The Greatest Comeback That Never Was

I was looking back at an old post from 2006 while fixing some old messed-up video links and ran across the link below... (   Click on link for related video)

Plano East VS John Tyler 1994 - Fantastic Finish

After watching the video on Youtube, a related video popped up leading to the video short, "The Greatest Comeback That Never Was."




Enjoy.


Coach Smith

Blast from the Past Part II

Back to 2004 Middlesboro High School Split Back Veer.  An (almost) all freshman O-Line, too, if memory serves.






Here are most of the O Cuts from the Whitesburg game from 2004.

Blast from the Past Part I

This section is devoted to the Flexbone Option we ran at Campbell County High School cica 2008.

This is a copy of the highlight film.  I may have to encode it minus sound if Google chokes on the music on the original.  Fingers crossed.

NCAA Realizes SEC is back in the National Title Hunt

I have mixed feelings about some topics used in a comedic way, and once you begin watching the clip below, you'll know what I'm talking about...  not going to spoil the surprise for you.  I'm going to set aside my reservations and post this regardless.

Sometimes it's just too damned funny not to.

Coach Smith

Football Coaching Podcast

While on Coach Wyatt's excellent Double Wing site, http://www.coachwyatt.com/ , I ran across another nice football coaching site.

Try out    http://www.footballcoachingpodcast.com/.  You will enjoy the interviews and the informal yet informative style of the authors/webmasters.  Recommended. 

Coach Smith

Against My Better Judgement...

I got back into coaching this season.  After a two-year hiatus, I decided to help a small middle school program that was on the skids get back on it's feet.  After graduating about ten great eighth grade athletes which ran what anecdotally  looked to be twins-open gun and a playlist which consisted of sweep right, sweep left, and go long, the former non-teaching staff was let go prior to Spring Practice.  With no spring ball and no coach hired at the end of school, I knew what to expect.

It didn't make it any easier.

With a great plan on how thirty kids and a staff of two or three coaches could run an energetic, high-energy, up-tempo practice, I started out with fourteen kids...  many of which obviously hadn't spent much time on the field last season.  Worse, I found that many players had been urged to transfer to a bigger nearby middle school or just not to play.  And with no one walking the halls during the last week or so of school to counteract it, it had worked.  Another problem was that in a league where the biggest teams would two-platoon two sets of eighth graders and a seventh grader wouldn't see the field until it was out of hand.

I had pretty much given up on running the option at the middle school level - especially with no spring ball and no prior assessment of talent.  But I knew that we would have to run something different and something that would run the clock in order to have a snowball's chance of winning at all.  I had ideas in the back of my head of running some form of double option later in the season if the QB had some wheels but I needed something that was simple, effective, and might give us an edge.  I had a decent QB that was tall and could throw a long ball, but there was only one other kid besides him that could catch reliably.  And he was the best running back.  I could sell-out and build a whole offense around these two...  multiple sets with the fast kid here, there, everywhere, but I've been coaching too long to fall for that trap.  What happens when the great athlete gets hurt or sick?  What are you going to do then?

I decided to go back to my early coaching roots and run the Tight Double Wing ala Wyatt and Markham.  It involves all the players - not just a select few - and makes all the players - even the QB - block.  It involves the line like no other offense besides the option and you are teaching valuable skills to all positions that they can be used at the high school level.  I was worried about not having at least one tight end that could catch as that had been how I had really hurt teams in the past running this offense on the freshman and high school level.

By our first game we had Power to motion (pulling both G and Tk), Power against motion (again pulling both G and Tk) , FB Wedge, and PlayPass.  As the season progressed, we got better at those little by little...  added the Counter Trey (pulling G and Tk), the Criss-Cross backfield action, and a couple of sprint-out passes from Trips.  Towards the end of the season, I moved the QB and a WB to TE in order to get some play-action passing going on, and added a couple of unbalanced formations - without really adding any more blocking schemes or plays,  We could turn our Powers and Down plays into quasi-options by having the QB keep instead of pitching and leading. 
But we were outgunned and out manned in each and every game and in the end we always came up short.  Way short.  We didn't score many points or play much defense until the last two games, the first, where we put up 28 points in a 56-28 loss and the second, where we scored another 28 points in the second half after being deadlocked at zero at halftime.  That was our only win...  and it was the lowly FB wedge that broke it wide-open.  The trick seemed to be running it with the WB motion and the QB faking to 1st the motion Wing and then the stationary WB second coming back around as well - sort of the old Wing-T three-way look.  The entire defense was watching all the backfield faking while our quick FB followed the wall before breaking off and running past the surprised safety fifteen yards down the field.  Our big WB kept pounding off tackle on the Powers and our fast WB broke a long TD run on a Counter-Trey. In the end, our FB had over 150 yards on four huge wedge plays - three for touchdowns.  But it was the line - pulling and grinding the defense down with long, sustained drives that was the ultimate reason for our success.

How did it work?  We went 1 - 7.  Was it the offense?  No.  Was it being the smallest team in the league starting the greatest number of 6th graders and the fewest number of 8th graders?  Probably.  We were terrible on defense primarily due to me not wanting to beat up a small squad (21 by the end of the season) running Oklahoma drills every day...  and having a deficit athletically - which always shows up more on defense.  You can formation and block and trick your way past some of that on offense, but on defense, it's all reaction and shedding blocks and running to the ball and making the tackle.   With a tackling bag we can practice shedding and then form tackling... knock the crap out of  a bag that won't get injured will help.  Doing a ton of power cleans in the off-season will also help with our aggressiveness and tackling.

The booster club is working on getting a two-man blocking sled and a big tackling bag.  We're going to build two or three power clean stations and pull some big tractor tires in the offseason.  And with some help, we'll be able to safely work the smaller kids more in practice with the proper instead of bigger kids and get them more involved by spot playing and on special teams.

We have around 250 kids in the middle school... leaving about 125 boys split between the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades...  that's about 40 boys per class...  and if we can get one-third of each class out...  that would amount to about 13 boys per class with decent participation....  leading to about 35 to 40 boys out for football.  If I can get that number of kids out and get an actual JV group about 3 games of their own...  two-platoon 80% of our 8th and better 7th graders...  then, we will start having sustained success.

We'll see.

Coach Smith

Coach Kenny Roark Has Passed Away

My friend Kenny Roark has passed away.  He was 54.  Please remember his wife, Teresa and their two children, Ashley and Chase in your prayers.

Kenny was a great friend and if he ever met a stranger, I missed it.  Despite his success as a player and coach, he was a very humble and down to earth guy.  The man would quite literally give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.  There is a long line of players and coaches who are better for knowing him, and I'm glad to say that I had the opportunity to become friends with him during my time at Middlesboro.

My memory of him will be this:  He was a man who loved his friends and family... and believed in keeping them close and enjoying the time he had together with them.  I guess he knew exactly what I'm feeling now - that time is indeed too damned short.

He will be missed.








Story as Kentucky.com




Kenny Roark

Veersite Is On-Hold Indefinitely

I will not be monitoring or adding to this site for the foreseeable future.  I also will not be replying to emails.  This is mostly due to a family illness. I’m also very tired of dealing with ever-increasing hassle of staying in coaching.   Lately I’ve seen too many quality coaches be replaced with men of lesser integrity and ability and I’m not digging the thoughts going to war with ‘em. 

I simply don’t need the hassle badly enough to put up with the bull at present.

I will try to fix the video links sometime in the near future but after that i have no plans to add content to Veersite.

You are welcome to use anything you find here.  I hope it helps.

Sincerely,

Steve Smith 8/15/11

Game Footage

Several years ago I decided to use Google Video to store the clips I use on Veersite. My thought process was simple - Google is one of the "800 pound gorillas" of the Internet, right? My videos will be there for as long as Google was around... probably a long, long time.

Wrong.

Google bought Youtube and before you know it they won't accept new video uploads to Google Video. However, Google infused a lot of cash and upgrades to Youtube, reducing it's Suck Quotient and making it a more attractive host for video content. At least for me.

Well, according to Google, all video content hosted on it's old Google Video servers will cease to be available on April 29. That's a few weeks from today.

I will do my best to fix the clips so that they remain available without interruption on Veersite.

However, I have no timetable on when this will happen except that it will be in the next 3 weeks.

So if you click on a video link in the next few weeks and it doesn't work - don't worry. In a matter of a few weeks the situation should be resolved.

Coach Smith

Note: As I feared, the web filter at work blocks access to Google Video and I have no other access to high-speed internet for another 2 weeks. This may take a while.

2011 Georgia Southern University Spring Coaches Clinic

Spring is almost here and that means…

CLINIC TIME!

Georgia Southern is having their annual Coach’s Clinic April 1st and 2nd on the beautiful GSU campus in Statesboro, GA.

Coming off a great 10 – 5 playoff season, Coach Monken and his staff proved that the triple option is truly the heart and soul of GSU football – and you’ll not find a better venue to improve as a spread option coach.

At the GSU Coach’s Clinic you’ll find a staff that’s taken a program in trouble, installed the option, and in a single season and blasted GSU back as a frontrunner in the Southern Conference. The GSU coaching staff will have plenty of sage advice to help your program implement the explosive GSU option offense and stingy GSU defense!

Nuff Said. Clear out your schedule for the first week of April and prepare to learn from men who have “been there, done that, and bought the tee shirt.”

---

Brochure 2011
2011 Supplement

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Coach Smith

An Interesting Diversion...

I found a site here that produces "Word Clouds" from text. (gotta pass this on the the English Department!) Anyway, it's kind of fun gauging the content of the text simply by looking at a graphical representation using the words used.

My last two posts on Veersite got the word cloud treatment below.

As a fun aside I took a word cloud of the Presidential speech last night and compared it to Patton's speech to the Third Army on June 5th 1944. Terminology has changed since WWII.

Like I said... and interesting diversion.

Patton's Speech... which in my opinion is the best speech I've read concerning the matter.

Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball player, the toughest boxer. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.

Now, an Army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating.

We have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit and the best men in the world. You know, by God I actually pity those poor bastards we’re going up against. By God, I do. We’re not just going to shoot the bastards, we’re going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel.

Now, some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you will all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood. Shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do.

Now there’s another thing I want you to remember. I don’t want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We’re not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we’re not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're gonna go through him like crap through a goose.

There’s one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home. And you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what did you do in the great World War II, you won’t have to say, "Well, I shoveled shit in Louisiana."

Alright now, you sons-of-bitches, you know how I feel. Oh, and I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle – anytime, anywhere.

That’s all.

Using The Freeze And Belly Options As An Introduction To The Option (part 2)

Chalk it up, mark it in your calendars – this is the day when Coach Steve Smith said, “no, I don’t think you need to run the Triple Option, guys.”

What’s this world coming to?

Okay, here come the caveats, men.  By all means, drop everything and start running the Triple - if you manage to hire a couple of coaches who have experience installing and running it.  But if you’re an old Wing-T coach, or Spread Gun Coach who hasn’t had a QB under center for years, and you don’t magically have a few new hires who are God’s Gift to installing the option, then you might want to calm down and consider a less radical approach.

All things considered, unless you’re just blessed with all things happening at just the right time, such as the planets aligning or such, then you might want to put the Triple on hold for a while and start off by putting your toe in the water – not holding your nose and jumping in off the deep end.  In your current offense, you may already have the makings of a nice called-dive and double option package.  So let’s take a look at some of the possibilities and see if this makes any sense.  If you do and if it does, then you may find out that running “an” option (or two) can be almost as good as running “the” option.

The Belly Option Series:

Basis – I’m not sure of the exact origin of the Belly Series, but it looks like something a Wing-T coach cooked-up somewhere along the line.  (It wouldn’t surprise me if those guys at Delaware didn’t dream it up.) The whole notion of the Belly Dive appeals to me due to the old quote attributed to Lou Holtz.  “Easy to Read, Hard to Block  -- Hard to Block, Easy to Read.”  Stemming and slanting teams can make an option coach’s life hell if he doesn’t have an answer ready to dial in.  But if you consider that quote and what it says, then you can begin to see why a simple play like the Belly Dive can be a great supplementary play for an option team.  The defense is trying to blow-up your QB’s reads – but in doing so it can provide easy angle and fan blocks for the linemen… while the LB’s and DB’s still have to play their assignments and can’t just run to the ball.  So even when you’re not actually running the Triple Option, the threat of it can assist you nonetheless.

But I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the Belly Dive and Belly Option can be the meat of the offense – and not just the potatoes.  I’ve seen huge gains made on simple dive plays made by option teams facing defenses hell-bent on stopping the option.  The same goes for the Rocket Toss – when you get a 5 and 9 tech pinching so hard that they are helpless against a simple pitch to a wingback motioning to the perimeter.  But why were they pinching so hard to start with – to get heat on the QB.. trying to give him hot 1st and 2nd reads in succession so he will make a bad read. As for a counter play, either the Counter Trey or the Sally complement the backfield action of the Belly Dive and Belly Option well.

But the Belly Series isn’t the only one available for those seeking to ease into running the option.  Attacking right up the gut is the Freeze Option Series – which like the Belly Option – eliminates the QB’s dive read and takes the pressure off making a correct read right after the snap.  Like the Belly Option, the QB has some time before making a pitch or keep read- and doesn’t have to worry about defenses forcing him to make two correct reads quickly.  Between the two series, I like the Freeze a little more. By using some different backfield motions and actions, both the called FB dive and the perimeter Double Option can be used as counter plays as well.  If you’ve seen Navy’s or GSU’s Counter Option, then you’ve seen pretty much seen the Counter Freeze Option.

Hey, any time I can teach two plays to my linemen yet make the defense think we’re running as many as six different ones (using sets and motions), I’m going to do it.

Okay, now you’ve heard my reasoning.  In the next installment, we’ll look at some diagrams and see how the Belly and Freeze Series can help you get some option into the mix.

(to be continued)

Using The Freeze And Belly Options As An Introduction To The Option (part 1)

If you’re a coach who is thinking of installing the option for next season, you may want to read the following.

First, let me say that I think that without a doubt, the one offensive system that gives most teams an edge over their opponents year in and year out is the option.  If you ask defensive coordinators any time any where what the most difficult offense is to defend, nine out of ten will reply, “the option.”  The main reasons seem to be the difficulty in preparing for it…  forcing the defense to play assignment football… forcing the defense into fewer and simpler coverages – making them susceptible to the play action pass.   The reasons are many…  yet few coaches opt to run the option - even as teams like Georgia Tech, Georgia Southern, Navy, Army, and Air Force rack up the wins running various flavors of it. I found myself asking why this is the case and came up with the following:

1.  It’s not the Spread Gun, The Wing T, or the Power I.  As coaches, we know what we know and not many head coaches are familiar with the system.  Many guys just don’t know enough about the offense to stick their necks out for it.

2.  It’s hard to teach.  This is a deceptive statement, as I strongly feel that once a good coach is familiar with the offense and the drills and skills necessary to become proficient, the option is no harder to teach than the Spread Gun or the Wing T systems.  But until you are proficient, there is a danger of “getting in over your head” with the offense… and there are many misconceptions and pitfalls that can trip-up a rookie option staff.

3.  Coaches don’t want to sell-out to the option.  No other system is predicated on making the defense stop one play as is the option offense.  Almost all the supplementary plays take advantage of the defense “robbing Peter to pay Paul” in order to stop your base play – be it the Inside Veer, the Midline, or even the Outside Veer.  You have to commit to learning – and running- your base play over and over and over again until it is ran to perfection – each player knowing what do do and every adjustment needed to counter defensive tactics used to stop it.  But many coaches insist on hedging their bets – spending hours of practice time getting in the Gun, or Power I, or whatever they turn to when things just aren’t going their way.

4.  Knowledge.  With the advent of several option groups springing up on the Net (and even sites like this one) finding our specifics on running the option has never been as easy as it is today.  That said, like any offense, there is much detail and expert knowledge that goes with coaching it well- and there simply is no substitute for experience.  Since the option isn’t ran half as much as any of the other popular systems of today, finding coaches that have spent time coaching the option can be a challenge.  A line coach that has spend half a career coaching zone blocking and pass setting is facing a huge paradigm shift when switching to the option.  Size and heft take a backseat to quickness off the ball and knowing who to block.  An OC that’s used to running the Tony Franklin system is no doubt mystified when he sees an option QB has thrown for over 1,000 yards in a season – mostly using simple two -and sometimes single- receiver routes.  And what’s keeping them from being eaten alive by the blitz – look at how small that O-line is! Heh…  I’ve heard all that… and more.  Those of us that have run the option know the reasons why, but to a novice option OC, all this can seem like a mystery.

5.  It takes athletes.  Many coaches like to use the excuse, “well, I just don’t have the kind of hosses it takes to run the option.”  While it’s true that great athletes can make almost any coach look like a genius (well, almost any), No other offense has the potential of spreading the ball around like the option.  The fact that the option coach can truthfully claim not to know who’s going to get the ball each time he calls the bread and butter play is the single best argument I can make.  And if great athletes are all it takes to win, how can Navy and the other service academies manage to play with so many teams where their players couldn’t even get a scholarship?

So having given you 5 good(?) reasons NOT to make the Triple Option the linchpin of your offense, you’re probably wondering when I’m going to start telling you to drop everything you know and start running it.  And that would be the funny part.

I’m not.

(to be continued)

Condredge Holloway

 

Great article on Holloway…  who always left it on the field.

Link:  http://instalawyer.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-happened-to-come-across-this-while.html

ESPN Link: http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/index?id=6123998

Wikipedia Info:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condredge_Holloway

Over a Dozen Football Players Hospitalized - Possibly Due To Supplements.. Certainly Due To Stupidity

A bunch of Iowa Hawkeyes have to be hospitalized after an "intense" workout.

Read about it here:

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/01/27/13-univ-of-iowa-players%E2%80%94-1-from-md-%E2%80%94hospitalized/

Lessee... pump 'em ful of creatine and literally run the piss outta them. What could possibly go wrong?

I wish I could say that this moronic behavior was an isolated instance in the coaching profession.

Hopefully after that careful "internal investigation," somebody will get handed their walking papers. It's just a frigging game.

Coach Smith

House Cleaning

I went through the links along the right-hand side and got rid of any dead links I found.

Notes:

The Flexbone Association home page re-do looks very, very good. Nicely done and professional.

The Flexbone Message Forums went pay-to-play. I have mixed emotions concerning charging for advice, but people deserve to be compensated for time, resources and effort. I don't charge... so if the advice I give you is crap, I can say, " hey, you get what you pay for!!!"

You can easily find the forums by going to the Flexbone homepage and looking around... Great group of guys over there. I'm sure I'll join at some point in time, but for now I have some other things to tend to. Coach Jaz and Coach Cella will run good site.

Rich Kelly has started the OFS Forum (Option Football Society) over and Proboards. You have to register (a necessary evil to eliminate spam) but it's free so I'm linking to it. It has sections dealing with Split Back Veer, Flexbone, Wishbone, and Shotgun option systems. We'll see how it does... and remember, the quality of the forum reflects the quality of the coaches participating on it. I'm glad to see another board out there since Rolling Thunder faded away along with the MegaClinic's board.

I know I still owe a couple of you coaches some DVD's and I promise to come through for you... perhaps before you retire. I have my main system back up and running so I can copy DVD's again. I'll email you when they are in the mail...

That's all for now,

Coach Smith

Quote of the Month

Saw this today while reading the News You Can Use" section at Coach Wyatt's excellent Double Wing site,

WWW.COACHWYATT.COM

"Watching the spread (shotgun) offense in high school is like watching touch football at a picnic."

- submitted by reader

I think that sums it up nicely.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're not checking out Coach Wyatt's site, you're missing out on one of the best football sites on the Net.

Coach Smith

Quote of the Month

Saw this today while reading the News You Can Use" section at Coach Wyatt's excellent Double Wing site,

WWW.COACHWYATT.COM

"Watching the spread (shotgun) offense in high school is like watching touch football at a picnic."

- submitted by reader

I think that sums it up nicely.

Coach Smith

Quote of the Month

Saw this today while reading the News You Can Use" section at Coach Wyatt's excellent Double Wing site,

WWW.COACHWYATT.COM

"Watching the spread (shotgun) offense in high school is like watching touch football at a picnic."

- submitted by reader

I think that sums it up nicely.

Coach Smith

Interesting Observations

The following quote is from Lou Cella, O-Line coach extraordinaire and co-owner of the great Flexbone Association site and Flexbone Forum (both of which I have been avidly following for years, btw.)

How many athletic scholarship players did Navy have on Saturday (23 Oct 2010)?
A: zero

How many athletic scholarship players did Notre Dame have on Saturday?
A: 85 on roster

What was Notre Dame's 2010 recruiting class overall rank as compared to all Division 1 schools?
A: #20 (on average)

What was the score on Saturday (I was there and for the press conference afterwards)?
A: 35-17

Oh yeah, and Army is 4-3--most likely 5-3 after Sat. afternoon (I'll be there).
How many athletic scholarships do they have?
A: 0

They (Army) start running triple option and all of the sudden they are up for their first bowl game since 1996...
I rest my case.

 

Food for thought.