Monthly Archives: December 2015

16 Links to Kickstart Your 2016

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Thank you!

2015 was a terrific year for this blog, YouCanDoMore.net, with more views (over 60,000) and downloads (over 15,000) than ever before.

These were the top performing posts in terms of views this year… if you are a recent follower, some of these may have escaped you. Please click through to dig into the content.

  1. Defensive Game Planning – The Call Sheet (6,000 views)
  2. Weight Room – 101 (3,000 views)
  3. Film Grading Tool (3,000 views)
  4. Defensive Game Planning – The Play Grid (1,700 views)
  5. Making a Screen Recording (1,500 views)

These were the most popular series of posts in 2015. As you can see, the Defensive Game Planning series continues to be far and away the most popular.

  1. Defensive Game Planning – All Posts, Forms, and Videos (13,000 views in the series)
  2. Coaching Tools (9,000 views in the series)
  3. Recruiting (8,000 views in the series)
  4. Middle School Strength and Conditioning Program (5,000 views in the series)
  5. Lessons from the Masters (2,000 views in the series)

And finally, the most popular downloads this year.

  1. Defensive Call Sheet (1,000 downloads)
  2. Film Grade Template (800 downloads)
  3. Defensive Game Plan Play Grid (700 downloads)
  4. Practice Template (400 downloads)
  5. Workout Template (400 downloads)

But wait, there’s more… one more link to make it 16 links for 2016!  A popular post about multi-sports athletes:

  1. Fast “Track” to a Great Football Program

youcandomore

Thanks again for your loyal readership. One request…. if you have found the information on this blog interesting, helpful, informative or entertaining, please share with your colleagues.

Now, go watch some bowl games and enjoy the remainder of your holiday break!

Remember – You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

Risk, Failure, and Trust

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A few days ago in our Strength and Conditioning classes, we threw a “changeup” at our students… we introduced front squat instead of the normal (back squat) lift we do on our squat emphasis day.   I have documented our philosophy behind these “changeup” days before in this blog, (Throwing a “Changeup”, Jumping Mental Hurdles) essentially forcing the students to adapt and compete when something unexpected is thrown at them.

question mark eye

As I glanced around, looking at a room full of athletes with big question marks in their eyes, I asked them the rhetorical question “would I ever ask you to try something that I thought you couldn’t do?”

Of course, when you teach 7th and 8th grade student there are no rhetorical questions, and immediately a chorus of blurted out answers filled the weight room….

An emphatic “NO” was pretty much the consensus each hour….

But…. in each hour there was also the dissenting vote of “Yes… yes, you would”

When I quizzed those dissenters as to WHY they thought that way… why they thought I would ask them to try something that they may not be able to do, their answers were…

  • “you always want us to push ourselves”
  • “you want us to go to our limit”
  • “you always think we can do more.”
  • “you like for us to do difficult things”

And that is correct… I absolutely would ask them to try things that are difficult … that they may not be able to accomplish.

Now, I understand the thinking of the masses in each class… trusting that ‘ol Coach Floyd wouldn’t put them in harms way by asking them to do something unreasonable… and that is true as well.

But, as I explained to each class, failure is OK… it is an option. In fact, Failure is your ONLY option.

For, until you fail, you really do not know what your limits are…. if you never fail, you probably are not adequately stretching your boundaries… if you fear failure, you continually look to put yourself into situations that success is guaranteed.  When you do that, you are missing out on growth opportunities.

As their teacher and coach it is my responsibility to push them… to challenge them.

It is also equally my responsibility to make sure that they understand that failure (I failed) is an action and not an identity (I am a failure).

I want them to trust that what I ask of them, including their resultant effort, and possible failure, will, in the long run, benefit them as an athlete and/or a human being.

Failure is a learning opportunity.

Related Posts:

Remember – You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

Planning YOUR Off-Season

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Typically, Coaches are pretty good planners

We have our practice plans

We spend hours each week game planning

We have a plan for our offensive and defensive insertion.

How much time to you spend planning your off-season work?

Not the off-season workout your squad will be doing, but YOUR off season.

Do you have a plan on how YOU and YOUR PROGRAM are going to improve over the next 7-8 months?

For many of us at this time of year the pace begins to slow a bit… we can finally catch our breath, and gather our thoughts.

It is tempting to use a big chunk of this time period to “recover”… it is easy to head into YOUR off-season with the “plan” of “going to a lot of clinics to learn more football”.

Like every other aspect of your program, if you formulate a specific, detailed, goal-oriented plan for YOUR off-season, you will be more productive… you will see better results.

This is what has worked for me… keep in mind that I like data, and like to base decisions on data.

The first step is to conduct an end of the season analysis on both sides of the ball and the kicking game.   These are the defensive categories we always looked at… there are, of course, corresponding items for the offensive side.

  • Down and distance efficiency
  • Efficiency of each front/ stunt and coverage
  • Efficiency in field zones
  • Big plays
  • Bust plays
  • Mistakes

For our staff, it was always pretty easy to compile this data, because each games film was graded using the method and tool I describe in this post: Film Grading Tool

As a head coach, coordinator or position coach, I would look at this data to help determine our needs in the off-season… what needed to be our area of emphasis… what were the main areas we needed to see improvement in.

The next step is determining where to look for answers… where can you get help. I think there are three main sources that are available… 1) Online 2) Clinics and 3) Spring Practice visits

clinicWhile there is abundant information easily available online, I always considered the most productive learning we spent as a staff was either visiting a college during spring break or attending live clinics where a number of speakers/ topics were presented.   The more live, interaction, and Q/A that was possible the better…. It made it possible to drill down into the information to see if would fit the needs of our program.

Armed with our self-analysis/ self-scouting data we determined what clinics to attend (looking at speakers and topics) and where we wanted to visit during our spring break (see post – The Most Productive Spring Break).

Our staff at each clinic (because most clinics had multiple speakers speaking at the same time) would be very deliberate as to which coach would attend what speaker… basically “divide and conquer”. After each day at the clinic, we would debrief, with each coach discussing main points of the speaker’s presentation.

As a staff, we would then determine… and this was maybe the most important part of the process… what (if anything) we wanted to implement into our current defensive (or offensive) scheme or teaching. In making this decision we were always very careful to make sure that if we were changing or adding anything that:

  • The change fits into our current philosophy
  • There was good evidence that the change or addition would improve our team in the areas of emphasis determined by our self-analysis. We did not ever want to make a change just because something was the “flavor of the month”

There are many great schemes, systems, techniques, workout programs, etc. out there. Information is readily available and easily accessible. There are many ways to “skin the cat”. Be focused this off-season… have a PLAN for improvement, work your plan and you will see the results next season!

Related Posts:

Remember – You Can Do More… your brain is lying to you…. Don’t Believe It!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com

Recruiting – How Interested are They?

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I have had a many requests for links to all of the posts regarding the Level of Interest Pyramid (Recruiting – Gauging Their Level of Interest).  Following are the links, in order, for all of these posts:

pyramidI have also created a “Magazine” on Flipboard (see Apps for the Coach) that puts all of these posts in one location that you can read (and share) on your mobile device.  This is a link to the Flipboard Magazine:

Recruiting – Gauging Their Level of Interest

 

In addition to these written posts, I have recently launched my YouTube Channel that deals specifically with the recruiting process.  The channel can be found here : The YouCanDoMore YouTube Channel, and the complete playlist can be viewed here.

 

Questions and Comments are always welcome!

Jeff Floyd – youcandomore1@yahoo.com