This comprehensive discussion from the Coaching 101 podcast, featuring hosts Daniel Chamberlain and Kenny Simpson and guest coach Antonio Graham, explores the intricacies of building effective defensive strategies in football. The dialogue delves into the creation of pressure packages, the importance of adaptability, and keeping defensive plays simple yet effective. Highlighting the needs for both new and veteran defensive coordinates, the conversation emphasizes understanding team strengths, opponent strategies, and balancing a base system with the ability to expand based on play. Furthermore, the talk addresses common coaching mistakes, stressing the importance of mastering fundamental skills before advancing to complex strategies. In addition to coaching insights, the episode promotes ProCom headsets and encourages listener engagement through social media, fostering a community committed to learning and improving coaching practices.
00:00 Introduction and Casual Banter
01:15 Guest Introduction: Antonio Graham
02:18 The Importance of Coaching Community
03:11 Antonio Graham's Coaching Journey
04:40 The Transition from Player to Coach
06:14 The Challenges and Rewards of College Coaching
09:07 The Move to High School Coaching
14:16 The Role of Verbiage in Coaching
14:34 Building a Pressure Package in Defense
18:49 The Importance of Simplicity in Coaching
21:21 The Role of Game Plan in Coaching
32:05 The Importance of Having a System in Coaching
36:50 Building a Simple System
37:07 Discussing Pressure Points
37:26 Strategies for Winning
37:51 The Importance of Movement
38:17 The Role of the Linebacker
39:19 The Art of Blitzing
40:25 The Changing Game
41:00 The Power of Turnovers
42:30 The Evolution of Defense
47:46 The Importance of Teaching Basics
50:10 The Art of Blitzing Revisited
52:07 The Importance of Adaptability
53:36 The Power of Simplicity
01:04:24 The Importance of Tackling
01:06:46 Closing Thoughts
This comprehensive discussion from the Coaching 101 podcast, featuring hosts Daniel Chamberlain and Kenny Simpson and guest coach Antonio Graham, explores the intricacies of building effective defensive strategies in football. The dialogue delves into the creation of pressure packages, the importance of adaptability, and keeping defensive plays simple yet effective. Highlighting the needs for both new and veteran defensive coordinates, the conversation emphasizes understanding team strengths, opponent strategies, and balancing a base system with the ability to expand based on play. Furthermore, the talk addresses common coaching mistakes, stressing the importance of mastering fundamental skills before advancing to complex strategies. In addition to coaching insights, the episode promotes ProCom headsets and encourages listener engagement through social media, fostering a community committed to learning and improving coaching practices.
00:00 Introduction and Casual Banter
01:15 Guest Introduction: Antonio Graham
02:18 The Importance of Coaching Community
03:11 Antonio Graham's Coaching Journey
04:40 The Transition from Player to Coach
06:14 The Challenges and Rewards of College Coaching
09:07 The Move to High School Coaching
14:16 The Role of Verbiage in Coaching
14:34 Building a Pressure Package in Defense
18:49 The Importance of Simplicity in Coaching
21:21 The Role of Game Plan in Coaching
32:05 The Importance of Having a System in Coaching
36:50 Building a Simple System
37:07 Discussing Pressure Points
37:26 Strategies for Winning
37:51 The Importance of Movement
38:17 The Role of the Linebacker
39:19 The Art of Blitzing
40:25 The Changing Game
41:00 The Power of Turnovers
42:30 The Evolution of Defense
47:46 The Importance of Teaching Basics
50:10 The Art of Blitzing Revisited
52:07 The Importance of Adaptability
53:36 The Power of Simplicity
01:04:24 The Importance of Tackling
01:06:46 Closing Thoughts
up coaches? This is the Coaching 1 0 1 podcast. I'm Daniel Chamberlain here with good friend Kenny Simpson. Coach. The wind is about to blow us away, and I know the wind comes sweeping down the plains because that's what the song says, but Lord have mercy. It's been crazy. Uh, is it like that over there in Batesville right we're usually a day after you whenever's coming your way. We'll come, we're, we're in the hills. I'm over here in Hill country, so it gets blocked a little bit. You know, my tie your house down, man. Look, it's, it's, it's blowing everything in my front yard's blowing around. I was afraid my camper was gonna blow over. It's nuts outside. no, ours is not too bad. My wife's from Texas and so it's, it was that way there, you know, it was just miserable. And you get in the flatlands is not bad, but we're, uh, we're clinic season up if you guys are watching online. I was telling coach before we got on here, my 11-year-old has giving me suggestions behind me on the board. So if I wanna run all curls, he gave me a wheel route the other day. But he, he put a note. That said, don't run this. They're gonna blitz. And I said, man, if I knew what they were gonna do, then. Don't. If they gonna play, they'll do it. That's awesome. Well, uh, tonight we are joined by Owosso Rams new head coach. First year in the big seat, uh, Mr. Antonio Graham, a KAG Yes, sir. Coach. Man, thank you so much for jumping on with us tonight. I, I feel like I've just been stringing the, the six A coaches along here the last, I don't know, couple months. We've been grabbing as many y'all as we can because Good, good football being played in the Tulsa metroplex right now, so. I don't blame you, brother. Get him. Get him right. Get him while it's hot right now. So keep doing it. Yeah. so busy, you know, um, I think we got Coach Morrissey coming on here in a couple weeks too, like just trying to, you guys are so, there's so much knowledge in that building, you know, and I guess. I don't know how many coaches on staff, 12, 15, whatever. And then, you know, a lot of guys just sitting around waiting, kinda like you did, waiting on the, the big seat to open up or the next coordinator job and, and not afraid to, to, uh, stay put and learn some years and years of knowledge. So I'm just glad y'all will, will give up a little bit of time and come teach me some football every, every once in a Oh shoot. I'm glad that you, like I was telling coach earlier, man, I think this is a lost cause man, that people just don't sit around and talk ball anymore. I think I shared that with you, coach in the past. That man, like, I think when I first got into coaching, it was one of them deals that I was doing. Stuff like Coach got on the back of his whiteboard right there, we drawn stuff up man, and just trying to, it wasn't who had to the pin, the lash or anything. It was just keeping your mouth shut and be humble or get humbled, you know, and just learn, you know, and it's just not enough of this going on today. Um, but like Coach said, you guys doing a great job with you guys, Steph, and uh, you guys in is going well. So this may be something I. Continue to be a part of man. Absolutely. Hey, we'll, we'll have you on anytime you wanna come on, man. You just come on, be the third, third guy if you want to. I, it really doesn't hurt our feelings. Um, so just so everybody else knows who you are, coach, why don't you give us a little snippet about your, uh, coaching journey and just kind of where you came from and how you got where you are. Perfect man. Well, man, um, I played high school football at Tulsa Union under Coach Blanketship. And, um, I'm originally from Alabama. I moved up here in my, in my, in my younger teens or whatever. And so, um, just get up here to live with my dad. And, you know, he was a football player his whole life and played semi-Pro. He was actually, when the Tulsa talents started, he was the oldest guy that made the football team. He, I think he was 36 years old and, you know, that was a young thing, so he was a part of that. But, you know, he had his own private business, so he made more money doing that. But he was just one of those guys who was just like an athletic freak, you know, you know, 38 years old, still running. Fast and physical and stuff like that. So, um, I guess it was kind of in my bloodline to play football or be something, be something. He was that guy. If you go to be in the band, you gonna be the best freaking band player ever, you know, whatever it may be. So anyway, so once I graduated, I went to Pittsburgh State, played linebacker there for four. I was that fifth year senior, you know, made sure I got my degree when I left out there. Had a pretty decent career there that when I got done, um, coach, I had no idea, well, I was kind of struggling like, what's going to be next? What's there going to be that empty bullet? But I was that guy when I was growing up that coming through high school, I got basically taken in by different coaches and teachers and you know, it kind of took, unfortunately when I was in high school, my dad passed away and so, um, my high school coaches kind took me in and. So, um, it was no doubt that I was gonna be a coach. Well, I got my first opportunity by Kurt, Kurt Frederick, you know, that was kinda like a dream of mines dude, to go back to my own alma mater and just kind of coached there. And, and man, I tell you what, I started off, um, you know, at the bottom and I just kind of, I just learned, I thought I knew football until I was like, you have gotta be kidding me, man. This goes on. And, you know, and at that time, dude, we had the old DSV breakdown system and it was just, I had to figure that out. And of course, you, the, the bottom guy, and they gave me the hardest thing to do self scout. So you, you had to learn all the calls and it had to be perfect. And DSV was just a pain in the butt at the time. And I was that guy that, this is 2009, 2010 that they, we were still driving. On the turnpike to trade film. So that was freaking awesome, man. Uh, it sucked getting up at like six o'clock in the morning and, you know, and looking for that person who you ain't never met in your life to trade hard drive and stuff. So I got a little bit of that as well for about two years. And then before, you know, it, huddle came apart. And so, um, but anyways, um, I coached linebackers there for about two to three years, and Coach Blanketship got the job at Tulsa University. And so I was, um, roommates with his son who also coached at Union as well. And so he hit me up. Coach Mike should have picked me up and was like, Hey, I wanna meet with you, and man, I'm getting excited. And so he kind of tricked me, coach because he was like, Hey man, I want you to come here and coach linebackers. And I was like, heck shit, I'm, I'm jumped on it. Well, I tell Coach Fred, you know, that was a tough to tell him. You know that I'm leaving and, you know, and, and, at the time we were pretty loaded at Union too. But, you know, I'm thinking, I'm, I'm about to go coach college football. Well, once I get there to get started, he's like, oh yeah, you gotta go to school too, man, to get a GA job. And I was like, you gotta be freaking kidding me. So, because if he would've known that I was gonna, if he would've sat that first probably, I would've said no.'cause I mean, I wouldn't, uh, I mean, I went to school to play football. I'm gonna be honest with you, I was an average student and, you know, I played the game through college and high school. So, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm wasn't, you know, I'm book smart, but, you know, I ain't, I'm not a, a nerd in books. But, you know, I tell you one thing, you at the University of Tulsa, they can give two craps about football. They, they are strictly academic. So you can't, as a, if you had a game to leave, uh, to leave early that weekend, coach. you you gonna just get an F on that assignment, they ain't gonna cut you any slacks. So there are strictly academics, man. So I just didn't learn a lot, you know, about football, but you know, the education part of the University of Tulsa just took my brain to a whole nother, you know, aspect, you know, and so I got to working of, uh, the defensive coordinator, Brent guy. Well, what's awesome about him was him and Gary Patterson, they was GAD together at u at Utah State, our, or Oklahoma State one our, but they worked together at Utah State as well. And they both sat down and they developed the 4, 2, 5 defense. So man, I was Brent guy's like right hand man, which was just insane to me. We'd be in a box and I'm just a ga and he tell everybody, Hey, be quiet a what you got? I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? There's a full-time coach over there because we had Calvin Tip on staff, um, who's now, who's probably one of the top d-line coaches in the nation. We had just left there. He's now the defense coordinator at UT U-U-T-S-A. And so we had a unbelievable staff defensively man. And so, um, but he trusted me and man, it was, I was there for almost three to four years. And so, you know, we got let go from there. Coach Blanketship went on to Memphis and so I decided to go back to Tulsa Union and, um, 'cause at that time, man, I kind of felt like people thought I was crazy to get outta college coaching because it was like, coach man, you got it till you, you're young, you know, you know the game very well and you be the guy that can actually make it through this deal because this is a, I went to my first a FC convention brother and it just. Deflated me man. You know, just, I had people handing me resumes and I was like, dude, I'm just a ga. So the next day I just literally went to the convention with just no logo on, no nothing and just tried to, you know, connect with people. But you know, I'm a big family guy, man, and, and I just can't see myself. I like to fish and hunt and stuff and that college just take up so much of your time. And that was back in 15 to 16, man, you know. And so I ended up going back to Y and we ended up wanting to go back there and we won a state championship there and Coach B ended up taking the job in Ville, Arkansas. And so I'm literally about to head that way. And I get on social media a couple of nights before and I see that Coach B taking Oso job. And I'm like, you gotta be freaking kidding me man. And I'm kind of mad because, you know, the difference from Oklahoma pay to Arkansas Pay is a he huge jump. So I'm like, man, I'm about to go make a killing right now. And, and I got mad because I'm literally about to go down there with him, brother. And I'm like, what are, what are you doing coach? Are you taking this to was so job. We literally, the year before, um, we put up almost 60 points on him. At end it was bad man. And I was like, so I trusted God and I take that leap of faith and I end up going over there with him. I actually coach, I was the last coach to get hired on the staff, which is crazy'cause I was pretty upset, man, because I had my mindset going on the Fed bill. And you know how media is, dude, you, you know, they put it out there before it's supposed to be right. And so I, I found out through Facebook, so I was like, man, you should at least told me. You know? But he was like, dude, and so I, you know, it just happens. And I, me being in the game for a while now, I understand how stuff that kind of happens like that. And so, um. I ended up getting hired over there to coach tight ends. And believe it or not, man, that was a blessing because like, as a defensive minded guy, man, now I know how the offense is blocking schemes. You know, it just taught me so much because, you know, we were in a bunch of 11 personnel offense. And that h back was a huge key. That tight end hybrid guy was a huge key of coach bunk ship's offense.'cause he kind of ran the phile system, the Memphis system. So he kind of took that system with him towards, um, high school or whatever. And you know, that, where that tight end have to insert certain gaps if it's open, you know? And so I was like, okay, now this is why they do this to me defensively. And so it, it made me so much of a better coach. So if I had to give any advice to anybody that's a young coach, man, just don't put yourself as a DB coach. Don't put yourself as a linebacker coach. Coach both sides of the ball man, because. It makes you that much more better as a coach. And so, man, and what was crazy, I became, I almost this close became an offensive dude because it's, it's just, it's hard to, it's hard to coach defense these days, man. It's very, it is. very, very hard. So, uh, but ever since then, man, coach beats kind of stepped away and I was able to kind of take over the program and we kind of see what happens now, man. So, Yeah. First year going in. And this is your first head coaching job too, right? What? What year is this for you? In, in I wanna say this is 13. Um, Yeah. Around that way. Yeah. I haven't really, I'm kind of scared to come up to years or whatever, but I, it's, it's about th yeah. Year 13. That's good, man. That's truly kind of old school. Putting in the work, putting in the grind before, you know, that opportunity presents itself. I know much of my generation we're applying for, you know, head coaching jobs pretty early. Uh, we don't, we don't necessarily, but these small schools, man, it's just kind of how it works sometimes. I think it's not, you know, you don't set for 13 years on staff hardly anymore. So we're all surrounded by the middle schools out here in my, in my part of Oklahoma. Um, well man, that's a, that's a really neat journey and, and, you know, getting to follow the legend around, you know, coach B, like, that's, that's only gonna be good for your career. So, Yeah, yeah. glad I got to be with him for a year and just kind of pick his brain and, and watch how he does things. I didn't even get to talk to him as much as I wanted, you know, we ended up. I didn't really, I didn't really know how busy freshman ball was until, until it kicked off and I was like, oh, I, I won't see any varsity stuff until Friday night. Exactly, exactly. good though, man. It, it had a ton of, a ton of fun over there, so. Well, coach man, appreciate you so much for coming on. Um, we'll get into some questions, but, but first, Kenny, won't you tell me how to simplify football for, uh, my staff and my players? I'm sorry. Uh. Go ahead. Yeah, so we're gonna cut all this out, so, um, yeah, we just do some ads, Okay. um, sweet. So we'll jump right in these questions here. First one's, um, what does a pressure package consist of? And so then we'll just talk all the blitzes and any stunts, whatever you wanna throw in there. So, um, Kenny, we'll start with you. Just kinda lay it out real quick, just, and then do your part and then we'll switch over to ag. Here we go. Sweet. Appreciate that. Um, once again, you know, I can't speak highly enough of, you know, coach Welchman and what he's doing with with his pro com stuff. Um, reach out to him, that website, uh, and then, you know, mark and Ryan and the guys I've really enjoyed just getting to know them and working with those scoreboards, uh, those video boards. Dude, they're sweet. It is super easy fundraising, and I, that's like the biggest sell to me, like how I'm gonna give you free money, like you just let me come in and install my product and you get all this money. So, uh, Kenny, I know you're kind of a walking billboard for their scoreboards, but, uh, man, it's been really neat getting to talk to those guys and look at how they're doing that stuff. Um, so we will jump right into questions here. Uh, question one, and Kenny, we'll let you start. What does a pressure, pressure package consist of? So we're developing our pressure package for defense for the season. Uh, what, what's some key things I need to put in there? Well, I mean, first of all, once you get into your pressure packages, you gotta kind of think of building, so you kind of think of building from the ground up. So we, and I, I'm an offensive guy, but I was a defensive guy before, uh, I was an offensive guy, so kinda like coaches story where he's doing the other way, I, I went the other direction. I started on defensive. Now I'm on offense, but I still think the way you look at it is the same way an offense would build as you build with tags. So you need to have the verbiage to tag any player to come from any direction. So that means you gotta have blitzes coming from the edge blitzes that are coming on the inside. That could be a gap, B gap, however you wanna kind of make your terminology fit there. I would use really simple words. The kids understand, because these are kids playing football. So for example, we use the word fire for coming off the edge, and I think we use the word smoke for coming in the middle. And so those are, and I don't know who you still even use those terms with our defense now, but that was what we would use. And so if you said Mike fire that told the Mike, Mike linebacker to come off the edge. So you have to set up kinda your one person blitzes where I can bring, if we're a forefront, we're bringing a fifth guy, if we're a three front, we're bringing a fourth guy. Uh, then you've gotta have the ability to move your front. So what words tell your defensive line to go to a different gap? And those could just be like a right or a left. They could be like a loop or a pinch. So you have to set up all that terminology. And I don't wanna go just really far down that tangent, but basically you have to, the ability to move your defensive line and to bring one player. And then in my my opinion, you need to start to have two or three, uh, I don't think you need really a lot more than that, but two or three where you're gonna bring multiple players. So instead of, so if you're gonna do one blitz, you might say, Mike fire will smoke and you're bringing 'em both. Uh, so that's fine. But once you get past that many words, you might wanna start thinking of kind of family grouping, your blitzes. You know, if we're gonna bring two players, one's coming from the inside, one's coming from the outside, we might call that like. Banjo or just whatever you decide to name it, it doesn't really matter, whatever you want to name it. And so we're gonna be able to call it that and then tag to bring a different kid. So it may say, let's say banjo means both inside linebackers are coming, but if I call, you know a different word, it's gonna bring a different player on that same blitz. So you wanna have kind of family groups and then the ability to tag. So it's the same blitz for the defensive line, it's the same blitz for the defense. And now we're gonna bring these two players instead of those two players. You know, Cody Alexander had a book he put out called Hybrids, and I know he is not on our, our podcast tonight. Uh, but I thought it was a really good idea, the ability to bring multiple players. That's kind of where the game is going. You know, where you can bring this guy or that guy, and the kids learn that way. Like that's how they learn. They understand, okay, this means this, but now we're gonna run it with this other guy. If he's doing that, you gotta do his job. So it's, it's an easy way to kind of conceptually teach that. Then I think you gotta figure out, are we gonna have a show or a no-show? Like are we gonna, are we gonna show our blitz or are we gonna not show our blitz? And inside of that family, it might be like, our word for that is talk. So talk it means we're gonna stem to it and we're gonna talk our way out of it, or talk our way into it. So it's kind of a word we use to get into that, but you might have a word where you're bluffing, like you're gonna show the blitz and you're gonna get out of the blitz, or you're not gonna show it at all until post snapp. Like you're blitzing, but you don't even move at all until the ball is snapped. You're not trying to time it up. So you need to have that kind of terminology of, we're gonna run our blitz, we're not gonna show it, or we are gonna run our blitz. We are gonna move to it. So whatever that terminology is for you, there's a lot of terminology. And then the final thing, I think when you're building a blitz package that you need to think about as your coverage. Like, are you gonna blitz and run zone behind it? Uh, that's gonna be a little different. Or are you gonna blitz and play man free or man or whatever you're gonna play? What does that look like? Uh, we don't run a lot of man in our defense. And so for us, if we're gonna blitz and we're gonna blitz multiple players, that means the other guys have gotta kinda learn the drops. Like where are they dropping, what does that mean, what's that look like? And then if it's an exotic type blitz, and I say exotic meaning we're bringing two or three players, a lot of times we will go ahead and build the coverage call into the play. Like it's kind of understood if we're running this blitz, we're running roll coverage and, and our safety understands both linebackers are vacating this area, so you gotta come down here and play collision to flats or whatever that might look like. And so that's kind of the way I look at building it, is you gotta have the terminology for one player. For two players. Are we gonna show it, not show it, move to it, how's that gonna look and how's the back end of that gonna look with it. And I think that's why being at Evens, a coordinator coach mentioned it right before we took our break. It kind of sucks 'cause it's hard. That's a lot of stuff you gotta know. And not only that, you gotta be able to teach 'em what to do when they do bl. We didn't even talk about that. Like what to do when they do blitz and it's a screen. Are you teaching to peel off? You know? So what are your rules that are built within that? Like do you have your blitzing but you have back out or you're not blitzing but the back protects your going? So there's all that kind of stuff that you gotta think through before you can just say, we're just gonna blitz. And I think a lot of times, young dcs, younger dcs especially, they just kind of blitz because. It's, it's like they don't really know how to fix their defense, so it's to kind of their go-to is just to blitz without really a purpose. And so I think that's, that's, that's not a good thing. I think you wanna blitz when you choose to blitz, not blitz, because you have no idea how to do anything else. I've, I've definitely been there already in my career where it's the, like, we base ain't working. The stuff we schemed up isn't working. Uh, let's just start sending the house. Like if we are, we we're pressured up right now, we might as well put the pressure on them, right? They, they may, they're gonna score a hundred here or they're gonna score a die. I mean, let's, let's just figure it out. Uh, ag man. So kind of same question to you, like what? What goes into your pressure package, and if you just, if you need to compound on what he said, that's fine too, Yeah. Um, I gotta, I agree with Coach Simpson. I think you gotta make it simple. Yeah. Verbiage. I'm, I'm a huge verbiage guy. Um, one thing I've learned just kind of working on that Gary Patterson that bring God system, that it shocked me about the verbiage because as a young coach and you grew up watching, you know. L miked up or whatever. You always heard those long words. And so as a DC I'm like, golly, my blitz gotta be razor claw stinger. You know what I mean? Which, what the heck does that mean? Nothing. You know, it's just, and so, um, one thing I do is, um, you know, I try my best to, you know, to make words like, Hey, if you, on the field side, if we, these words means that if it's fire, everything's, everything's coming from the field. If it's, if it is burn, we're coming from the boundary. You know what I'm saying? So I'm that guy, and that means we're rolling that way. We're, we're spinning, you know? And so I'm all about, you know, verbiage, the simpler it is and the fastest I can get it, because these days us dcs are getting freaking tempo like crazy. So are you gonna spit out that long word? And by the time you said. The ball snapped and the kids are looking at you, you, you getting gassed. And so, um, I'm huge on verbiage. Like I try to keep it two words, the blitz name, boom, with the, with the, with the coverage behind it. And now once you wrap it so many times, hey, if you saying, you know, laser, they know that's coming from the boundary 'cause that's to the left, you know, depending on your, your defensive structure. You know what I'm saying? So I'm huge on, on, on, um, on the verbiage. And also I think also you gotta do a good enough job of, you know, whenever, when are you, whenever you do blisters, there are certain blisters that you have to install for run, for run, for run protection, uh, for run, for run schemes and gap schemes and you know, and also for passing stuff. So most guys, like you said, most of these young dcs, they may have an awesome blitz, but it may get gash because they're running counter. Or inside zone, you know what I'm saying? So you gotta be careful whenever you blis because you may sense six and more than they can block, but inside zone can just eat that crap up and you looking like you're crazy because you know certain stuff. And my biggest thing is too, um, um, I'm kind of weird when it comes out of this, but you know, you have your BBL package, right Coach, but also you gotta do a good enough job of scheming and finding the fish and to see where the bliss is come. Like where are you going to be most effective that game? Because one thing is coach, you can carry so many, some people carry so many where I think get good at these three or four and maybe, and build off of it, and also do a good enough job of, you know, every year your personnel coachs changes defensively. And so what I do is I see like God, like, God, dude, man, that dude suck at Blist. So we ain't gonna never get there, but he's a good run stopper, so I may not blitz him as much. So you kind of gotta protect yourself where, you know, um, you know, evaluate your players because that changes year by year. Um, so, um, um, I'm, I, I'm, I'm with Coach Simpson on a lot of that stuff, man. But one thing I do coach, like, I kind of run my same families every year, but this guy may not get enough love because he's not a effective blister, or he runs right down the middle with somebody and not take it on the half a man. And so I think if you going to build a blitz package, you gotta find ways to practice it and teach guys how to take on guys half a man and not run and not go get blocked.'cause some kids just run right down the middle of somebody and I'm just like, you gotta be freaking kidding me. You know, they're, I call'em blocking mags, man. They're magnets. I'm just like, you gotta take on half a man and you gotta teach it and you gotta be able to move. Like, just like Coach said, man, we, you know, if we're blissing this way, the movement is razor or laser, you know what I'm saying? With the D lineman, I mean, I'm, I'm really, really simple coach that I'm going to have these, these, all these words come, it means coming from the left and all these words means we're coming from the right and if we put zero behind it or we set, you know, it's zero blitz. So, um, I'm not the big verbiage guy, but I also, you know, I kind pitted on myself where I'm gonna scheme you up as an offense and I may tweak some of each week, but it is going to be simple and it's not going to be crazy where our kids can walk through it, you know, where our kids can run it, run it, run it. I wanna go. A couple things Coach said there. One is, is I'm the same way. I mean, I think if you have more than really. Uh, I hate to give a number 'cause sometimes your coaching kids that are smarter than others, but let's say you have more than three or four, I don't really know how effectively you can teach them how to do that. Like to take on half a man'cause you gotta spend time teaching 'em how to blitz. I know we make the mistake. I know my own evens staff, young coaches, really intelligent coaches, they want to put so much in. And I did too when I was young, I wanted to put so much in. But if you do that, you really can't spend the time teaching a kid how to blitz. Where I would rather have three blitzes and he understands like his aiming point when to time it up, how to take the block on.'cause you only have so much time in a in a day if you're spending 10 minutes going through blitz. And all it is is running through dummies. I don't really know how effective that is 'cause you're having to spend so much time on the scheme that you're not really teaching 'em how to actually do it when the bodies are moving. Like coach kind of mentioned the other two things I had on here and you mentioned game plan. So you gotta have kill calls, like teams are going tempo, so you may call a stunt off of the edge and they come out in quads or trips. Your kids gotta be smart enough there to know when to kill it. Like you don't, because sometimes you gotta call a blitz, you're anticipating something or maybe they motion or shift into trips. We gotta be smart enough in the game plan to know we don't run this blitz off of trips and we don't run this blitz off of whatever. And so some kind of those kill calls. And then I think we we're really big on automatics and that's kind of getting into more game plan stuff. But you know, we see blank into the boundary or we see this and then or third down, we see this. And a lot of times for us, that means we are not going to, we might start off with, these are the six or seven blitzes we like going into a game and by, by Thursday it's the three or four we're gonna run. Because we're running so many automatics, we don't need to go into those blitzes, you know? And in my mind, a lot of times our kids will kind of know, here's what we're gonna run. Because it's in the game plan. Not so much coaches just randomly calling blitzes, Yep. And Coach, I, I would like to add, sorry about that. I would like to add on to that Coach. Um, you also gotta have a call too as well. When you Bliss coach, it's play it no matter what. You know, I mean, it, it like, and it's, your kids should be smart enough where, hey, hopefully, you know, we get empty. It's off for, we're in our empty check. And so, like, most of the time, um, you know, I like to give, when we come off the sideline, you know, they get the, they get the front, the two by two check, the three by three check and the empty check before we go out there. And if I call a blitz and you know, I'm like, Hey, play it, play it, play it. They know that if they come out empty, we still gonna run that blitz. And so just going to add on to it that you gotta have a play call and you know, a call where. It's off. And sometimes, man, it don't work out that way when you're, because you got, and I think you have to coach that stuff. Um, I love the fact how Coach Simpson said that, like Coach Cha, I don't know if you noticed this couple years, but we did something different this year. And instead of inside run, some days we do inside blitz pickup where our defense is going against our offense. It's just seven on seven and we're running blitzes. Hey coach, me and the offensive court, I mean me and the old line, me and Coach Morrissey, we be like, Hey, we're sending seven. We have a, and the quarterback literally have to throw the ball out hot. We put two receivers on the other side where you coming, you're coming off the edge and it's teachers, your quarterback where the ball's coming hot. So you gotta practice it on live bodies. You know what I mean? And so I think that's the biggest important thing. You just can't continue to run them off. Yeah, it's good. It's okay to have a walk through off badge, but it is nothing like seeing that movement in front or whatever. That, that Mike Backer going right off that guy's butt and making him play, you know? And so I think that's important. Coach, like you said earlier, Absolutely. Uh, a couple things. You know, y'all, number one, having a system, and I've talked about this for the last couple years since I've had a microphone in my face. You have to have a system, right? And you guys talked about verbiage. Find a family of words that you like. You know, some people use different animals, some people use all cats or this, and all flying animals or, or, or outside blitzes or inside back, whatever it is, right? Go find one. You like dinosaurs, superheroes, uh, Garfield character. It don't matter, right? Find something that the words mean something to you, and you, can make it correlate because that's what's gonna help you build out that system. But mainly have a system because you need a backpack to put everything in. While you're waiting to figure out what kids you're gonna have this year, right? And then you know what you can take out and use, but you can't just let it all go. You don't need to remake, you know, you know, reinvent the wheel next year. You gotta have that system. And maybe your kids just, maybe they get a, a good leap in the middle of the year and you're like, sweet. Now we can install a little bit more. Here's this other really fun thing I've kept, um, Kenny, you talked about, we've talked layering blitzes before, right? Like having all the words that keep stacking until you get to your, this is too many words. Now let's make it a name. Um, y'all both talked about like offensive coaches and, and you know, some coaches think it's really cool to say, but to where it is. John Gruden's fault. Look, right? He, what did he say? Like spider two wide banana, right? And that's, and everybody, number one, they think that that's what it's supposed to look like. And we're really afraid in this industry to do something. Outside the box. I feel like a lot of people are afraid to not do what NFL coaches are doing. So when that got leaked or, uh, is micd up or whatever, but look, every guy out there and went, oh my God, as a coordinator, I have to tell every single athlete on the field what to do in my play call. Like, no, you don't. and I heard something about that the other day, you know, because I, I kind of, I, I think that's stupid too, at a high school and collegiate level. But what they're saying at the NFL level is you may pick up a dude on Monday and he's gotta play Sunday. So they have to have verbiage to talk to each specific player. They've gotta have that. Hopefully, hopefully you're not doing that at your high school. You know, hopefully you're, you've got a guy you've had all year, you know, we're not having to, you know, so, so it's, they understand I know we got that transfer portal now. You know what I mean? it's it's but it's different. It's different. Don't watch. I think college and, and high school guys are getting way more simple. You know, And, and you both said, you know, talk about staying simple. Don't be too complex. You don't have to limit yourself to like having two fronts and two blitzes and, and a coverage. Like it doesn't have to be that ridiculous, right? Depending on level, if you're a youth ball, maybe that you probably want to be right there, start getting good at when you think about how many ways you can roll to cover three, which is an easy coverage, you could roll two, four different ways, you know, and so. mm-Hmm. I, I was, uh, scrolling through Twitter the other day and I saw, uh, a whole system based off of, uh, like AA mug, right? Sometimes we're gonna send those backer so that, you know, just having two fives, two threes and linebackers in the A gaps. And it's like most people see that and go, okay, yeah, it's a double a gap blitz. But no, it ain't. Now we're pinching and bailing with those linebackers. Now one's coming and one's not. Now one's turning and sprinting into Tampa two and we're bringing stuff off the other edges. Uh, I mean, so just having. Aa mug is a defensive. You can do so much with it. Um, and, and there's no reason to have a whole big system when you can do so much with the base stuff, right? Pick 4, 2, 5, you know, ag, I mean, you've talked about it before, but when I got in with Joe and that's kind of his, he, he learned it from Gary Patterson as well. And, uh, and so I've, and I just think it's like the perfect defense to start with. Um, I learned a whole bunch about three, four this year, but that 4, 2, 5 is just Uh. big guys on the line, you're Three fours. Three fours where it's at now, two dudes four. Yeah. Um, so, you know, pick one and run with it. If, if you want to be system, I mean, uh, uh, scientific about it, I can tell you that every oline coach I talk to says they hate, hate trying to block three three Stack because they can't account for one dude. Right? Like, that's, that seems to be a whole bunch of, uh, oline coaches you see, uh, aside here, I don't wanna go too far with the change, but coach may be interested in this. And when Flores was in Miami, they used to call that, like that double a mug, double, they called it tag. So what they would do is all the players would try to touch an offensive lineman if no one touched you back. You went, if anyone touched you, you bailed. And all they were trying to do was get it uncovered and dropped two or three guys. It was, I think one of the more inventive things that I'd seen in a long time. And they ran, they literally in a hole, they went about seven games in a row that year running that defense. Everybody's up run zero and where they're gonna roll to two and then we're gonna run tag. Yep. That's beautiful. I've been on Um. So, yeah, man, just, uh, when you start building that system, be simple. Have enough answers, take more outta the backpack as you need them. And I think, uh, just about everybody, you know, life will be okay right there. Um, so next question here guys. We'll, we'll move on. I don't wanna, like you said, get stuck. Well, we could talk and building the package forever. Why do we need to have multiple ways to, to kind of bring pressure in the same areas? And my first is coach. ag, uh, ag, I'll let you go first. Well, I think I, I think, um, for once is, you know, most, all right, let's just say, are they a full slide, a half slide? Are they keeping the back end? I think that's the biggest thing is that like you gotta be able to, to, to, find a way to. To win one. Oh ones be creative to win oh one oh ones. You know, because like you say, if I'm trying to be the half slot or a full slide or you know, are they keeping the back end? You gotta find ways to, to win on one to win those one oh ones. I don't think it's hard. I don't, I like movement in front of my blisses because anytime you can make one of those fat guys chase a linebacker or it's just that as hell man. You know? And so definitely that right tackle because, or that laugh, tackle.'cause those are usually your studs, right? So anytime you can try to get him to turn his hips one way or to go chase, that's why it's important to me. And I tell my linebackers and coach, if you get beat by a back, you ain't playing. That's you gotta win your one-on-one against a freaking running back. And so if we, if we beat that, that tackle and you get blocked by a bat, you probably gonna find your way on the bench. And so I just think it's important the more I can get that fat guy to bend or to go chase somebody. But if you just make it easy, you just send one guy here, one guy there, that's boom, boom, you know, that's just, that's every day what they work on. So I think you gotta do a good enough job of what are those guys are studying and what are those guys are doing on the up, up the upfront, you know what I'm saying? And if, um, which way is the, the center is turning as well, you know, as he, as he turn to the left, you know, I do a little deal where the C term, you know, is the center always, which way does he try to help out with? And so, um, the more you can get moving up front to get those guys moving around, I think the better you be. Yeah. Yep. Kenny, same question to you. Uh, why don't we just have multiple ways to bring pressure in the same places? I love how coach talked about movement. I think that's key. I mean, as an offensive guy, that's the last thing we wanna see is. Guy's chasing and now we gotta running back. I know you draw up on a board and my running back, where's your mic looks really good. But that's not what he's in there to do. Like, that's not, that's not really what he wants to do. There aren't very many guys that really wanna do that. Uh, I put down, I think there's a couple reasons. One is, although I'm not advocating to just randomly blitz, there comes a time when they're just whipping your tail. Like is it even the coordinator? You know their base or is your base, they got you figured out that's gonna, that's gonna happen. You can't sit stagnant and not understand. They're not gonna get you at some point. So if they have you figured out, you gotta have something you can throw. Whether that's movement, like coach said, bringing an extra player, doing something because sometimes, you know, the Jimmy's and Joe's matter and sometimes their Jimmy's are a little better than your Joe's. And so you gotta figure out a way to create a negative play or get'em in an uncomfortable situation. So you're gonna have to blitz and that's gonna have to happen. Two, I think it's a different game. I think, I think today's game is a different game. If you let a quarterback sit back there in the pocket, you know, even maybe five, 10 years ago even our theory was make him hit five yard hitches all the way down the field. Like that was kind of our theory. We've had to move away from that.'cause quarterbacks now will do that. Like they're good enough now to go five yard, five yard, five yard touchdown, and now you look really stupid. And so you're gonna have to figure out a way to get 'em behind the sticks. And I think when I look at defense, I don't necessarily look at like yards giving up all that. I don't really care about that kind of stuff. Can we create game changing plays? Can we create pick sixes? Can we create turnovers? I think turnovers in today's game are almost a must.'cause eventually you're gonna play a good enough offense. Let's be honest. You're not gonna just shut 'em out. So how can we create a turnover? And the best way usually to do that and to bring pressure. Make that guy make a mistake and then capitalize on that pressure. So I think the game is different where instead of just saying, Hey, we're gonna be real conservative and make him earn it, you're gonna play a team that's gonna be good enough to earn it. And so you're gonna I didn't know that. change that mindset. And that's been hard for me because it's, you know, hard for me 'cause I'm an offensive guy. But now I'm telling our defenses guys that, screw it. You know, you guys be aggressive and if they hit us over the top, who cares if you get three turnovers and they hit us for 180 yard, I'll take that deal any day of the week. Like, all right, you hit us once and we got three turnovers. We're going take that, not let you milk the clock all the way down the field. And I only get it twice, you know, the game's kind of change. And then I put, Yeah, go ahead. No, I'm sorry. And I This could wait, but you know, you were talking about, you know, you got a good turnovers. Have you, this is random, but have you, over the past, have you looked at your goals 10 years ago on defense and see, hey, back, back 10 years ago, you say, we got a hold of 10 under 14, points now Yeah, that's exactly right. Coach. You know, now, and now I, I wanna coach 'em different, you know? Um, I think you have to coach kids to be more aggressive because honestly, if you sit back, you know, a lot of times back then, old school offense, they, the passing game had not evolved to the level it's at right now. And there are games we're gonna see that like we're playing in Arkansas. When I was playing at the six, eight level, you know, it was obviously a lot tougher, the passing game, more advanced as you kind of drop down. It's just a different, it's just different. It's not better, worse, or whatever. It's just different. So we will see some teams, but we'll say, I don't think they're good enough. I don't think they're good enough. Let's go. Let's be conservative. But to beat the elite teams, to get where you want to get, you're gonna have to beat some elite offenses. And I think for that, that's where I think the blitzing and the movement and the stunning and all of that stuff.'cause what happens is, are they dictating the game to you? Are you dictating the game to them? And I think the read and react stuff, which is nice works and it works really well against old school offenses. So kind of take that for a little, whoever's listening, if you're playing a wing T team or a flex phone team or whatever, you probably need a lot of read and react. You don't wanna just blitz those teams. It's probably not good. But for the spread teams, which are kind of taken football by storm. You gotta have something where you can dictate to them the terms of the game and not them dictate to you.'cause if I know you're gonna sit in a 4, 2, 5, cover two, we're gonna pick you apart. We're gonna manipulate you to where we want you, we're gonna pick you apart. Or if I know you're gonna sit in a three, four, whatever, we're gonna pick you apart. I know I'm getting man, zero. Every play, we're gonna pick you apart. So you've gotta have the ability to gimme a different picture every snap. But keep it simple for your kids. Hmm. Yeah, I think those are key points. You know, you're talking about needing to be able to get the same place multiple ways. Um, you know, you may know they have a weakness wherever it is on the line. You know, y'all both brought up Pass Pro. But they still have your, your Jimmy out Outmanned, right? So even though it's a weakness, the guy that's sitting in that gap ain't ain't the guy. And so you gotta be able to bring someone else. I'm super big into, um, like safety blitzes. I just love a good cover three, bring a safety in the B gap because a lot of teams don't, they, they just can't, number one, that kid's not an account. So you talk about they're going, their linemen are scanning one way or the other. Right? And they're looking for, well now it's a single digit used to be like a, you know, a 50 sixties number. And in that fifties to eighties, whatever linebacker number, they just want them, they're looking at big kids. They're not looking at the dude zooming in from the outside. So, you know, I really like that because offenses nowadays are really just picking on force players, right. You know, Kenny, you've, you've, popularized, uh, this, these RPOs and running buck sweep and it doesn't matter who your force guy is, we're gonna read him or kick him anyway. So it really don't matter who he is. So they're going, they're gonna mess him up. Well, if I leave them him there and I can just add another dude in the B gap, now what are you gonna do? Right? And of course, I mean, there are answers, but do you have the answer right now on this play? Unfortunately, even talked about zone drops. I know, I know that's probably down the road or probably a whole different discussion, but you wanna stop the RPO. There's two ways you can stop it. You go, man, so that's one way you can try to stop it. The other way is a zone drop where you're gonna take a D lineman that we're not accounting for and drop them into the window. Those are the two ways. If you're trying to stop the RPO game, you've seen a lot of RPO. You gotta have enough of a mix of man, and then you gotta have enough where we're dropping a guy that we're not accounting for into Windows, which is usually a. yep. And so I just really like that ability to bring, you know, I need to be able to hit a gap, B gap, C gap, whatever, specifically that gap for whatever reason. I need to be able to put 2, 3, 4 different guys into that gap and make your, your dudes constantly have to be reading, right? So I think that's part of it. You know, we're always just trying to outsmart a 14 to 18-year-old kid anyway. I don't have to outsmart the coach on this, but I gotta outsmart that kid. And so having two or three answers or, or ways to get pressure and make him think about it now, he can't just get into Xerox mode where it's just, you know, making a copy of the last play. I'm gonna block that guy. I'm gonna block that guy. Fine, go ahead and now we're gonna slip this other cat in behind Mm-Hmm. um, I really think that's, that's pretty important. Um, last question here and, and we can talk for as long as y'all need to, but how much do we really need to carry? So when I'm, if I'm a new coach, fairly new coach, new DC. I'm putting together that pressure package. Uh, look, there's the ags of the world. Um, you know, Kenny, your, your defensive coordinator seems to have a lot of, uh, stuff going for him. Um, talk to Adam Gayler in my time. That guy's got it going on, right? There's these fantastic dcs that are really in this. Guys. We are in the breadbasket of football in America. If y'all didn't know, um, those guys have, their system is amazing, right? And, but you don't have to be that intricate year one through year five, right? So what does a new guy really need, uh, to carry? And then how much is too much? So, ag, we'll let you start with this one. So what, what's the minimum, bare minimum need to carry your pressure package? And then much is too much? You, You, better be able to have your coaches be able to teach it just as well as you can. Um, I think there's been times I've been on staff where I want to carry, like I try my best to, to go. If I got five field blisses, I try to have, I try to have five boundary blisses and that's zone I go in, I carry, I start off with five zeroes, five field blisses or whatever. And so, but my biggest thing is, is that you explain it to your coaches first and you try to have them teach it to you because if they can't teach it as good as you can, you got too much or your verbiage is all jacked up. So I think as a staff, you gotta be able to sit down and know the way your guys learn the way you are. You know, because, dude, you know, I, in today's worlds, I, I hate to say this, but there are slim pickings out there in coaches. It's, it's a war to find great coaches, man. And so you gotta be able to teach yourself, man. One thing I've learned, I had a awesome presentation built up for a junior high playbook that I could pass down to my, to my coach staff. And I spent so much time on this fellas, and it was a cool blitz package. You know, it had three or four blitz package. And so Coach B was like, man, that looks really good. But you really think that that eighth grade coach or that eighth grade player know where the hook is? You may need to teach him where the hook's at. You know what I'm saying? Because I'm telling you, a kid that's coming outta eighth grade, going into eighth grade, he don't know what a hook is. So when you building that bl, that blitz package for the seventh grade level, you gotta teach them the basics first before you can teach them that stuff. But moving on man. Um, I am going to do, I'm going to do a IQ test over the i that off season. One thing I'm changing right now, we're doing football one-on-one man just teaching kids just what the hashes mean. What does the bottom of the number mean offensively?'cause they don't know what's come, what's the hill line means of the defense? You know, when you're going past the D lineman, 'cause you tell those d lineman don't go too far afield, stop at the hill lines. Right? Some, some of those kids don't know what that is and some of those coaches in today's world don't know the verbiage of that, you know, because they see what ju what these guys are doing on TV or whatever. So, man, I try my best to, to go, I, every year I may start from day zero. Like I'm teaching my varsity guys, like I'm an eight grade staff and so I try to not to carry that much. It's going in and I just try to start off with up to three. Field, in field, in boundary, and then just build off that as we go and have them teach it to me. So you know, because it's gonna be simple. So I want those guys to be able to teach it to me too, because if I feel comfortable for them teaching it with me, I feel them. I feel comfortable them teaching to my players. Absolutely. Uh, Kenny, same question. Do you, how much do we need to carry when we're, we're trying to build out that first package and, uh, and, and then how much is too much? I, I mean, I think a lot depends, you know, that coach did a good job kind of answering not only on your ability, but I think you need to look at who you're playing. Like who are the teams you have to beat to get where you want to get Realistically, I mean like if you're rolling in here and you're one A two, a three a football at a rural area and you're seeing a bunch of wing tea, flex bone, power, eye, whatever, you probably don't need a lot, like, you don't need as many exotic coverages for sure. And you definitely probably don't need as many as certain kind of blitzes. You know, if you're starting to look at, okay, these are the three or four games. If we wanna have a great year, we have to win. Here they are. Here's what these teams run. Then I would start building out my blitzes. Like that's where I would start, is for us to get where we want to get, what do we need to have? And then start from there. So you look at your competition level, then coach at a really good job kind of talking about ability, like what's your ability level. I like one of those quotes before we talked about, hey, some guys just aren't good blitzers. So you know, why are we gonna bang our head against a wall, putting in a blitz that we really like for a kid who really isn't good at blitzing? Or maybe a team that we're never gonna use that blitz against. And so I think you gotta look at that. And then again, players and coach, what's the ability you have to teach it? Are you the only guy that's gonna be capable of teaching these? Then it needs to be pretty simple. Um. But I would start out with what you think you need. And A three is a pretty good number. I mean, I think that's probably a fair number. And like coach mentioned, three to five in that world, depending on, again, if you're playing, he's playing at a higher level in Oklahoma, they're playing a lot of spread teams. You know, we're playing at a level where the teams we're gonna have to beat, can throw it a little bit. So we're probably gonna need a little bit more against them. So for us, we're probably gonna start with three to five. Uh, that depends on the level. You know, this past year we had a freshman db. My son was a sophomore db, uh, we had a brand new football senior db, and then we had a junior, it was his first year to start at db. So that is not a, this is not a blitz thing, but guess how many covers we ran about two because we had those four guys back there that were all pretty good ball players. We gotta be pretty simple with them, you know? And so this year those kids are older. So we'll run more coverages and the same thing would, would, would apply to blitzes. You know, as your kids get older, you know, and you can do more, you can add more. I would say this last little caveat, we always will, will tend to start with more than we know we're really gonna run. So like if, you know, we, if we wanna run three, you might start with five or six in the spring. If you have the ability to practice in the spring or or summer or whenever you have the chance to play football, start with more.'cause it's easier to trim and cut. Like it's easier to go, okay, we're not good at this gone, we're not good at this gone, we're not good at this. Gone. Uh, what I think is dangerous is when you're trying to carry all of these things in and you're not evaluating constantly what you're good at and what you're not good at. Like, in my opinion, a good coach gets rid of the crap they're not good at and really just gets really good at what they are good at. And, and coach mentioned you start kind of building off of that. So, and that, and that can be way different. I mean, if you're like me, it's March. I have a depth chart right now that will change 95,000 times before we play a game. The same thing with our blitzes. You know, we have kind of our family, we run these every year. We know we're gonna run those, but then we're, we're looking at three or four other blitzes that you, every year you're looking at kind of adding an evolving. And we know we're probably gonna keep one of those, but we're gonna play with these three or four with our coaches, with our kids, and just see which ones are better. But knowing that we're only gonna probably keep one by the end of it. So start with more than you probably think you need, and then be willing to trim. That's actually, um, exactly the opposite of how I was taught. And I love it because there are more than one way to skin a cat, right? And I'm gonna a good, install the base, get the base done, run the base, and now add what you need, right? That way you don't, you're not trying to break out your whole system at once. And by all means, you are, uh, a much more successful coach than I. So I'm gonna look at your method and see my mindset would be we better be great at our base. Like my mindset, we're gonna be great at our base. We might just run base defense and zero blitzes until we're good at our base. But once we start doing our blitzes, we're gonna install more than we probably need simply on our offense. Like if you watch us play offense, we're gonna really get at Buck Sweep, and we're gonna have about a 3 million formations in the spring, and then we'll pair that down. But the base, the play, or for you defense, the base doesn't change. I think, um, when you start talking about how much do you want to carry, you know, you can't, it, it's very, you guys said three to five blitzes and I think that's a great number, but for a different reason. And I'll explain myself in a minute after I say all this other random stuff, but I think some coaches get caught up in like, oh, I need 10 blitzes.'cause I gotta make the defense really think, but you forget about those multipliers, right? Number one, the coverage you're running behind it is making the quarterback's eyes read different stuff anyway. So even if you just ran Mike through an A gap, um. That's one blitz, but a couple coverages behind it. You are really changing the, the, the whole defense, right? You can make it different. Yes, you're applying pressure here to beat one kid or two kid, you know, you gotta beat that center guard combo. Um, you gotta hope you catch 'em just right. You gotta beat a back maybe. But then if you go into like, line stunts, right? Line stunts are super cheap. Fronts are super much like formations, right? Installing a front is super cheap, especially if we're always in an over right? I'm a big 4, 2, 5 guy. I wanna be an over front. So if everybody's always out outside shade anyway, like who cares if it's the guard or the tackle or the center. It doesn't matter that it's the same technique for them. But now if I can cross those dudes, I can get a slant to the left, to the right. Those are multipliers. So now my, my three to five blitzes is five to 15 because I'm getting, you know, I'm able to cross these things up so Mike doesn't have to learn Daniel, just He's running a take your mic blitz. So let's just, let's just talk about that for half a second. I know coach might even have more to throw in on this. So I can run Mike through the aap. Okay. That's one blitz. I can walk Mike up and send him through the aap. I can walk Mike up and not send him through the aap. I can bring Mike from the other side and cross the nose and run nose X, but it's still a mike, a gap blitz. I can line up Mike wide, stem him in and bring him in and, and so there's a lot, that's five different ways right there to run Mike through the A gap. And so I think that's the way you make your blitz package exotic. Not by having a thousand places he has to go. How does he get there? I think that's where it gets exotic. And usually time, I'm sorry. Usually time when it gets exotic, that's usually your best guy, Yes. you know, because you find, because think about it, we tell million ways You can usually time you're gonna find it. When you start getting exotic, that's when you know that's your best guy. And how you gonna hide 'em? Like, you just, you line them up, you take 'em from here, that's usually your best guy. I think that's when most, that's how you, that's as a defensive coordinator, that's how you know your guy's figuring it out because he's figuring out how to get his best guy effective. You know, I think the hardest part is for a defensive coordinator is that they, they gotta take out their favorite blitz, that they can't run it. They're gonna keep on running it and it's never getting home. That's the hardest part for coaches these days, is when, like coach said earlier, the good ones know how to take stuff back. But it's always that one like coach, you would lose your mind if you had to take out butt sweep. If you couldn't run butt sweep, you would lose your freaking mind. But there's some years. Exactly. But yeah. But I think it's defensively, like I say, it's harder than all, you know, it's harder than offense. Like sometimes, man, you guys can't, you don't have those guys to run double edged pressure, you know what I mean? But you have that guy to run just one edge pressure. But that other guy, he just don't, he can't bend the corner like he can, you know, he's a A to B gap guy. He's not C to D to F guy. So I think the hardest part is just, you know, sometimes we wanna be so cute on defense because offense is so freaking cute that we think we gotta recorrect the world and really man. Just get your, your best guys and figure out how to with those guys, you know? I think if we just, we kind of full circle moment here, but. We started this show talking about coaching on both sides of the ball and how it just makes you better. And if we can take that one play many ways mentality, and I'm gonna run my three blitzes, but I can get to it 30 different ways, like, man, that's, that's life change because kids, Kenny, you said it like, y'all tag your defense, right? You have a base defense and you tag it, which is what all the best offenses in the, in the world are doing right now, right? They're running three or four plays. Uh, you know, I, I gotta spend a little bit of time with, with some of the Bixby staff this summer and, and, uh, talking to their freshman OC because he beat the dog poo outta me four outta five games this year. And I'm just like, what are y'all doing that's so special, man. He's like, uh, we just run like four plays and then we just tag the shit out of it. So, and Kenny, y'all are doing the same thing, right? You're running buck with so many formations and variations. So if you can just do that same stuff on defense, just flip the ball. Now we're just running these three to four or five blitzes, but I've got. Five fronts in front of it. And, and like y'all talk about bringing that same kid from all over the field and even if he's coming to the same gap, um, you know, I, I think that you also, we talk about, we kind of close up here, you know, how much do we need to carry? Um, I think you need to consider some run blitzes. You need to consider some pass blitzes. Um, and all, every single blitz on earth is made to, to go get the quarterback down on a, on a sack. Now can it work? Absolutely right. But sometimes I'm trying to get hats in the B gap because they are running, uh, belly to the cow comes home, right? Because they've found a weakness or they've just, they've got our, our number, this game on that side. So I need to be able to problem solve. I need be able to get concentration. You know, we talk about principles in Army all the time, but you know, I gotta be able to increase my numbers right now. And it's sometimes it's pre-snap to change the read. Sometimes it's post snapp because I just need to go hit somebody in the mouth. But so, you know. Pre and post snap movement. So, you know, I need to be able to line a guy up there and then bring a guy from, from back. Um, these are just kind of some of the things. And I think when you get to that second question, how much is too much, I think your kids tell you. And that is as soon as you see them having to think Mm-Hmm. it, you've, you've gone too far. Right? When they are, are slowing down. When they're not flying around hitting people like they were when you decided to install that new thing, whatever it is. Um, you, you've gone too far. Some kids that might be, you know, 20, 30 different defensive calls. Some kids, it might be three. Some kids are really good at lining up in a one and just modeling the shit outta the center. Right? Um, and then some of them, you know, they can, they can kind of fly around all the field. Can you talk about your son being hyper intelligent and helping other kids to line up in a sophomore year? Like, he's obviously gonna be able to handle a lot more. So what is too much? You know, that's definitely based player by player, case by case. Um, but I think as soon as you start to see confusion, that's probably when you know you've gone too far. Well, sweet gents, uh, we'll, we'll start closing this out, uh, Kenny, last thing here. You know, let's, let's do our what not to do as a coach portion. So don't you give us our lesson for the get for the day. Yeah, so, um, we try to do this each time. So basically what not to do, I think a lot of times is you gotta think of your defense or offense or whatever we type of defense in this one. But think of it like a pyramid. You know, the bottom level of that pyramid has gotta be really good, and that's your base. So the stuff we're talking about right now is not the first thing that you're putting in. Like we're, it's fun to talk about blitzes, obviously you need to have 'em in, we mentioned the importance of them. However, if you suck at your base and all you're doing is blitzing, you're not gonna be very good. And so build the bottom of the pyramid. Teach your kids how to tackle, how to take on blocks, how to understand the leverage, you know, all those important things first. Then if you do that, you get to have fun and you put the next part of the pyramid that's a little smaller. Which might be your first blitz package. Then you start to work on your exotic, which is even smaller. Then you work on your one word calls, which are your coverage and your blitz and your, that's the fun stuff, but that's the top of the pyramid. Sometimes as coaches, we flip it and we start trying to put that stuff in at the up here and we can't freaking tackle. You can blitz. I've had multiple times we call the perfect blitz. We execute the blitz perfect. We couldn't tackle and like that should be day one. We need to start with that and so that's what not to do as a coach for this week. Absolutely. So awesome. Um, you know, last call out here for pro com welchman.com. Jump over there and check out the pro com stuff. Um, you know, Zach will tell you, you know, they sell headsets. You're wanting fancy timers, you're wanting whistles and bells, and that's not who you're going to. You're gonna get headsets of very high quality. I mean, their loud mouth for the sideline, I think is about the. The fanciest, the high school ball, you know, that that's the, the extra piece. So you can just yell at your quarterback when you're up in the booth because he's got his own microphone now. So, um, and then don't forget to, uh, reach out to a sports talking, talk to, uh, Ryan or Mark. Uh, and, and you know, guys, it's free fundraising. I, I can't, it's mind blowing to me that everyone doesn't call Mark tomorrow and be like, Hey, my school wants a half million dollars in, in five years. Um, come do your thing, mark. Also, we get to have this really neat board out here that highlight reels, whatever you wanna put on it. So, uh, if you're in the need of something like that, something to spice up the stadium, something to start making an income, uh, reach out to Mark and those guys, coach Ag Man, I appreciate it. Uh, Pleasures all mines. Truly, truly so grateful that you could come on and talk with us tonight. Um, I have to admit, man, just coming from small ball where I could walk into the head coach's office anytime and shoot the shit, and we're game planning together, and then I got into that six A one world. That stage fright. I've never had stage fright before, I don't think, but, uh, you know, walking past y'all's office and afraid to knock on the door, it happened. So I, and I really do. We appreciate your time. I know, not right now. You're, you're in a transition time and it's busy, busy, busy. So Well, don't ever be afraid to knock on the door, man. Your family and coach's family too. So that's just, I just appreciate you guys having me on, man. And I got better tonight. And, um. You, I can always take something from whatever man and hit it up here, you know? So I appreciate you guys. we're going, we're gonna bring you back hopefully before this, but after this first season, we're gonna bring you back and, and talk about the first season as a head Well, I be working for you if I ain't get fired yet. Buckle up coach. Yes, sir. Absolutely, coach. Thank you very much, man. So we'll go ahead and close that real quick. Um, social media ag. Somebody wanna reach out to you today and ask a question, um, email, social media, where would they reach out to? Yeah, man. You can, um, just reach, reach out on Twitter, obviously, or hit me up on the email. It's on our athletic website as well. And so I, I'm a open book man and so I want people to be able to grow and learn. And so, um, feel free to hit me up on Twitter or hit my email. What's your, uh, what's your Twitter handle? It is just, um, God dang it. You know, I'm so old school. Uh, I have to even tell you this. Um, It's logged in on his phone. Daniel, you dunno Yeah, yeah. coach a Coach. Agram. I'm simple. Just like my defense baby coach a Graham. Yep. Coach I, I do love that you're a 4, 2, 5 guy. Like, as soon as I heard that when I walked on campus this year, I was absolutely stoked. Um, I love getting together and, and talking 4, 2, 5 with some guys. If you wanna talk to me, you can reach out to me on Twitter at Coach Chamber. ok. You can also email me at Chamberlain Football consulting@gmail.com. Might be a website in the works. I'm trying to put my portfolio online because I'm tired of applying for jobs and remaking stuff all the time, so I'm just gonna make some stuff and be like, Hey, go to the website. You wanna hire me? Go to the website. Uh, Kenny, where can we find you at, sir? uh, all things fb. Coach Simpson. So Twitter's fb, coach Simpson fb Coach simpson.com is a website and then fb coachSimpson@gmail.com is my email. Perfect podcast is at Coaching 1 0 1 Pod on the Twitter. Um, you know, feel free to DM there, ask questions anytime. I love talking ball. I'm sure Kenny does as well. Although, you know, he's, man, it's probably busy. You travel so much now. I bet it's a blast, but, whew. Ag one last time, man. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Uh, grab the rest of your crew, man. Talk to those guys. Tell 'em let's go. Uh, Uh, you know, uh, Dominic Franks has been on the other show a couple times, so we'll have to, we'll have to get you on with him sometime. Talk a little Oh, always me. Yeah, absolutely. Wanna thank you for being a listener to the coaching one-on-one podcast. We'll help you join us next week as we continue to make the complex more simple. 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