[00:00:00] Welcome back, coaches. This is the Football Coaching Podcast. I am Daniel Chamberlain, co-host, here with Joe Daniel, as always. It's daylight. I know, it's so weird when we have to change our recording. Yeah. And like, I don't need all the lights on and you can see the whole off- it's weird. I have to, it, you know, the thing is I close, I have, you know, blackout curtains and they're actually like really thick, like sound-absorbing curtains, which I don't need now.

When I first moved into this house the room was empty and everything echoed, and now like I don't need that. But they're very thick, heavy curtains, blackout curtains, and still when we record in the day it's just brighter. Yeah. It's just weird. It's the goodness. Power minute real quick, guys. Today we're talking safety drills, talking about establishing the role of your safeties, which is huge.

Big, big, big one. Coaching safeties to build the umbrella, and then adjusting your drills for any opponent. Last week we talked about defending the flex bone. By the way, got, we already got some feedback on that one, Joe, and it was very [00:01:00] good. Oh, good. 'Cause- So I said, "What did we miss?" And they said, "Nothing."

You, literally comes down to two families of flex bone, and basically what we said covers them, so we're good. And then next week we're off to defending junk offenses, which will be aggress- ... I watch a lot of this game film analysis now, and there are some guys that are doing weird stuff. Running outside zone to the right and tossing to the left to no blockers.

That kinda stuff exists. Anyway we have reached district play now for in Oklahoma. I'm sure in most of you other states it's, it's getting around this at conference, district, whatever you call it, where the games kinda matter more. A lotta teams, kinda everything you've done up to this point has been preparing you for the real season.

Even if you're 0 and 3, we all know that those three don't count. If you win the state championship- That's just your state ... that shit goes on the ring. But- Ours, ours counts the same. Oh, yeah, well y'all are weird with your playoff points. Counts the same, well then. Anyway, yeah, season's starting to take shape.

Hopefully the podcast today can, can help you out a little bit to c- stack in the win column and set you up good in district or conference, or power [00:02:00] playoff points. I don't know, whatever you're doing. I mean, we have conference. Yeah. We even have our old districts. They just don't matter. We have districts, we have c- we have districts that don't matter, we have conferences that do matter, but h- here's how it works here.

We play Our old districts, most, a lot of teams still play our, our old districts. We even still have district awards, but the actual winning the district doesn't matter. Your district is, like, fake- Right ... as far as the playoffs go. What matters is you are getting points from your 10 games regular season for conference, and in your conference, your points determine where you fall out in your conference.

And once you get to the playoffs, you're playing within your conference, and there are four conferences and, you know, conference A, conference, conference A, [00:03:00] conference B, conference C, conference D. They match up for the winner of each conference. You know, you get your four basically region champion type deals.

But yeah, ours is Different. Very different. I don't- It's good. I think it's a good system though. First I didn't like it, I think it's a good system. Every game works. I have to really look and see what the difference is in districts and conferences because- I, I think it's just, I think it's just names

district feels like it's close by, but conference- Yes ... like think about SEC conference, right? Like it's not close by anymore. The Big 12- No, yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, I, the words don't mean anything. They're just, you know- Yeah ... conference, league, district, doesn't matter. But for us, the districts are your traditional districts, and back when everybody was the same- Right

You played your district. The problem is that like, you know, as things, a- as, as things developed and grew and changed you know, some school districts grow. And I, I've talked before about Colonial Heights, where I [00:04:00] was coaching the last few years or f- to, till t- 2024 is a, a, a small city district that is locked.

It doesn't grow. It can't grow. It's this is it. Well, the surrounding... And then there's, you know, and then there's Hopewell, which is a little bit bigger city, and there's Petersburg, which is a little bit bigger city, but they're all cities. But we were in the same district as Prince George, which is a gigantic county, which is where Fort Lee is.

Dinwiddie County, which hasn't grown that much, but is more rural, but is very big. And then we had teams over in Chesterfield County, which is basically metro Richmond and has blown up. And so What used to be the district when we were all the same size became here's one school, Thomas Dale has 2,000 students and here's another school that has 900, and it's like we're not the same.

So yeah, they... So eventually they created the conferences. It's a good system because we created the conferences where you can still play your old district opponents who [00:05:00] are bigger and actually get some credit even though they're probably gonna beat you. Yeah. You can- I think ours is the opposite.

District is the formal points that you gather to win those games, and then conference is like, I don't even know if there's a formal... Like, the Tulsa schools, they're not in a formal conference, but we all, we lump them all together, right? Like those, those- Yeah, it's kind of like- People would know ... it's a, it's a school district but yeah.

Right. You know? Yeah. Anywho let's pay the bills, Joe, and then we will talk some safety drills. Yeah, so, great. That's exactly what we should do. Let's see. I had to look and see what we're doing. Morning time. Yeah, so we as, as of the time that this podcast will come out will be the last week of September, so you have one week left to get into the Game Film Masterclass.

Game Film Masterclass is open for enrollment right now. That is our game film breakdown system, self-scouting your offense and your defense as soon as you get the film, and then how we go into scouting your offensive or defensive opponent once you get that exchange film, [00:06:00] no matter how many films you get.

It is a system and then also a system for scouting the special teams. I also include a breakdown of how we tag film, what we tag, what we look for. It is all about saving time and extracting the information that you need that is going to then go directly into both your game plans and the very, very, very, very, very missed element of what goes into your practice plan so that your game plan can actually be executed in your following game.

So Game Film Masterclass, there is still time to get on that. It is lifetime access so once you get it you will be able to use it this season, next s- next season, use it for your playoffs, whatever the case may be. There are workflows that you follow. You can just, you know, print that out or, or pull it up on your computer or tablet or whatever it may be and go through it right now.

Pull, pull up the film that you're watching and just start following through and the instructions are there. There's also very instructional videos of go in more detail about what we find in each one of those steps, so if you want more kind of guidance through them, it is there. [00:07:00] And then also with special teams there's guidance through all six special teams and how to break those down and find the key information.

Game Film Masterclass- Available right now at joedanielfootball.com/gfmc. If you wanna get it before the end of September it's only available until September 30- 30th. There's not a 31st of September. It'll actually be midnight Pacific on September 30th. You can get it by going to joedanielfootball/gfmc.

Get the Game Film Masterclass. Awesome. I, you know, w- we often talk Athletic Speed Movement right now, and I know that it's kind of a weird transition point for you to be adding a speed program. Absolutely go to athleticspeedmovement.com. Get the program. Get someone learning it so as soon as- I would start preparing

like, you can use it now, but really this is now that time to prime up for off-season. Get a coach in the know. You don't want... Athletic Speed Movement is not a hey, you're gonna teach history this year, and you need to stay one day ahead of the kids. You can do that, but it makes it a lot tougher. So, so get it now.

Let a guy actually understand what he's trying to do, what the, [00:08:00] the, the core pillars of the program are. But this is a time, like, if you haven't gotten to the platinum level of Joe Daniel Football and start getting your game film analysis, now is the time for that. We talked about districts are coming up.

Maybe you've played a game or two that matters. Maybe you're like Joe and play- you know, playoff points matters all the time, but guys, we catch the smallest things on there as we're watching through, and guys are like, "Dude, I di- how did I miss that," right? You get a comment back like, "How, how did I have five guys on staff and no one sees whatever that is?

My defensive end can't go play C gap. He's always outside," or, or, you know, "I, I'm giving this gap to the wrong..." Whatever. Like, you see things. It's- Scheme problems, you see kid problems, personnel problems all play calling problems, all sorts of stuff. Jump in now. Get in the game film analysis. It will help you win a game or two this year.

Just, just the small things that you can't see because you're too close to it, so it's nice to have someone who's not afraid to hurt your feelings say, "Hey, that was not a good thing. Let's do it a different way." Anyway so yeah- Yeah ... just another [00:09:00] push. Go to joedanielfootball.com and upgrade your... If you, if you're not a member, become a member.

If you are one, upgrade, get platinum. And if you are and you're not sending in game film analysis, you're wasting a great resource, so send your film in. Yeah, it is funny how... And I, I had a conversation with a coach, a gold level member coach, and very successful, and he was asking a question, and I was like W- is this what's happening?

'Cause you know we see it so much. I said, "Is this what's happening?" And it's like, "Yeah, that is what's happening." I'm like, "Okay. Move him over a foot." It's like that's, that's the, the most interesting thing about game film analysis, and you've, you see it every week too, is we can fix a lot of things in 15 seconds.

Yeah. And if you're not using it, it's going on for four or five weeks, and you're installing new stuff, and you're changing new stuff, and it's just, it's just outside eyes a lot of times because you're not... It's not that you- we... It's not that we know more than you. Sometimes w- we just know the system [00:10:00] better.

But a lot of times, like, you know, we don't look at it through a lens of like let's install something else. It's like this is the system. Like just... But we can solve these. We've, we've solved these problems so many times. Yeah. And it's usually not... I, I say it's not difficult. The solution's not that hard, but, you know, then you gotta go...

You're the one that has to go fix it. Do your thing. Yeah. We can tell you. For sure. Yeah. But yeah, definitely if you're, if you're a gold member, upgrade to platinum, you can email us and email me, joe@joedanielfootball.com. We'll get you an invoice if you need to. If we... We'll get you bumped up at the end of your current.

If you already just paid your f- last cycle, we'll get you bumped up at the end of the next cycle. And or the beginning of your cycle. Like I said, you can go to joe- joedanielfootball.com/membership to get on there. But it is... And you can, you can move up and move down. You can go up to platinum for the rest of the season if you don't wanna add your assistant coaches, and then go back to gold at the end of the season.

That's perfectly fine. But I recommend you do it. It's, it's huge. It's a, it's a heck of a resource. All right, man, let's jump into it here. We [00:11:00] are talking safety drills today. Excuse me. Which, you know, as we think about it, especially if you're a 4-2-5 guy, if you're here listening to this 'cause you're learning ball, or like you're in your first couple years of trying to turn something around, we recommend the 4-2-5.

It's, it, it's a great- Good time ... flexible thing. It doesn't break to most of the stuff you're gonna see in everyday football, but it is very big in hybrid players, right? We have to have these outside backer/safety kids to run the base stuff. And so I think it's gonna be a great, great episode just to remind you of how important these kids are and all the things that you can do with them if you kinda lay that foundation early.

So Joe, let's talk about laying that foundation, kind of ex- establishing the role of your safeties to yourself, your, your assistant coaches, and then of course to the safeties themselves. They have to know where they fit. One of the most unfortunate things about football is that the names that were put on football positions [00:12:00] 100 years ago are still used.

So if it helps you, instead of calling them outside backers or instead of calling them safeties, plenty of coaches are calling them birds, bats, bees, and dogs. And I have talked to multiple coaches who are like, "My guys don't wanna be a 4-3." And I'm like, "Call it a falcon and an eagle." You know, call it a dog and a bat.

Call it a, you know, call it a strong dog, weak dog, strong bat, weak bat. Call, call it, ... These are names that have all been used. I mean, going back- Print Davis literally calls it cheetah at the University of Oklahoma. Like- Yeah. Well, I mean, when I was, when I, when I was ... We were a 4-3 A, a kind of multiple 4-3 that could be a 4-4 a lot when I was in college.

Our strong safety, it, it was a 4-3, but our strong safety was a jacket backer. He wasn't a safety, he was a jacket backer, right? I mean, this just, call it whatever you want. It doesn't matter. What we're talking about here, and the, the biggest problem, for some reason people don't have a problem with this on offense.

The [00:13:00] half back, the tail back, like they're not, that the tail back is the back guy, b- behind who? He's standing next to the quarterback. Right. Like, so, so some s- some systems will call him the F or the, the A back or the... Like, that's fine. Call him an A, call him a B. Like, that's, that's perfectly fine. Like, for some reason on offense we don't have a problem that the quarterback isn't a quarter of the way back.

Like, he's by himself back there, but we don't change his name. I never thought about quarter of the way back, half the way back. Yeah. I grew up in the wishbone, and so half back was like there's one over there and there's one over there. They're both- And it's like quarterback, fullback ... half the field. Like we're, your fullback and then the fullback's in front of the like, you know.

Man, look at that. Okay. And then the H back is like, he's not a half back. I don't know if he's a hybrid back. Like, I don't know what that stands for. But w- anyway, we don't have a problem with it. We d- we just, we're fine with it, right? But then we look at... And it's like, you know, in the NFL they're like this is a three tight end package.

Well, only one of them can actually be the tight end on that side or, you know, you can go two tight. There's, [00:14:00] there's no room for three tights, right? One of them's a wing. But nobody has a problem with that. We call it, you know, three tight end personnel packages and stuff. Guys, when we talk about the safeties, the birds, the bats, the bees, the dogs, the outside linebackers, one of the biggest problems is that these, these words are associated with the way that football was played years and years and years and years and years ago where the safety was the deep defender.

Guys, your free safety, your strong safety, your weak safety, unless you are a true cover two, unless you are a true cover two where the cornerbacks, this is where all this stuff comes from, the cornerbacks set the corner, the edge, and the safeties were the deep half defenders, the last man, last line of defense.

That's where that comes from. So you guys, like I'll, I'll just be honest because it pisses me off. You're screwing this up if your free safety in a single high defense is the deep, deeper than the deepest nobody [00:15:00] gets behind you guy. You're screwing this up. Period Period. Your coaches that you're arguing with are screwing this up if you're a cover three or a cover one primary and the free safety is deeper than the deepest and never comes up on the run.

You're screwing this up. You're absolutely screwing up if you're at, like, a quarters coverage, and that's true because safeties are the force, right? Right. So when we talk about safety drills, we're talking about the umbrella, and we've talked about the umbrella quite a bit. Last season I think we did a full episode dedicated to it.

You can go to JoeDanielfootball.com/umbrella and read about the umbrella there if you're a JDFB premium coaching citizen member, or if you should be and you're not yet, you need to be. You need to go to JoeDanielfootball.com/membership, and if you are a member, make sure that you've watched obviously within all of their defensive systems, we teach the umbrella in module one.

It is the foundation of all our defenses. It's way, way more important than numbers. Way, way more important than 4-2, [00:16:00] 4-4, 4-3. Way, way more important than 3-2 or 5-2 or, or 3-4 or any of those things. 5-3, 4, 3-5, 3-3-3. That stuff doesn't matter. What matters is the umbrella. That's the d- the run fits. Your run fits. So we're talking in terms of our run fit system.

Now, our run fit system is very similar to a lot of other run fit systems. We use different terminology. I find ours to be the simplest. A lot of our coaches have found it to be the simplest. But it generally applies to most situations. Yep. Our safeties And it doesn't matter cover three, cover one, it changes, cover three, cover one or split field quarters.

If we're in a 4-2 or a 3-3, these jobs are u- are always the same. Okay? Is the strong safety, weak safety, free safety. In the 3-4 you have the added complexity of each, each one of these defenses we, Daniel talked about we do recommend the 4-2 because it is, it is the simplest, it has the least complexity. But like if you just need some complexity in your life, you need to go in and screw stuff [00:17:00] up, that's...

And I don't say that, I don't, I don't say that like you're wrong. I'm, I'm, I need to go in and, and I'm almost always gonna do some multiple front stuff. The most successful defense that I've coached in was a 3-4. The 3-4 adds an extra element of complexity. It adds an extra element of flexibility blitz packages, multiple fronts, all of those things.

We can do multiple front, but just from a, from a base calling standpoint. The 3-4 actually has four different players who could be spill, force or alley, which adds the extra level of complexity. Whereas when we're talking 3-3 or 4-2-5, strong safety, weak safety, free safety are the umbrella. The strong safety and the weak safety are always the force.

The free safety is always the alley. The extra level of complexity with the 3-4 in that your outside linebackers can be the force, your safeties can be the force or the alley, your outside linebackers can be force or spill. So everybody has not everybody, those four have two different jobs. And that of course goes to if you [00:18:00] don't include cover two or the cloud check.

Cloud, cloud check does change. There are some opportunities and things that change in the 4-2 or the 3-3 if you use cloud checks, if you use Bronco checks, which are backer force. We don't do a ton of that, but you can. So what we're talking about, and then in your 4-2, in your 4-3, the strong safety, weak safety are primarily the force.

Sometimes the Sam backer is the force if there is no tight end, because once there's no tight end, it becomes a 4-2 You walk Sam out, boom, four-two. I mean, it doesn't, it's, it's still a different, you know, y- you don't change the defense, but conceptually you can think of it that way. The major difference in the 4-3 and the four-two is the position of the defensive end and the linebacker on the strong side.

You f- just flip them. It's not that complicated. Now the outside position of the defensive end as a nine technique in the 4-3 makes everything more complicated and starts to require, because it becomes a two-gap defense. I just wanna talk about all of that. Those are the th- [00:19:00] four systems that we teach inside JDFB.

Highest level of complexity, highest level of detail-oriented coaching, 4-3. Next down, 3-4. The 3-3 stack allows you to create fronts underneath, but the umbrella of the secondary remains the same. The four-two is the simplest to teach. It's gonna be the most consistent, it's going to be the one that is going to give you the fastest results, quite honestly, especially if you have a small coaching staff, inexperienced players, low numbers.

This is gonna be the easiest one to install and get good results. None of them are better than the other, but they all fit a certain situation, a certain coach more so than certain player personnel, and we've talked about that a lot. Right. So now the role of your safeties as we are talking about them is they are either force or alley defenders.

If you call it contain, that's fine. Setting the edge. We never force, we never contain with the defensive ends because they are not in a position to force. [00:20:00] Go back to Jim Reed. Jim, phenomenal football coach when he was at the University of Virginia, defensive coordinator at Virginia. He was a defensive coordinator at Iowa, has been at UMass.

Jim Reed... How about UMass, huh? Jim Reed said, among other, many other things that I stole "Align where they are going and meet them on the way." So when we define the role of our force defenders in the 4-2-5, in the 4-4 they're outside linebackers, in the 4-2-5 they are overhang safeties. If you don't like either one of those, the birds, the bats, the bees, the dogs, whatever, the outside guys, they are your force defenders.

We don't care what you name them. It's not important. It doesn't freaking matter. Just- I love that you hit them all the same every time. The birds, the bats, the bees, the... Call them whatever you want. That's usually what they are. They're either some kind of bird, some kind of bee, some kind of bat, some kind of dog.

It's a hornet, you know, it's our hornet and our wasp. It's our, you know, stinger. You know, there's always some bee thing. There's always [00:21:00] some bird thing. There's sometimes, I'm leaving out some animals. Yeah. You know, there's, there, there, there's lions and- It's the mascot position, right? There's lions and snakes and, and, you know, whatever, but, you know, it's just easier.

Birds, bats, bees, and dogs, okay? You can call them whatever you want. The force defender is the guy who, quote-unquote, "sets the edge." Yeah. Nothing gets outside of him. But in our terminology, the number one thing that you must do with these guys is establish the role of the safety. If you are establishing the safety, and if we're just talking about, hey, I'm a 4-4, and we only have one safety, if you're a 4-4 cover three and you've established the role of the safety as the deep guy, nothing gets behind me, you're screwing this up.

That doesn't work. You don't have enough guys. If you have three guys who are always deep, you don't have enough guys. You need a nine-man box to tie all of this together And again, study the umbrella run fits. [00:22:00] JoeDanielfootball.com/umbrella. Check it out there. We have podcasts on the umbrella run fits. Learn these things there.

I'm gonna have a four t- a whole 425 course, podcast course. It's gonna be free, and I'll tell you about that as soon as we get it up. It's up, but I'll, I'll tell you about it so you can get it and you can learn it there. But here's the deal. You need to establish the role of your safeties first, and the role of your safeties if you're talking strong safety, weak safety, free safety, and that's what we're talking here for the rest of the podcast.

The strong safety and the weak safety are the force defenders. They will force with the wording that we use, words are important. Names of positions aren't important. Call them anything you want. We're gonna call them safeties for the rest of this podcast. Names of positions aren't important, but words are important.

The force means that he will force a change of direction in the ball carrier on an outside run. That means that either as the safety, as the overhang safety, as the force defender, either I will force an outside ball carrier, toss, outside zone, whatever it is, or an inside run that [00:23:00] spills to me, because our under the umbrella guys are spill defenders.

I will force a change of direction. I will force him to either cut back inside where I have pursuit from the spill defenders and the alley defender, which we'll get to in a minute, or he will-- I will force him to run around me, bubble around me, where they do that thing and kinda run, try to run around you, and then I will bubble him, he will bubble toward the sideline, and that will also give time for pursuit to arrive, and I will just force him to the sideline If if he does not...

Okay, I, I love the questions, but I wanna make sure I, I, I've, I've answered them all, so I'm gonna hit most of them. If he doesn't change direction, what happens? He gets tackled. Tackled. He's tackled. That's, I tackle him. That's the easy one. So it's always... And, and the change of direction doesn't need to be drastic, but that is his role, is he must force a change of direction.

And s- and, and it doesn't need to be like he fully cuts back and turns the other way. Any sort of stutter step [00:24:00] is going to give my pursuit and that, that, that that wall that is building from the inside, scraping linebackers defensive ends fighting the reach, and the free safety coming down in the alley is going to give them time to get there.

What we see is that that force defender doesn't force a change of direction for multiple reasons. He fits too wide. He goes up the field and creates a vertical s- It's, it's, I say multiple s- reasons. It's two reasons. Either he creates a horizontal seam, he's too far away from the spill, or he creates a vertical seam.

He goes up the field and he can create a vertical seam two ways. He can go up the field and they're able to run underneath him, or he can be too far back. And a lot of times actually, he's too far back because he started out too far forward. What, what that means is that we, we play him five yards off the ball on a number two receiver, let's say.

If he starts out at three and he makes his key read, by the time he gets his key read, the receiver has hands on him, is blocking him. So he started out too far forward, and they were able to engage, and now he's too far back and he can't force a change of direction. [00:25:00] By starting out at five, I have that space to read ball down, stays down, rip outside, and I'm off the block, and I set the edge.

That's, that, that's the key to all this. So, that's the number one thing, is he must force a change of direction. So we have our spill players underneath. They're always attacking inside half of the blocker, inside half of the ball carrier. They never let the ball go north-south. They always make the ball go east and west.

They always make the ball spill to your force defenders. The force defenders are outside, and they must force a change of direction. This is basic umbrella stuff. It's not basic for everybody, but I'm saying this is, if you t- study our umbrella, this is the basics of the umbrella. This is the basics of defense of our, of our defensive system.

Now, you have spill players spilling the ball. You have force players setting outside to set the edge. If we should get the board up here, but, um so, forget about our YouTube guys. Getting more and more YouTubers watching. So the, And we'll have plenty of things to, to draw. Don't worry. So when we have the spill and the [00:26:00] force, that creates an alley, and what happens now with once we, we set that alley- is that no matter how big the alley, if you have great spill and great force, the alley might be a half yard wide If you have terrible spill and terrible force, the alley might be eight yards wide.

Everybody gets reached and hooked. Right. The force player creates a horizontal seam, he fits too wide. Okay? You do those things. So that space between, and for the longest time when I was a younger coach, nobody really explained this to me very well. That space between the spill and the [00:27:00] force Is the alley.

The alley is not a place on the field. The alley is not a a mythical area. It is not between, halfway between the hash and the numbers. It is not... The alley is there we go. The alley is the space between the spill and the force. So when we're looking at our 4-2-5, we have our spill defenders are the defensive line and the inside linebackers, and we put that umbrella over top of those guys, and then they are keeping everything under there.

If as long as you keep the ball under there, they're gonna make those tackles. And then we set our safeties. And again, no matter what front you are in, no matter what coverage you are in, I should say, the safeties are setting that umbrella. So it can be a two high. It doesn't matter. The weak safety, free safety.

As you found, the hardest part of this is the weak safety when you go two high is still the force and has to get down there. But if you force with somebody else, you have a [00:28:00] problem. And, and, and so that's the difficulty of two high safeties. That's why sometimes we'll use a cloud check on the weak side because the corner is in a better place in the, in the in the b- into the boundary to be the force in those situations, and we use corner force.

But they are the force defenders, and their job is to keep everything to the inside. Force a change of direction. And then we have the free safety who is going to tie it all together. So if we get our spill underneath and our force to the outside, however well they do it, we are going to be s- creating some sort of an alley, and that is the free safety's job to fill the alley.

He ties together the spill and the force. So now I wanna go back to why he cannot be the deep half defender, why he cannot be the deep, always deep stay in cov- what we call stay in coverage. Our corners are the stay in coverage defenders. So if there's a play action, a trick play, they're the guys that stay back there and make sure that, you know, you kinda have a [00:29:00] last line of, of defense.

If you keep your free safety as a stay in coverage defender, there's nothing to tie the spill and the force together, which means the alley is open, and you are getting mad at your defensive end for not fighting the reach block well enough. You're... And this is why a lot of people think that the strong safety and the weak safety have to be so tight is because they don't have an alley defender And what happens when the strong safety and the weak safety are too tight is they easily get hooked, and so you end up losing the edge.

You see, we're going to align in a way that we can almost never lose the edge, 'cause we're going to align where they're going and meet them on the way. And we're gonna put that best player at the safety, the free safety position, and he's gonna tie it together. And here's the thing. If you have really good spill and really good force and a [00:30:00] good free safety, a decent free safety, he can get down there.

He's gotta get down there and make the tackle. He's got a half yard, let's say. But if he's not good, if he's o- playing over top or if he's not filling the alley, that half yard is an eight-yard gain no matter. That half yard split between spill and force is an eight-yard gain no matter what. It's a big one.

Yeah. Yeah. But if I have average or even below av- let's say I have average spill, average force, and a good free safety, we're creating a five-yard wide alley. That's your, your best tackler in an, in a, in a, in a five by five box open field tackle drill getting down there. And if he can make that tackle or if he can slow him down enough for that pursuit to get there, then you're gonna have very good outside run play.

And I argue that, a- and I've, I've coached in this, I had probably the best football player that I've ever coached played free safety for us. We were in a 4-4, completely different, right? Two numbers. Two numbers right here. Two numbers, yeah. We had below [00:31:00] average. I've talked about it. We lost 14 games in a row before this kid went to free safety.

He, he, he was playing baseball. Didn't play his junior year. Wasn't gonna come out his senior year, realized he missed it. It was fortunate that he did because he ended up with a scholarship to University of Virginia for football. Didn't-- But we lost 14 games in a row his entire junior year that he didn't play first three games, and actually the fourth game we, we barely lost.

It was his first game back and he only played receiver I think. So the first game that he's at, at free safety we win, f- first, first game in, in 15 games. We had below average, obviously 14 losses in a row. Below average spill, below average force. I was the JV coach by the way. This was before I knew all these words and everything.

This was a long time ago, but that's when I started figuring out Well, we would have an eight-yard wide alley. Yeah. But he could tackle anybody in that. Give him an eight yard, give him a 10-yard open field tackle space, he could make [00:32:00] that tackle. So you put the elite defender there and your entire defense, not to mention that he's still filling downhill on the inside runs.

He's still filling downhill where if something pops on the inside, he's still working inside out. A- as he said when we first laid it out for him, 'cause he was originally a linebacker in his, his freshman, sophomore year, as he said "So I'm a linebacker 10 yards." Yeah. Amen. But you have a, you have a read, so on pass you're still deep third, okay?

But you have to have a read, and a lot of guys miss this and they screw the reads up and everything when we read the quarterback. But that's the, this is the key for you guys. The, the number one thing that you need to do before you coach your safeties and before you start working your safety drills is you must define the role of your safeties.

Now look, we're talking about safety drills for force and alley. If you're playing primarily cover two, then your drills are different. Right. He is a deep half ped- he's a deep half defender. He's a stay in coverage defender if you're playing traditional, traditional cover two, not two read. Two read, he's generally still the force, okay?[00:33:00]

So that's the key, but he has a read, and we don't read him at the line of scrimmage 'cause it's sloppy. I've had so many coaches, you know, come up and say, you know, "What do we do?" We don't... We talk about it all the time. Don't read the M at line of scrimmage. Right. Don't- Which is, which is pretty common. I, I think it's, it is really good that you, there at the end you talk about the what does your coverage package look like, right?

Because as you start building out these drills, and this is why it's so hard to just make a drill book because I don't know what you are gonna see. I don't know what you want to run. But there are, you, you do need to build it out as you talk about that role of your safeties. If, if you are gonna check cloud a lot to any scenario, he needs to see that, right?

Otherwise, he's biting down on stuff he's not supposed to, and there's nothing more infuriating than a safety who bites down on an out when he's a deep third player. Also, you know, it, well, corners, they need to know if they're tacklers or not, and, and often we try to prevent that. But so [00:34:00] establishing that role- Yeah, your, your cover two corner is a very different person than your- Yes Cover three corner

cover three corner. And, and then your, you know, if you're a primary cover one and he's playing press man all the time, he's gotta be a dog, and it's like, you know, you can't use the same guy for all these different positions. Exactly. And that, that's where I was going next, is that cover one mentality, right?

They have to be able to be very physical, okay? So your drills need to incorporate we're up here in the face of number two. You have to get hands on number two, whether you're man or not, because you still have a force role to play, right? And it's, that's one of the biggest questions that I've seen- Cover two, yeah.

... In the JDFB world, is how do I play force with a guy that's in cover one? Well, first of all, you can't start him at 10 yards and then tell him to backpedal, right? Because of c- I'm gonna run him off with a vert two. If I can get your force guy out of there with a simple vert route, we are relaying you until the cows come home.

And so that, those drills, they have to be able to identify [00:35:00] what their role is in the umbrella and then go set the edge, right? However, however you want them playing that. Which is why we start guys so much in cover three with one being their off coverage, so you're caught in that predicament less, but you can still take away some stuff by the offense.

I think it is a mentality, Joe, with these, with these outside guys. One, letting them know that they are a hybrid. You, you do have this pass responsibility even when you're just talking about just, just hitting curl flat out of that force position. Some of them, they, they still don't fully understand what they're doing there.

When you start switching roles like boot and rollout and stuff, right? Like I'm telling a guy, "You're cut back boot reverse, but as soon as the quarterback boots, my inside backer has to come kinda lay waste to that guy." Right? So the, the, these are the drills. When we start talking about drills, you need to start separating these out into like what are my responsibilities?

Where is that line that determines am I [00:36:00] setting the edge versus am I dropping back into my hook curl, excuse me, my curl flat zone? And how does that affect the umbrella, right? Because I still have to play force out here even though I'm getting wider in this pass coverage. So there, there is, there is pieces of that where when you start talking safety drills, guys, it comes down to situations you're seeing, what does your opponent make you do, and that's what the drills need to look like.

I know we say that every time we have a drills video. It's like break apart the game and practice the game. But it's still such a it's so elementary, but yet so many people miss it, getting back to just break down the game and make it look like that, right? I know you've really, we, we've, we kinda hammered out the first two parts together, Joe.

We talked about establishing role and then we need to coach them to build that umbrella 'cause they have, I mean, that's so much a part of their role. What, what would you add to that second part there before we move on to the third one? The drills so the first thing that we're gonna do, I like that better.

The first thing that we're gonna do- Me too ... [00:37:00] is we're gonna teach our force fit drill. So this is day one and, and all of our safeties will do this first. Okay? And the force fit drill is simply letting them learn, The ball up, ball down key read. And so actually I'll usually have a coach standing, you know, where a quarterback would be kind of, behind the center.

And then we will have the safety standing. We'll use a cone to represent the center, a cone to represent, say, the tackle out there, and then we will have the safety in his five by five alignment, which is five by five is where we align and cover three or in split field quarters if we're the down safety strong safety in split field quarters in four two five.

But the down safety if we are we only have one receiver split out, so there's no slot receiver. So we're gonna align in that five by five, five yards off, five yards outside position. He's gonna have inside foot up, outside foot back. He is going to have his chest down, hide the bottom [00:38:00] of the numbers.

His shoulders are gonna be square at all times because we don't wanna be tilted. If we're tilted, we're giving up that outside. We wanna protect that outside. A lot of guys talk about protect the outside arm and leg. It's not exactly what we're talking about. We're, we're more concerned about putting ourselves in a position to be able to rip outside better.

That's be one of the most important things that we do. So he's gonna read the, the quarterback and the, and the coach is just gonna show him our ball up, ball down key read, and the ball up, ball down key read. I've actually got a, a, a YouTube video that is a few years old now, but shows it that's on YouTube that I would look at for your safety key reads if you really wanna see that if you're not a member.

We also have very detailed write-ups on the umbrella drill. We have very detailed write-ups on the free safety position at JoeDanielfootball.com on our articles page. So, there's not a billion articles there. You'll see free safety. You'll see the the most important safety drill. So go check those out as well.

Ball up, ball down key read basically comes down to the ... He is going to watch the quarterback and see the quarterback. And a lot of times we, guys, we will run into things where we can't [00:39:00] see the quarterback clearly, but we can see his mannerisms. We can tell the difference between a quarterback standing up tall to look to throw the ball, and a quarterback leaning over to hand the ball off.

So what we look for, first of all, ball up means that if we see the quarterback take the snap and I'll, as the coach, will stand there and just kind of snap the ball and we wanna see him not move. They'll immediately do their read steps if they've been coached by anybody before. They'll take these read steps.

It's like, "No, you don't need to take read steps. You don't need to go anywhere. You're too, you're so, you're, you're so far away from the initial action, you don't need to take read steps." The further you are, the more drastic the, the, the, you know, it changes what needs to be done. The the guys who are the furthest away actually are gonna back up for their read steps, right?

The corners and even the free safety. The guys who are the closest, the defensive linemen, they're going to attack when the ball is snapped to get their key read. The middle linebackers are going to step forward, but they're not going to attack forward because they've got to get a key read and find out if they run or pass, right?

And the strong safety, weak safety we found is actually in that sweet spot where they don't need to move There's no benefit. Some guys use bounce read and [00:40:00] stuff like that. I've had some kids who like to bounce read, some kids who like to just stand. But you know, it just depends on what they like, but they don't need to go anywhere.

Some coaches just have to tell them to do something. I love to see a play start out where everybody moves but the one guy who doesn't, and then he just explodes and, and blows the play up. That's my favorite. So he starts out five by five. If he sees ball up, coach, the, the, the quarterback or the coach representing the quarterback takes the ball out, takes it up to his chin, stands up tall like he's gonna throw the ball.

That's a ball-up read. No matter what's happening, no matter what we're doing, no matter where we are, no matter if we saw play action, no matter when, no matter when we see it, when we see ball up, boom, that's pass. We go to our pass responsibility. So in cover three he's opening up to the flat you know, 10 yard 12, 14 yards deep, top of the numbers.

If you know, whatever your coverage is. If it's cover one he'll actually be seven by three in his alignment and he's gonna slow pedal. But again, I always start out in this five by five cover three thing. But I pretty much always will have a cover three coverage. But if it's, if it was cover one, he's in his seven yards off, three yards outside, he's slow pedaling, boom, ball up, he snaps his eyes to the hip of [00:41:00] the number two receiver, and he is locked in man coverage right now.

So that's, you know, whatever it is, it takes him immediately to his pass, pass responsibility and cuts off all run responsibility. The only run that can happen after a ball up is a draw, and we are not draw responsible. Draw responsibility is gonna fall on the defensive linemen and the linebackers. So- That's ball up.

If he sees ball down, critical, critical, critical coaching point, and a lot of our coaches miss it. I've had a lot of coaches that I had on my staff miss it at first. It's like, "What's he doing?" It's like, "Well, it was all ball down." I'm like, "Ball down means nothing." Ball down means, it was what we teach them, ball down means wait.

So if he takes the snap and brings the ball to his waist level, hold, you know, like he's doing a handoff. Okay, everybody hopefully can visualize this. Holds it out like he's doing a handoff. This is al- also very, very detailed in the 425 Defense manual at 425Defense.com. I, I put in little pictures and everything in this.[00:42:00]

Holds it out, and that tells our strong safety, weak safety, free safety... Free safety's doing the same reads, by the way. I start them all out with this. Means wait, don't go anywhere. It means nothing. You are far enough away that you have time to make a decision. TCU terminology, don't go till you know. We put them where the line where they're going, meet them on the way, we put them in the perfect position to both force and flat is his pass responsibility, and on an inside run, he's deep enough that he can fold inside.

So he can fold, he can fl- he can force, he can fold, he can flat. From that five by five position, it's the perfect position for him to be in to do this. And so ball down means wait. Now, if he sees ball down, stays down. So there's a, there's a, a time period that he needs to learn from film and experience.

Ball down, stays down. Okay? The quarterback never came back up. Ball down, stays down. Now, he rips outside [00:43:00] if there's anything attacking him and sets the edge to force a change of direction. We put a cone in this drill at one by one off the tackle because I don't want... What they'll do is they will see ball down, stays down, and go running up the field, which creates a vertical seam, which is the last thing that we want.

We don't want him across the ball because we're going to create a vertical seam. So we teach him to condense the alley and attack from that five by five position to a spot about one yard by one yard on our side of the line of scrimmage, and that's where we set the edge. We've got our defensive ends fighting the reach, and we constrict the alley where our free safety has a small amount of space to fill.

If he sees ball down And then the quarterback goes through the ball down motion and then ball up, bootleg, whatever, flash fake, whatever it may be. Ball down, ball up is [00:44:00] play action. Any time that he sees ball up, he goes to his pass drop. And so immediately once he sees the ball down, ball up, he drops to his, you know, cover three, 12 by 14 yards off the ball, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So that is day one teaching and this is the, this is the, the, the foundation of everything is they are learning this drill. As we start to identify, you know, you know, somebody is a free safety or somebody is a strong safety or, or a weak safety, the drill starts to progress and the natural progression of the drill now becomes drill number two, which is our umbrella drill.

The umbrella drill is the drill that we work every single day to build the umbrella. It is the single most important thing that we do in putting all of this together, and you can start to... You can work this with different coverages. We'll get into that. You can include defensive ends. You can include inside linebackers.

In building this umbrella, we include corners at times [00:45:00] because teaching cracker plays against the toss. And what we do in the umbrella drill now, if you wanna see video of this, you wanna see more detailed teaching, you wanna see me teach it on the field, it's in our defensive drill system that's part of JDFB Premium Coaching Systems.

You can see all the drill. You can see it applied to the field. You can see you know, all of that. But again, on the website we have a, a, a, you know, diagrams and stuff. In the 425 Defense manual, there's diagrams and everything of, of the umbrella drill. It is the foundation. These guys are now, we're giving them a call, so we're gonna tell them cover three or cover one and we have basically four things, initial teaching that they are reading.

And so I stand as the coach. I stand back behind the secondary. I have a quarterback and a running back initially. Later on we'll add slot receivers, tight ends, whatever we need, and we'll talk about that. But as the coach, I stand behind all of them, and we have four plays that can be run right or left.

Well, three of them can be run right or left. One of them is just running. [00:46:00] So the first one is an outside zone type run. It's just an off tackle run and so we'll... Yeah, I always make that number one, so I hold up a one and then go right or left with it standing behind them. Quarterback and the running back, I love backup quarterbacks or a quarterback who doesn't have, you know, if your starting quarterback doesn't really have a defensive position, I always make them safeties because they, they can get back here and they can run our stuff.

And so, you know, if we go outside zone right, they're just gonna show that. Quarterback's gonna show ball down. The running back's gonna run that outside zone path. Quarterback's gonna show ball down, stays down, and then we come up and we fit it, and we fit our alley and our backside guy, as you mentioned, Daniel, is the counter reverse bootleg guy.

He stays home. We wanna see him waiting and waiting and waiting. We set the edge. We force, set the, set the alley, all those things Okay? We work that, then we work... We have a toss. Usually I don't work a whole lot of toss unless the corners are there because of the cracker plays for our truck toss. But n- the second play is a toss, so we go to number two.

So we hold two fingers, two, and then right or left. [00:47:00] And the toss, the fun thing about toss is there's no ball down, stays down. When we run a toss, as soon as you see the toss, the only play that can come off of the toss generally is a toss pass. So when you see toss to your side, toss pass is not gonna be to the flat.

So when you ... The corner's staying in coverage for that. When you see toss, it is an immediate force read. There's no delay on it. You just go, you go ahead and go. So we're teaching that, and of course the free safety is running the alley, and then we have our backside guy staying home. You do occasionally get, like, a throwback, a toss with a throwback.

S- backsi- backside stays home. So we have all those things covered. Then number three is, remember we've now seen ball down, stays down. We've seen toss, which is an immediate ball down, stays down read. Then we see ball down, ball up, and so what we'll do is we will I will hold up three, and then I'll say, "Three to the right," and that means that we're going to fake that outside zone run [00:48:00] to the side that I point.

They just mirror it, right? I'm holding up my right hand. D- defense is right, but the offense is gonna run the direction I point. And so they're going to show that outside zone, and the quarterback's going to show that ball down, and then he's going to bring that ball up. We don't ever throw a football in this drill, by the way.

I ain't got time. Running it, line back up. He's gonna show ball down, ball up, and he's gonna come out of there, and I wanna see the patience of the safeties to see ball down, and then when they see ball up, to get to their drops. Okay? To get to their... or, or their deep third for the free safety. And so you will, you will see guys who look like they're doing everything right on the ball down stuff, and then as soon as you do this, you realize they're gonna get smoked on a play action because they're being over aggressive.

You should see them hesitating, but this really clears it up for you. So you wanna see good ball down, ball up. And then the last read that we get, very simply, we have the quarterback take the snap. Sometimes we'll have a coach flipping the ball or somebody flipping the ball if we're doing [00:49:00] gun, whatever, but, you know, take the s- take the snap and hold the ball.

You know, take a three-step drop from under center, whatever it is. Ball up, and when we do ball up, everybody just goes immediately to their pass drop. Okay? This drill, the basics of this drill, the force fit drill naturally progresses to the umbrella drill. This is what they do This is our defensive linemen have their key read drill.

This is the key read drill for the safeties. Our linebackers have their key read drills. This is what they do. This is what they spend their time in. Now, if you play a lot of cover one, you will also be splitting time running our man coverage drills, pedal drive, pedal break, pedal open. We'll work some baseball turn because we get the outside breaks on the corner routes.

Again, all inside the defensive drill system. They're the same drills that the corners work. So when you have a small staff and you're running cover one and cover three, you can work your, you can work all of your corners and safeties [00:50:00] together, and the corners can just be involved in your force fit drill, run more toss so they learn to crack replace.

But they will also be everybody will do their man coverage drills together for off man. Generally, if we don't have, if I don't have the capacity to, to have somebody committed to the corners, we're not doing press man just 'cause we don't have the capacity to teach it. Right. So we'll, and off man's much simpler to teach.

So that is the, the, the basics, especially if you're a base cover three. I mean, that is the, that's the drill manual. And then in the next segment we'll talk about how this, you don't, it's not, it's not an everyday drill. So as a coach and, and you're, you're coaching this up, you have to remember to watch the backside guys from time to time.

Yeah. It is very important to see your force guy getting down to that one by one position and, and setting the edge. And, and I would say it is the most important part of defense. I will say that the alley's very important, but the spill a lot of time is gonna [00:51:00] overlap and, and help him out there too.

I'm not saying that any of them can't be done or shouldn't be done, but that force position's very important. However, if your backside guy is running upfield, if he is running to the center's level across the field, if he is bailing back around the free safety trying to get a tackle angle going, a pursuit drill angle, if he's doing any of that, you have to put the stops on that now, and this is where you're gonna see it show up, because for him, as soon as the ball goes away, he's in the most boring drill of his life.

It's just sit there. So you've gotta be able to show them from time to time something coming backside, and that's why as you build that drill out, and, and, and I'm gonna go ahead and squeak it in the next part here, if you adjust this drill to what your opponent is doing week in and week out, you need to be adding in where is a slot receiver, because that might change his alignment.

[00:52:00] Y- and, and how that guy's playing may change how he has to get outside or what he might s- be seeing on the backside of the drill. And so it, it's just very important, you guys, don't forget about the backside kid, because he will burn you the first chance he gets because he wants to come be a part of the tackle too, and it's outside zone right up to the point they toss it to a slot receiver in a reverse, and now there's nobody home.

Or, I mean, we've seen a ton of stuff. As you get into your trips checks, now that is a hang technique by him. Well, if he's very accustomed to running over to the center's depth and trying to fit a cut back lane, then he will not be looking for the vertical of number three, and now your free safety can't play two deep balls in the same zone, because one's 15 yards shallower than the other.

And so that, that backside guy is going to burn you. A, a military term we always use is Joe don't mean to screw you, he just does. He won't mean to, coach, but it's what you've let go away in this very base fundamental drill. You let him run [00:53:00] across because you're like, "You know what? It would be nice if he cuts back outside zone for you to tackle him in play side B gap," because spill overran it.

It's not his job. It's not his job. You gotta let him stay home. So make sure you're coaching him up to stay home, and then these drills get built out, and you add on to where, you know, maybe he has a hang technique now. Yep. Maybe he is looking for the cut back, the boot reverse from his, from his known depth.

God forbid they run quarterback read on you now. Now all of your key reads s- all your spill players one way, and quarterback keeps it and goes the other. So there's these, y- you know, and it's not the defensive end's job to, to feather it and, and make the quarterback keep it late. No. Mm-mm. Your stay home guys- Yeah

gotta stay home. So don't forget where the importance is for every one of those, those three positions. The, The, for his size, the best defensive player that I've coached. He wasn't gonna go play college. He's 140 pounds. Most aggressive, best tackler. When, I [00:54:00] think when he was a sophomore he was playing weak.

It was a three-four system. He was playing, I think, Will, but he was the weak force defender, and the, the strong force defender is a division FCS football player, so, you know, that's why he was the weak side. We're playing a Wing T team week one, and he had no less than 20 tackles, almost all on plays run away from him.

He was chasing everything down, and the coaches are celebrating. In my, in my defense I was the offensive coordinator, but I was probably coaching him, so, you know, I screwed it up He's making tackles all over the place. He's, he's running everything down. There were three plays he didn't make a tackle on.

Three counters ran back his way that went for 65 yards each, and we lost the game. And I would never say he w- the coaches, I lost the game because we [00:55:00] were so excited about this sophomore running all over the field making 25 tackles that the three that he... And quite honestly, the rest of the defense wasn't playing well.

Had he not been doing that, I don't know how many we give up, but- Right. Right ... but, you know, the, the three 65 yard ones, killers. And, and that's the issue we have is these are our three best football players generally, right? Your, your two outside backers/safeties and your free safety, and a lot of them have that knack to go hunt the football, and it's so hard to tell them to not do that.

In fact, Joe, you and I have said on this podcast many times, when you get a natural football player, stop coaching them. Stop overdoing it, man. Let 'em, let 'em go ball out. But it will come down to that. And so as you are working his mentality and, and h- and going all the way back to point one, what is his role in the defense?

What is his role as a safety? That might change a little week to week as you get one of these wing T, these flex bone, these teams that can put a hurting on you [00:56:00] backside because they're over there going, "Oh, number 20 made yet another tackle on the wrong side of the field. Let's go his way." Yep. Right? And almost every coach has got some type of a boot pass that's gonna put him...

You know, we're gonna put those kids in conflict. Yeah. Well, the, the hardest thing to do is slow him down once he starts getting, eating a little bit of success. It's kind of the mousetrap though, right? You eat the cheese, and now here they go. So what we wanna work on next is how you take this drill, this one drill that we're gonna run every day for the rest of the season, how we take that drill now and transfer it to from week to week.

And so now what you do, and this is why I love to use the backup quarterback as the guy is because he... I can have a backup quarterback who can kind of learn what it looks like for the other team, what their play action mannerisms look like, what their, But we can s- now line up the, the offense that we're going to see.

And so if I'm going to be seeing a wing T offense, I can [00:57:00] start putting in the pieces, keep my five linemen because it doesn't matter because they're not reading those guys. But I can start to line up the backfield and I can run the looks of the plays that we're gonna be seeing from those, from that offense.

And so I can start to look at what does the rocket toss look like? What does the buck sweep look like? What does what do the mannerisms of these plays look like? And so if I wanna work on a, a buck series, he can start to learn what the quarterback looks like o- on that series and he can start to read the ball down, stays down.

He can start to read when he wants to come up and attack. He can start to read when he wants to when it's play actions. I can start to work those plays and I can even start to teach him the mannerisms. The one that we really spend a lot of time doing especially with our zone read and a lot of s- you know, we see like the zone read teams that run a lot of bubble air raid teams, that kind of stuff, and I love working that because there's a few things that we need to work.

The zone read, just an example in this, [00:58:00] and, and again, one of the things to remember is that zone read, power read, these types of things, they don't necessarily have a big impact. Power read has a sweep play coming at somebody and that's what they're looking for. Ball down, stays down. They're not responsible for figuring out who kept it.

They're responsible for, okay, the outside guy. If I've got a zone read triple, then I'm looking for the pitch man. If I've got an inside zone read, I don't really have to worry about it. I'm looking for a bubble or something off of it. But we use this to teach our quarterback. So we'll start teaching the zone read, and a lot of times I'll just replace plays that week.

I'll say, "Okay, this week number one is you know, zone read right or zone read left." Or I'll, I'll use a signal and I'll say, "Read right or read left." And they learn where to... You know, the quarterback knows the play, so he sets back. And we just work, you know, three or four of their best plays.

And what this allows us to do, for example, is let's say that we have the quarterback in gun with the back offset to the quarterback's right, to the defense's left Well, the quarterback goes and rides that we give a zone read look. The quarterback goes and rides that zone read. Ball down [00:59:00] stays down for our strong safety, and he goes and fits it.

It's ball down stays down for the weak safety, so he goes and fits it. It's ball down stays down for the free safety, but what our free safety has to learn is that zone read is an inside run play for the running back, right? It's inside zone, zone read. Quarterback keeps it, the quarterback keeps it an off tackle run play.

So when we say zone, when we see zone read, he's fitting the backside alley, and that's what gives us the numbers on the zone read option in that we have you know, our play side spill has three defenders there. Our backside has two defenders on the, on the inside zone, but then we have the force and the alley, and he's gonna be able to get down and play the alley and play that quarterback keep, and it gives us extra numbers.

We also have either the end on a stay or the, or the gap exchange for the will backer, and so we advance those. We also, as you mentioned you know, obviously we're not gonna be lining up five by five every week because we [01:00:00] have sometimes a slot receiver, or a lot of times a slot receiver. And so we'll start to work with a slot receiver out there, and we'll put him out there and we align five by one outside leverage in our base.

We adjust that to five by one inside leverage if we feel like they can run little RPOs and mini curls and sticks and hitches with that guy. But primarily we wanna stop the run, so we align outside so that we can set the edge and rip outside, and we start teaching him now we either give that guy a pad or, you know, varsity level, we don't worry about it, he just, he comes off to block him and so we see ball down, stays down, and that slot receiver comes off the block and he's working rip outside and setting the edge, "Rip outside, rip outside."

Or we tell him, "Hey look, you know, this team's a zone read and is a, is a spread option team. They don't really run toss. They might run a jet sweep and we might work, we might work some of that. We might even have a jet sweep period. But we're gonna see a bubble." And so he learns to see either the immediate ball up read, and he [01:01:00] sees that quarterback's shoulder flash to the flat right now, and now he's learning to, as soon as I see that quarterback take the snap and ball up flash to the flat, I'm going to immediately go and attack the outside hip because I'm still the force player, and this is just a long toss play, right?

It's just like toss is immediate ball down. This is immediate, you know, ball up, but it's immediate. I see that, boom, flash of the shoulder to the flat, I can drive on that now and attack that outside hip so that I can force a change of direction and make sure that we get help there. So we can adjust this drill every week to defend the looks that we're going to see.

We can work it against three by one. We can bring the corners over, and we can run our you know, cover two checks, and we can do anything that we wanna do that week. Coverage checks, all the things that we wanna work will all come out of this base umbrella key read drill. And so when I say this is all they do, that doesn't mean that it's an everyday drill that never progresses.

It means that [01:02:00] we line up and we run the drill based on what our opponent is doing. You know, if we get, if we get a flex bone option going back to last week, then we're gonna line up and we're gonna run our umbrella drill- to a flex bone option team and we're gonna have wings on both sides and we're gonna have, you know, I'm gonna send one of them motion and we're gonna run that triple option and he's gonna know that, "Hey, I see ball down," stays down.

I've got the force. Be patient when you're playing the pitch. Okay? The free safety's gonna know, "I see ball down," stays down, triple look. I'm gonna be running the alley to the outside half of the quarterback to the inside half of the pitch as that flex bone option. So I can show these plays and then I can show what their sweep looks like.

I can show what their play action looks like. And so every single week we can work. We do this for double wing, we do it for unbalanced, single wing, whatever it is, we can adjust it every single week and our guys are working their piece of the game. And remember that the, the, [01:03:00] the one-on-one game, this actually starts to combine.

You remember our force fit drill is a one-on-one game. All it is is getting the right key read. Now we start to add in the second one-on-one game, which is forcing a change of direction, right? Getting our fit right so that we force a change of direction on the ball carrier. And that's what we start to look at.

And then we have drills for rip outside, but we will actually add in the ... We will, we will stack this from ball down, stays down, rip outside. We have a drill for working rip drill, but we add it in and we build complexity in the umbrella drill, rip outside, and then that's a one-on-one game, and then we set force a change of direction.

That's a one-on-one game, and then we have our tackling drills. We don't tackle in this drill because we're trying to get reps. We don't throw the ball in this drill. We have other opportunities to work that in one-on-one game. We have tackling you know, tackling progression that we're working when we're teaching tackling.

So, but that is how this drill, when I say that this is the drill this drill builds and then all they're gonna do is take this chunk and go to team, and what happens in team is [01:04:00] five more distractions show up on the offensive line, two more distractions show up at the outside of the number one receivers.

But we're looking ball down, ball up, key read, rip outside, force a change of direction As you, as you talk about adjustments, Joe, your scout team can quickly grow to where it almost looks seven on seven-ish, but you still just have three guys on defense, right? Because if I'm gonna see a trips team, well, you gotta...

This is your chance to show your outside backer/safety where exactly he fits. Well, you know, we generally play him on top of number two. I liked where they can, just like you have it there, five by one outside where I can get hands on him and prevent four verts as much as possible. But he has to understand that there's now a natural huge horizontal st- seam inside of him.

And so that also lets a free safety know, like, where does my alignment work out different? I'm glad you're drawing it. I'll let you draw it up there. But you know, the free [01:05:00] safety can have to slide out to that trip side a little bit, and that's why we give him a, you know, whatever, whatever you want.

The eight by one, nine by one, 10 by one inside leverage at number three, because the alley is going to very quickly be extremely wide, right? And our s- and, and now you gotta work backers and all that stuff too in alignment. But- They need to know where their help is, and it's something I can't over-coach. I can't, I can't express that enough, is that every defender has to know where their help is.

Otherwise, they start doing other people's jobs. In three by one, it is not the strong safety's job if he gets bubble out to go slam down on the offensive tackle because he sees a run coming, right? It's still triple offense. It's still an RPO. He has got to be able to see what's going on in front of him.

He's got to know where his role is and everything. So make sure you're lining up and running these things that, that the opposition likes to do. If they're two by two, if they're three by one, if they go into quads, we start talking [01:06:00] bunches and, and, and I call them bunch busters is how I coach them. That outside backer/safety becomes the bunch buster.

If I get quads diamond out there, he's got to go punch number one in the mouth and run through to where the fourth guy can catch a football, right? Because now he's forcing from where all the people are. So your alignments very quickly become you need to run through those and show them where they're gonna fit in these exact same drills.

So that's when, when Joe's talking about, you know, make it change and make it an everyday drill that isn't every day the exact same. That's why, because you're gonna ask him to do a bunch. The hybrid part of his job is difficult if you're not out there coaching it and showing him on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday what this might look like.

Wide splits, that's something that, you know, I got introduced to working with Coach Palmer, and they're very much into that Lincoln Riley air raid splits [01:07:00] so that we can run power inside. Why? Because that outside backer gets put in a pinch. You better line him up here and show him what that pinch looks like.

I don't need him standing apexing a number two receiver who's, you know, 23 yards away from the tackle. He's got to have a job and tell him what his job is and adjust everyone else accordingly. So just make sure you're running through it. Those, those umbrella drills, the, the everyday drill, it's, it should look like what he's gonna see this week so he gets more comfortable knowing where his help is.

Yeah. And it's, and again, it's a good point is this is where you can teach things like we don't have like a specific divider rule. I always say he needs to be... He needs to know how wide he can go to force and how wide is too wide. Once, once I can no longer force a change of direction, I'm too wide.

So, you know, this is where learning and alignment and, and, and also you can use this to teach, you can bring your corners in and you can use this to teach pre-snap communication. You can show them what a, what a wide aligned and number two or a wide aligned you know, when the number two and number one are tight together, you know, we're, we're switch alert.

If they align [01:08:00] wide and we're expecting a flat route, we have a tight alignment by number two and a wide alignment num- by number one, we're usually expecting something like a slant flat. You know, the n- the, the number two receiver needs to be tight enough so he has room to run his flat route. The number one receiver needs to be wide enough so he has room to run his slant route, and you start to learn the communication, the, the, the difference in those alignments.

So you can teach a lot from this umbrella drill with your safeties rather than waiting for, you know, a whole team, you know, you know, force drills and unbalance and everything. So a whole team formation drill where they're showing unbalanced, they're showing backfield sets and crap, it doesn't matter to you.

You can focus on the things that matter to your safeties in this drill Love it. Best drill stole it from TCU, stole a lot of this stuff from TCU. A- and I do know the name of the coach now, and I I do know the name of the coach. Actually, pe- couple people have sent it to me, Well- ... that I stole it from

Gary Patterson is actually out at USC now, and he's still, I'm watching Cody Alexander the other night, and he's talk- he's breaking down, you know, check roll and special and solo. [01:09:00] Gary Patterson's running the same stuff at USC right now. So if you are a coach and you're like, "I wanna go see this at the next level," go watch it.

He's e- he's evolved, guys. This is, this is, you know, from his brain many years ago, but the game hasn't changed that much, and the defense is still solid. He's just doing different stuff to do different stuff, so. I, I, I think that, yeah, his stuff evolved a lot, but I think that the, the amazing thing about these defenses, and, and I...

You know, my two favorites like I said, I don't have a favorite like this is, but the, the ones that I tend toward are happen to be even fronts, even though I love odd fronts. I love all these things. I think it's really fascinating the way that the Miami 4-3 defense that was developed in the early 1980s with Jimmy Johnson was developed to stop the wishbone offense, Barry Switzer in Oklahoma, and it just was so well designed that as football evolved, it just natural adaptation.

Went from a cover two to primary quarters, [01:10:00] but that's really it. Everything else, it just fits, it just works. And cover two still works, but you do end up with some wider alleys- Yeah ... which is why I like the s- the split-field quarters. The same thing with, with... A- and again, the 4-2-5 is an extension of the 4-4.

It's, it's, it's a single gap even front defense. That's basically it. It's an a- it's a, it's a, a, eight-man front. They're all, they are all nine-man fronts, but we define them as seven and eight-man fronts. They're all nine-man, it's just how the ninth m- eighth and ninth man fit into it. So when we talk about single gap as opposed to two-gap scheme everybody has one gap technically, even though we don't teach gaps anymore.

Right. The 4-2-5, the 4-4, the, the, Patterson's 4-2-5 Force players don't change. It's evolved. It's, you know, from 1999 to now. And I mean, it's still, it goes back to Virginia Tech and the, and the, and the 44G and you know, there's such an evolution of it, and it goes back to just a base 4-4 cover three.

But these defenses, the principles that they have, the, You know, we talk about the [01:11:00] TCU and ASCA, and don't go till you know, go when you know, and all of these things, they're timeless. And it doesn't matter what level of football that you're coaching. It doesn't matter if you're coaching eight-year-olds, it doesn't matter if you're coaching middle school, high school, or the NFL.

These are, these are proven principles of football- Yes ... that apply across the board. And, and that's just the beauty of them. And I mean, that's- Yeah ... you know, when you talk about this umbrella drill, you can run this at any level. You can... You really c- you really any level, it's a- against any opponent, and it's there.

Yep. It's good stuff. All right, man, I think we've checked all the boxes. We'll start closing out here. Guys, I know, you know, like we talked about district or conference play or whatever's kind of up on us, unless you're a playoff points guy, and, and then you've been at it since day one. But for the rest of us, it does kind of change the season.

We've got a few games on film now. You can kind of see what you're good at, you know where you're vulnerable, but remember, the opponent knows that too, right? So, now it's just a weekly chess match, see [01:12:00] what I can add, what I can take away. Can I get better? Can the kids get better at certain things? How do we keep attacking what the opponent's bad at?

So that's kind of your every, every week and every Friday night as we move forward. If today's episode gave you something that can kind of help you with that this week, please do send it off to another coach that's kind of going into this same situation where all the... Everything's for all the marbles now.

More than anything, good luck this week, coaches, and, and go get you a win. Today we talked about safety drills, establishing the role of your safeties, coaching safeties to build the umbrella, and adjusting those drills for any opponent. Last week, we talked defending flex bone, and next week we're on to defending junk offenses.

It is level up time. Joe, I know you just got back from a big quarterly trip. Yeah. I'm excited to hear about it. So the, the level up is that I, I flew to Chicago. I have a quarterly I'm in a group called Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan. It's fantastic kind of entrepreneurs and, and you know, there's a lot of wealth management and insurance, and those kinds of things [01:13:00] that I don't understand, financial m- managers.

They have different names and things, but and a lot of, you know, business owners and things like that. So I go once a quarter for that meeting in Chicago, and I've been doing that for four, at least four years now, and I was like, you know- When I booked my flight, I always booked like a late flight, 'cause I have to drop my son off at daycare Monday morning.

I try to just get a work day in and then fly there sometime in, you know, in the afternoon, and then I get there in time to, to eat dinner. Harry Caray's Steakhouse is right by the hotel, so, usually I'll go in and get a fantastic rib eye or something in there. And I was like, "You know, I should do something in Chicago."

So I got an earlier flight. I didn't know what I was gonna do, and then as we got closer and closer and closer coming off of Labor Day week, where we had one less day in the week, I was just so backed up with stuff to do, trying to do the Chalk Talk because wasn't gonna be in town, wasn't gonna be able to do the Chalk Talk for our JDFB coaches on Monday night.

So we had coaches submit questions. I knew I had a ton of questions for that. I knew I had a [01:14:00] couple GFA game film analysis to wrap up so it just... And I was like, "I'm just gonna be working when I get there." Long story short, I get to the airport. I'm like, "Let me just check." Like, "I wonder if the Cubs have a game."

I knew the Cubs had a game, but it just wasn't registering with me. I check and I'm like, Cubs are in town playing the Braves, which I had watched- That get you- Which I had watched every Braves game for, you know, I, I knew they were playing the Cubs, but just not registering. So went on my phone, got the bleacher seats.

I've never been to Wrigley. I got the bleacher seats. I went to the Braves-Cubs. We got destroyed, played terrible. Saw PCA hit a home run. I think he hits a home run every game now, but I think he stole a base too. But saw PCA hit a home run. He's incredible. Even though the bleacher the, the bleacher bums are like, "He's lazy, he's got a bad attitude."

I'm like, "I'll take it. I'll take it. Fine. Don't care." They don't either. But the the, the game was great. The bleachers are great. Wrigley is fantastic. If you [01:15:00] haven't been, definitely go. I loved sitting in the bleachers. Everybody up there was so friendly and nice. I didn't wear Braves gear. I did- I would've, but I wasn't intending to go.

And then I just, you know, I'm in the airport and I'm like, "Let me see." So very happy to get to do that and, and do something different. Went over to Murphy's after the game. I've never seen a place sell so much merchandise. Like, I was j- I just grabbed a s- an open stool. I, I left about the eighth inning 'cause I knew the Braves were not scoring any more runs.

Although they did, did load the bases while I was headed over and, and got there, and they were bases loaded. And of course, immediately, you know, strike out, game's over. Or whatever happened. But great trip. Went... Got up for Strategic Coach the next day. Got the Chalk Talk Q&A out. Got this, got up for Strategic Coach.

Had a ton of great questions for the Chalk Talk, which was great. Got up for the Strategic Coach meeting. Go there, I always get, get great ideas and, and being around people. Anytime you get a chance, football coaches, go be around other football coaches. Business owners, go be around other business owners, preferably a room full of people who are [01:16:00] better at it than you.

It's always nice. Then

Then I went to the airport And I just have no luck with airplanes. Or is it you, your return trips are not good. And I got home at... flight was supposed to leave at 7:00. Supposed to board at 6:35, supposed to leave at 7:05, I think. Got delayed, brief delay. I was sitting in the, the Cubs lounge. It's the only place in the you could sit down and get a, a, a stool.

Talking to a, a nice fella from he, he's from Ohio, but had just moved back from Poland. It's always interesting to talk to people. Actually, London and then Poland, and then now back to the United States. And I was like, "Well, my flight's gonna board." Got my stuff, 6:30. Walked over, delayed, delayed. Then I walked [01:17:00] over to the gate and there was no plane.

And I'm like, "Well, this ain't leaving when they say it is." And then finally a plane shows up a while later, and then the plane had a problem, and then we left at around midnight and landed at 2:30 AM Richmond time. And then, so by the time I got home it was a little after 3:00 AM. Which made, you know, you already, when you, when you, when you...

For, for me, Labor Day's the same thing. You know, I've got a schedule on Monday, so Tuesday was just miserable after Labor Day because everything that's supposed to happen on Monday just gets moved to Tuesday, and everything that's supposed to happen on Tuesday doesn't move. Right. Same thing with Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday, you know, I gotta...

I still had to get up 7:00 AM, daycare drop-off. My wife's gotta be at work at 6:00 AM. So I s- I got to sleep about 3:30, 3:45, up at 7:00. Came home and I was like, "I gotta..." I, I think I might even had a meeting Wednesday morning. And then [01:18:00] after that was over, nap, and then just, like, it's been cramming everything in.

Here we are cramming in the the podcast. The podcast. So, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, but the Level Up was, Wrigley, was, was awesome. Highly, highly, highly recommended. I spent $85 on a sweatshirt that I was so tired that apparently... Because it was... Again, I didn't plan to go, and I'm leaving, it's 90 degrees. And it was, like, low 60s.

It wasn't freezing. But I was like, "I'm just gonna go and get a sweatshirt. I'm gonna... You know, I'm in Wrigley, I'm gonna get a, get a sweatshirt." I don't like the Cubs, but the, some cool looking sweatshirts. I grab a sweatshirt. Turns out it's, like, a youth extra large. I don't know. So I, I walk outside, and I, I walk outside the stadium, so now I can't go back.

Right. So my wife's got it. Gets... She fits it, you know. It's like a youth extra large or something. That's, that's hilarious. That's hilarious. That's- So I, I put it on, 'cause I'm just like, phew. And I'm like, eh, stuck in it. And I'm in the middle of, you know, that, that, what what's the road behind the outfield wall?

Anyway. The... Yeah. [01:19:00] I'm, I'm, I'm out here trying- Landsdowne in Boston. I don't know. Yeah. Is it Waverly or something? But I, I'm trying to, like, get out of this child's hoodie. I finally get it off me, and then they have, like, a a, a, a merchandise truck out there that's, like, the unofficial merchandise. So I got a nice little Wrigley Field sweatshirt.

It's very comfortable. But I have an... I bought my wife an $85 sweatshirt. I was like, "Here you go, honey. Congratulations on your Cubs sweatshirt. You're, you're welcome." Mistakes were made I remembered Lansdowne Street, and I'm kind of excited about that. Yeah. I'm a real Red Sox fan. The guy sitting behind me...

By the way, everyone is so nice. If you guys go, don't worry about going alone. Go sit in the bleachers and you'll meet so many people. Everyone's so friendly. You guys from Chicago just everyone was so friendly out there. And the guy sitting behind me there's one guy who's, like, been going to games since, like, the, the '80s, you know.

He was great, just know- had, you know, full knowledge about everything going on there. Other guy sitting behind me was just like me, flew in from Boston, and he's We were talking about Fenway. So yeah, they, the, It was a great time. Great time. Awesome. Guy sitting next to me is [01:20:00] Drake Baldwin's high school teammate, baseball teammate.

There you go. Awesome. Never know who you'll run into at these things. Don't. My level up is it, it's more of a pat on my own back, I think. Yeah, yeah. So we've... The kids have started fall sports, and Liam's doing flag football, which I got to watch him run his first touchdown yesterday, which was big time.

He also, his tackling is superb. In fact, he tackled a kid so fast yesterday that they said that doesn't count because you have to allow him to hand off. Sacking the quarterback in flag football, not, not good for the flag football YMCA league. Anyway. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was good. As a youth coach, I understand.

You sometimes just gotta make rules for things to develop or it never develops, and then you're wasting your time. Some rules we should use in scout team. Yeah. And then, Anyway, so yeah, so the, but we, we went to this game yesterday, and another parent came over and said, "I just want to tell you how amazing your son is at..."

So I've not been able to go to the practices 'cause it's the same [01:21:00] time as my youth team practices, and I actually-- and this is me just, I will never, I don't want people to miss their kids' game, so I skipped practice to go to my son's game yesterday, and the head coach was cool with it. But because I'm never there, she just wanted to tell me how good Liam has been, and this is kind of where you're just talking about all the, you know, you wanna raise your sons right, and I don't know what that means anymore.

It's very hard to understand what is right for the whole world, so we just raise our kids the way we want them, which is be a critical thinker don't say yes to everything that everyone else says in life, like stand up for things you believe in, stuff like that. Anyway, but he's been-- apparently there were some kids got hurt yesterday, and I saw it too.

Liam's been helping kids up at practice if they fall down, if they bump into each other, they've got... And we, we raise him pretty tough, like you g- you fall down, you're hurt, fine, get up and walk it off, right? Like that's, that's part of life is, especially him, he's a spider monkey. He jumps off everything and so he's been kinda passing that on to these kids.

I saw him in video from his first practice, and this is how I hope he's not a future coach 'cause there's absolutely no way to raise a family [01:22:00] on the monies in coaching. But, you know, he, he got taught how to be the center and immediately turned around and coached the next kid on how to be the center so the coach could go coach something else.

And so I thought that was really cool. He also was over there cheering on his teammates, like from the sideline. He doesn't care that he's on break. At the end of the game, he's like, "All right, I'm tired of being on the sidelines." But- Yeah ... you know, the other kid breaks a touchdown, and it's all, "That should've been me."

It was like, "No, how excited can we get for him?" And he's-- the other kids are kind of just staring and watching football, and he's like pumped that big things are happening to the point that he even wants to go to our games for our f- or the, you know, the tackle league so he can cheer on his new best friend, which is one of our really good players on the youth team.

So it's been super cool to watch him in his first year here as he's getting into sports take on that never be mad about what you aren't getting, but be excited for everyone to kinda get a piece of the pie. Keep ev- it's al- it's just a pump, you know, maybe even a sunshine pumper sometimes. Like sometimes things aren't going well, but by God, you won't know it by Liam's [01:23:00] actions.

So I've loved to see him do that. Beckett is where this story kinda gets funnier because he's not, he's not ever been a kid that wants to go to practice. He wants to go to the games sometimes. Like, he's just not a big sports kid, and so baseball in the spring was pretty difficult 'cause he, he fought us, and we had to take away Nintendo time, stuff like that as punishment to not go do the athletic thing or the, the physical thing because he's like every other kid right now.

He doesn't wanna go out in the heat and do physical things. Yeah.

So far, he picked soccer over flag football, which was fine. I'm not gonna dictate what sports he plays. I told him I would rather him do flag football 'cause I think there's more running in it, because in soccer he wants to be the goalie. Right. And has said it that he's going to be the goalie. And we'll see.

I don't know if his hand-eye coordination's there or not to actually be able to play the position with any skill. I'm afraid he's gonna ride the bench and refusing to go play another position. Anyway, but he picked that s- that position, he wants to perfect it. But here's, here's the best part about it.

[01:24:00] I've also raised him to, like, speak up for himself. So yesterday, my first time at his practice, and I'm standing behind the goal and I'm just kinda coaching little things, right? Like, get in an athletic stance, kind of keep your hips loose so you can, you can go left to right. Don't over commit. And they kick one and it goes between his legs and he puts his hands down and it splits his hands 'cause it had some heat on it, and they scored.

And I was like, "Man, this playing goalie thing's tough," and he said, "Yeah, especially with a guy standing behind the net being a voice in your head the whole time." And I'm just like- Okay. "Oh, yep, you're right man. I gotcha." And so I just like, I ... "You're right. I'm not your coach. I'm over here. I am a distraction."

So with him telling me immediately, like, I would've never been able to tell my dad that. No. You know? Not ever. And for him to be able to say like, "Hey, appreciate it. I know you're good at this other, but you're a distraction. Go away." So I just took myself back to Liam's game, 'cause I was trying to split time and be a good dad and be present for both.

And it was just, I, I thought, "Okay, I think [01:25:00] we've raised him right." If he can speak up to me and say, "You may not were the, the chief cause of that, but by God, you're not helping right now." Right. "Okay. We appreciate it." So anyway, I guess raise your kids to be able to back talk you. I don't know. I don't know- Yeah

exactly what I'm saying here, but he got the point across, so. Let's pay the bills, get outta here, Joe Yeah, so just to remind you, the Game Film Masterclass is open till the end of September if you wanna get in on that. If you want a self-sc- self-scout is so important. We've got workflows for... You know, we, we have our game film system and everything that we look for, and you just follow, follow the workflow.

You just follow the, the sheets. Print 'em out. You, you watch film about three times, and then you're gonna start breaking down on individual tendencies, and we'll teach you how to, how to, you know, break that down. But getting the identity of the team and, and what you wanna look for and everything, it's all in there.

It's in the... It's our, it's our game film system, and it is called Game Film Masterclass. It will have the workflows for you to follow to break down your game film this week, self-scout and opponent, and offense, defense, special [01:26:00] teams. Whichever ones you need. You can obviously, you know, if you're just working on the offensive side, use the, you know, breakdown of your own offense for self-scout, use the breaking down the defensive opponent, and that's, that's what you follow.

And then then also, again, there's video instruction, a video tutorial as deep as you wanna go, that goes into kind of, you know, how to use each section and how to pull out all of the, the every little possible nugget that you can find in there if you want a little more guidance on it. So you can use it right now and just follow the sheets, or you can dive into those videos and get more guidance on each thing.

But again, it is only open until the end of September. September 30th, midnight Pacific enrollment closes, and you can go to joedanielfootball.com/gfmc to get in on the Game Film Masterclass. Love it. Social media, I'm @CoachChamboOK on X. You can also email me at chamberlainfootballconsulting@gmail.com.

Joe is joe@joedanielfootball.com, or you can jump over to Joe Daniel Football and sign up, jump in. Get in the chalkboard forums. Get into the chalk talks e- you know, [01:27:00] each week. Be a platinum member and send in your game film analysis. That's, that's gonna be the biggest resource for you in season, is getting those extra set of eyes.

There's four different coaches too, so you get a little variety. You know- ... Joe's gonna give you the, the textbook. I give you the... I press right against the edge of the box. But there's four different voices give you four different ideas there. 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. If you've been listening for a while, please do leave a review. We like them anywhere you're listening, okay? So any- wherever you're at, shoot the review there. We love it. Thank you for listening to this episode of "The Football Coaching Podcast," and remember, coach simple, play fast, win.


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