[00:00:00] Welcome back, coaches. This is the Football Coaching Podcast. I am Daniel Chamberlain, co-host here with Joe Daniel. Almost as always, I've skipped a few. Usually. Sorry about that. Usually. As usually What's up, coach? You have to look for that part. Sorry. Me too. Yeah. Oh, it's good, man. Real quick, let's get through this power minute.

Sometimes I delay this, and I don't want to today. So today we're talking about group period run drills mainly focusing on what run plays, organizing those group period run drills or group run periods to get the most out of them, and then emphasizing that practice focus has to stay relevant and, and at the forefront during those group periods.

So this is kind of the... You know, if you noticed the serie- or this season, we're building a series here of how to make your practice schedule. And so we talked indie periods, we've talked some group and eventually get into tying all that in together as a team. So today we're at that group level for the run game.

Last week we talked about how to organize your depth chart, which I've already getting rave reviews [00:01:00] about, Joe. I know when this comes out, it's next week, but we just recorded that a few days ago. We're recording on a Friday, which is kind of odd for us, and then it, it released yesterday. I've already had several people reach out, so a fan favorite so far.

It just goes to show that, like, sometimes the basics, right? Like, you can overthink... Even in podcasting, guys, we overthink what to have as a, a subject or a, a, a topic for a, a show. So, stick to the basics. Next week we're on to defensive line drills, which is a y- once again, just sticking to the basics.

Should be a really good show. But today we're talking about group run drills. Real quick, Coach, you've got a few practices under your belt. You're listening. Some... We, Joe and I were just talking about, man, some of you guys in Georgia, y'all are about to play a game or something. I don't know. Y'all are doing crazy stuff.

Oklahoma started three days ago from the time this comes out, so Monday was the first practice, which is backed up a week from most seasons. So we got an extra week this year. I don't know what, you know, Virginia and you guys are doing, Joe. Around the same. Yeah, around the same as y'all. But hopefully, you know, everybody right now on your team is healthy.

You've not had anything crazy [00:02:00] happen, nothing catastrophic. You're learning a ton and maybe, just maybe, the depth chart is kind of starting to make a little more sense. You've got those starters picked out if you weren't already doing that. So no super pitch here. Just want to thank you guys for spending part of your week with us and listening to the podcast.

Let's jump into paying the bills here, Joe, and we will get started. I take it back. July 30th was the first day. Mm. With the first game being Rykov, I don't even know where Rykov is, a- against Lord Botetourt on the 22nd. They're the only ones. I don't know how they've swung that, the negative, negative two-week.

And then the, the first, I guess, zero week official is the 28th for us. There we go. So week one is still day after or the, the Labor Day time period here. I guess we, Friday before- Yeah ... when everybody starts playing. But yeah, as far as the paying the bills just released a new- Video. It is six minutes.

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Awesome. Let's jump into it then here, Joe. So we're talking, like I said, those group run drills and how to organize those periods. So, so f- first things first here, we have to focus on the run play. So Joe, kind of tell us how we're doing that within these group run periods, nine v nine, whatever, half line, whatever your guys are doing.

How do you ensure that you're, you're focused on the run plays and the right run plays? Yeah. Well, and I, I want to be clear, this is both offense and defense. So we're going to run these same drills from an offensive standpoint and from a defensive standpoint. We'll talk about both. This is not just offensive run plays, working on your run plays.

It's working on your run defense as well. But, but this is where we focus on just the run. And so when we build a practice, as Daniel talked about, you [00:06:00] know, we're building from that one-on-one game, the individual drills that we talked about in, I think, episode one of this season. We, we start with the one-on-one game, and then you start to build And it's all from this standpoint of confidence, and, you know, you, you don't start by playing the game.

You know where you're headed. You wanna get to the game but the, the way to build this confidence is to start with it being as easy as it can get, right? Is the one-on-one game, generally low or light contact. We're practicing those skills that we need, so we're following a guard read. We are you know, running the exchange without contact.

We're, we're, we're handing the ball off. We're bird walking the offensive line. We're blocking... You know, we're going through basically you know, when we do offensive line drills, we, which we'll talk about in a, later, I think at the beginning of September. When we talk about those offensive line drills, I talk about, I always tell the guys it's pro [00:07:00] wrestling.

Make it look good. Make it look like it's real, but we know that our offensive lineman is going to win, and our defensive lineman is there to, to facilitate, just to, to, you know, give him a, a target, make him work a little bit. So that's, that's the easy part, is the drill physically. It's the hard part because I'm learning a skill that I don't have yet, or I'm pers- perfecting and polishing a skill that I do have, depending on where we're at.

Then we take that skill, and what we try to do, essentially what happens as you move forward is You want the player to stay focused on that one-on-one game despite there now being, as we go into group, there now being a couple more guys or four more guys or whatever it is. So we can progress from on a, you know, from an offensive line standpoint, we [00:08:00] progress from one-on-one blocking and bird walking to a live two-on-two pods combo blocking where we are now working.

And the same thing you can do on the defensive line, where I've now got two guys that are going to be, you know, I might get a down block and a pull. I might get a base block. I might get a reach block. I don't know. But we've got a couple guys working against us, and I've got to figure out how to, how to work with that.

So but we still ultimately play the one-on-one game and then where, really where this group run starts to pick up is you now bring the running back, usually the quarterback, but at least the running back now becomes involved and, and you know, for most of us in modern offenses, the quarterback is also a primary ball carrier.

You now bring those ball carriers in to run behind the offensive line. So it's not [00:09:00] just the offensive line is now live, but this starts to become live football. The key is, again, we don't jump... You, you don't wanna jump straight from individual drills to eleven-on-eleven team with all the run plays and all the pass plays and everything there at, right away.

Again, the, the progression, there has to be a progression where it goes from, you know, easy and, and drills are not, we- I say easy. It's the easy mode because it's a one-on-one game, and I've got just one guy there. I'm only doing this one. We talk about the one-on-one game and how it chains together. So the linebacker, you know, all the time we talk about the backside linebacker on a power run play.

The backside linebacker on a power run play gets a pull inside. That's his first one-on-one game. He reacts and looks for the first open door past the center. Now the guard comes off to block, and he rips through the guard. That's his second one-on-one game as he wins [00:10:00] a a, a rip drill through the guard one-on-one game.

Now he tracks the near hip of the ball carrier. That's his in at out drill that our linebackers work, and all that's in the def- all this is in the defensive drill system, and then he goes and he fits his hawk tackle. That's his tackling drill. So he's taken four one-on-one games, and that's the four drills that we work And he has now made the play.

And so it's when we start to chain one-on-one games together. You might not chain all the one-on-one games together, right? A lot of these will not tackle or you won't even have a ball carrier sometimes, but you won't tackle to the ground. You know, we, we rarely tackle to the ground in seven-on-seven, which is a passing drill.

Right. Usually in s- in, in nine V nine we do. But you know, in half line we might not, and I'll talk about that. In inside run we usually do, but in outside run a lot of times we don't. So these are, these [00:11:00] group drills are how you progress. It's the bridge from individual drill to team. It's how we start to, to bridge the gap between that big jump from the basic drills that don't really have contact and aren't chained together.

Now we can start chaining in our drills as well. We've talked about eventually you can combine in-out-out drill and guard read drill to create basically the play with only the things that I need to see there, only my primary and my secondary key in there. S- but we can we can start to chain there, but really where we ultimately build that bridge is with these individual, with, with these group drills where we're still trying to focus on the one-on-one game that we learned in individuals.

You shouldn't be introducing new things in these group drills. That's a really important factor. Don't introduce new things in these drills. It's just [00:12:00] chaining the things that that we did before together into this play. So, and, and also you're chaining the parts together. So where the offensive linemen are working together in a bird walk drill, now the running back is behind them reading the block.

Which is important because that means now things start to happen like the ball c- the, the... If I'm an offensive lineman and the ball carrier gets involved, the ball carrier has a little agency, right? He can decide to cut back or he can decide, you know, he see it bounce, whatever, especially on your zone plays.

That starts to change the path of the defenders. Because as the ball carriers are involved, now the defenders don't necessarily go where you thought they were supposed to go. And so again, you're, you're, you're leveling it up a little bit. It's a little bit tougher, but you still wanna stay focused on the one-on-one game.

So it's that chain to bring the one-on-one game to the field. It's how you make your drills happen on game day is, is this group drills. Yeah, you know what? The The [00:13:00] progression there I think sometimes we do get lost because we start wanting to see everything at once, right? And, and we've talked about that several times.

The progression from that indie period, the one-on-one to the, the pod or group or however you're working. And, and not ... You don't have to do either/or. You can do both, like you said. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do all of them. Pods can very quickly be two or three linemen that are just communicating and, and blocking up a, a, a front, right?

Like, that, that absolutely can be your pod before you get your tight ends involved or maybe with them. Yeah, I was gonna promote him. Yeah. Before you get running backs involved and other reads, and you're doing all this other stuff. So you absolutely can do that. So I think the progression is very, very important to make sure the linemen

It's the same thing we ... It, it's almost the reverse, and it sounds weird, but a lot of guys struggle to make an indie drill. What are we gonna do? And that's where you get the, the TikTok coaches and stuff, right? It's like, what are we gonna do in indie period today? And we always talk about just deconstruct the game.

Take the other 10 guys out, and now what does that guy [00:14:00] see, and what is his one-on-one game? We build back into those pods, but now we're just keeping it, whether offensive or defensive, keeping it focused on these run situations. What are some things that are beating us? What are some things we need to get better at?

And of course, that's gonna be your focus for the day anyway, or should be. If you're ... If that's what you're struggling with, it definitely should be your focus in practice. So, we're kinda gonna push into the organizing your run periods because you crushed the first part really. Sorry. When you get into

No, that's okay. As you get into organizing, you, you mentioned half line, and half line is one of the things that I really fell in love with when I watched it at Tulsa because before that, I'll just be 100% honest, it felt like small school can't get it done, so we have to s- you know, it's trying to get good on good.

Yeah. And I, for some reason, I perceive that as lesser of a drill. Well, why wouldn't I just run nine guys out there and see what ha- I need it to be as much like the game as possible But then I watched the University of Tulsa do it, and their reasoning is we're tired of people getting [00:15:00] hurt, right? So what I, as we, we're talking about progressing here from those one-on-ones into these other periods, I like it even more now because I'm running group period with pods built in. So all, you know, I, I'm, I'm a big GT counter guy. That's what I love. It's my favorite play in football. So now I can go out and line up all 11 or nine, nine v nine.

They do it at Tulsa in team. So think about that. You go into team offense and you run half of them. But you're gonna s- you know, sticking to the group period here, put your nine guys on the field, kill half of them. Hey, if you're from the center back, you're not running. So that means my G and my T are no longer running 'cause I don't need a bunch of kids pulling over there and running into guys they're trying to down block.

So we get to focus on seeing, recording up top. The running back sees where this thing's supposed to hit based on the front side. But as a coach, you get to coach all that. I can stay with that focus. Our focus was down blocks. It don't matter if you flip your line or not. If you flip your line, this is great because now [00:16:00] your strong side guys get all the love.

If you don't flip and it's just the right side, great, you're gonna work that drill right now. Then you come back and run the back half, right? So now we get to see that emphasis, that focus stay into the next drill, and it allows you to organize it so your guys aren't getting exhausted. You're getting a lot of reps, you're getting a lot of mental stuff going on a lot of views by the coach, if you will, and then you can coach those things up individually.

So I think that's really good, and I think, you know, beyond that, organizing that group stuff, it allows those backs to start seeing where things are supposed to hit without all the clutter because- It's just like when you turn on film from the end zone view and... Look, I've been with Bristow.

Everything's purple, right? And you see it's just purple crisscrossing on the screen, 'cause that's what our GT and GH counter looks like. For a new back, that might be too much. A guy that needs those reps, development, that might be too much. I know that's not where you're going on organizing the group drills.

Yours is a little different, but that's kind of the view I think is, like, organizing the way that you're teaching those [00:17:00] focus points for everybody involved. I don't want the back just be, "Hey, this is you practicing handoffs," and then just kind of running. No, he, he should be able to see it all, see each piece of the puzzle, even if he runs every single play.

Yeah. What we do that I've, I've found really helps the backs and the linemen is we do our Bird Walk drill. And the Bird Walk drill, again, is we, we line up. We've got the offensive line. We've got the defense lined up. We've usually got the H and the Y because they're all involved in our run game blocking.

So, you know, we're talking about 14 guys are involved in this, seven offensive players, seven defensive players. And we will... You know, we set go, and they take the first step, and the defense moves as well. The defense should be key reading. They should be reacting. So they take it. Everybody takes one step together, and this is in our Pistol Power offense system.

You can see this in JDFB Premium Coaching Systems. And we say, you know, b- and, and you look at the picture. That's, that's what if you st- if you paused the film from the end [00:18:00] zone view after, right after the snap, first step, and I hit pause, if the play was perfect, that's what this should look like. And not only we should be...

And a lot of guys don't get this because this Lou Johnson was the one I learned this from when he was doing with, with his Shotgun Wing T stuff. You see the picture, the perfect picture of the first step. And then go, and they take the second step, and it still should be perfect. And you as a coach, if you know what the perfect play is supposed to look like, you immediately see where something's wrong with the picture And that can be a kid stepped with the wrong foot or stepped at the wrong aiming point or took the wrong angle, 'cause this is where we're really teaching the angles and the aiming point, the communication.

But you also see a kid who's just being lazy, right? This is the perfect play, so my f- second step I should still be, you know, just coming out of that flat back, right? Just st- just starting to rise up. I shouldn't be standing up and just walking. And [00:19:00] so, you know, body position, because when we make contact on that second or third step, I'm gonna have the defender lean on you because I want you to feel and I want you to ugh struggle through that block like you would if I hit fast-forward on it.

If I, if I take that bird walk drill and I film that bird walk drill from behind and I speed it up and I run it at double speed or triple speed or what- however fast it needs to be, 'cause you know how fast we go, it should look like a perfect play. Yeah. It should look perfect. And so what we'll do is we'll bring the running backs over and let them watch the blocking so that they can see how this play is gonna open.

'Cause like you said, they're over there running full-speed exchange drills, full-speed exchange drills, nobody in front of them. Now then we add into that ex- exchange drill a read, okay? That's the progression of the drill. We add in a read, we add in a coach with a bag, right? Step inside or step outside.

Here's where the, here's where the power down blocks are happening, here's the combo block, make the cutoff of it. We put an extra... We put a second level defender which you're gonna cut inside of, you know, that kind of thing. [00:20:00] We start to add in, we start to swipe at the ball, whatever you want, you wanna do to, to start to work this stuff.

But It's all full speed and it's all, like, you know, I can see where I'm gonna go before the snap and wanna go. Yeah. Now I want him to see at half speed again, and, and we will w- we will not only have him watch it, we will also have him walk it so he can s- see, okay, first step, nothing there. Second step, nothing there.

Third step, it's open. Fourth step, it's there. Fifth step, hit it. Yeah. So what we try to do, the outside zone, we always wanna make our decision to cut back on the third step. We wanna actually cut back on the fifth step. We take two more steps to continue setting up the movement of the, of the linebackers and the defensive linemen, and then if we can make the cut back, we make the cut back on the fifth step.

And so we want him to see how it happens. "Okay, now I know where I'm gonna go. Four, five," and he cuts. Now offensive line, usually we only do, like, three or four steps, so it has to take them a little longer when the running back's there, but they see the play open up. That's a group drill. And by the way, [00:21:00] the other thing that I will do is I will replace an offensive lineman, one of my starters, with their backup, and I will have them come stand with me.

I don't always just send them over to be a defensive player. If I've got enough guys, he'll come stand with me and I want him to understand the play. "You see how this is opening up? You see how this is happening?" I wanna... I love doing it with the backside guy on inside zone, right? 'Cause of the cutback. And I, and I, they see the, they, they, they find out that's how you teach them you're not off this play.

Right. This is not a look, boom, you know, the, the H-back comes across on his... A- and he kicks out and you're working on your guy, and your guy's fighting to get across face where this is going, and look at that hole. That's, that's what the running back... You see that hole? Okay. If a running back who's super athletic and doesn't like to get hit sees that hole, what do you think he's gonna do?

It's like he's going that way. So you're not [00:22:00] off. So yeah, you can start to build understanding. I think one of the things with the group drills, and, and here's, here's the mistake of half line, I think. I think half line, for some coaches with very small n- with very low numbers, half line is a necessity.

It's a solution to a problem of you don't have enough players. Like I, I was thinking about this the other day. I think that if I was in the situation where I only had, you know, 16 players, I might study the eight-man game and see if I could run practices. I've never done this before by the way. This is what, this is just something I was thinking about the other day. I think it would be better to study the eight-man game and see how I could adapt to running my stuff.

I rather than half line. But I could always do like nine V nine or something like that. The thing about half line is kind of what you said and, and I like the idea of just this guy's, you know, the, these players are dead, run the play. Like, okay, the, the guard is dead. The guard's supposed to kick [00:23:00] out the end, so the end's dead.

You know, we're, so we can run the half line from that. But a lot of times you won't have pl- you know, you, you, because you don't have enough players. The problem that I see with half line, and the problem I've had with half line is if you try to run it as your team session, truly run it as your team session, it's going to be a mess.

Yeah. You know? Like, if you try to do half line and run inside zone, you're cutting back every single time. Right. There's way less guys over here. Like, so it doesn't work that way. Now, I will do half line with inside zone, and I will tell them, "It is third and three. There is no cut back." There's no cut back.

That's right. Cram this. Yeah. And I've done that, and to, to get to understand third and one, third and two, third and three situation, you are, you, you find a sliver and you get three yards, there's no cut back. What I like with half line is when you pick the guys that you wanna have and the guys that you need to [00:24:00] block, and you take the guys that you're not gonna block because like you said, you take those guys out, you set the defense up the way that you want it, and you work a play.

And this is where, you know, we talk about good on good. You know, if you, if you got 16 guys and, and you've got your, your, you know, eight of your offensive players on the f- you know, i- in your half line, you got a running back, you got a, a quarterback, you got three of your offensive linemen, you got a, a, you know, an H-back, whatever, so you've got at least six of your best guys there.

Your scout is probably not gonna be that good. So just run the same play at them. Like, hey, you know, the guys who are good, hopefully they're mature enough to be like, "I know you know the play. Be a good teammate right now." The guys who aren't good, "I know you know the play. Maybe you can help us out a little bit here.

We're gonna, we're gonna give you the cheat code. You gotta start over there, but you know where we're headed." Right. So now you can start to play like a, [00:25:00] like a genius, l- instinctive football player. The best use of half line in the last few years for me was we were running the Mercer's jet sweep series and wing T jet sweep stuff, and, you know, there's, there's some very specific things in the blocking there because the, the play has a a counter run which is an inside run that works off of it.

If you overplay the jet, we have this, this run, this inside run that, that works off of it, and it has a specific blocking for the backside. So we were able to do that, run the front side. And the other problem is when you run it, you know, I got my big guard- pulling and running to get out there, right? He's, he's going as fast as he can.

Well, he's not gonna run, I can't run just half line and run that play over and over and over again. So we were working the front side of the play, and then we'd work the back side of the play, and the front side, you know, the right side's dead. And that [00:26:00] was a, you know, the, that was a really good use of half line force because we just worked that series over and over and over again, and it let us work the jet sweep timing with the quarterback and the jet guy.

And again, the jet guy can't jet 600 times, so you're working a couple jet guys, but then you're mixing in the running back on the, on the dive play there. So, you know, getting a lot of use out of it. When you build your half line, in general, from the offensive standpoint, from the defensive standpoint you can be working on stopping a play.

From the offensive standpoint you can be working on running a play. Now, you may have, you know, you may wanna have another, you know... You can al- like if we're working power, we can always run power pass out of half line and just, just so that they can't completely guess. Like, we're not really doing anything, but I wanna see you actually reading.

But you're really going in to work on a play- Yeah ... in half line. Yeah. Same thing, like inside run, you know, I haven't used [00:27:00] inside run. Inside run generally is like a guard, center guard, I mean it's essentially, you know, it's, it's that eight-man concept really. I mean it's guard, center guard. If you're an even front, I don't, and when we put an odd front it's like it doesn't make sense.

You know, we have guard, center guard, and we have an, the nose and the tackle, and our two linebackers, and you have a running back and quarterback, whatever. Or, you know, i-formation. And we can pretty much run inside zone and trap, and that's, you know, basically a, you can wedge or something. But that gets us a little, little bit of inside run.

I like outside run better because that's where we can work our outside zone timing. I can put ba- it, it's basically a half line, but we don't need, you know, the inside linebacker. We don't need the tackles. We just need the end, maybe to take the play side linebacker, the end, the outside li- line- linebacker, maybe the corner if you wanna work on sock blocking, safety, that kind of stuff.

Yeah. The, the, the thing about half line with gap scheme, guys, is you've gotta make it work for what you need to work on. So if you're a defensive coach and you're going, "Well, hell, [00:28:00] if I kill my defensive end to that side because I'm downing away from him, what, what work is he getting?" You're right. And you gotta figure out what you need to work that day if half line with gap scheme works for you.

Okay. At the University of Tulsa, they didn't pull a guy. They, they ... Because here's what coach said, and I kinda asked. Like, "Okay, you're running power, but you're not using your guard, so obviously there's an open guy." And he said, "Well, yeah, but if I let the guard pull, then the defense wants the linebacker to be there that would come fit for him," right?

Right. They ... Everybody always wants the next guy, so you have to draw the line in the sand somewhere. So it may be we're just working these downs and everybody that they would down block. So now I've gotten rid of a play side inside backer, 'cause he's getting wrapped too, so I don't need him, and a defensive end, 'cause he's getting kicked for, for GT counter so I don't need him.

So you gotta kill off who you want and, and, and make it work for your team. So if, if you're listening going, "Guys, that don't make any sense," you're right. Gap scheme throws a, a wrench in it. Yeah. Sure. Zone ... Hey, zone's easy. If you're in front of the center- Yeah ... you're live. If you're behind the center, you're dead.

But [00:29:00] gap scheme make it work. Yeah. The other piece on organizing these periods, and, and Joe, I know that's kind of where you were going earlier. With you've gotta go into it with a, a playlist, and we've talked about scripting your practices a long time. For many years we've talked about that. You have to go in with a script that organizes things that make sense to run inside, okay?

I'll tell you something that I used to watch. I, I love Coach Kaduty down in Texas, okay? I love his duo stuff. That's where I learned duo. In fact, there used to be a really awesome video, and he had it, like, removed from the internet. I don't know why. This is the one I'm talking about. But he used to use his 9 v 9 period to run duo.

Well, duo's a reading play, and if you bounce it, 9 v 9, there's nobody out there, 'cause your safeties are down there running with pass stuff, right? And a lot of what duo is, is I'm gonna hit A gap or I'm gonna bounce. And so he got a lot of mileage out of it running in his group period. I don't know that I would've as much, 'cause in a game there's still a dude standing there.

So [00:30:00] now you're adding a 10th player or you're adding whatever, okay? So I mean, it's kind of... I think you have to go in with the understanding that sure, you can run your duo concept and bang A gap or bounce it outside. You could even cut it if you're a cut back guy with duo. But you have to have that understanding, like there's a body missing.

So whether that's a coach that needs to stand there to give your guy recognition, there's gonna be someone here. That's not what Kaduty did, and he's a legend. He's, he's down there gassing people or gouging people with the play. So I'm not saying he's wrong. I'm just saying to me, I want there to be that next reactionary piece.

But go in knowing that your plays are organized, that you are carrying over that concept you've been working today, okay? If you're working downs and pulls and kicks, don't go run inside zone to your group period for the majority. You can throw it in there. I'm not saying you can't work your stuff. But you need to make sure you're getting back to that focus point.

Yeah, it's always good to have... You know, if, if you're running if you're running like half line, let's say, and, and we run power right and even if I do, usually if I do run it I run, I run [00:31:00] power right, and, you know, I'll just, our tight end's going to the A gap area, so I'll just, you know, we don't need the backside linebacker.

Okay, I want this play to look good. This is not, this is not a defensive session. But it's nice to be able to call an inside zone right so that it's not always the same play. For sure. What we... But I script seven play sequences. And if we're running it right, if we're banded and everything and we can go fast and the defense can get lined up, then seven plays we should be able to run in, in that, within that four-minute period.

So one period is seven plays. What- Half line is a tool that we don't use all the time, that I haven't used, you know, regularly. It's a tool that, like I said, I want to look at this thing. Now occasionally I've run half line because we don't have enough players that day. Something's going on and we, you know, we need to do a half line because we don't have enough players.

But usually we can put together a 9 v 9 [00:32:00] and, and that's where I'm going to next. But half line's a tool for something specific. Just like half field 7-on-7, which we'll talk about as a group drill. I love half field 7-on-7 if we are a quarters team, because it lets us work The routes and the matches and everything, and the quarterback gets to throw and, you know, we don't have half the field doing nothing.

But and the coaches can watch that match So the one that we usually use the most, and again, with half line, with inside run, with outside run, you're generally working a play. It's specific. It's there for a reason. Usually we run nine V nine, and so nine V nine is taking everybody, is everybody there running run plays.

You take the corners and the receivers out. So that's your nine. You're, you're left with basically your spill and your umbrella. You're left with your offensive line, [00:33:00] HY, whoever, whatever you call them, quarterback, running back, you know, i- in our offense. That's the one that we run every day. You know, i- if we were playing a team who doesn't throw that much, we might only run seven on seven once that week, and we'll replace it with more defensive- Yeah

nine V nine. It's like we're playing a double wing. Like, we don't need... And, and here's the pro- here's the problem with double wing before I go any further. You can't do nine V nine with, with double wing because all 11 guys are, are in the box. You have to have... You, you just do team. But we would just put more run team.

And, and sometimes we don't, like if, if you've got a small coaching staff and you can't afford one coach to go off and, and work with the running back, with the receivers and the DBs or you can't afford, you know, you need those guys to be there for your secondary in, you know, against you or whatever, or there's only four of them that aren't one or the oth- you know, aren't playing an inside position and so you don't need to go send them off there, [00:34:00] sometimes we don't send them away and sometimes we just do 11 on 11 and just mix in a play action here and there so that, so that they get to see something.

Hold on one second. Can we pause this? And we're back. We're back. Thanks for hanging out with our pause. We've never paused before. No, I know. It's our first pause. I'm still wrestling with JetBlue after our flight issues a couple weeks ago. Couple weeks ago. Yep. We're still dealing with this. So anyway, 9V9.

I don't remember exactly where I was. And by the way, just so hard to get JetBlue on the phone that I could not just wait on that one. So, The one that we use the most is 9v9. So our normal practice progression, if you looked at the practice plan templates that we have at JoeDanielfootball.com/practice, okay, you can get my, my shell, weekly shell for the practice plan, 90-minute practice plan O Indy, D Indy, D or I go defensive indi- [00:35:00] individuals, offensive individuals into offensive seven-on-seven, defensive seven-on-seven into defensive nine V nine, offensive nine V nine into offensive team because they're already wristbanded with the band, so it's easier just to roll from offensive nine V nine to offensive team and then end with defensive team.

That's the normal, most logical, easiest to use progression of a practice plan. So the nine V nine is going to have seven scripted plays, and each one of those seven play blocks is about a period. And normally we are going to have two or three nine V nine periods. So when somebody looks at our practice plan and says, "Wow, you've only got eight minutes," that's not very many But I'm gonna run 14 plays.

I'm gonna film it so that I can coach off of the film. And I'm gonna coach fast too. We're gonna- there's still coaching in there. 30 seconds is enough time to coach, to fix, to fix things. 100%. [00:36:00] And the key is in those eight minutes, those 14 plays, each of those seven play blocks has a focus. So if I'm on defense, I'm going to go in that day and we'll talk about our focus for the day, but we know in our practice plan we have a focus, and if my focus is on squeezing down blocks and following pullers and the team that we're going to play is a very good power counter team, then that nine V nine is going to be you know, five powers and two counters or maybe you know, something like that, four powers and three counters, whatever, whatever the, whatever they do, right?

What's their ratio? And then I maybe I have a zone period or maybe I have another counter period, or maybe I have... You know, what we don't run in nine V nine is we don't run the toss. Truck toss kicks the corner, so running the toss, it's, it's there, it's open, you know? But we don't, we don't run toss.

We'll save that for team. But, you know, if we're running inside zone, we're gonna run inside zone, inside zone, inside zone outside zone, [00:37:00] inside zone, inside zone, outside zone. You know, we might run zone right, zone right, zone right, zone left, zone right, zone right, zone left, zone right. You know, that's, that's what it's gonna look like, right?

That's, that's the focus. And so that seven play block has a focus to it, and then we just, in that seven play block I've got the, the formation, the play call, the defense, if there's anything special that I wanna see on defense from an offensive coordinator standpoint, if I want you to show me something special on defense.

Otherwise you've got the wristbands, call... You know, you've, there's a call sheet built in with the wristbands where, you know, there's, there's only eight calls on the wristband, wristband. It's, like, just use those. The, So then we, we run those sequences, we run those seven plays or whatever. We will, you know, get a substitution here and there where we need to, or we'll have, like, a twos session sometime during the week.

We usually just try to drop in. Remember from our depth chart episode, I don't need to work all five backup linemen if I have them. I'm fortunate to have eight varsity-ready lineman. I mean, you know, honestly. [00:38:00] And one of them's probably, like, the tight end. Like I said, we've, he's probably the tight end, but we'll put a tackle jersey on him if we need him or something like that.

You know, we're, we're very fortunate if we have seven. It's, it's usually, like, one guy that really needs to get reps will always get the backup center reps. A lot of times the backup center is the JV center, so he's getting reps at the JV game. Right. You know, that kind of stuff. So if, if I have a guy who's gonna be running our offense for 60 play or whatever, they have 40 plays of JV, I'm not gonna worry about how many reps he gets in, in, in our practice.

JV will have a separate scrimmage. You know, they'll, he'll get the chance. But also, the other side of that, let me just mention the other, the other thing that we do is when we run the scout, we don't run your... We don't run their offense. We run our skills organized into something that looks like their offense.

So my backup guys are gonna get plenty of down blocking because we're playing a team that down blocks. They don't run, maybe they don't run power the same way that we do, but it's gonna look pretty [00:39:00] similar and it's gonna give all the reads, the key reads, the 101 games that our guys need. Remember, our guys don't need to see exactly what they do, they need to see their 101 games.

So nine V nine, organized for what you want to do, take the corners and safeties out. Don't run toss. You can even run a play action here and there in nine V nine just to keep everybody on their toes and keep them honest. Right. You know, th- that's, that's a thing to do. But you're, you're building to... But really, the reality is you want them playing run defense right now.

And early on I would not try to trick them with a pass play or something like that and be like, "Oh, got you. It's run period, but you thought it was gonna be a run, dummy." Like, th- that's just gonna make them like, you know, confused, more confused. If, it's... Like, if you want your linebackers to learn to play downhill, don't pass and run in nine V nine.

Right. Once your linebackers play downhill, you can, you know, put in some extra reads and, you know, put in [00:40:00] something to make them guess later on. But because we want them playing nine V nine not as if it is a run period. We want them playing it as if it is team, but without, but just with one less thing.

It's like when we were on Tiger Cat, the Tiger Cat blitz that we teach in all of our JDFB premium coaching systems defenses. But I learned from Coach Mount Joy. It's in the four, started on the four two five, came from University of Florida back in, like, the '90s. That Tiger Cat blitz i- isn't a, isn't a pin your ears back and go blitz.

All it does is it takes the pass responsibility away from six to eight guys, right? So now your linebacker, your inside linebackers never have pass responsibility. Your outside linebackers or overhang safeties if, depending on the formation, may not have you know, to, to worry about pass. So it just takes away one of their reads.

Not to where ball up doesn't matter to them. Like say, say ball up, they just go, right? It's blitz. But before that they're just playing the run at the start of the play. And so that's kinda what you want, is you want them just playing the run. You're taking away some of the responsibility so [00:41:00] that they can really just focus on that.

I mean, you know, for a line- i- in the case of a linebacker just focus on if he pulls follow, if he doesn't, fill. I- in the, in the case of a defensive lineman it's block to or block away. There's no pass set, there's no screen. Block to or block away. I wanna see you squeezing down blocks, wanna see you fight and reach blocks.

You know, I wanna see, I wanna see you doing that stuff. So it's, that's, that's the bread and butter of it. And again, sometimes we don't do, sometimes we just do 11 man, you know, 11 on 11 because I remember, I, I think it was a couple years ago our defensive coordinator who was also the receivers coach and he's the, the DBs and, and receivers coach and the defensive coordinator, and for like a week we were doing nine V nine and he's going down to do one-on-ones with the- Right, with his skill kids

with, with- With his positions ... his positions and he's like I'm down here. Our starting corner is the starting [00:42:00] quarterback. So I got a backup corner, I got one receiver, and I got a couple guys." He's like, "I'm just wasting my time down here." And it's like, "Okay, come back and run the scout def- " And then he had to come back because he's gotta run the defense for nine V nine defense.

Right. So this was just for offense nine V nine, right? That's the only time this happened. So I was like, "Just come back and run the scout defense, 'cause it's our defense- Yeah ... you know, in some form and it's not worth it. So don't, you know, d- don't fall in love with nine V nine because it's nine V nine. But also I think that if you are you know, you can very easily turn this into, you know, eight, seven, whatever.

You know, take the H's and Y's out if you need to. Take the, you know, take whatever you need out. I think, like I really think that if, if I had a small team, I would learn some of the rules of eight man, and I would just go play that in practice rather than halfline it. And you also have to look at those guys that sh- his story just kind of emphasizes this, but [00:43:00] the guys he's coaching are the ones that have the most mileage on their legs at the end of the week.

So they get into a game, what... There's absolutely nothing wrong with saying, "It's nine V nine. All you skinny guys that are drama queens anyway, get water, take a knee, mental reps for this 10 minutes." Like it's not g- you're not wasting their lifetime in football practice. Yeah. And you might save 10 miles that week 'cause they're not down there running freaking go balls in one V one.

Like you don't- Yeah ... you don't need that. I say you don't need it. It's, it's good in a sense, but I don't want them to add mileage to their legs. Well, and you can also use those guys for your scout. I mean, it gives you, it gives you guys to rotate on scout, so you can take mileage off of- Yeah ... multiple people.

Even though that guy is a receiver by trade, he can be a scout free safety, right? For sure. He can be a, you know- That's- ... in nine V nine the free safety. On scout in nine V nine, the free safety is actually like a liability, right? 'Cause he's not in the blocking scheme. Right. Because the guy who's supposed to block him is the receiver.

Right. So for us Yeah, you could even get a little cross-training in, right? That might just take three days off. [00:44:00] I, I love cross-training periods anyways, so now you've built it in. Yeah. At 99 you're gonna go cross-train to something else. That's really good. All right, so we've talked focusing on the run plays, talked organizing those group run periods to get the most mileage.

We've already bumped into this one- Yeah, we've touched on it. Yeah ... the, the emphasizing those practice focus in your group periods. That's, so we don't really have to even cover that anymore. We can touch on it just real quick, 'cause I know there's, some of you may not listen to every episode. What is wrong with you?

They're great. First of all. This is gold. Go back and listen to all these. But if you haven't listened to some of the practice planning episodes, all of our practice plan templates, JoeDanielfootball.com/practice. Free practice plan template downloads. Put your email address in, boom, you get 'em. Okay. They have a focus at the top, and we just did our Coaches Edge workshop for July last week, or s- this week.

Everything is running together. I finally caught a bass, Daniel. I've been, I mean, I've just been, I, I, I've not been able to catch a fish for two weeks. Oh. I wasn't able to get on the lake. So, so bad for you. I was in Delaware. I was driving back from Boston, and then I got back. I caught one Saturday night.[00:45:00]

I got back. They had been missing me. He bit the first cast. It was a little pound and a half. First cast, got him. Okay. I'm like, "This is great." Nothing else. They just wanted to let me know that they knew I was gone, and then they swam back into the deep blue ocean of University of Richmond Lake. Okay. But yesterday I finally got, like, bites, and I missed all of them.

I think I was just surprised that they were biting. And I was us- I was, I was on a, a wacky rig, and I hadn't thrown that in a while, but it's working. And so today I, I, I've got a three-pound bass, and I was pretty excited about it. You know, I, I keep track of them. I take their picture. I smile. I don't smile with them.

I just let them smile in the picture on their own. Wow. I don't want to take away from their glory. You know, weigh them, throw them back in. I didn't have my phone with me. The first bass I ever have, it was three, he was three pounds. I didn't have my phone, so I didn't get a picture of him And and how that relates to practice is it doesn't at all.

But I was just excited about it. We're back, we're back in this thing, and it, it's important. Keep trying, keep going. In those practice plan templates, [00:46:00] at the top there's a focus, okay? By the way, when I fish, I have a focus every day, like this is the thing that I'm working on, on the, the thing I'm... i've, like I've, I've literally applied this to- How you do anything is how you do everything

ev- how I do everything. Like, when I go to pl- I, I play tennis with my wife about once a week, and neither one of us... She's better than I am, but neither one of us is that good, but I can hit it harder and farther, which is oddly not helpful in tennis. But like, I just, I go with like, "This is the thing that I want to do today."

And for a while the thing has just been hitting the ball back to her so that we can get- I can return it ... you know, hitting the ball. Yeah. Get the ball going. I mean, just, I mean, it's just keeping, yeah, keeping it going, right? That's, that's, that, that was it. But I've gotten pretty good at that. So, much to her delight yesterday when we played, my, my purpose was to hit it harder and p- still in, which she loved.

I mean, she really just loved me 'cause I can now hit it hard, and I'm smoking them back at her. And it worked out sometimes that I had a lot of balls in a [00:47:00] row. Always a focus. So when you look at your focus, y- you don't just wanna... I, I think there's a tendency to hand the focus off to the individual coaches and say, "Hey, you know, let the individual coach decide this is what I'm focused on this week."

It's, it, it kind of goes one of two ways. Either the defensive coordinator or offensive coordinator lets their position coaches decide what they need to work on this week, or tells them what they're going to work on. So it's one way or the other, either totally in charge of the posi- in the charge of the position coach to decide what needs to be worked on, or totally the coordinator telling everybody what they're going to work on.

The reality is this all has to be kind of coordinated together because, like I said, I'm going to have a focus that day, and let's say that my focus was on squeezing down blocks as a defensive line coach. So my focus was on def- squeezing down blocks. Maybe I decided that because last week we played a power counter team and we didn't squeeze down blocks very well.

So I'm focused on squeezing down blocks, squeezing down blocks, squeezing down blocks, and [00:48:00] I worked that in my defensive line key read drill that we're gonna talk about in our nep- next episode, right? Next episode is defensive line drills? Yep. So we'll be talking about that next week, okay? I'm working on squeezing down blocks, squeezing down blocks, squeezing down blocks.

Well, I didn't really get all the coordination together, right? So I just spent all of my Tuesday individual time on squeezing down blocks. We get to nine V nine, we're playing a team that runs nothing but zone And so there's not a single down block for the next, for the rest of practice. Okay? At that point, my individual period was wasted.

My individual period has got to be focused on something that is going to carry from indie to group to team. Remember the thing that we just spent 10 minutes working on. I want you to do a lot of that today, and I'm gonna celebrate every single time that you do it, and I'm go- we're going to see it. We're gonna, we're just gonna keep sharpening that tool.

Okay? So these things have to [00:49:00] be the focus for the defensive line, the linebackers. Ultimately, even though your defensive line may not be doing... may have one thing that they're not doing well and the linebackers have one thing that they're not doing well, it probably somewhat coincides where if, if we need to get better at squeezing down blocks this week, maybe you do need to get better at squeezing down blocks, but you're playing a team that's not gonna down block at all this week.

So tuck that away and make sure it's your focus in two weeks. Because if you fix that this week, number one, you'll be working against plays that they're not gonna run. Number two, you'll be solving a problem that's not gonna help you win this Friday. It's gonna help you win next Friday. And I'm not saying that you don't work down block k- in your key read drill, you just don't do it as much.

You're spending more time on reach block, base block you know, for that week. So The focus has to carry through and it has to carry through for all positions. Obviously here's another example. [00:50:00] If the focus for your corners is blocking this week, don't do nine V nine. Have them there for all of your run plays, do team run, still just run, but have your corners or your, your, your receivers there stock blocking or blocking the safe- we block the safety, I don't block the corner, right?

Have them there for that. So that makes sense. By the way I, I mentioned that we don't do toss play or jet sweep and stuff like that in nine V nine. We will usually do that in a half line s- situation or an outside run period. So that's where we will get the group work on that. So that's where you just got to coordinate your focus a- and, you know, defensively or excuse me, offensively the offensive line's working on reach blocks and the running backs are working on, you know, dive.

It's like that doesn't mesh. We're not gonna get what we want. Now, if they're working on two separate things and I can, A lot of times what I will do is, like for example, we're working on something maybe on the [00:51:00] offensive line we really, really, really need to get better at power, and so we're working on down blocks and kick outs.

We're growing down blocks and kick outs. We're doing guard read drill or not guard read drill. We're doing our, our our down block drill, we're doing our pull drills, all that stuff. We're working it, we're working it, we're working it. But the quarterbacks really need to get better at their, their outside zone exchanges, right?

So we have two separate problems. I'll make two blocks. So one block is going to be you know, p- a power block- Right ... and one block is going to be a- an outside zone block. What I rather do and what I usually do is I make one day a gap scheme focus. Tuesday's gap scheme focus, Wednesday is zone scheme focus.

Tuesday is play action focus, Wednesday is drop back focus. Right? Things just kind of bunch things together. And, and that's why, you know, if you go, if you're going to focus on these things, if your practice is actually gonna have a focus and not just be a bunch of plays, you can't have a [00:52:00] gigantic playbook because you, you, there's not enough days to do this.

But that's, that's the focus idea of it is there's... Remember that the purpose of the focus on the practice plan, you write down the thing that we need to do to get better, to win more games, win on Friday night, whatever that is. It may be one thing for the week. It may be one thing each day. Usually there's like a run thing and a pass thing for, in all aspects, a run defense and a pass defense, a, a run, run game and pass game.

So we have two, two things we're trying to fix each week. If you can fix two things every week, if you could fix one thing every week, like really fix it, you'd be pretty daggone good by the time- That's right ... playoffs roll around. You'd be really good. Get to playoffs, that's there's not a lot of people think they have 10 things wrong with them, so - Yeah.

Yeah ... that's pretty good. So you'd be, you'd be pretty good. And, um The, the, the, the focus at the top of the practice plan, that is the barometer. Barometer? The, that's the measuring thing. I love it. That's, that's the thing. I love it. The barometer. It's the barometer. Measures pressure, right? Measures- Let's go

measures the pressure. That's the thing that you use to tell you [00:53:00] if this was a good or bad practice. Did we get better at the focus? And I talked about in our Coaches Edge workshop with, with our, with our install practice plans, we're gonna write out all the install plans. We're ahead of time.

They're not printed off. Don't print off the week. Print off Monday, day one. At the end of practice, you have a 15-minute meeting with your staff, and you're gonna go to each position coach and just say, "Okay, this was your focus. Did we get better at it?" If yes, good practice. If no, "Okay, how do we have to adjust tomorrow?

Because the plan was for us to be better at this today. How do we adjust for tomorrow so that you have time to get, to get better at that?" And in that way, you know, your five-day install may become a seven-day install just because it's going not the way you expected it to go. Right. But, you know, you, you started with that plan.

So the focus is, i- at the end... And you tell your kids. At the beginning of practice, y- you tell your players, "Hey, today the focus is on getting better at [00:54:00] squeezing down blocks. Our drills are gonna be focused on squeezing down blocks." This, this also controls you too, 'cause if you tell your players we need to get better at squeezing down blocks and then you do nothing about down blocks all day, you're gonna look silly.

Right? And you just go out and you run random hoop drills and stuff, like, you're gonna look absolutely silly. And it, I mean, when you figure out that focus, like you mentioned, guys, you know, I get, I get guys all the time who are relatively new to coaching will be like, "I'm just looking for drills." I can't help you.

I don't know your scheme. I don't know your players. Or they're the cheap star scheme. I can't just hand you, you know... I, we have our defensive drill system, but it's tied directly to, and that's why the only way you can actually purchase the defensive drill system is with a 30-day test drive of JDFE Premium Coaching Systems, because it doesn't make sense in a, in a vacuum.

It doesn't make sense. You might be able to adapt all those drills to your scheme. And by the way, you should be reading guards and tracking linebackers and squeezing down blocks. You should be doing all of these things. They're not, they're not unique to football, but They're, they're built for our [00:55:00] scheme.

And, and they, you know, that's just the way it is. Like, your drills are, are tools for solving problems. So when you set this focus, if you say, "This is the focus that we have," well, the drill should be pretty apparent. Yeah. Drill doing the thing that you want to do better perfectly, and do it in one-on-one, and then add a couple guys, and then add a few more guys, and then g- eventually you're a team doing the thing and running plays that actually do it.

Don't say our goal is... The biggest thing is don't say our goal today is to get better at, at reach blocking, and then go out and run power and counter all day, and pass set. Like, it's just... And then go, "Did we get better?" No, Coach, because we never actually did it today, so I don't think we got better at it.

We wanted to." Talk about it. "We wanted to, but you didn't r- you didn't have any drills for it, and we didn't call any reach blocking plays, so no, Coach, we did, we did not get better." And I always think it's good to, to just brief with your players at the end, "Did [00:56:00] we get better at this?" You know, so that they know that the, like, at the beginning this is the focus.

At the end, did we get better at it? Remind them the focus. And then at the end of your practice, maybe with the staff, "Are, are we getting better?" If you start getting a whole lot of days where everybody's going, "We didn't get better," we have a problem. We have a major problem. If you're focused on one thing and we go out there for 90 minutes, 45 of which is that side of the ball, remember you're, you're not gonna solve four things, 'cause your, your kids, most of you listening, your kids play offense and defense.

So you got four things to solve this week. You might have four days of practice. It's gonna be very hard to solve all four of them. But try to get better at, you know... If you can get better at two of them across the board with your players, you're going to be significantly better. Yep. I like it, man. I think we we checked all the boxes for today.

So we talked about group run drill periods, how to organize those, how to focus on the run plays that matter, emphasizing your practice focus inside those group periods. Once again, it's just the [00:57:00] chain of, of team to pods to group to... I started with team, I meant end. Anyway, focus, focus, focus. Last we talked about how to organize your depth chart.

Next week we're on to defensive line drills, which should be a really good episode, much like all of them. Guys, by now you've probably learned a few things about your football team. I know you're a few days of practice or a few weeks of practice in, you weird Georgia people. Four actually ... maybe somebody's exceeded expectations.

Maybe somebody's got a lot more work to do. That's why these kind of first practices are so important. They replace all the off-season guessing with real football. Especially when we talk about when they put the pads on, everybody forgets 50%, right? Every time you add a, a layer of protection, they forget 50% of what they know.

Group unit, that's for sure. So hopefully you've gotten through all that. If today's conversation gave you something you can take back to your staff or tomorrow's practice, send this episode to another coach who's in the middle of the same process. Odds are they're asking me the same questions as you are.

Let's jump to our level up. Joe, did you figure yours out or I need to go first?

This is weird [00:58:00] I like it. Weird's good. My... I may have talked about it. Did I talk about the vagus nerve stimulator? I don't think so. Okay. My weightlifting coach, Chris Lawyor, author of JDFB Weight Room, the best strength training program, includes it in season, so you can go ahead and, and get started on it.

But it is the best strength training program out there. Researched this and researched and researched and researched, and he was like, "This actually research backs up." He's like, "It's weird, but there's research backing it up." Now, Chris has been my coach for nine years, 10 years maybe. 2015 is when I started going to the gym there.

10 years. 11. Yeah, almost 11. 11. My first competition, this might be the shirt. This is 20- this is 2018. I know it's old. No, [00:59:00] 2017 was my first competition, so it's been... Not, but 2016, February 2016 was my first powerlifting competition, so it has been 10 years. So when he recommends something, I just do it.

Okay. And he gave this, now he did give it to me on a, on a loaner. I gotta go back and pay him for it 'cause I'm gonna keep it. He said, "Try it out. If you don't like it, bring it back." This is the, this is the Pulsetto Fit vagus nerve stimulator. It sits around your neck. It's got little pads for you skinny neck dudes.

Thank you. Yep. Oh, wait, I have a big neck. Sits there, and you put it on your, you know, your artery, your, your vagus nerve I guess. I don't know. V-A-G-U-S. And it's got a little app on the phone, and you put it in for stress or anxiety. I don't really have anxiety, but stress I have. Though I'm getting less.[01:00:00]

There's a couple other settings but the one that I use it for... I, I use it in the morning. I, I do the stress setting. You're supposed to do it twice a day. Okay. I do the stress setting in the morning. I do the sleep setting at night, and I think the sleep... The stress is, like, four minutes. The sleep is, like, 10 minutes.

And I don't... I didn't do the research. I, eventually I will do a little to find out exactly what is happening, so by no means am I necessarily recommending this to anybody. What I recommend to you is maybe do your own research, or just trust Chris if, if you're cool with that. I do. I don't know. The stress thing, I don't really know what that's doing during the day.

I just, I'm doing it 'cause you're supposed to do it twice a day and, you know, you, I like to tick the boxes and it says, "You did it." And, you know, like, "Thank you." About 30, 45 minutes before bed, putting it on and, and just sitting there, you know, watching TV or whatever and letting it run. And I'll tell you this.[01:01:00]

That thing, when it finishes those 10 minutes- I'm not immediately going to bed. I'm still going to bed in 30 minutes with like planned, but there is no option. Like, I come out of that, like it is bedtime. Like, I still have, I gotta walk the dog, I gotta clean stuff up, I gotta go upstairs, I gotta get the seat.

You know, I got, I got so many things going on at bedtime, right? I, I now wash my face. I put on some, some whatever, you know, moisturizer stuff, you know- Let's go ... keep, keep me looking young. You know, I got to brushin' the teeth, I gotta floss. You know, I got all that stuff. And then I've got my, my Invisalign retainer.

I put that in, and then I gotta get in my room and maybe I, maybe I take my contacts out. A lot of times I just, I'm like, I just don't even care right now. My... I mean, I have extended wear contacts, but if I take my contacts out, I can take my contacts out and put the, put my glasses on which I wear specifically to walk from the bathroom to the bedroom.

That's how far they go. Put 'em on the nightstand. And put 'em on the nightstand. And then I get there, and I gotta put the water in my [01:02:00] CPAP, put the CPAP on, lay down, and then I gotta put my headphones in so that I can listen to a little ASMR to get me sleeping. So I got a lot going on at bedtime. But I sleep 10,000 times better than I used to.

So, and I'm less likely to, to die 'cause of the CPAP. So, that's good. But and my teeth, you know, I d- I haven't wasted the $5,000 Invisalign because I keep wearing the retainer. There you go. So, now I'm checking with my tongue, like, "Oh no, I think this one's crooked." But all that said, when I use this vagus nerve simulator, the, again, the Pulsetto Fit is the one that I got.

I don't know, good or bad, whatever. There's no option then because y- you know how to... Like I- I will find a rabbit hole, and it- Right ... will be 2:00 AM all of a sudden. But not, not- With that thing? ... if I use that thing. If that, if I use that thing, it is, it's a done deal. It is time to go to bed, and I am in bed.

Boom, CPAP on, headphones on, head [01:03:00] hits pillow, out. And I know because YouTube will stop whatever I'm listening to when I'm asleep. And so- That's cool ... so I'll fall asleep and it stops it. Now, it doesn't stop the headphones, so I gotta get some, some longer lasting headphones, 'cause if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night, my headphones are dead.

But it will stop, and sometimes I will open it up and, and it's at, like, you know, four minutes into the video, and I'm like, "How did it even register that I was asleep?" But I'm, but I was out. Hmm. You know? I'm, I'm like, I'll look at the f- I'll look at the video that I was watching and I'm like, "I have no recollection of that."

I was just, I was just coasting. So- That's pretty good. That's a thing that- It's a thing. I don't- we'll see how it does over, over, over a longer period of time. I think you're supposed to be looking at the heart rate variability and some different numbers that it will track, and I'll, I'll look at those numbers in my Apple Watch.

I, I did not use it during vacation, so now I'm getting back to being consistent with it, so I'll be able to actually start tracking. Good. The thing that has helped my sleep lately is lately I do the Total Human [01:04:00] pills by Onnit, the vitamins. Like, a daytime pack and a nighttime pack. And I got Onnit because I've been using Alpha Brain for, Yeah

three or four years, and I love the stuff. It's kind of expensive, especially if you get the black label, but the Total Body comes with a... the daypack has Alpha Brain already in it, which I notice if I don't take it I don't feel as good. But at nighttime I've been struggling to sleep lately, just stressors and, you know, apparently you get fired from your first ever head football coach in six weeks, you get stressed out.

Sure. But those nighttime packs, dude, they will knock you out. But they're not a, none of them are a narcotic or even a... it's just natural. Anyway. Yeah. So that's a thing that I take it and it's like, all right, we're going to bed. So good. I'm glad you found something that hel- I... Let me know how it goes, 'cause I may use the same thing.

I, I may look for one. I, I'm gonna track the numbers a little bit and maybe do a little my own research too. Yeah. My level up is I, I think I told y'all last week that we I'm in my first week of youth football practice. And st- I don't think, I [01:05:00] think I talked to you pre-recording, but we installed Basically, it's an eight-man football game, but you're, there's one or two offensive formations and there's one defensive formation.

We get to ch- control none of that. So you guys know me, I'm already like spazzing out because I want to do 1,000 formations. Obviously, I wouldn't with the youth guys. Don't, don't freak out here. They're first graders. They're six years old. One, I would say, if nothing else, the JDFB and the, the, the Football Coaching Podcast, and all the things has taught me you gotta be able to turn some stuff off, and so that's been really good with youth ball 'cause it's like, oh, we better not...

You know, we're talking about, hey, let's put in this and this and this, and we're like, ah, actually let's curb that back. Anyway, we had one play and it was fullback dive, and we decided to install a sweep. I'm gonna call it outside zone for the sake of the podcast, but it's treated more as a sweep play.

But it's actually like outside zone lead kind of thing. Stretch maybe. Anyway, installing that with six-year-old offensive [01:06:00] linemen who I also was teaching in the same day how to get in a three-point stance, how to line up next to their buddies to create an offensive line, how to snap the ball, how to leave your position on the snap.

Like, there's so many things going into it, and getting to install run left and run right has been so much fun. And watching the kids pick it up, and then as they got more confident with, "I kinda know what I'm doing." And then getting aggressive and, like, trying to throw their weight around, you know, and it's so fun.

It was just such a blast. Th- this was yesterday at practice. That was just a lot of fun for me as a coach to just go back and coach the very fundamental, like the basics of the basic. You can't assume they know anything. I, as an O-line guy, I, the at least you know how to line up next to the guy next to you, right?

And, and be... Nah, none of that. So, I dealt with like a right tackle who was turned facing the guard. One that tried to encompass or, or envelop the defensive end pre-snap. [01:07:00] That's fine. I'll just get over here so I can hit you. This is, this is how AI draws makes images of football. Yes. Yes.

Yes, exactly. It's 100% that's what it's doing. The AI has a six-year-old understanding of football. You know what would be way easier to block would be if you started beside the free safety. Start every event. You could do one. You could block me. Anyway, so it's just been fun. So I, you know, I've- There are guys out there who are constantly trying to get to the varsity level, and I understand it, and then there's probably guys trying to get to college and guys trying to get to the NFL.

At- once again, just coach where your feet are, man, because without a doubt, if we can go in and install two plays and get really good at coming off the ball and their first two steps and communicating a little bit, these six-year-olds next year are gonna remember absolutely none of it. But if I can get them three years in a row, by the time that they get into fourth or fifth grade or whenever the school starts taking them on as players, they're gonna be such a better offensive lineman player than somebody that was just trying to get them to, you know, tee off on the guy or what, Yeah

just be where your feet are, make the [01:08:00] best player you can at the level you are and have, have a blast doing it. We just... Man, we were all smiles and laughter, and it was a great time, and the kid... Like, we're a 90-minute practice team. The last 10 minutes, the kids were still like, "Is practice over yet?" I'm like, "No."

I get it. Yep, it probably should be 70-minute practice. Yeah. But we get three a week, and then we gotta go play a game. So, you know, we'll, I'm sure we'll work it as we get there. But we're taking kids from never touched a football to this Saturday, tomorrow morning, when as, as the recording this, we're lining up to hit people, so it should be a lot of fun.

Anyway, get you some youth ball action, man. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. All right, pay the bills one more time, Joe, and let's get out here. Yeah, we've mentioned before, obviously JDFB Premium Coaching System is ultimately the place to go if you wanted these systems, defensive drill system, 4-2-5 system pistol power offense system.

I've mentioned a number of those things. Our Coaches Edge workshops we'll be building the depth chart and the Coaches Edge workshops if you're coming up in in, in August. August 10th will be the date for that, so very soon after this comes out. But where [01:09:00] we are at right now you know, if you're not ready for that get your linebackers moving.

So you can get that free video, three linebacker quick fixes. That's going to be at joedanielfootball.com/linebackers. It's gonna be three things that you can use right now today in your practice, if you're practicing right now, to get your linebackers playing downhill faster things that don't require contact.

They don't require, you know, skill really, right? They, they just are adjustments you can make, quick fixes to get your linebackers playing faster, more physical, more downhill, more aggressive, whatever you wanna call it. It's gonna make it happen. So joedanielfootball.com/linebackers, get that video now.

Love it. Social media-wise, I am @CoachChamboOK on Twitter/X. You can email me at chamberlainfootballconsulting@gmail.com, or send up the Coach Chambo signal in the chalkboard forums. I love it. It works so well. Joe, where are you at, sir? Email is joe@joedanielfootball.com Love it. And then the chalkboard forum, right?

JoeDanielfootball.com. Yeah. JoeDan- JDFP Premium Coaching Systems. [01:10:00] Made your own website. I love it. It's a genius thing to do. It's my own. Yeah, I have my own social media. It's amazing. I'm on the I'm on the Fishbrain app, but I don't, I don't post. Ah. Let's talk about that. I keep it open. I, I, I, I, all, all my fish are private.

There we go. I record them all, but they're ... You know, I can't do anything that way. I got, you know, I got the fish book and everything. Fish- ... the fish membership. There we go. Podcast- PedPed Bass Fish, by the way. I miss those guys. I miss them. Favorite fish. Miss you guys. PedPed. So you got your own pond, and then you can put them in there when you catch them.

Oh, maybe. If this is your ... Oh, sh- now you have to have a new house. Sorry. Tell the wife I'm sorry. Now you gotta have your own bass pond. We if, if, if anybody who's been around long enough to remember when Shane Sams was doing the Coach XO podcast years ago Shane does a lot of work with Men Today is what I'm seeing.

I just ... Checking in on it, but Shane did that. He, when he, his, sold his company, he bought a house in Kentucky with a b- with a lake. I love it. Yeah, it's awesome. [01:11:00] If this is your first time listening to Football Coaching Podcast, you know that we are very likely to do some dumb shit like that too. Yep. Please subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.

You can find us on your favorite podcatcher, especially Spotify and Apple Podcast. Wherever it is you're listening, please leave us a review. We like big numbers, five stars, five apples, five whatever the things are in your world. Yeah. Please do leave those. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast.

And remember, coach simple, play fast, win.


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