[00:00:00] I forgot the entire intro, Joe. I... Brain fart. Welcome back, coaches. Welcome back, coaches. That, that's the one. This, this is the... We better not even cut that out either. That's hilarious. This is the Football Coaching Podcast. I am Daniel Chamberlain, co-host, here with Joe Daniel. It's on. Here's what I was really thinking.

So I always, you guys will notice, I drink, like, five drinks when we're on here. I have a thing of water, a salt water sometimes a beer, sometimes a bourbon, sometimes a, a ginger ale. Anyway, I had a whole stack of them, and I didn't get them in here. Oh. I have no idea where they're at. So I was just looking at Mike- Well, there'll be a break.

I'm sure I'll go and bloviate on something. Dang. And you'll have time to go get it. You know, the funny thing about the opening is I have a, I have a Grok bot who is now tracking football podcasts for me. Oh. And just, you know, I ask it to, you know, check any, any of the new podcasts football coaching related that come out, who the guests were, what the topic was.

You know, give me a quick summary if there's a transcript and that kind of stuff. And I was just noticing as I looked at the, the [00:01:00] few that are out there, there, there's been so many that have come and gone. This is not an easy thing- Right ... to, to, to have been doing this for 17 years. My first podcast, this one started in 2012, and my first one started in 2009.

And still publish them regularly actually kind of makes us very, very different. But I was just noticing that the summaries and stuff, I'm like, "There's only one podcast that's really like mine, strangely."

The other, the other, the other one. The other show as we call it. I'm like, God dang, Kenny Steele guy and the format? What are we doing? I, you know, I do think about that time to time. Like we try, we try to add different stuff. Yeah. We talk about his weekend what is it? The field house and like we try to have different...

The quote of the week and because m- yeah, I mean, but it is comfortable to just- Yeah ... you have a way to get into talking and you talk, so. And then you gotta do ads once, if you might as well do them at the beginning. So- Yeah ... there's only so many ways to skin that cat, I suppose. But that's funny [00:02:00] that there is a, you know, that GrokBot's like, "Hey, someone's copying your stuff, dude."

Well, you know, the other ones- You get a, you get a YouTube strike ... are mostly interview shows and stuff- Yeah ... and, and they're always t- and, and you know, I started down that road long before you came along. Like years and years and years ago, I had Kirk Ferentz on the podcast and I had Bill Legg was the Marshall offense coordinator at the time.

And I had a few other like division one coaches who, you know, I would just basically send out like 10 emails to try to get through the gatekeepers. And strangely Ferentz's secretary was, he was just in. But I started down that road and, and after a while I was like, first of all, it's really hard to get these people Be- when you don't have connections or anything.

And second of all, I, th- most of them don't have enough time for me to get into, you know, they're like, "I got 15 minutes to do this thing," and I'm like, "Okay." That's not enough. It's not enough. Yeah, no. I mean, I, a- and [00:03:00] it's fine. It's, that's their time. I just don't enjoy it, and I, and I, it's not what we do. I think it's great that those resources are out there, but y- having conversations with different people, you know, some people want the interview style.

I like to have other coaches who understand what we do and fit what we do on the podcast just for a, a somewhat different voice, but, like, a lot of times it's we're, we're speaking the same language. But one of the things that I've committed to for years, I, a- and, and even not that long ago, maybe just a few years ago, the shiny object idea of doing the really cool blitz packages and really cool, like, high-level stuff.

Like, like, I at one point knew all of that stuff. I've gotten so far away from it now that it's like, if you s- you know, ask me about some ridiculous thing. Right. But, but I learned that it's not, it's not applicable to what we do. So what I do at JDFB, working with a coach who's [00:04:00] understaffed, who's got smaller players, who's got lesser athletes, who's trying to win, trying to turn a program around, trying to get a foot in the ground, that stuff is death to those guys.

That stuff is, is death to somebody overcomplicating things, and so I just avoid it now, but it's, it's great that it's out there, but I just see that that's what almost everything else that pops up in the feed is, is like... But then there's one podcast that's not. So if you want a podcast that's like this one- and not just- Coaching 101 Podcast.

interviews with some Division I coach. Football Coaching 101. They're both... No, my, my, my product is Football Coaching 101. That comes out at the end of the month. What is it? The Coaching- Coaching 101 Podcast. Coaching 101. Okay. Football Coaching 101 is my pod- my, my, my course series that'll be out at the end of the month, so also stolen, but that's fine.

It's fine. It's just- Wait, it's been four years. I... Three years. That product came out in 2021. What a surprise. It actually came out in 2020. I won't even participate. Anyway, let's quit talking about all the bad I've done, okay? This is- I think you own that ... this is a good show. I think you actually [00:05:00] paid for that.

Probably. Maybe. Probably. Anyway, Football Coaching Podcast. The Football Coaching Podcast. Power minute here tonight. We're talking about me stealing all of Joe's intel... Anyway th- we're talking about scout team defense, which if you w- were here with us a few... If this is your first time, welcome.

This is not how they all start, okay? This is a good one, though, right? Sometimes it's good to get off the beaten path. A few weeks ago we talked about scout team offense and, and how to get the best out of your kids to give your defense a good look. We're talking the same thing tonight. How to try to stay within your fits, stay within your terminology.

Scout team should be your t- your kids getting good defensive reps. It doesn't mean you abandon all of your own learnings to try to replicate the other team. That's what we're gonna get into, so, so stick around for that. Last week we were on defending those three back offense stuff, straight T, dead T, wishbone, power I, a little flexbone-ish.

Not so much the option stuff because we have an entire podcast over run fit, stopping the option, so we don't, we're not worried about that as much. But just with all those extra backs fitting extra gaps inside and stuff. So [00:06:00] if you have that coming up on your schedule or you've struggled to stop that in the past, go back to that episode.

It's definitely a good plant the seed kind of an episode. Next week we're on to cornerback drills, so if you're a guy like me who starts your career with corners and the only coaching you know is don't get beat deep, you suck. So did I. I was terrible, okay? And then I yelled at them for not tackling because we were a 4-3 defense and the corner should've been cover two.

So I really sucked. I was the worst cornerback coach in the world at that time. Anyway, that's what I'm on to next week. I know that, guys, as we are starting to close out the season here in Oklahoma as we're recording, we're in week eight, so we're, we're right there at the end of it. Guys are, you know, shuffling for that last couple playoff spots.

The, the, the, the guys that know they're in are in by now, and the rest of us are just fighting for the leftovers. This is kinda when the You get into the meat and potatoes of the season really, right? So you, you've had all these weeks to get things ready. You've had all these weeks to figure out who your playmakers are and what scheme works and what [00:07:00] you suck at.

Hopefully you've gotten really good at watching film by now. I don't know if the masterclass is still open or is that one has closed. That one's closed, yeah. Game Film Masterclass. But that was an, there was an opportunity to pick that up last week or last month. Hopefully you got good at watching film and you're kinda headed into the playoffs with a, a sense of we know what we're doing.

And that, when I said all that, just to say appreciate you guys being here still. Still trying to learn ball. That's all we're trying to do is just keep sharing knowledge. Our version of that, whatever that looks like. Joe's and I's are not always exactly the same. We're pretty similar, but there's, you know, a lot of different ways to look at ball.

So appreciate you guys for sharing some of your time with us here at the Football Coaching Podcast. Let's pay the bills and we'll get into this, Joe. Yeah, we are going to be, here as we come into the end of October, we are running a special offer on Athletic Speed and Movement. That is Dale Baskett's speed, football speed training.

It is the best football speed training. In fact, in putting together you know, [00:08:00] the, some of the promotional materials for it, I actually just threw on my headphones today and turned on a voice recorder and took a walk around the neighborhood and talked about Athletic Speed and Movement, and why it's been so significant and why it works, and all the special things about it.

And obviously, you know, if you're only, you're on the email list, you'll be getting that information. But I mean, it is just a, a really incredible system of speed. Dale has put together 47 years of experience based in on his three core principles of align, sync, strike, and he has put together the most detailed system, 12-week speed progression for making your football players play faster on game day.

Not just linear speed, like a lot of these things track-based are gonna do. You're gonna get a better 40-yard dash time. You're gonna get a better L drill. You're gonna get a better three-cone drill and all those sorts of things. But you're gonna get better football players who are able to accelerate, decelerate, change direction.

Man, I was just going through [00:09:00] Daniel did a bunch of interviews of some of Dale's past clients when we started and, and you know, honestly, I've done a terrible job of, of using those and I to, to promote, and I'm just going through some of them just to pull some ideas and things as we, we get ready for the, for the promotion.

And man, guys talking about things that have... Guys, guys, guys playing in the NFL at five foot nine, 180 and, and talking about how Dale Baskett is the guy that, that made it possible. Guys who took one guy, you know, won a state championship and then called Dale, and I can't think of his name right now, I don't know if you remember.

Called, won a state championship, then found Dale, probably in Ath- probably in an American Football Monthly. Dale, he tried to call him there. Called Dale, told Dale about his team. Dale told him, "Man, you guys must be terrible to be calling me." He said, "No, actually we just won a state championship." Brings Dale on.

Guy was a great weight room coach and but, but his speed training was, was short. He had 10 players that were benching 400. He had 10 players that were squatting 600, which is incredible. It's unbelievable. [00:10:00] But You know, he talks about bringing in Dale, and he wins, I, I think it was five more state titles, and attributes it to Dale, and talks about the proudest moment as a football coach was all these big, strong guys that he has, and beats a team in the playoffs, and the coach comes across the field, shakes his hand, and says, "That was like playing a track team in pads."

I mean, that's, that's what Athletic Speed and Movement is about, and it's ... But it's ... But the other part of it is Dale is a genius. Dale is brilliant. Jal- Dale has figured this stuff out to a level that I don't think anybody else has. And then I wouldn't be selling if it was Dale talking about all this high-level stuff.

It doesn't fit with what we do. That's what I talked about at the podcast. It's- Simple. You can take this and you can hand it to anybody on your staff and say, "Here. Here's the, here's the exact reps, progression, everything nailed down to a science." Hand it to the youngest guy on your [00:11:00] staff. You could hand it to a kid, and they could run this.

I wouldn't do it, but one coach can run this thing, and they can do it, and it's going to have that impact. It's going to change the way your players run. It's going to change the way they ... It's gonna look goofy for four weeks, and then all of a sudden the light bulb's gonna come on week five, and you're gonna be like, "Holy crap," because we teach the form and the technique and the principles before cut them loose.

And about week five, you cut them loose, and you let them take off with all this stuff and put it all together. Yeah. And it's just unbelievable. Athletic Speed and Movement, we're gonna be promoting it through email. I believe it's gonna be JoeDanielfootball.com/asam, Athletic Speed and Movement where you'll be able to find that.

But it's gonna be in your email inbox. We're gonna have a promotion here at the end of the month. You're gonna be getting an awesome deal for it. And y- and you're gonna be supporting a guy who has done so much. You know, honestly, quite honestly, Dale has done so much for the game of football and for football speed and for so many people out there.

He's not called the Godfather of Speed for nothing. It's incredible. Get it. Get in on it now. Just do it. It's, it's incredible. There's a few of those [00:12:00] testimonials when I was recording them. You know, I, I, I got to talk to some really ... Kenny Mayne from ESPN- Yeah ... was a really cool one, right? And, and that was one of those calls like you talked about.

Like, he had 15 minutes. Like, "I don't have a lot of time." I go, "I got it, man. You're super busy." Still kind of a cool personality. Ron Roberts, an SEC defensive- Yeah ... he's a DC right now at Arkansas. An RP right now, yeah. He just left Florida. He was at Auburn before that. You're talking about, like, big time stops and, but he's a head coach.

Won a national title at Delta State. Yeah. Yeah. He was a head coach before. Dale's tough. Yeah. Yeah. And, and talks about Dale's the ... He attributes most of that national championship run to Dale Baskette and just crazy- You're talking about a guy recruiting kids from Mississippi. Yeah. They're all running fast.

Yeah. But my favorite one was the Vinny Perretta because- Yeah ... you know, he, he was the one talking about, you know, 5.9, 180, whatever he ends up in the NFL. Because look, I'm an OU guy, and Vinny Perretta is part of the Boise State team that knocked off OU in the Fiesta Bowl, right? And so, Vinny actually, if I think he threw the two-point conversion pass, if I'm not mistaken.

I can't remember the exact ... He's part of either caught it or threw it- ... to win the game. But I [00:13:00] got to talk to him about where, how Dale took ... He was a, an average high school player that- accidentally got to college through Dale Baskett's training. Then he was a, you know, a, a, a nobody at college. He stays with Dale, and now all of a sudden he's an NFL prospect, and he's sitting with h- he's right beside Adrian Peterson, alphabetical order here who he just knocked off in the Fiesta Bowl.

And now they're both at training camp for the Vikings at the same time. So it's like ... And of course, you know, he didn't, he doesn't have an illustrious NFL career, but that, he wasn't going to. No. He was never going to be an NFL superstar. No, and I think one of the things he said was that Dale got him the 40-yard dash time to get him kinda noticed, but more importantly, Dale got him the skill, the movement, which is why it's Athletic Speed and Movement, the athleticism, the, the acceleration, deceleration, change of speed, all those ti- you know, change of direction, that actually made him a good enough player to go beyond just being noticed to actually being a player.

Yeah. [00:14:00] I mean, it's- So, so guys, if you have a, a, a field f- or a locker room full of average Joes or where we talk about kids as numbers, right? They're ones. An average high school player is a one. You may have a bunch of .75s, you may have some .5s, maybe some ones, but you can get them all a level above, right?

Yeah. And I'm not saying you're gonna send them all D1 college at Boise State and they're gonna get in the NFL, but he was probably a one to a 1.25 in high school. He was average-ish, and got to D1 level and ends up in the NFL. So just, just think about that. True. When, when, when 3% of players get to go on and play ball at the next level or whatever, this is a thing that can give your kids an NAIA opportunity or a D2 opportu- plus help you win some games.

So Athletic Speed and Movement, go look it up a- and, and listen to those testimonials. They're on the website I believe, and they're super good. They're super good. They are. If not, I'll send them to you. I don't care. They're all inside Athletic Speed and Movement, but we'll be getting some more of them out, yeah.

There we go. Sweet. Let's move on here. So, so first of all, we're talking about scout team defense, which I have started getting to run on Tuesdays, and it's so much fun. God, [00:15:00] I miss calling plays. And that's ... Let, let me tell you where we want to get you tonight. So I walked on the field last week, and Coach was like, "Hey man, you're calling the defense today."

Guys, I didn't watch defensive film whatsoever. I break down the offense for our opponents. I didn't, I, I sometimes don't even know all the defensive calls that we use because I'm just learning the base and just keeping it pretty simple. So I just say, "Hey Coach, how do you get to this?" And he says, "Here's the call."

Great. It's that's, that's where we want you to be. When you walk on the field, it doesn't even matter Realistically, you want the kids in the position they play. If not, you're teaching on the go, but you should be able to do that anyway. You're a football coach, right? You should be able to teach squeeze a down block to a freaking corner.

It shouldn't be rocket science. That's, that's why- Right ... that's why the JDFB 4-2-5 and 3-4 and 4-3 and all is so simple. It's 'cause I can take any kid, plug them in anywhere, and teach them their fundamental ASCA in two minutes and not waste everybody's time. Anyway, I walk on the field. He says, "Hey coach, you're calling it."

He [00:16:00] hands me a manila folder that's four sides that as anything, if you flip it, it's upside down, it's the wrong one. I'm like, "Son of a..." So what do I do? I just look and go, "Okay, that's the four things we're running," and throw it away. I don't need it in my hand, and we just call our defense to get what they're doing.

I had to install Echo, right? We know what Echo is, but I have to install Echo. I've got to install, I call it Fold, just running a outside backer in the B gap in, in the defensive end out. There's different things you have to... You may even make up terminology. Now you have it in your system. It doesn't matter.

That's how simple it should be, but that's where we wanna get you by the end of this episode, is you can walk on the field, not know a single kid's name. Don't... You've never watched a lick of film. They can tell you the four base concepts they're gonna run, maybe even the numbers. We're not big number things around here.

4-2-5 and 3-4 mean almost nothing to us because we're just building out that 4-2-5 anyway. However, they can say what their base looks like and hey you know, if they get a solo receiver, they man it up. Cool. The rest of it I can handle, man. Let's go, right? And so that's [00:17:00] where, that's where as you as a coach should be on scout team.

It shouldn't be this thing where you're trying to coach 11 kids every single snap to, to be in the exact place that defense is gonna be. I don't know how they're reading. I don't know what their linebacker reads are. I don't know what their safety reads are. I don't know if they're attacking line or reading line.

If they are reading, what is their keys? What's their triggers? Who knows, man? I don't have time to learn all that. Yeah. I've gone on a huge thing here in the last week of just trying to learn the Brent Venables 4-2-5, and I'm gonna keep digging in because I just love what he does. I, I think he's the best defensive coach maybe ever, and, and that's saying a lot 'cause there's some guys out there that are like Saban just retired.

Kirby Smart's still doing it. There's guys out there. But, I lo- I love him 'cause he is a four-two-five guy, and I forgot where I was going with this. You were digging into Venables' four-two-five. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, doesn't matter. I'll get back to it later when I remember. Yeah. It'll come back. So the first part we're here talking about, Joe, is the multiple front defense and how and I know you're gonna go somewhere else with it too, but you should [00:18:00] be able to get to any of this stuff pretty simply. Once again, the numbers don't matter as much, it's just terminology to us, right? Just words. Yeah, no, that's, I mean, that's exactly what it is, is when we talk about, you know, "Oh, this team's a four-three, this team's a three-four," and you, if you don't think the way that we look at defense, then every week you're trying to install a defense with your lesser players and get them to run it and emulate the opponent.

And like you said, we don't think that way. A lot of people think that I am a, and I, I, I had an email about this a week or so ago, two weeks ago you know, my journey in defense. I, I read an article and the guy's name, Jim Graham, I think, it escapes me now, but was just talking about, you know, how to be great at something and then you just start is the first thing.

And I talked about, you know, when I just started, I started with the three-five-three. It fascinated me. I loved it. It was the hot thing at the moment. I spent all of my money, invested everything I had. Asked for every Christmas present I [00:19:00] got in 2005, was a DVD or a VHS from Championship Productions of the Georgia Military College three-five-three defense.

That was the, that was the resource that was available at that time. And you know, quite honestly, looking back at it, I don't think it was a great resource and I also don't think I was a great student. You know, but it was a resource. Probably if you went down to Dahlonega and sat and listened and, and went to their clinic, that would've been a g- better resource.

I didn't feel like I could do something like that, and I probably should have. I learned, learned, learned later on to go ahead and invest at a, at a higher level than than I was. But the, the three-thrive-three, you know, I had a, a year as a JV coordinator and, and convinced the varsity to install it, and they kind of mucked around with it and didn't, didn't quite get it as much as I did.

And I didn't get it as much as I thought I did, and the next year I was the varsity defensive coordinator. That's how you stab somebody in the back. You get them to install a defense they don't understand, and then you take their job- ... the next year. We're still friends, but he's out of coaching. So [00:20:00] the next year I run it and I, you know, we have some success for a while, and then we have the track meet game.

I've talked about that, that kind of fell apart, and then we had another game. We... A few games we got blown out. We ended up five and five, which was the best record that the school had had in years, but was underachieving, honest- quite honestly, for what we had. I, I look back at that and I think that, but whether I was sure or not.

So I installed the four three. So I learned the Miami four three defense. I loved it. But quite honestly, we didn't have the capability to teach it or to run it. We didn't have the athletes coming in. We didn't have the coaches on staff year after year after year who could teach it at that high level, and I didn't understand it well enough.

Luckily, I, I stuck to that for a few years, learned a lot about it, but then eventually, you know, I went to Ellsworth the, the following year, and I learned from Ricky Coon the four two five, and then I studied TCU, and a few years later I'm running the TCU four two five, and that really became the foundation.

I can say that up to the three five three, up through the three five three, I was a three five three guy for a couple years. Then I was a four three guy for several years, and really when this website started, when JDFB started, when footballdefense.com started, I was a four three [00:21:00] guy, and then for a while I became a four two five guy, and then somewhere around twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen I started to realize, okay, all these principles that I learned from the, especially from the four three and the four two five was, you know, the umbrella run fits principle, the ASCA, the all of these things.

That's what really matters. And I think at one point my-- we, we decided that we wanted to slide into more of an odd front, and so just slid everybody over a half yard or half man and then sliding them back to the four two five and made sure that we were squeezing down blocks, spilling, forcing filling the alley, all of those things.

And I realized, you know, the difference between the three four and a four th- four two five wasn't that much, and the difference between the three three five and the four two five wasn't that much. That actually came from Jerry Campbell. Jerry Campbell was running the three three and the four two five and, and showed me that, you know, under the umbrella nothing changed.

And starting to realize that and it, it just over time The, the numbers don't matter. It- like you said, we don't care about the numbers. It's the underlying core [00:22:00] principles. And then you start to pair these things together. You know, we had our Toro stunt and our Aim stunt, which were slants in the 4-2-5.

It's like, okay, we'll stand slanting two guys. If we line up in the stack front, all three guys will slant. That's just 4-2-5. Toro is to the strength, Aim's away from the strength. Then we add a pinch call, and we pinch inside. These things are not complicated, and you can start to use the same calls from different fronts and just apply them a little bit differently.

Bullet's strong and Bullet's weak were our base blitzes in the 4-2-5, Bullet's being the backer strong side, Bullet- Bullet's weak being the backer weak side. Bullet's strong, Bullet's weak. Smoke strong, Smoke weak. Safety off the strong side, safety off the weak side. Well, nothing changed when we ran the four-two f- the 3-4.

In the 3-5-3 we had an extra middle backer, so we called it Bullet's Mike. Like, just, just made sense. We have Bullet's strong, Bullet's weak, Bullet's Mike. We can blitz all three backers. If I wanted to just blitz two of the backers, I called Bullets. That meant that both the stack backers were going. You could [00:23:00] call Bullet stack, you could...

You know, the, the, the end guys. Well, I just called it Bullets, but I never... If I wanted to blitz the Mike and the Sam or something like that, I would call it Smack or Wham. You know, Smack being Sam and Mike, Wham being Will and Mike. You know, just using words like that, and that terminology worked. Or if I wanted to bring the strong safety and a stack backer, I would call Dogs, which was a Bullet's...

It's a double. It's a Bullet and a Smoke, and how we could apply all of those. And the important thing was behind it we're running cover three, cover one, or split field quarters if we want, if we're doing that, and it's all... It all just works. It all just makes sense. And so the next discovery was when we played a 3-3 stack team and we weren't multiple front, and this goes back to probably 2015, 2014, 2015 when we were first running the 4-2-5 And getting in there and just putting together the play calls, like you said, and, and nobody told me this stuff.

Nobody... It was just like, "You know what? [00:24:00] I wanna run this 33 stack for the team that we're playing this week, and I wanna use..." And I think this was probably the year after I had seen Jerry Campbell at a clinic talking about the three, and I, and just going, "Wait a minute. They run a cover three, we run a cover three."

Yep. They run a 4-3-3, we run a 4-2, but what if I just call, I'll call it this and call it this. I installed a 3-3 stack, like you said, in the middle of practice, and I threw away the scout cards for the, for the first time, threw away the scout cards and just ran a 3-3 stack over there on scout team.

And I ran it with, I was the defensive coordinator, I ran it with some of my starters who didn't play on offense, some of my backups who were potentially going to be important players down the road. Maybe they were young, maybe it was JV, whatever it was, but they all got it. They all got, "Okay, this is Toro, but all three guys are gonna go instead of two when we run the stack."

If we call bullets, I told them the calls. And I said, "Hey, when you slant, that guy get, that guy down blocks, you [00:25:00] squeeze it." Same thing you do from a shade. You slant from a shade Slant two a shade. And in that way, the, the, the difference was massive because scout team is no longer... I told, I think I told a story last episode or two episodes ago or something like that about I think it was our, our scout offense episode, about how when I was on the scout defense in freshman year, freshman football, we only had two coaches, and one of them coached the offensive line and one of them coached, called the offense, and they would just hand our middle linebacker a sheet, like I said, a hand piece of paper with four calls on it, and he'd stuff it in his pants and he'd call, and the calls were always just, you know, we're playing Lassiter, and Lassiter's the Trojans, and he goes, "Trojans one, Trojans two, Trojans three, Trojans four."

That's the scout team. So, you know, for the first, first little while we huddle up and he goes, "Okay, we're gonna run Trojans one," and we all look at it. By Wednesday, he goes, "Trojans one," and we line up and we run it. And of course, the problem is that by Thursday when we have our game, [00:26:00] we only know Trojans one, Trojans two, Trojans three, and Trojans four, and we go out there and we call base three, and we're like, "What's base?"

Like, we don't remember our own defense anymore. Right. But especially if you weren't a starter on the defense. And so, like, you know, this evolution to where it's like these kids are no longer... i'm not handing them a card. I'm not w- having them look at a card. I'm calling a different piece of our defense.

And, and they're getting it. And I'm not over there just having them go through the motions, and I'm not having to motivate them like a crazy person like I used to have to do to get the scout team to do something and compete. We're over there running our defense, and they know that they're getting better at football, and not only getting better at football, they're getting better at our defense.

And so they know that if I spill better here, if I, especially against the ones, against the starting offense, if I spill better, if I force better, if I play better zone coverage, stay in coverage, if I play better [00:27:00] alley, I'm gonna get more playing time. They're getting coached on things that we really do and words that we really do.

Instead of the old way of them getting yelled at for, "Hey, that's not what that guy's gonna do." Screw that. I don't care. I don't know what that guy's gonna do. That guy is 16. You don't know what he's gonna do. And so when you try to make your scout team do what you think that guy's gonna do, you and I, Daniel, have watched enough film from across the country to know you don't know what that guy's gonna do.

100%. And most of the ones on film aren't gonna do things like you think they should do, just like your guys aren't. And so we coach the scout defense to run our defense from a different alignment. And the last thing is, we've talked about it before, ultimately the defense is built on the umbrella run fits principle.

That is the key. That is the core. That is the center. That is everything. And the ASCA is just a way to support the umbrella run fits. And so all you're doing when you are running a different front, whether you're running it as a multiple front [00:28:00] defense or you are running it as your scout to show what the other team does, all you are doing is supporting that same umbrella from a different alignment, a different ASCA, maybe a different stance, maybe a different...

But the key reads don't matter. We can, we can translate the key reads across the board, and that's the key for us. We are going to give... And you say, well, you know, their defense might not be spill, their defense might be box, their b- defense might be that. You can't run their defense because like you said, you're spending weeks, months teaching key reads, teaching stances, teaching all of this stuff.

The best way that you can support your offense is to be competitive. And if that means spilling when maybe somebody else is gonna box or force or something like that, or doing it a little bit different, so be it. The important thing is that you're... Really for your offense, the important thing is that they're getting to see the look, they're getting to see the pre-snap and the post-snap look.

So they're getting to see the blitzes, they're getting to see the, the pre-snap alignment, they're getting to see the blitzes, they're getting to see the coverages as you're probably going to see it or as close as you can get to. You're gonna... Like, if you don't pattern match, you're [00:29:00] not gonna emulate their pattern match, and that's okay.

Just run a cover four or something, it's, it's gonna be fine. But you know, the, the offense is getting to see that pre-snap and post-snap movement, but more importantly, they're getting a more competitive look than just walking down the field because they're gonna take that into Friday night. And you want...

You don't want Friday night to be the easiest, I mean, you the, the... You want Friday night to be such a massive step up in competition. You want there to be a little competition, a little work to be done on Tuesday and Wednesday at least. Yeah. Yeah, I think sometimes as coaches we, we do buy into the numbers too much and, and you see why.

I, I see why. When I, when I take my scout team right now, and I've got a starting linebacker, right? Who doesn't play offense, so he's, he's a one-way guy essentially. And so we get out there and, and we slide him into the stack to be a scout team defense, and he lo- he's like I'm over the center." Oh, yeah.

"How do I read a guard?" Like, with, with [00:30:00] your eyeballs. Like, you just pick one, man, and stare at him, and he's gonna tell you- Grip him ... he'll tell you kinda what things are going on, right? Like, they don't, they can't see the big picture yet. He, a- and this is a scene, now he hasn't, he hasn't played a lot of football, so it's not his fault.

It's he's real- he's good at reading guards. It's what he, it's what he's- ... improved at this year and, and, and has been able to do. So if you move a kid six inches, it's not a big deal with your ASCA, but if you change the front and now he's gotta move three feet, it's a little weird for him, right?

And so you, you start using different three-three stack, and there are four-three def- all this crap. Like- I don't even know that you need to tell the kids. Like, it's almost just like, "Hey, outside backer, slide in the box." Hey, it's already your position here. Yeah, but like if you're a stack backer, yeah, if you're talking about a stack backer who normally plays in a 30, it's like can you slide out and play this from a 40I?

Right. Right. So- Like, now we're pretty much like- Yeah, and you almost just bring a free safety into the mic because it's like, hey, do what you were doing at- [00:31:00] Yeah ... from five and seven. So anyway, the, the point is here, guys, w- we're ... the, the numbers don't matter. Don't panic when you've gotta emulate someone else's multiple front.

Your defensive system should, especially if you're a JDFB guy, I promise you it does, because it's in the system. But whatever your core pillars are, your run fit should be able to be there Regardless of what front you get, right? You may have the- Yeah, if your run fits don't translate to other fronts, then you, you, you don't have a very good system just honestly.

Even with our system, right, like if you wanna be a 4-2-5 too high guy, you very quickly find out, like you move that force guy back to 10, buddy, you are, you're asking for trouble. There is... Y- you've gotta get good at that. That's gotta be something- Yeah ... you're working from day one. It's not undoable, it is difficult.

You watch it, and I guess going back to the Brent Venables thing, you go watch some, some D1 football, those cats are too high all the time. His 4-2-5 is a 4-2-4, and then you got an extra guy, a nickel somewhere, right? Yeah. But that cat can go, so he starts at 10. And [00:32:00] he's also got a defensive end who's fighting the reach, he's got a will backer who's scraping.

Yeah. They're extending the edge, they're bringing the force out to him. There's a lot to it. So he's got time to get there. Yeah, he needs more time. So, you know, don't just d- even, even if you gotta break your, your run fits a little bit like that, understand it is doable. It may not look as clean. Cheat a little bit.

Sure. Keep him at eight. I don't know. Anyway- Yeah ... don't be afraid to build out multiple front defense and let your kids work those things with your principles. I think it's a really good point with, with what you said about 'cause I think it's important. I, I don't mean to say that it's easy to run a multiple front defense.

Bill Mountjoy was very big on this because we, a- and we talked about it, you know, the junk offense episode, defending junk offenses and how you and I both love to do so many formations and motions and different looks. Yeah. But the fact is, and Bill's absolutely, Bill, Bill was absolutely right about this, Bill would talk about, you know, he, he had a rule of, of basically three formations, motions and he would, you know, when you flip them both ways, it's six.

[00:33:00] And you know, Bill's thing was to you it is just window dressing, it is just a different look, but to the kid, the difference between running, you know, think about when you're running inside zone with a tight end next to you and without a tight end, or when you're running power with a tight end next to you and without a tight end next to you.

Those formations, those formations change not only some of the things about your offense, but they change, they may change the alignment of the defense because the, the guy's gonna align differently. He's a- he's not in a five tech now, he's in a six tech. Well, how do we handle that? And how that affected the kids.

And so even though we talk about it being so simple- Don't just go nuts on multiple front defenses 'cause we say this. This is the simplest way to run your scout defense and not try to be who they are. But it doesn't mean you can just go buck wild on multiple front defenses and expect everybody to line up everywhere and do everything, because they are going to have trouble processing from, you know, as much as we, you know, can kid about it, like [00:34:00] moving from a 30 technique to a zero technique to a double zero technique over top of the center does change the reads and it does change who you're supposed to read, and you have to have a thought process for it, and it's extra work, and it's extra

It's one little extra thing. It's a new ASCA every single time. And so it does change. But, but this is an effective way to run your scout defense, to keep those core principles, underlying principles the same, and just move your guys as little as you can around it. I wanna go back to, you know, calling scout team the last couple weeks for, for our defense and...

or scout D for our offense, I guess. You know, we use the terminology, but I'm lucky to be... our defense is already multi fronts. We have a three and a four. We've used stack a little bit. But we already had a two high rolling to cover three system, right? We have words that mean roll left, and we have words that mean roll right.

And so I didn't have to invent that on the fly. So if you're a one high guy and you've never been two high and rolled down, you might have to invent a word, and that's okay. Heck, maybe it's the one that sticks in your system, right? So you can, you can build out your system. [00:35:00] Don't be afraid of that. Like, I, I don't, I don't, I'll never understand be- hey, we just run, we had, we had a call last night, right? We were on, I was on Joe's call and, and somebody was like, "Well, I, I'm from Kenny's system, so I run, you know, this and this." Okay. Your guy may only run buck and belly, and now you need to emulate inside zone and power. Like, don't, don't be afraid. Look for the similarities on defense, right?

Like, well, they blitz these two guys. We never blitz those together. That's okay. Install it. Now you do, right? It's not that hard. Yeah, you, I mean, you may stumble upon something that you really like. I've done it. I mean, I've done it- How, how many times have you turned on Saturday- ... on offense and on defense

football and, and you steal something? Why not steal it from a guy who's doing it with kids just like you? So. Yeah, that's what... I mean, I wanna steal, if I wanna steal, I wanna steal it from us running scout team and seeing, like... I, I, I f- you know, I don't remember. I just remember one concept. No, I'll tell you what it was.

I, I know exactly what it was. Justin and I, my head coach at the time, we lost a game And I've told this story before. We lost- we didn't lose [00:36:00] the game because of this, but we were, it was 20 to 19 at, against a team that had not lost a district game in a decade. This was the year before then we had a couple times.

So we're in a playoff game against them. We played in week 10 and then in week 12. So I think this is week 10. We're at their place and we go in a half down 20 to 19, and we were four and six the year before. So this is like we're, you know, at this point I think we're seven and four, maybe seven and three going in.

Seven and seven and two going into this game I guess. I think we finished regular season seven and three, finished the season eight and four. So we go into this game week 10 and then into the season and we drive down and at the first drive of the half we get the ball at the, at the half and drive down and we are on the one yard line, and we are about to go up on this team in the second half that has not lost a district game in a decade.

And we threw a slant on the goal line and it went through a kid's body like right through his [00:37:00] stomach, through his o- through his inner organs into the hands of a linebacker who took it 99 yards the other way. I think we tackled him on the one and then they went in on the next play. And basically we were so- That's painful

we were always, we were, we, we never liked the slant because of the fact that if you throw a slant a little bit high, a little bit here, a little bit there, especially against a zone coverage. Now I do like it against a man coverage or cover zero, and I think that's why we called it. But for some reason there was a linebacker standing behind this kid when the ball phased through him.

And, And we, and we end up losing the game like, you know, 40 to 22 or something like that. Like it just, that was- Yeah ... that was- It gets away from you, doesn't it? It's that moment, it's that moment. It's like we were so close and now it's just, you know, the next thing you know it's 27 to 19 and then it's just on.

And so we, we really had taken slant out of the system, out of the... I mean, you know, other than two point pass, slant had been out for a while. And we have a kid who's a sophomore quarterback [00:38:00] and we are running scout offense, and the scout, you know, our quarterback almost never plays defense and so he's usually the scout team quarterback because usually our backup quarterback starts on defense.

And we start, you know, we have- we're planning as a team to throw slants, and he's just, just drilling these slants. And it was like he just likes the slant route. He's tall so he can get on top of the ball and get it down instead of, you know, when our shorter quarterback's trying to throw a slant where it tends to sail, and he's able to throw this ball down and he's able to throw these slant routes just at a, at a higher precision.

And slant went back in the system and it became one of his best passing concepts, and that was the f- that was the first year that that team had a winning season in 37 years. And part of it was because we found this slant concept in like a week two, week three scout team and went, "All right, it's gotta go back in," 'cause he, he throws it.

And he's a sophomore, he doesn't run complicated passing concepts, so if he likes a slant route we're gonna run [00:39:00] the freaking slant rou- slant route. I think that's- If he can throw a hitch and a slant and a fade then we're good to go. We found a kid at Wyandotte on scout team offense. It was actually the kid that lived with us for a while that we pseudo adopted, his name was Shannon.

Yeah. And, and Shannon, we called him Slantin' Shannon 'cause you throw him a slant and that cat's gone. He, I don't- Yeah ... he di- he didn't shine at football really anywhere else. He, he didn't play a lot, you know, he, he kinda came from a past that was w- it was not conducive to him going out and learning a hobby, for sure.

Sure. But he c- if you could get a slant in his, we'd call him Slantin' Shannon, throw him, throw him the slant. Yeah. We did it in ballgames, like... Anyway, so you find a player sometimes who- Yeah ... can do what they do. So I mean it's such a strong, it's such a strong reason, there's so many good reasons for this and I know we've, we've already moved into, you know, using the scout team to improve your defense so we've kinda...

But there, there's so many things about this that it's like not only is it the fact that your kids know that, hey, I'm not running their defense, I'm running a different version of our defense. Yeah. Which means what I do matters. I'm not just here, you know, we've always encouraged be a team player, [00:40:00] service the offense.

It's like, don't service the offense. Go out there and win yourself a job. I'm gonna give you the opportunity. Okay, look, I don't have time. in a 90-minute practice plan to get a boatload of reps for the twos. We've talked about this on our depth chart and we did a, a Coaches Edge workshop where we talked about the depth chart.

And the fact of the matter is, in that Coaches Edge workshop we built, we built a tool that you can use to organize your depth chart and organize your, you know, how many, how much is this guy gonna play on offense compared to defense for our smaller schools, for most of our schools that are, you know, 27 guys and we're playing both ways.

Okay I take that guy and I say, "Look, I got time to get... I got five linemen or, you know, I got four line- defensive linemen that play. I got two guys that rotate, so I got six linemen. If you're the seventh lineman, you're not gonna get a lot of reps during team. If you're the third linebacker in our 4-2-5, you'll get a few reps.

If you're the fourth linebacker, you may not get any reps because honestly, both my starters have to get hurt for you to go in the game," right? [00:41:00] Same thing safeties. I got four safeties that rotate between... I, I got four guys. I got free safety, strong safety, weak safety, and a safety backup. And he might be the starting corner, so we might just have one backup corner.

What I'm saying is there's not a lot of opportunity. I don't ever run the twos out for reps. We don't have enough. We don't have the twos. Like, there's not enough guys for us to have the twos. Right. We, we have a backup defensive lineman, a backup linebacker, a backup safety, a backup corner, right? Four guys that get reps in team defense.

This is your chance and you're running our defense. And otherwise, if you do it the other way, I've gotta either make extra time to get the twos out there. The problem when you put the twos out is what do you do when you're a small school? You put all the ones over on offense. On offense. The twos are getting bored now.

It's like they're not earning any time. So, like this is your... So they're getting better because they're running the system and you're [00:42:00] coaching them on the things. You're coaching them on rip outside, squeeze the down block, stay in coverage. You're coaching them on the things we actually do. They're getting a chance to show out.

They're getting a chance to show that they can play in this system and because you're running something that is akin to what you do, and we do the same thing on offense. We had that whole episode. We're running things that are in the system. They're like in the cloud. They haven't all been downloaded.

Like you said, like I, I can run a 33 stack. I haven't run a 33 stack as part of a base 4-2-5 in years, but I run it every week it feels like, you know, in, in, in the, in the practices. And it's like we might see a 33 stack. We might find a blitz that we like. And we might just say, "Hey, we're gonna line up in this..."

I've t- I, I talk to our coaches all the time, "Just line up in this thing. Call it." So if you find it, like you're, you're running scout team and you find this blitz that your scout team's running really well and you just, and you're playing the Tigers and you go, "Hey..." Well, don't use Tigers. Who do you have a Tiger cat blitz?

You're playing the Seals and Clubbing baby seals. Yes. It's rr, rr, rr. [00:43:00] So the so you're playing the Seals and you're like, "Man, I really like this, this blitz out of the 33 stack. Our scout team is, is feeling really confident about it." And man- And we're gonna install it and we're just gonna call it Seals, and everybody's just gonna line up in a 3-3 stack and run this blitz.

Shoot, I've ... If they're running it so good in practice, I might just call Seals and it's a whole personnel package, and the scout team defense runs out there and runs Seals one time, and then the Seals run back off the field, and then there's, back, our defense is back out there. You can have fun with it.

Man, you can do some fun stuff with it. It's gonna make your defense- Oh my God, I would get fired so fast. I- Maybe. What are all them sophomores doing on the field? But we had a, we had a one of the defensive coordinators I used to have in the back, back in the day, he did that. He did it on JV. They had

I think he did it on JV. I, I wa- Yeah, it was on JV. He was the JV coach. It was a big JV team. They had lots of kids. And they they had just a bunch of small kids. Good kids, small kids. And, you know, a lot of the starters were playing both ways and stuff. So he had the barking chihuahuas [00:44:00] defense, and he would just call the chihuahuas and all 11 of these little guys would go run out there, and they had something that they did for, like, two plays that was just wild.

And then... And, you know, in JV you can g- you can, you can just totally throw off the opponent. So the barking chihuahuas go out there, and they're all over the place for about two plays before you have time to figure it out and figure out what's going on. And then they, they come off. They yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, and they come off the field, and then the starters go back out there and they run the normal stuff.

Herd of chihuahua. But it's ... So we were the I remember this as a high school player, and we had a lot of pride in it. Now, we didn't do all the things that I talked about, but as our, our scout team defense was the squirrel squad. Interesting. And we had shirts made And, you know, when, when we were all JV players, so our JV practice was our varsity, and it w- th- this was, this was really when we would go out there and they would be like, "All right, Titans two," every single practice, and then we would go out on Thursday to play JV games, and they would call our, our actual defense.

We had not run it all week, and we're just like, "Oh, okay." But [00:45:00] it, I mean, that, the guy, the coach, young guy that ran our, I don't remember his name, but he ran our scout team, and he usually probably ran, he probably ran our JV defense, he, squirrel squad. I mean, we were out there, we were excited about it. We were having fun.

We were playing as hard as we could. JV guys getting the snot kicked out of us by... If you've, if, we weren't, we w- actually, my sophomore year, we were 7 and 3, so we were actually a good Georgia s- whatever we were, 4A, whatever the highest level is, 2,400 kids. We were a good high school football team with Division I players running around, and we're out there playing scout team defense against them, just getting the snot kicked out of us.

Man, Thursdays were fun. I loved it. Thur- Thursdays, Thursdays, those Thursday JV games were like a day off. Yeah. Like, let's go. Like, I'm not getting just- I- But, but that's, I mean, it's, it's so much fun when you can make the scout team, when you can make the scout team motivated, kinda understand what they're doing, getting them to play fast, getting them to feel like they're doing something and getting better, and maybe even find some things.

But the biggest thing [00:46:00] is you're actually challenging. You don't need to show the perfect look. You're actually challenging your offense. So- That's the big thing ... I wanted, I wanted to cover that real quick. You know, as I, when, when I was in the, the big chair for my six-week tenure you know, part of our weekly plan was the scout team had an idea of what they were trying to accomplish that week.

On Monday, it was give us the front they've shown, right? So if they're a 4-2-5 team on Monday, I want to run our base stuff versus their base stuff. Tuesdays is the complete opposite. If they're even, scout team defense is gonna be odd on Tuesday, right? Because- Guys, your rules are only as good as the test that, that, that tests them, right?

If your guy- if your kids can't go out and make checks and calls based on their blocking rules, they only know what they saw in practice all week, and you only showed them a certain thing, what do you do on Friday when their starting defensive end goes out with a concussion and now they're like, "Oh [00:47:00] crap, I don't have any defensive linemen," and they check into a 3-3 stack or a 3-4 or whatever, right?

Like, so you've gotta, you gotta test anyway. And then Wednesday was the coach call whatever the hell you want. And unfortunately that prowler stuff is pretty prominent in our area. The guy who invented it is, I think he calls it Eat the... I don't know if he invented the prowler, but he calls it Eat the Captain, and he's been at several of the- the biggest schools in our area, right? And so it's, it's caught some traction up here, and so sometimes you still- well, there's a team in our district that runs it, and it's like, what are you gonna do when you line up to block power and there's no one to... You're all gap down backer and there's no gaps and no downs and no backers.

Like, what, what do your kids do? So you've gotta let them throw a curve ball at them from time to time to test them. That's when scout team gets really fun because, one, you g- fundamentally need to be sound. We're still out there to give a look. Monday's a little more regimented, a little more strict. Yep.

Tuesday's a little more that off day. So it's like, "Coach, hey, I've always ran a 3-4. You're a 4-2-5 guy. This team's a 4-2-5." Fine. Now's your day. It's your time to [00:48:00] shine. You might once again find a kid or a package or a s- a blitz or a, a coverage or something that you're like, "Man, that's really good," which I had no idea when we got into this conversation I was gonna be thinking as a coach finding X's and O's during this part, but you know, when talking about using scout team to improve your own defense, sometimes it is that.

Yep. But then the kids are still getting reps. You're still coaching the crap out of them, so keeping them within your pillars. But if you're, if you're a head coach or you're a, a offensive coordinator and you're allow- you know, have a plan for your scout team as well. That way they can give you a look that matters.

They can get better at stuff. But them just going out and running the same thing for three days in a row, you're gonna get probably lack of motivation. Maybe it's a non-blitz day and a blitz day or whatever. You know, mix things up a little bit. Let those guys work. Let's jump into the last piece here and, and when, once- once again, the lines tonight are l- quite blurred.

But we get the last piece here is just using your players to get the offense ready. Yep. And that is that's it's a great segue because I think that, [00:49:00] you know, one of the things that I, I talked about in the offense section and I haven't talked about it here is, you know, we used Thad Wells. We used the Rooski system, R-O-S- R-O-O-S-K-I which is the pictures on the wristbands, and I do love that.

But before that we used basically Thad had a wristband system that was words, and we used that for our scout team 'cause we don't have time to draw up pic- all the pictures up. And that way we could hand guys wristbands. I wouldn't just call our defense. I would, I would, it would say on there you know, if we line up in a 3-3 stack it would just say 4 tech Toro and all he has to do is line up or, you know, if you don't use Toro, you say four tech slant strong.

And all he has to do is listen for the call, knows what a four tech is, that's teaching them, and then he hears the, you know, the defensive lineman hears the linebacker say strong right, and he goes, "Okay, I'm slanting right." And he doesn't need to worry about, I don't have to call stack, I don't have to call any of that.

I just call Blue 7 and he goes, "Okay, four technique, slant strong." And then the next play I want him to slant weak. One of the things that we always had on there, and I [00:50:00] used to get on the scout team as the offensive coordinator, I would get on the scout team guy, call this stuff because they don't ever do it.

We had to- And Thad did this. I didn't add this, Thad had it on there. So Thad had choice and stand choice. And, or this, the, the scout team guys always wanted to run a defense. And I'm like, "No, you gotta run choice and stand choice sometimes." Choice meant line up wherever you want. Stand choice meant standing, you know, amiibo, radar eight, whatever you want it to be.

There, be where, be wherever. Do whatever. And I would always get on him to call more of that. Call, call that more often. Just give me something wacky. And That helps prepare your guys for the reality of Friday night. And I used to always, and I, I've always gotten on our offensive linemen because our offensive linemen know what the picture that they're supposed to see this week is.

Right. They know that this team runs a 3-4, and we've been down there bird walking against a 4-0, 4 front and a 30 technique backer. And then we go out there with a tight end, and some [00:51:00] freshman lines up over top of the tight end instead of over top of the tackle where he's supposed to be. And there's our senior tackle who knows what the front's supposed to be telling him, "Hey, you're supposed to be down here.

Move down here." He thinks he's helping him out, and I'm yelling at him, "No, you, you don't get to do that." Now, I got a, I got a scout team coach whose job is to correct him. But I wanna run this snap right now and go right at him. That's gonna make us better, is recognizing that they've made a misalignment and taking advantage of it.

And then I got a scout team coach whose job is to help that kid. Or I'll help. Yeah, I'll, I'll fix it if I ... If he does it four times in a row, I'm gonna be like, "Okay, that's enough. Thanks, thanks for showing it once. Twice is too many, and three times is getting ridiculous, and you're ruining the session now."

Yeah. So the thing about now how do we get the offense ready? All the things that we've said sound great. They sound wonderful, but I know that you've got massive drop-off and all these sorts of things. So [00:52:00] we've gotta use our players to get the offense ready. So we are in a way going to service our offense.

So we are going to put guys in positions and things that they're going to do sometimes. And so for example, I will tell the corners, "Hey," and it, we will situation it sometimes. We'll run our stuff, and our corners will be seven yards off playing cover three. And then I'll go out there and I'll say, "Hey, their corners, I need you to service the offense.

Their corners play nine yards off And we're gonna roast him on hitch routes. Chances are my backup corner is also a receiver, maybe a backup receiver too, but now he's getting an understanding of why he never does that when he's getting toasted on hitch routes all day, right? He understands, "Okay, I don't wanna be here in the game because they're gonna destroy me on hitch routes."

Or their corner lines up in no man's land, and they're, and you're, and, and understand you're, we're going to throw fade balls over your head because you are in the wrong place to [00:53:00] play this, and it's okay. And I wanna tell him, "We're setting you up." So we will sometimes set them up to do things that they do that are not what we do.

So they're almost separate sessions or separate events. Like you said, hey Monday we're gonna be very much into running our stuff and running their looks, and then Tuesday or Wednesday we're gonna start to show some of the nuances that they do that maybe we've seen on film that we want to attack. The thing about it is if I know that nine-yard off corners are wrong and it's the wrong thing to do, I'm not gonna go out there and play against a nine-yard off corner all week.

Because God forbid that they listen to a podcast and find out that's stupid. And now we've been working against a bad alignment all week. I never work against bad alignments. If I think that their players are in a bad alignment, I fix it for scout team, and then we have a session where we show the bad alignment and how we're going to attack it.

Hey, we've got toss in because they like to play in a one-by-one with the force [00:54:00] player And we ran toss seven times this week against... We, we, or, or, you know, for s- for seven play series, we ran toss five times against a five by five, and it was eh. Now I'm gonna show you why toss is a big part of the game plan.

But if they line up five by five, I want us to be able to hit it. I want us to be like, "Ah, they didn't give us what we wanted." That plays out. So we'll service them in that way. But the other thing is, again, going back to competition, and I think this is the biggest, I wanna compete no matter what. I don't want 'em to get smoked.

I don't want my scout defense to just go, go out there and line up what they do and get punished and get run over, and so I will make it competitive, whether that is a competitive drill, whether that is sprinkling in, taking one of my offensive lineman, put the sixth offensive lineman in so that my best defensive lineman can now come over from the offensive line and play and challenge us a little bit.

But I think this is... I forget, it might've been Lou [00:55:00] Johnson, I can't remember whose idea this was. We will play against 13 or 14 guys. I think that's one of the biggest things that you can do. You have... Take, take your 11 guys, if you wristband them, wristband them, and you have 11 guys running the defense.

And then you take another guy or two, you take two more guys and you say, "You are on the right, and you are on the left. You guys can do whatever you want." That's the simplest thing to do. You can do whatever you want. Walk up on the line of scrimmage, now you're in the count. We have to be able to count the defense, and we got an extra guy walked up.

We gotta figure that out. Walk off, play, be in the coverage, now we got four high, four under, four deep. We gotta figure out how to attack it. Like, these things make it competitive for you in that now you can, you will, the, the running back will have to break a tackle, in theory. And I always like to do this with two of our best players.

So I want, you know, have 11 guys that are the scout team, and then two of the best guys that we have available are, like, the right side and the left side, kind of rovers. That is a really effective way to make your scout defense [00:56:00] more challenging for the offense. And if there's such a difference in performance, then I would definitely do that.

And if you have small numbers, you can still do that. You can halfline it and, you know, just add an extra guy to your halfline. Add, you know, it just... You can still, you can still make it more challenging. The other things that you can do, I will never forget my, my college head coach- Screaming about scout team All-Americans guessing the play 'cause you think you know the play and everything.

First of all, guys, don't do that. My college head coach, I've since made peace with him. I understood why I didn't play. I didn't understand why I was getting yelled at for guessing the play when I'm like, "I don't know any of the plays." I know nothing about football, and I was a college sophomore, okay?

If you're talking about your, you're, you're a freshman or you're a sophomore high school player and you're like, "He's guessing the play," he shouldn't be able to make the play even if he knows it. Tell them, like s- tip the, tip [00:57:00] everything in their favor. Tell them the play. Tell them what's happening. Set it up.

Make the game harder for your offense when you need to. Tell them what's happening, tell them what's gonna happen, tell them where ... You know, give them every edge that you can do. Don't tell the ... You don't, don't, you don't have to tell the whole defense, but tell one guy, "Hey, cheat up a little bit. It's gonna be right here.

It's coming right here." Well, I'll stand behi- ... I'll, I'll do that with the, as the offensive line coach and get those linebackers moving, right? If you got a scout team linebacker who's not really moving, I go, "It's coming right here. Go step up." I'll just move, I'll just move the defense and position the defense myself to make it harder so that they're, they're, they're in the spots that make it the most difficult that can make it for us.

I think a lot of times we wanna see everything work and we, we sit there, especially you guys that script, you'll script against what you want to see, right? Okay, I wanna see this, I wanna see this toss play against the play, the formation where they don't have any force, and you script, "I want this against this, and it sh- this should hit, and this should..."

No, you need to see it when it's [00:58:00] not there. You need to see it when there's extra guys. You need to see when they overload that. That's, that's going to get your offense ready. So there are times to make it easier for your offense by doing the things you think they're going to do and showing them what you think they're gonna do and why this is in the game plan.

You want them to understand why this is in the game plan. And I will. We do have times where we run something and, you know, we'll just go to my quarterback and say, "Hey," you know, "quarterback made a read, he threw it, guy showed up," but we go and I'll say, "Okay. I want ... I need you to be able to see the field, but like that guy's not gonna be there.

I know what you saw. I understand it. We'll, we'll come back to it and we'll run it at seven on seven where you can see what the actual coverage is gonna look like," and that kind of stuff. But I want it to be challenging. So there's, there are times we're gonna make it easy for them based on what we scouted, and there are times that we're gonna make it harder for them because practice needs to be harder.

A- as close to the game as we can the game shouldn't be such a step up

I don't, I don't really have a lot to add here, man. You, you covered most of it, or we have throughout the show. [00:59:00] Just, once again, make sure that you're testing your offense. Don't... And, and I guess that's partially what you were just saying is don't make this a cakewalk by script- scripting them into the best case scenario all the time.

Right. It can't... Your offense will get blown away. You already have the skill drop off. That's already a, a thing most likely, right? And so don't also put them at a disadvantage schematically. It, it doesn't, it's not gonna do you any good. Like I- It's such a mistake to go into the game thinking they're gonna do what you saw on film too.

Everybody is practicing. Everybody is improving. Everybody is self-scout. Well, in theory everybody is self-scouting, making adjustments. If they got torched on something, like, yeah, you should have it in the playbook. Like they got torched on this play, we have it in the playbook, this formation, this play But if you expect them to come out and do the exact same thing, they're not very well-coached anyway, so like what's the difference?

Yeah. Like, [01:00:00] don't assume that they're gonna ... You need to make ... You need to show them different looks. You need to give them different stuff so that they don't walk out every Friday and be like, "Oh." Yep. I guess the last piece here, guys, is just your, you're calling your defense for scout team defense, I highly recommend doing it just like you do for your team.

Just don't, don't, don't break that pattern for the kids. Yes. If you, if you call front stunt blitz coverage, do that. If you are split to field team and you're giving them a, you know, a two to g- do that. If your safeties are making the calls, maybe you, they're not ready and, and you've gotta add a little bit, but this is a time to teach them to do that.

So obviously if you're playing a base cover three- This is NFL, yeah ... and you're a big split field read, you know, match read, t- th- then y- you gotta change a little bit, but just keep it simple, get it where you're calling plays, throw the stinking book away. That's, that's on you. That's your job is to understand what you're trying to call there and get it into the format for you to call it for your guys.

So go do that and- And I love [01:01:00] the wristbands. I really, really love the wristbands. Or wristbands. I, I- I like the fact- I can't, I s- I can't wrap my head around wristbands. I know that they're- Yeah, but I mean- ... they work ... the fact that I can slap that wristband on any kid and like you said, they can play any position and the wristband literally tells them.

Now they might have to have a d- like if I have a corner who has to go play defensive end, they might need to have the defensive tackle say, "This is what a five technique is." Right. But that's great because now my defensive tackle is teaching, which means- Amen ... he's understanding at a higher level. Amen.

Like, these things are great and, and, and we're, you know, once he's does it a couple times, we usually only have a handful of calls that are on the wristband. Like I said, we have the choice and the stand choice. We usually have the, the primary front and then we'll have a change up front of some sort to show a different look.

So there might be f- you know, four or five blitzes, fronts and blitzes, coverages. Usually, there's usually less than 10, 10 calls that are, that we're gonna work against. Like I said, the, the choice and the stand choice notwithstanding, which could be anything. And man, it's just so great to be able to...

Any kid can [01:02:00] grab that wristband and put it on. It's funny because you'll find kids who love to play a position that like, that's not their position during scout team. And on the one hand you're like, "You know, it would help us more if you played your position." But on the other hand, like, Swiss Army knife, dude.

I love the Swiss Army knife. Yeah. I grew up as one. Yeah. So all right, man. I think we checked all the boxes tonight. Let's see. Oh, we talked, tonight we talked about scout team defense how to kinda operate in this multiple front defensive world, using scout team to improve your own defense, and using your players to get the offense ready.

Last week we talked about defending straight T, wishbone, power I, all those three back offenses where you got a lotta gaps to deal with or, or players coming through them. Next week we're onto cornerback drills. Let's hit our level up here, Joe. You go first, sir. Oh man, we, so there's, I'll just, the trip. I went down to visit my dad in Myrtle Beach.

My dad has been through a lot. A, a lot, a lot of, Illness, cancer loss a- and, and been a tough year. But getting down, every time we [01:03:00] get to go down and spend time with him, and my son gets to spend time with him is awesome. Unfortunately, one of the things we're really excited about was watching Alabama and Georgia football together, and that was not a good weekend to do that.

But get- you know, just getting down there and then had fun. Unfortunately it rained a lot, so we didn't get, get to do some of the fun stuff. But because it rained though, I will add one more. I wasn't planning on adding this, but man, it was a cool moment. I was never a big arcade kid, like playing- video games in the arcade. I remember playing video games in the arcade when we would go to Sparkles, which was the skating rink in Marietta, in Park Air, and we would have our skate parties there, and they had an arcade. And I remember some of the games in there, but I was never really good at 'em. Like, you know, whatever.

There was, but there was the '80s arcade games, into the early '90s. There's a, a, a dead mall that has an arcade, has one of the, a Guy Fieri's Downtown Flavortown arcade thing, and bar, and restaurant. We just go to the arcade, and it's, it's [01:04:00] a lot of goofy, goofy games that he can play, and then so my son has fun doing that.

But there's also a Bass Pro. So it's not a dead, dead mall. It's got a Bass Pro, so it can't be but so dead. And but there is also, there's like a retro gaming store and comic book shop, nerd shop that I like. Has a lot of video games. But next door to it they have restored or brought back or bought a whole bunch of old '80s arcade machines, and they are all a quarter.

What? And so my son's over there with, with my wife playing the awful new arcade games that are all just like the claw machines and like, you know, they got the, the racing machines and Skee-Ball and stuff like that. And I'm like, there's this place in the mall that's got Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man, and they've got...

I mean, they've got good stuff. They had Double Dragon. They've got the old, the o- original Punch-Out!! And I played a bunch. I got super into Robotron, which was just, I don't know, you know, just great. Play- played a little Frogger. But the highlight was when my son came [01:05:00] down he wanted to play games with me, and he wanted to help me.

And they had a Turtles in Time, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, the four-player one. That's, we have it on our Switch, I think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they did. And yeah, they did. So, I played with my son, and we made it to the second level, and I regret not just loading it up with quarters and finding a way.

But my four-year-old son got up on a stool and played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the arcade with me. And at first he had no idea what he was doing. He's like just hitting a one but- hitting the jump button. And I would be like, "Hey, buddy, we gotta go," 'cause, you know, I'd, I'd beat all the guys. And then I'm like, "We gotta go," 'cause he's gotta go.

You know, they, they start to do the- Go, go, go thing to the right. Yeah. Like, go to the- Makes you go. So he starts to follow and then... I- he played for a while and, you know, I put another quarter in for him and he... Anyway, at the end, he was actually getting, I wouldn't say good, but I mean, [01:06:00] we only played for what?

15, 20 minutes, and like, it was pretty cool to be playing this arcade game with my son. And he's starting to get it, That's it ... which is pretty fun. It was pretty fun to play the machine. Now, I probably didn't load more quarters because quite honestly, my wrist was just exhausted from just hitting that, you know, punch button, jump button and everything.

And but he's getting good at it, so it's pretty exciting that like this is something we're gonna be able to do. Actually go like play these games and have fun and, and so, it was a good time. That's awesome. How old is he now? Four. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's about the time Liam really took off in the gaming world.

Like he can- Yeah ... we picked up the Mario, whatever the parties or whatever. And we got one of those- Yeah ... and it's like we can all legitimately... And now he's learning to read, so now he's like, we used to have to read for him, like everything. And you know, Mario Party, a lot of it's reading and competition.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How fast can you read or whatever. Anyway, so... But that's [01:07:00] awesome. The the game that, for anybody who's got a child this age, the Switch game, there's actually two games. One is the Gabby's Dollhouse game. It was on Xbox and he like, that one's very well designed. But the game that we got that he could, that I could actually hand him my Switch and he learned to play a game and not get frustrated and not get, 'cause...

Give him a kids game and he starts getting killed and stuff, and it's like He doesn't understand. Like, he just wants to play the game. He just wants to have fun. It needs to be well-designed. He doesn't need to get stuck. The best game was the Paw Patrol, and I can't remember which one, but it's a side-scrolling 2D Paw Patrol, and by far the best one.

He's not gonna die. He's not gonna get killed. He can figure it out. He can l- he's, he just... I mean, it's just learning to, to platform. Like, it's learning to jump and go get the gold coin and go get the little pup treats, and then it gets to a spot and it tells him to hit the, hit a button. So he's learning the buttons, he's learning all this stuff.

That was the best. That one, and, and we don't play... He doesn't get to play much. It's usually on like a Sunday during football games. I'll hand him the Switch and be like, "You can play [01:08:00] for an hour," or something like that. It's just a... Mom gets a break and, and I get a break and... But that's the one that he started to learn to play games with, and now I think he's ready to do some other things.

We John Wayned it around this mother, okay? It was Zelda, and that's your first game. By God. The new Zeldas, not even the old one where it was like- Yeah ... nah. New Zelda. Yeah. I don't know that I recommend that. And I can be the, the voice of experience here that science says three hours a day is great for their brains- and it doesn't lead to any negativity. I say horseshit, they turn into demons. About an hour. Yeah. You're, you're spot on there, man. Yeah. That's about- You're, you're- That's about enough, yeah. Three hours seems like an awful lot. I, I don't even think I play three hours on a, on a good day- Yeah

anymore. I mean, back in college obviously, and stuff like that, I would. Yeah. Yeah. I've got two level ups and, and the first one will be pretty short. But so a local haunt- so there's a haunted house. Obviously it's October, it's Halloween season here in 2026, and there's a local haunted house which we have been watching [01:09:00] them build because my first grade practice field is right next to it.

And the cover of it is the It house, like the, like the mansion f- the, the whole f- face of it is built out. Super scary looking from the outside. It's pretty cool. But my kids have been asking about haunted houses and I can still go in some, and you know, you ha- it's, it's like going to the comedy club.

You gotta make yourself vulnerable. You gotta make yourself in the mode to get scared because generally a grown man, you walk in you're like, "This is all fake. You're, you're not gonna touch me. You can't hurt me." Like, it's not that scary. I've been overseas, okay? But For my kids, I was like, "They're not ready for that crap."

I can remember going through probably too young, and it scared the shit out of me, like traumatizing. And so our local haunted house had a no scare night. So it was just for curiosity. You walk through... The music and the lights are there. There's some dolls that are placed around and just stat, like mannequins that are dressed [01:10:00] up, but there's no characters chasing you, running down with a chainsaw, grabbing you, whatever.

None of that. So, my kids were like, "Okay, we're gonna do this." And so we took, you know, obviously Beckett's eight, Liam just turned five. So we, we run them through the haunted house, and within 10 seconds Liam is about to cry, and he's like, "Daddy, hold my hand." And I was like, "Okay." Now this was a really well done one, where as soon as you get in the door, you go in the front door of the It house, but it immediately shrinks you down to like a two by two or a three by three tunnel You walk through a ball pit and then you gotta get through this tunnel, and then you go down a decline into, I think, maybe another ball pit.

I can't remember. Anyway, then you gotta climb a half door. So it's, like, a lot going on but it was just challenging to them. And then by the end of it, we ended up in a maze, and Beckett was not having it. So super cool for them to get to experience one. Even on No Scare Night, it was still too much.

But I think it's humbling for them, 'cause he's ... He'd gotten a little bit cocky with that. Like, he wanted to watch [01:11:00] It, and I was like, "No, buddy, you're not ready." He wants to watch ... I tried to ... I've been going back and watching the old slashers. Nightmare on Elm Street's the worst movie I've ever seen in my life.

That's ... What are we doing? Really? I've never watched it. It's so terrible. I've never watched it. Yeah. It's not good at all. Jason at least, like, I felt like ... Anyway, he wants to try to watch it. I was like, "No, you're not ready." So he ended up having nightmares because of the ... We showed him a picture of Pennywise and then walked through the house.

So yeah, I f- I felt a little bit bad, but also, you know, it's life experience, so. Yeah. We didn't take him to a haunted house and let him get the shit scared out of him. He just went through a no scare house, and it was still too much. My big one for the night is that my, ... I say my, I sound like one of those asshole coaches, but our first grade Jay Bulldogs won their first playoff game.

Huge. And so we're on to the semifinals. We won 13 to seven against ... We were the three seed in our conference. We lost two games, seven to nothing and six to nothing. But, and- Yeah ... we scored ... At, at one point we'd scored 26 touchdowns and we'd allowed [01:12:00] four, and we were the three seed. Like, anyway, just how it works out sometimes, right?

So we got ... We took on the two team two seed from the other tournament, and they were saucy, dude. They had it going. They had coached the crap out of those te- kids, and they had like 21 kids on the team. They were just deep. It was awesome. It was, it was great to watch and see that youth football is on the rise in, in places and those coaches were doing it really well.

That's, like, my biggest fear is letting my kids play is, like, you don't know who they're gonna get. Yes. And I've seen with my own eyes the terrible coaching. Like, we're, we're coached pretty well, and we go get up 19, 20, 21 nothing on a team, and their coaches are just berating these six-year-olds. Like- Dude, you couldn't scheme up a run play to save your life- Yeah

and you're yelling at them because they're executing your crap poorly. Like, what are we- Right. So I've seen what's out there, but watching the other day, I'm gonna give that, that guy, I don't know his name, but super shout out to, to those guys. They were doing it right. Dude, I-formation, under center, split back, g- shotgun.

They threw some [01:13:00] passes, they, you know, every run sc- it was, it was really cool to see. It was really cool to see our defense stop it all. So I'm, I'm super proud of our guys. Like I, we gave up one touchdown. Our kids went to tears, which was... And I had to give them the speech, like, "This is the playoffs, man.

That is the second-best team from the other bracket. They're gonna score, guys. Like, they're really good- Yeah ... at making you look bad or, or, you know, to making you wrong." And so having to reba- and it was, the ref the head ref was very, he was a rules-oriented guy, which I love. It was great to have that there too, a guy that knew the rule book and enforced it.

We actually lost a fumble because we fumbled at the one and then jumped on the ball in the end zone. He's like, "You can't advance it forward." I was like, "Cool. I, I get it. That's in the rules. Like, I, we're not gonna throw a fit over the rules," right? Anyway, he heard me give them the pep talk, like, "Quit crying, man.

They're good." And he was like, "Yeah. Exactly, Coach. Like, that's you're both really good teams, that you went and scored, they didn't cry." Like, anyway. So it was just really big, but man, the, the, it's, it's been... [01:14:00] If you need a refresher in your coaching life, like if it just, there's too much time commitment or what, it's still four days a week, but God, man, go.

If you wanna see, like, the improvement of your, your football world- ... go coach, go coach youth. Go, go put that- Ah ... back. Joe, you're gonna have a decision to make next year when you've got your kid- Ah ... is playing age. Maybe two years. We don't have six-year-old football in Virginia. That's not a thing, I don't think.

Maybe it is. We have, we have, like, first and- You gotta be like in- ... kindergarten play together, and then second through sixth. And then seventh grade is, is high, or is junior high ball, so they go to their school, but. I've, my wife knows that I've, I've said this before, is that he probably will not play in elementary school unless I am the coach, just because I have- Oh, that's 100%

no faith. Here's my playoff- No faith ... playoff-winning hat. Oh. It's, having to put this hat back on, Joe, as you know. You were here when I went through the- I yep ... the Jay [01:15:00] Bulldogs' chaos. And so it's been very funny to go out on their home field, 'cause we had youth football night- Oh, same field, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all on their home field. So it's been, it's been a little hilarious, but- Yeah ... no, no hard feelings towards anybody. It was just, it wa- I was an idiot, didn't know what I was doing and, and overplayed my hand, so. There you go. Let's pay the bills one last time and get out of here, man.

Yeah. Yeah, we'll keep it short. We, we talked more about it at the beginning, and obviously you've made it this far, so you've heard before. Athletic Speed and Movement it is, it just opened up yesterday as of when this episode comes out, and it'll close on Tuesday, November third. Tuesday, November the 3rd, midnight Pacific.

That'll be when the special offer for Athletic Speed and Movement closes. It's gonna be at JoeDanielfootball.com/asam, Athletic Speed and Movement. And it's j- like I said, if you want your kids to play faster, you need it. It's 12 weeks. It's, it's laid out for you. 12 weeks, two days a week. The core program is 12 weeks, two days a week.

Takes about 25 to 30 minutes to run it. You do it at the beginning of your practice time or your weight, weightlifting time. You don't wear your kids [01:16:00] out with it, so you're gonna be able to have just a perfectly normal practice or weightlifting session afterwards. Two days a week, so you're talking less than an hour of commitment a week for 12 weeks.

A- and it's just a, it just changes everything. It literally changes everything. And the way that your kids move on the field, the way that you're gonna start applying it as you learn it, you're gonna start applying it in your drills. You're gonna start seeing it on film. I mean, this shows up. It's not a collection of drills.

It's not track. It's, it's a a formulated progression by somebody who knows more about speed, Dale Baskett, godfather of speed, knows more about speed and football speed training than anybody on the planet, and has formulated it in a way that literally you don't have to know any of that. You just have to do this, and it's

I've talked before about, like, the distances. So it'll be like one, one drill is 20 yards, one drill is 25 yards, and one day, like, after I'd been running this for years and years and years, we was talking about it, and I'm like, "Yeah, you know, we, you know, we [01:17:00] plan it out or whatever." And Dale's like, "No, those distances matter."

He's like, "That is the exact moment, that is the maximum distance that they can go before, on average, the technique breaks down. And so that's how you get the most, is by doing it when it says 18 yards, you do it 18 yards. When it says seven yards, you do it seven yards. When it says 20 yards, you do it 20 yards."

That's the precision, and it's just incredible. It's incredible. It's a program-changing ... I hate game-changer stuff. You know, it's like a buzzword or whatever, but it can literally change your program, the entire program. Because Justin Ottavio, who's been a guest on the Football Coaching Podcast multiple times, talked about he had one kid running a sub 5:40, and then I think he ended up with, like, 19 after going through the program.

I mean, that's a ... Like, what ... Like, that's incredible. So Athletics Speed Movement, JoeDanielfootball.com/asam. Enrollment closes the, the special offer closes midnight Pacific on November, Tuesday night, November 3rd. Love it. S- social [01:18:00] media, I'm @CoachChamboOK on Twitter/X. You can email me at chamberlainfootballconsulting@gmail.com.

Joe is joe@joedanielfootball.com, or joedanielfootball.com, and sign up and get in the chalkboard forums. That's how you get ahold of us. If this is your first time listening to the Football Coaching Podcast, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. You can find us on your favorite podcatcher, especially Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

If you've been listening for a while, please leave a review anywhere. Guys, reviews, if you don't know, reviews is what drives podcasts. So that's t- if you wanna help support the show, that is the number one way to get the word out to more people, is leave us a review. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Football Coaching Podcast, and remember, coach simple, play fast, win.


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