Tip of the Day - 5/8

Teaching your Coaches - Part 2

Ideas to insure proper teaching and coaching of your no huddle scheme.

4.  Dress rehearsal.  Start early with coaching real-time practice.  We will be out on the field very soon practicing how calls will be made and what happens in between.  Coach you coaches on exactly what you want to see done at certain times and in specific situations.

5.  Sweat the Small Stuff.  If you don't discuss it, chances are it won't happen.  Be very specific with coaches about where and what you want and how you want it done.  Once they know that information and how to put it into practice, they will then start to think like you.  They will find ways to make the things work even better within the system.

6.  Step Back.  Once things are in place give the coaches some latitude.  Step back and let them run a series or a 7 on 7 night and then have a debriefing session after that meeting.  Nothing teaches better than raw experiences so build those into your spring and summer plans.

Stay tuned for part 3 of this series next week.

Tip of the Day - 5/4

Coaching coaches is one of the most crucial parts of the no huddle install.  In the next few installments of the Tip of the Day segment, we will be giving you lists of ways to help your staff learn, understand, and buy in to your new system.  Here are the first three:

1. Get your staff involved in the creative process.  Buy in is so much easier when everyone (key coaches) feel like they are and will be part of creating and implementing the process.
2. Teach it to them like a teacher would.  So often we forget that our coaches often learn best by doing not just listening.  Have them stand up, go through the motions as a player and a coach.  
3. Set up signal practice sessions.  We have a coach sit behind another coach to simulate getting a signal through a headset and then the coach will send in signals.  Coaches then critique each other on their signals looking for crispness, pace, and accuracy.

Stay tuned for more ideas of how to teach and work with your staff.

Tip of the Day - 4/24

Dummy Receivers

HEre are a few things we know:

• We all know that receivers in a pass centered offense can get tired and not run great routes.
• We also know that defenses usually only scout 1 deep and know little about the subs you bring in.
  
• We know that DB's are always told to not let anyone behind them.

So what does this mean in the No Huddle?  Well, teams will usually be playing their studs against your studs and they likely will not change when you send in a sub.  Therefore, you will have their starting TB, for instance, against your 5th, 6th, or 7th best receiver.  No contest right?  Wrong.  If you shift your mentality from beating that defender to wearing him out, you will make real hay with the 7th receiver of yours.  Here is what you do.  Tell him to run to the end zone every play.  Gas that TB and force them to sub.  If they don't, you just killed their running game in the 4th quarter.  If they do then not you put your stud back in and throw right over their backup.  

Any offense can run this concept, but the no huddle makes it harder for adjustments defensively and can give you a huge advantage in this part of the game.

Tip of the Day - 4/21

While speaking to a championship No Huddle coach recently, I got a great tip that I figured you all would want to hear about.  It deals with the last minute coach to QB communication and I guess it could even apply to huddle teams for that matter.

Coach to QB Communication in the No Huddle

Once the play is in, many coaches turn their attention to the next play.  Not Coach Snead, he positions himself behind the defense (whenever possible) to give the QB last second instructions / audibles.  Basically the signals come in to the team like any other team and the approach the LOS.  Just before the snap, the QB checks with the OC to make sure that they are not "drawing dead" and running a play that will not work vs. this defensive alignment.  Coach Snead said that he only changes the play 3-4 times a game, which may not seam like much.  At the same time, when you think about the fact that you just took 4 plays from no gain or possible losses to potentially positive yardage.  This is an opportunity to gain an additional 20-30 yds per game and give your playmakers the best chance to make plays.  Simple yet effective way to keep from "drawing dead."

Tip of the Day - 4/13

Another way to take precious seconds off your time between plays is to set a default formation.  Even better at the HS level where most of the game is played from the hashes, you can set defaults from the left middle and right to help eliminate the movement between plays.  This coming year, will be having our players pre-align in a trips formation to the field when we are on the hash and a 2x2 formation in the middle of the field.  The default formation will be determined weakly based on the defense we plan on seeing that week.  This eliminates the extra movements and speeds up our rate of play.

Tip of the Day - 3/31

One common misconception about the No Huddle is that it is all about going fast, when it is really all about speed.  These two words are similar yet distinctly different.  Fast is a rate of movement relative to other movements while speed implies the pace at which something is traveling.  To some this may seem like trivial, but this difference is crucial in understanding why people that run the no huddle well are successful.  Going fast is nice, but not always the best course of action.  Instead good coaches realize that controlling the speed, or pace, of the game is what can give the offense an additional advantage on the field.  Many times this means pushing the pace and going "fast," but other times / situations may call for playing at a slower speed.  Lets look specifically at the "4 minute offense" situation.  You have the lead, the game is under control.  All you have to do is not do something stupid and all they want to do is get the ball back.  Going fast would not be the best idea in this situation, instead we would slow down to our "1st Gear" and try to control the clock.  We watch the back judge and milk the clock for all its worth.  In the end, controlling the speed of the game is the goal and sometimes you have to "Go Slow to Go Fast." (I think I heard that on Nascar this weekend)

Tip of the Day - 3/17

Speeding up the your offense on more second can really put the screws to the defense.  It gives them one less second to make adjustments and prepare for the next play.  One way that we have taken one second off the time between plays is through having our linemen pick the back up off the ground.  It seems simple, but this gets the linemen to block downfield with more tenacity to where the back is on the ground.  When they pick him up the are at the new line of scrimmage, ready for the next play.  We repped this in our drills in practice and saw the difference on Friday nights.  

As always, we are looking for some more tip of the day entries.  Email them to coachnichols@gmail.com  to be a part of No Huddle Central.

Using the No Huddle in Game Planning

Tip of the Day - 3/11

Tempo is a real buss word in no huddle circles.  Controlling the tempo is the goal and most teams do a decent job of doing this.  The best teams, however, have learned to catch the defense leaning on the pace using a "chatter" concept.  When this is called, the team will go to the line just like before and go through the cadence with no play called.  This eliminates the chances of you jumping and almost ensures that they will.  We have had great success to the tune of 2 to 3 false starts for the defense per game.  I would suggest adding this concept to your system if you haven't already. There is nothing like 5 free yards.

Tip of the Day - 3/4

Today's tip:  Start Small

It is tempting to try to run everything you ran with a huddle when you make the switch to a no huddle scheme.  The problem is you must come up with ways to communicate this information to the team with 100% accuracy.  For that reason, I suggest that you start with the basic plays to teach the concepts and eliminate the nonessential items.  Once that groundwork is laid you can build from there.  Remember, if a player is thinking, he is slow.  If a player is reacting, he is fast and fast players win.

Today's Archive Entry:  Switzers Take on the No Huddle

Tip of the Day - 3/3

Installing the No Huddle - 

In my opinion, the best way is to teach the very basics of the communication language to the QB / Backs to rep the run game / protections in the off-season. Give them a copy of the card and let them keep it. Next thing you know they are spending their study halls teaching other players, coming up with other ideas to call plays, and understanding the whole scheme. Be sure to stay disciplined by communicating only through the codes you use. This creates the understanding with the players that your language is the only important language for on-field communication. All coaches must be on board to make this work properly.

Archive Entry of the Day - Bob Davie's Thoughts on the No Huddle

Tip of the Day - 2/27

Changing the Pace from Play to Play. (submitted by Coach Kaman)

They use key words that trigger the offense to run specific plays. They used one word, "Rabbit" to trigger the offense into a certain play that everyone memorized and knew to execute. When this was yelled they quickly got on the ball and ran the play, no extra communication needed.

To counter this, they also had a freeze call with the key word for example, like "Cheetah" that got them to the line very quickly much like "Rabbit", except they faked the snap and looked to the sideline for one play. This just seemed like a really simple and effective way to spark tempo.

I think people talk about tempo, but not many vary it in a way to truly impact the game. We use the traditional pacing or tempo's that everyone else uses (fast, slow or check) but some find trouble changing often, especially changing tempo's mid-series, this is why I have taken a liking to using KEY WORDS. I got this from the Ron West videos on the spread (he was at Clemson with Rich Rodriguez).

Have a tip of the day idea? If so, please email coachnichols@gmail.com to get it posted on No Huddle Central.

Tip of the Day - 2/26

Many no huddle coaches suggest that you not use any sort of scripts when running the no huddle even in practice. It has been my experience that I spend more time worrying about what play to call and covering all the bases if I don't use scripts. So we make scripts set for each phase of our practices and give them to a signal caller. This allows us to coach on the run and get great reps without missing a crucial piece of the gameplan.

Tip of the Day - 2/25

No huddle communication is like speaking a different language. Teach the language well first, then use it at all times. They players will quickly realize that once fluent, they can talk about the defense and plays without fear of compromising the system. For best results, do not allow them to talk in normal "football vocabulary during practice.