Creating Offensive And Defensive Game Plans

Creating Offensive and Defensive Game Plans

Courtney Meyer Head Coach Concordia University Seward, Nebraska

I

t is a great honor for the Concordia University football coaches and players to be recognized by being asked to present a topic at this year’s convention. We are proud of our affiliation with the NAIA and especially appreciate all the efforts made by the AFCA through Grant Teaff’s leader ship to recognize the great things happening in NAIA football. Concordia, like other NAIA schools has its roots embedded deep in spiritual soil. As a football program, we are privileged to uphold and support the mission of the university, which is to prepare servant-leaders for a life of service to the church and world by providing a Christ-centered education. The football program mission statement is “Sharing Jesus Christ and winning on and off the field.” Program Changes/Improvement I became the head coach at Concordia in 1990. Our program struggled in the early 90’s in the win-loss column. Although our staff worked very hard and long hours, our wins primarily came from our non-conference games. The Nebraska-Iowa Athletic Conference, now the Great Plains Athletic Conference, is a highly competitive one, and we simply needed to raise the bar in order to achieve success. Our president, Orville Walz, also saw the need to make improvements and he challenged me in several different areas. It was also at that time that I recommended that we hire a consultant to take a good hard look at our program. After recommending several successful college coaches, Dr. Walz decided to hire Dr. Ted Kessinger, head coach at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. Ted currently is the winningest active NAIA football coach with over 200 victories and numerous conference championships and play-off appearances. His doctoral dissertation also emphasized recruitment efforts at the college level. In March of 1997, Dr. Kessinger interviewed 28 players, faculty, coaches, administrators, parents and boosters. He submitted a report to our president, which ultimately impacted our program and, in my opinion, was the key factor in turning our program around. Submission of that report resulted in the following changes. • An assistant-head coach position was created and Coach Bill McAllister was hired. • As head coach, I was authorized to

visit two other NAIA schools who had successful recruitment programs (Bethany College and Mid-America Nazarene University in Olathe, KS). • Our scholarship funding was increased. • Our new stadium was being completed. I am particularly grateful that our president acted in a timely way and hired Coach McAllister at semester and immediately we had two coaches on the road recruiting and gearing up for the next season. Our efforts in recruiting went well but our first season as a changed staff didn’t go very well until the end of the year. We won our last three games and ended up 4-5. Since that first year we have steadily improved and this past season went 10-2, won our conference championship and made the playoffs for the first time in the school’s history. Football Program Expectations As a head coach, I am blessed with an outstanding group of coaches. Coach Tim Preuss has been the key guy in formulating our vision and value statements. With a PhD from the University of Nebraska and a former director of admissions, you can see that he is extremely qualified in areas outside of football as well. With his expertise, we have carefully articulated on paper who we are, what we are all about, and what our expectations are. It has been a team effort of Coach Mac, Coach Preuss, and myself to raise the bar for our players in all areas, not just football. In the academic area, we require study hall for all freshmen two nights per week. Once a person reaches a 2.75 G.P.A. they are exempt from study hall. We also monitor their attendance in class by having them submit a grade report signed by each professor in each class. We also monitor their credit hours to ensure completing 12 hours or more per semester. Our team G.P.A. is right at 3.00 and we have had 12 Academic All-Americans the past two seasons. I will simply say that we also have rigorous expectations in the area of training and conditioning and will just leave it at that. Early morning agility workouts, a personalized weight-training program for each player, and nutritional guidelines are also emphasized. We really feel that being at a Christian university we have a great opportunity to have a young deal with the most important question if life, “Is there a God and is Jesus

• Proceedings • 79th AFCA Convention • 2002 •

Christ who He says He is?” As a coaching staff, we are on a united front in sharing our faith and challenging our athletes to personalize their relationship to their Lord. We have weekly devotions on Fridays, often inviting guest speakers. We require chapel attendance at least once a week and encourage players to read the scriptures and spend time in prayer. Coach Mac also leads a Bible study, which is available to all players. I personally believe this is the most important aspect of our program and gives us all a purpose beyond winning and losing on the field. Yearly Theme/Goals Each year we reevaluate our goals and prepare a theme for the year based on a verse in the scripture. We have a weekly meeting in the off-season to dedicate ourselves to one another, the team values, and the commitments necessary to begin a new season. Losing 20 seniors this year will definitely allow new leadership to emerge during those sessions. Staff Roles Although we have a staff of eight position coaches and two graduate assistants, the bulk of the responsibility of our staff rests with myself as the head coach, Coach McAllister and Coach Preuss, the two coordinators. I assume a lot of administrative duties and P.R. type duties, as well as, serving as kicking game coordinator. Coach McAllister serves as recruiting coordinator and offensive coordinator. Coach Preuss is the defensive coordinator and also monitors our academic progress. I have the utmost confidence in Coach Preuss and Coach McAllister in preparing game plans and calling the game on Saturdays. Because of their thoroughness and competence, I am really proud to have them share with your our approach in creative game-planning. Iím sure you will gain some insights from their presentation and hopefully will be able to incorporate some of the ideas for your program.

Tim Preuss, Defensive Coordinator Defensive Game Planning (Off-Season) Our defensive game planning begins in the off-season. Immediately after the season we compile[pile our self-scout information. We do this in two ways. One is a computer analysis that tells us how successful

each call was over the course of the year. We also use the computer to help us identify any formations that gave us trouble. Our video analysis involves breaking down all of our game film by defensive coverage call. We review each coverage tape to determine what strengths we can build on and what needs to be corrected in terms of scheme or technique. We use the information from the selfscouts, along with anticipated schemes, formations and personnel groupings for the next fall to plan our spring football practices. Spring football also shifts our focus to the returning personnel and gives us a chance to evaluate their strengths and limitations. After spring football, we complete a comprehensive review of our playbook. We ask, “why do we need this in our package?” of each scheme, technique and coverage. We don’t want to waste any time teaching and installing things that won’t help us on Saturday! The evaluations of key personnel in spring ball may also factor into the antic ipated character of our defense for the fall. For example, three of the starting DBs from our Nickel package graduate this spring. Some of our coverage planning for next fall will depend on what we see out of the young players we have, particularly the corner position. We used almost exclusively, man pressures this fall. Next year we may have more zone pressures in the mix. Commitments to Our Players In addition to self-scout and personnel issues, we also keep several commitments to our players in mind as we plan. We

promise our players that our plan will be simple so that they can be aggressive and attack the offense. We expect our players to “play smart.” But it is easy to overload players with too many adjustments. We must be especially cautious about this because of our limited meeting time with our players. We meet for 20 minutes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before practice. I am the only defensive coach that is on staff at CU, so our defensive meetings are all full team. Since we also view our practice tape during this time, we have to keep things simple! The second commitment we make to our players is that we will prepare them with a proper scheme and sound technique for everything that they will see on the field. This year we saw it all, from Empty Sets to Maryland I Tight! The final commitment we make to our players is that we will put them is a position to be successful. We do this is a number of ways, such as outnumbering the offense in the box, creating good matchups for pass-rush coverage, and over-matching the tight end. With the self-scout, personnel information and commitments to our players in mind, we proceed to our Calls by Personnel and Field Zone matrix (see Diagram 1). This is an idea that I got from Craig Bohl and the University of Nebraska. Along the top we list all the personnel groupings that we anticipate for the coming year. The first digit indicates the number of backs in the group, the second digit indicates the number of Tight Ends in the group. Below the personnel group we list the formations that we anticipate from that personnel grouping. Along the left side we

Digram 1

Calls By Personnel & Field Zone Base Fronts & Coverages

Man Blitz

10 Doubles Trey Near Open Far Open

11 Trips Spread Near Pro Far Pro Near Twin Far Twin Pro Trips

Bubble 80 Over 9

Bubble 80 Raider 1Q SW 9 OS 9 Down 9 SStab9

Open Husker Over Under w/ 0,4,9 of 11

OB 8 OS 9 O4 Dwn 9, 9H

Bubble Blitzes Sub Blitz Aggie

Bubble Raider 1Q Sub S,D, Triple Aggie

O Bubble Sub Whack Sting

O Bubble Sting Whack Sub

• Proceedings • 79th AFCA Convention • 2002 •

12 20 Ace I Open Pro Trps Tt Split Open Near Tight Far Tight

21 I Twins Spl Twins I Pro Spl Pro

list the elements of our package: our base fronts and coverages, our man-free blitzes, our Cover 0 blitzes, our Zone Blitzes, our short yardage defenses and our goal line package. Once this grid is set, we go through each part of our package versus all the personnel groupings and identify our best calls. This is a lot of work the first time you do it, but it is work that pays big dividends, especially if you involve your whole staff in the process. Once this is done we have the foundation laid for our in-season game planning. Defensive Game Planning (In-Season) As we begin game-week preparation for an opponent, we are mindful of the following four goals. We begin our planning with the idea that we must prevent you from running the football for more than three yards per carry. For us this means outnumbering the offense in the box on virtually every call, especially on run downs. Our second goal is to limit you to a passing efficiency of less than 100. The point of this goal is making you complete the hard throws. We are going to try to outnumber you on the core receivers with Robber concepts, on the perimeter with quarters concepts, or pressure you with man and zone blitzes. These same principles apply in trying to win 70 percent of the conversion downs. A key element for us in winning conversion downs is trying to fool your quarterback. We sell our kids on the concept of fooling alignments and then give them the freedom to come up with their own fool alignments. We want to run straight zone, straight man, show blitz while playing zone and show zone while actually blitzing. We also want to win 70 percent of the time in the Red Zone. For us, this means denying the touchdown 70 percentof the time inside the 20-yard line. Keys for us here are examining your tendencies from the 0-5, the 6-10 and the 11-20 and then replicating this in practice both in team time and 7-on-7 pass. We practice some from of Red Zone or goal line everyday. The NAIA stats include only the regular season. I am pleased to say that we met all four of these goals for the season, and each was a key in our leading the GPAC in scoring defense at 9.4 points per game. Scouting With our goals clearly in mind, we begin the preparation for each opponent by

breaking down three game films. We will also look at the previous years film, especially if a lot of the skill position players are back. We do our computer breakdown using the Digital Scout product and then downloading the information into a laptop. All of our coaches are involved in film breakdown. Coach Sirek, our secondary coach, charts the opponents pass routes, especially noting break depths and any variations from our route tree. Coach Sean Martens, our defensive ends coach, charts our opponents run-blocking schemes. Coach Harold Pester, our defensive line coach, analyzes and evaluates your pass protection schemes and quarterback escape routes. Finally, Coach McLean, our Scout Offense Coach also watches the film with us. Together we translate our opponents schemes into our terminology, being careful to note differences in technique, stance, splits, etc. By using a script with our own offenses terminology, we eliminate cards for the scout team and get the maximum number of reps in during our practices. Scouting When the computer breakdown is available, we focus on analyzing your most frequent running plays. We look at the passing attack by field zones. We then go back and analyze both running and passing attacks by the formations you are using. We pay special attention to numeric strength vs. our calls. This means that we need to consider all your shifts, motions, trades, etc., making sure that the rules and adjustments built into our system are holding up. Next we seek to create favorable personnel match-ups. For example, we will attempt to isolate our best rusher on your weakest protector. We use several strategies to try to eliminate the tight end side run and play action (reducing on that side and rolling the secondary strong, playing a wide nine while pressing the tight end are two of our favorites). If you have a stud receiver, we will develop several ways to double cover him (two deep-man under, double with the hole player from Robber, Double from Quarters are some examples). The bottom line is that we want to take away your best stuff and make you try to beat us with your other schemes and other players. Practice Planning For me, Practice Planning and developing the call sheet (which becomes our

game plan) are a simultaneous process that continues during the week. On Sunday, we break down the film and print out the computer reports. On Monday, we hand out our scouting reports and do a walk through of your basic attack. If we anticipate using any new adjustments or schemes we introduce them here, so the players are ready to go with it for Tuesday’s practice. We include an inside run, outside run, pass rush vs. pass pro, 7-on-7 and team time on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. With our top priority of stopping the run, the inside run period is the most productive portion of our practice day in and day out. We scrimmage everything we plan to use against your base running game. On Tuesday we look at our base fronts and line stunts. On Wednesday, we use the same script against our Man-Free blitzes. On Thursday we look at your run game vs. our Cover 0 and Zone blitzes. We also get in at least 10 more snaps of base defense on Thursday. We get a maximum of 75 reps in during this period during the week. This limits what we can do, because we promise our players we won’t run things we haven’t prepped in practice (this is my defense when my coaches come back from clinics with 27 new ideas-“That looks good, what are we going to take out?”). Developing the Call Sheet (Process) We started the week with the fronts, stunts, blitzes and adjustment off of our Calls by Personnel matrix shown earlier, plus any new adjustments due to changes in your scheme or personnel. A f t e r Tuesday’s practice tape is evaluated, I start to put together the call sheet. We eliminate any calls that didn’t look good in practice. We add in the down and distance tendencies that you have including, run percent, favorite plays and formations in the middle of the field. In the Red Zone and at the goal line, we also look at your favorite plays and formations and include that on the call sheet. One of the keys for us is to make sure that we are playing against the opponent’s quarterback and not their offensive coordinator. To do this we strive for a good mix of coverages, fools, base calls and blitzes. If we can create confusion in the mind of the opposing players we can destroy the aggressiveness and execution.

• Proceedings • 79th AFCA Convention • 2002 •

Developing the Call Sheet (Principles) Additional considerations in developing the call sheet include giving our players a chance to use their strengths frequently. I rely on my position coaches to evaluate this aspect. (“Coach, Robbie’s nine-tech is improving and he sure gets a better rush that way. Let’s use that some more on medium distance calls.”) The way that we get everyone on the same page, literally, is that I distribute a draft of the call sheet to the coaches on Wednesday. They let me know of any changes they would like to see and we review the final copy with our players on Thursday at our pre-practice meetings. Diagram 2 is an example of the Call Sheet that we use defensively. The top portion of the sheet is devoted to defending plays outside the Red Zone. The first column contains the down and distance and run percentage on that down. The next column lists your favorite runs and passes for that down and distance while the third column has your favorite sets. We use this information as a condensed version of our scouting report that our players can use to relate their scouting report to our play calling. The base defenses, coverages, line stunts and blitzes are selected because they are good against the plays and sets you have shown on that particular down and distance. Any time your run percentage is 50 percent or less, we will consider that down a potential Nickel down. We were actually a

Diagram 2 CU Defensive Call Sheet D+D

Favorite Run and Pass

Favorite Sets

1&10 R%60

52-53 Get (18) 700 Pass (16) Play Action (7) 50-51 CtBack (6)

Spread (13) Twins (10) Race (8) Pro (5)

2&S (0-3) R%75

58-59OZone (3) Waggle (2) 24-25FBPwr (2)

Pro(4) Tight (2) Sprd, Trps (1)

2&M (4-6) R%88 2&L (7+)N R%40

Opponenet: Base Defenses HStack4 93 4 UD4/8 UStack

HStackPwr4F SBSw1, OBMBr1, OMB1F HStab9F Sting 11S, SubBl11S, SWGoScrew9F Whack 11W, HPwr9F WB2F, 50Sub11S SScrew9H

MBW2SpF Whack11W SubB11SubF

50-51 CtBack (3) Spread (3) 24 Pwr (1) Trips (1) 58 Ozone (4) Tight (1)

S9 50 4F UD4/8

HPwr9F 50 Tex 4F SWGoScrew9F

MBCross2Sp TB1F SubJet11Sub, SubB11S

Waggle (9) 700/900 (7) 59 Ozone (4)

Spread (13) Pro (9) Trips (4)

H9F 50 4F S11F

50Jet4, S Tkl9F HSwap9, S Pwr9 SStab9F

MBMW2SpF SubJet11Sub, Sub B11S OBMBr1, OMBStab1F

3&S 12 Sneak (3) (0-3) 58 Ozone (1) R%100 53 Get (2)

Mrylnd I (4) Tight (3) Twins (1)

D9H

DPinch9H

TB1F BallisticMWF MBMW2SpF

3&M (4-6)N R%33

900 (1) 18 Sprint (1) 700 (1)

Spread (13) Race Gun (1) Pro (1)

S9F 50 Dime H9Man

HDetroit9F HSwap9 HTkl9ManF

Whack11W TB1F, DB1, SubB11S WB2, MBTl2Sp

3&L (7+)N R%13

700 (18) Play Action (7) Draw/Scm (4)

Race Gun (8) S9F HDetroit9F Race (3) 50 Dime HSwap9ManF Twn/Tite (3) S 11Match SStab9F H9Man

4&S 12 Sneak (1) (0-3) 22 Wedge (1) R%100

Mrylnd I (2)

D9H Gap Six

4-2-5 defense this past year since we used our Nickel package over 65 percent of the time. With this format, each player affected by a Nickel substitution can see what downs we plan to use the Nickel or Dime on and be alert for those substitutions. Once the ball penetrates the 20-yard

Goal Line: 9 = Panther from 15 in.

In Ballistic Rv has pitch, FS play Raider 1Q - take QB each way

1&5 R%100 2&S (0-3)

13 Veer (1) 19 Keep (1) 53 Get (1) 22 Wedge (1)

D9P

D Pwr 9P

D9P

3=DPwr9P <3=DPinch9P

2&M (4-6) 2&L (7+)N

6 to 10 Wedge (2) Mrylnd I (2) 58-59 Ozone (2) Tight (1) 12Vr Z Rev (1) Pro (1)

D9P

D Pwr 9P

S9P

SPwr9P

3&S (0-3) 3&M (4-6)N

11 to 20 Wedge (2) Play Action (2) 700 (4)

Gap Six D9P

3=DPwr9P <3=DPinch9P D Pwr 9P

Ballistic MB2Sp Ballistic WB2

3&L (7+)N

S9P

SPwr9P

Ballistic, MB2Sp WBB2

4&S (0-3)

Gap Six

3=DPwr9P <3=DPinch9P

Ballistic MB2Sp

Pro (2) Race (3) Race Gun (3)

Blitzes

H9F

Diagram 3

Mrylnd I (2) Tight (1) Pro (1)

In-Line Stunts

Ballistic, MBMW2Sp WBB2 Ballistic MB2Sp Ballistic, MBMW2Sp WBB2 Ballistic, MB2Sp WBB2

DPinch9H

WB (Twist, Black)2F Ballistic F Whack11W, DBSw1 MBMW2SpF, Sub11SF MBMW2SpF

line we switch to the next segment of the call sheet (see Diagram 3) that includes the play calls for the Red Zone and goal line. This section in Red is the top plays from the five on in. In orange are the plays run from the six to the 10 and in gold are the ones run from the 11 to the 20. Again, the next column contains the sets used to run those plays. Again, we select our calls based on what we expect to see. We try to have a complete goal line package with a minimum of calls. We have four calls that are the core of our goal line defense that we rep every week. We pick one or two other calls if there is a reason to do so based on your attack and add them to this sheet. Keeping it simple works! Our kids knew what we were going to run, they believed in it and made it work. We only gave up four rushing touchdowns in a 10-game regular season. Preparation and planning really pay off in this area! There a number of other important considerations that we include in the last section of our call sheet. Punt Safe (see Diagram 4) refers to the call we will use if we anticipate a fake punt. Prevent is our prevent defense, we only use this if we can give up 10 yards for every six seconds left.

• Proceedings • 79th AFCA Convention • 2002 •

Diagram 4 Punt Safe PAT/FG Blocks Strong 4 HR; HL; NR; NL

Formation Checks 50 4 Bump with motion

Personnel GL: Hiner in for Sam

egories. We group the blitzes into two groups: inside and outside. (See Diagram 7 on page 81)

Prevent Middle (into wind, MOF, long kick) Play all Blitzes 50: Same as 43 this week S9Prevent PAT Default call: D9P MIT=93 9 in MOF (play it at GL) Nickel: Albert to Rv

Formations The next area is going to be to evaluate a team’s defenses vs. different formations. Last Play Two Minute Hash Mark Trips = 9 Special Troy to Sam We end with an overview of their blitz packLast Play S9; S9F; Aggie HSlant9 50 4 checks to H9 vs One Back Dime: Chuck=W, T out age and overall coverages. Last play is the call we intend to use for the games we have reached them all. We feel This information is included in their last play of a game or half. if we can be close in all categories we will scouting report, distributed on Mondays PAT and FG blocks are my responsibili- win the game. The last goal (Knock downs) along with a quiz that must be completed ty. Each week we list the blocks that we may be the most important, as it gives us a and turned in by Thursday to be able to have prepared. Our PAT default call is a measuring stick as to our effort. When we play on Saturday. We will also give a test call to use if we get surprised by someone measure Knock downs we want to have on Fridays after our team devotions (see going for two. We also have sections for more knockdowns than offensive plays. Diagram 8 on page 81). our two-minute drill calls, hash mark Our best is 124 in one game. The information that is on the tendency defense of the week, formation checks and charts is then placed on our game plan Diagram 5: Offensive Goals personnel changes we anticipate. This call which is put on a folder. Down the left hand sheet is reviewed with the players on column is the down and distance. Right Thursday and then they are tested over it Win + 1 Turnovers under it is our opponent’s top-two defenses after our team meeting and devotion on 5 Big Plays 35% 3rd down on that particular down and distance. The Friday. 24 pts. 385 Yds. next column to the right is our opponent’s 5 yds. per carry 50% 4th down blitz tendencies followed in the next column Some final thoughts on planning Time of Poss. 20 – 1st Downs by their coverage tendencies. Game planning is a lot of work, but it is 55% pass eff. Knock downs The numbers in the fourth column corwork that has a big payoff. In closing, I relate to our quarterback wristbands. We would like to share two of my favorite CU Tendencies then have a run column, followed by a quotes on the value of planning. First, from The following information (see Diagram pass column. If the numbers that correProverbs 16.4: “Commit your plans to the 6 on page 81) is given to our players on late to the wristband are highlighted, it is Lord, and you will succeed.” And secondly, Mondays before our walk-through practice. a tendency we need to break. The last from President Dwight D. Eisenhower: This is followed by the game plan on column is any special plays followed by “Plans are nothing, planning is everything!” Wednesdays. We start by looking at our our opening series. Within this game plan It has been said that one must “plan own tendencies. The major areas we are all our shifts and motions that we your work and then work your plan.” As you examine are; our formations, down and dis- think can give us a numerical advantage do this, remember that your plans are noth- tance, field zones, to and away from tight (see Diagram 9 on page 81). ing, but the young men you have been end, total pass to run ratio and passing The columns are consistent across the entrusted with are worth everything. Enjoy zones of the field. We will also look at our sheet. The new areas or game situations the journey with them and have a positive tendencies whenever we are shifting or are Red Zone and Goal line. Down the impact on them. Thanks again for this using motion. Each area is evaluated right column are the game situations; opportunity and God bless. based on running and passing along, with coming out of our end zone, last three running to the strength or weakness of the plays when we are behind, last four plays Bill McAllister, Offensive Coordinator formation. It is our desire to be unpre- when wevahead (clock plays). The botOffensive Game Planning dictable, and balanced in our approach. tom of this sheet includes our top play First I want to acknowledge the rest of During our quarterback meetings on action, our rocket offense (hurry up) and our staff that helps with our offensive game Wednesdays I am able to use these graphs screens (see Diagram 10 on page 82). plan. and percentages to paint a clear picture for Inside the folder on the right side is Coach Thies writes profiles on defen- the QB as to where are the best percent- our running game. Each play is followed sive backs. Coach Zhart breaks down our age passes. by the different formations that we can film by formations, field zones, and blitzes. run the play from. Key plays and formaI then confer with Coach Preuss, as to how Front Blitz Coverage tions are then highlighted. Plays run to time management is best going to fit our The next phase is very common and I the left are in blue and plays to the right game., i.e. do we need to reduce the num- am sure most all programs do this. We are in red. This sheet is more of a perber of plays by both teams or is it going to break down three or more films of our sonnel sheet. We want to highlight the be a game that we need 35 points to win. opponents, and our previous year’s game. personnel match-ups that we feel are in We start the season with team goals We break the film down in the following cat- our best interest (see Diagram 11 on that will enable us to reach our ultimate egories: Overall Fronts, Coverage’s, and page 82). goal of winning all of our games. These Blitzes. Then we proceed to down and disOn the left hand side of the folder is goals are very attainable and in some tance information based on the above cat- our passing game. The layout is the

• Proceedings • 79th AFCA Convention • 2002 •

same as the running game. Each pass is followed by the different formations that the play can be run from (see Diagram 12 on page 82). The play-action passing game is followed by our drop back passing game (see Diagram 13 on page 82). On the back of the folder are our Keys to the Game. These are reminders, as to what we need to do to be successful. Followed are diagrams of our base formations, with the anticipated defense lightly shaded in. The last thing on the game plan is my pregame talk, I say the same thing every game, (I got this from the coach at Midland Lee HS in Texas) get off

the ball, low man wins, squeeze the apple, speed wins the game, the best team does not always win and remember we have an audience of One (AO1). This leads us into our practice schedule. The importance of practicing well lead to playing well. Our AO1 is Jesus Christ, as he is with us everyday, and we don’t rely on a big crowd to play hard (see Diagram 14 on page 82). To close this up, the game plan is completed on Tuesday night and the next three days we will work different aspects of our game plan. Including Red Zone, Goal Line, Third & Long, Blitz Pickup, Coming Out, Two-point plays etc. We believe that prac-

ticing the situation is a key for our success (see Diagram 15 on page 82). Conclusion It has been a great honor for our staff to share a few ideas with you today. I want to thank our coaches for their key role in this presentation and especially thank you, coaches, for giving us your time and attention this morning. I hope that all of you have the opportunity to work with the type of young men that we do at Concordia. Coaching football with a special group of coaches and players is a rare privilege that we enjoy at Concordia. Best wishes to each of you!

Diagram 6

Diagram 7

Diagram 8

Diagram 9

• Proceedings • 79th AFCA Convention • 2002 •

Diagram 10

Diagram 11

Diagram 12

Diagram 13

Diagram 14

Diagram 15

• Proceedings • 79th AFCA Convention • 2002 •