that's gonna be about this topic, but really it's just my climate change manifesto stuffed into

Here's my problem with this book summed up in one thing. There was a chapter about... The chapter, the, the rule is don't, don't mess with kids that are skateboarding, something like that. That's right, yeah. Don't interrupt kids that are skateboarding. Don't interrupt kids that are skateboarding. Okay. Great premise.

Great rule to live by. Let people do things that are dangerous. Let people... It's not, it's not hurt- Because they, you know, doing all these things to not let these kids do it and taking all this stuff away from them doesn't make any sense, and it's a great premise. Let people take risks. Let people do things.

It turns into the longest chapter in the book about [01:10:00] gender What, what are we talking about? And it went on, and on, and on, and on. And I'm like, "What does this have to do?" And it's his... I mean, he's very much you know, ant- essentially an- I don't... I- I would say anti-trans or whatever. You know, which I don't really care one way or the other because I don't know him and it doesn't matter to me, but it certainly didn't fit in here to have two hours of this.

And that's where I felt like he took an opinion that was unrelated to this and stuffed it in because by God, I'm gonna talk about it. And there's a lot of examples in that book. I love... So, so you take a book, Extreme Ownership, which I'm kind of halfway going through again, but I'm, it's more on a discussion platform.

There's nothing in Extreme Ownership where I feel like he's getting his crap over. Right. Obviously it's, the, the stories are about him and his team and his group, but it's, it d- it never feels like... It, I think it's a great book because it, [01:11:00] it never feels about that. Yeah. And some of these books, and this one is one, where it just went off on something that was unrelated and was like, "Ah, you're gonna listen to this.

Just deal with it." And I'm just like... And at that point, the book became a horrible, horrible, horrible slog. Which is unfortunate, because if you could cut out a lot of it, and cut out his just douchey attitude and the way he talks- He's a, a- ... it would be great. He's a psychologist. It's just stupid. Yeah, I was gonna say, he's like an elitist or like a, he's a, he's a, he's a guy that believes he is...

I mean, who he is. He's a, he's- And he's writing the book. He's free to believe the things that he believes and put them across as... But it just, shoehorning things like that in where just like, you can, you can b- believe that, and maybe if you were super, super, super like anti, like maybe you love that. But it just doesn't have a place there.

Yeah. I get it. That's the stuff that like, why is this a 15-hour book? It should be eight There you go. [01:12:00] If you can deal with it, if you can stomach it or maybe there's an abridged version, check it out. I started listening to his podcasts, and he's ... Like, he is a, he is someone to listen to regardless what aisle you sit in, right?

That's like he's- I agree. I agree. He, he does give you a, a higher level of thinking, and whether it challenges you or, or is just propping up your already thought, which, you know, that's, it is whoever you are. But I like listening to super educated, very smart people. Huberman's another one, right? I

Sometimes he's, he's so far over my head, and I'm a scientist. Well, ish, I guess Yeah. I'm not- I'm not a huge fan of his, but I li- listen to his stuff, and he's- I'll, and I'll ... Yeah. I'm like, I can't even take out of it 'cause he's talking such a big word. But sometimes I just like to be in that environment where like, yeah.

He's, he's definitely another one who ... He is super-duper ... They are both super smart and worth listening to, but sometimes it's like y- this is not the only way. Yeah. You got- You gotta ... Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And, but, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're [01:13:00] also, they're both also marketing themselves, so I get it. For sure.

And, and I have to do that with, with this. It's like I can't- Yeah. Our way isn't the only way, but we- Our way is not the only way- I'm not gonna talk about other ways ... but it also doesn't make sense for me to talk about all the other ways. It would be a real, you know, it would be a long time, and this podcast probably is long now, so there you go.

That's it. Yeah. Daniel, what's your level up? Read your tracking book. So I also have four level up. No, I'm just kidding. I, I do have two. The first one's very short. Some of you have been tracking and, and asking about and keeping up with my youth team's adventures. And first of all, guys, go coach a youth team.

Go to the first grade and coach tackle football for the first year that kids have been in it, in the sport, tackling one another. Teach the safety, teach the hawk tackling. Teach the, the-

Teach football the concepts the way it's supposed to be taught because there's a lot of guys down there that don't know. If you're a head coach and you have a staff, this is something I was installing because I learned it [01:14:00] from Bill Blankenship, but it, I, obviously six weeks you don't get to do much. I was, we were, we were knees deep in it already.

But work as liaisons and send your staff down to watch a practice or two. Go to the first three practices of a youth team or something. Help them understand that football isn't just running your heads into each other and Oklahoma drills. Okay? First of all, do that. But anyway, we had our first game this past weekend.

I'll start with this. I'll start with, with cutting our own pride out from under us. We had 15 kids. The other team had 9. It was Adair, so, you know, obviously Brady- Oh, there you go. It's been a program. Brady has absolutely nothing to do with the program, I'm sure. But, but it was Adair and, and, and so it was fun to think about.

Me and Nate, me and Brady have faced off once before. I was the DC at Jay, and I beat him 46-42, which means I gave up 42 points as a defensive coordinator and, and our offense just couldn't quit scoring. So he, he owns me absolutely, but we got it back. We won 32 to 7. They scored on the last play of the game and then in, [01:15:00] you know, they got to run their one point play.

Was an absolute blast. We watched kids come alive. One of our smallest kids is our defensive end, and he is an animal. He just tears it up. I think he got defensive play of the game. I did their stats this week. I forgot how fun it is just to do stats and go back and watch film like, man, you did do that. My absolute...

I've got three kids that, that shouldn't be on the field or four maybe. I don't know. There's a few of them, right? It's like the kid that they comprehend nothing. They're there because so mom and dad can get them some toughness, and I get that. But I have one who I thought was that. He's very small. He's come alive in practice, and he ends up with two pancake blocks.

And I'm talking he is knee-high to a duck, and he is putting people on their backs. And it's so much fun just watching that kid just thrive because he's the kid that he, he challenges bigger kids in practice, but he's not mean. He doesn't have the best form, none of that. He just gets them to the ground.

Like, it's so fun to watch him. [01:16:00] Anyway his name's Aiden. And Aiden, dude, I, I cherish watching you play football because that's how every kid should, should take it on. We won 32 to 7. Lots of good kids did, or lots of k- kids did some great things. It was kind of fun doing stickers and stuff. That's my first one.

My second one is my kids went on to... They had their open house tonight for school. School starts in two days from while we're recording this. Actually, Beckett goes in two days, and Liam goes to his very first day of big boy school on Friday. Our school here at the kindergar- our pre-K splits and takes half the class Thursday and the other half on Friday, and then next week they all go on Monday.

But, Our kids go to Grove and, you know, we live in Jay and Grove's the rival and all that, but they just had a better school system when it was our time. And then of course we were going through meeting fired from Jay and there's all that drama. But that's where our kids go. So it was a lot of fun for Beckett, who's now a third grader.

He Liam got his pre-K teacher, and so he got to go in- Oh yeah ... and introduce his teacher and show him what the room [01:17:00] looks like and where he's gonna have all the fun, and how the backpack goes in the cubby, and what does center time look like and how do you sit on the floor. Right, and it's... Beckett hasn't been there in three years, but he was still able to- Ride the bike

Pass all that on, which is so cool. And then we went to see Beckett's open room or open house and go see his room, and so he and Liam got to learn at the same time, but Liam's already taken that stuff in, right? So it's, man, it's just been really, really cool watching Beckett, and he's become a lot better big brother this summer.

Well, they've both grown a lot, but watching, watching your eldest son kinda open his mind and, and envelop that role and now of course we have the new baby, but he's done a lot of emotional growing and a lot of, a lot of growth this summer. So it's been super cool. Just watching all that kinda come to a, a head as they...

We're, we're about to not see him again from, you know, 7:00 to 3:00 or whatever in the in, in the fall, so. It's a shame. It's a real shame. Yeah. 7:00. [01:18:00] Oh. Oh, they... So Oklahoma did a, an additional 20 minutes of recess, which is It, it, it feels like government is what it feels like, but it is what it is. But we, a, a new law was passed.

We got back 20 minutes of recess, and every school around here added 20 minutes to their school day. So you have these elementary kids that the idea is, like, essentially 50% of the day they probably should be playing and 50% learning. No, we just made it, "Let's make it a 10-hour school day." Make the day longer and- Right, yeah.

Let's make the day longer so we get this mandated 20 minutes of exercise in or, or playtime instead of- I don't know what they think they're doing ... simplifying and figuring life out. I don't know what they think they're doing, but- Anyway Anyway. Love it. The kids are having a blast. I'm excited to watch them go to school and, and, and see where they each lie this year and, and yeah, I'm excited.

That's our level ups. Pay the bills real quick. Let's get out here. Check out the 4-2-5, Three Secrets of the 4-2-5 Defense. You're gonna be able to get that video series, free video series. Go to [01:19:00] joedanielfootball.com/425secrets. You can also get it from our guides page. Just go to the homepage, joedanielfootball.com, click on Guides, and you'll see the dropdown there.

It's gonna be three videos that are delivered basically 48 hours apart. You'll get the first one right away. I think it's the umbrella run fits video first. Umbrella, ASCA, levers really the, the keys, and it's gonna go into some of the, the details, not just of, of the concept, but how it applies directly to the 4-2-5 defense.

So you wanna see that umbrella that we talked about, you wanna see it in more detail, it's in there. Go to joedanielfootball.com/425secrets. If you're slow, go to athleticspeedmovement.com and get fast. Do it. If you've not sent in a scrimmage film yet for game film analysis, do it. And if you're not signed up- Do it

for that platform, go to joedanielfootball.com, get signed up, send us in. You get your seven-day free trial. Send us your game film analysis. We'll check out your scrimmage. We'll, you can see what all that is about, that's about and how it's gonna help you as the season goes on. Once again, it's not us scouting the other team for you.

This is us helping you fix you, which is what we [01:20:00] believe is most important anyway. Yep. Joedanielfootball.com or athleticspeedmovement.com. If you're gold, you can just email and, and we'll prorate it. We'll get you upgraded right now, so you won't really pay until your next bill date. Sean will take care of that.

Do, do- Email Joe at joedanielfootball.com Social media, I am @CoachChamboOK, excuse me, on Twitter/X. I'm gonna be honest with you, Joe, I am also falling off the social media wagon. I found myself digging into Facebook more- Read the blog ... because I started diving, rec- like recovering cell phones and jewelry and boat motors and anchors and all as like a side hustle.

So I spend a little more time on Facebook, but I'm really just, social media's for the birds. I, I kind of log on to see what the Red Sox are doing- ... 'cause I don't pay for any form of platform to watch them play, so I just have to catch the highlights. Kinda reminds me here. Yeah. Yeah, we lost tonight.

Four in a row. It's so sad. Anyway- We won four of them. Yeah. Good. Yeah. We, we got you during our 15 game win streak, so twice I think. Did we get... I think we beat Atlanta twice in that streak, or maybe once [01:21:00] there and once the next streak. Yeah, we have more wins than the Dodgers, so talk to me. That's what I'm talking about.

That's where you wanna be in life. Yeah. Where are you at, Joe? Where can somebody reach out and talk to you? Joe@joedanielfootball.com and the website is joedanielfootball.com. Love it. If this is your first time listening to Football Coaching Podcast, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.

You can find us on your favorite podcatcher, especially on Spotify now, podcast. Wherever it is you're listening, please do leave us a review. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Football Coaching Podcast. And remember, coach simple, play fast, win.