An Exciting Season Lies Ahead
With summer workouts coming down the home stretch, the start of another season is right around the corner.
With the 4th of July now behind us and summer training/ practice/ passing league in full swing, the “official” start of the season is right around the corner. I imagine all of you are getting a better feel for your players, seeing firsthand who has taken off physically, who has found that “senior confidence”, measured yourself against some other teams in 7 on 7, and maybe started thinking about your first couple opponents. I hope the past month has been productive for you and your team, and I hope that this growth continues as you wrap up this phase of the offseason. Whether you are a first-year coach or have many years of experience, this is a time of great excitement and butterflies about what lies ahead.
This edition includes my beliefs on the mindset that is crucial to a successful team, a one-on-one conversation with Jesuit High School (Oregon) Coach Ken Potter, as well as a July checklist of things to consider as you move toward Fall Camp. I will also have the recurring Breaking the Huddle section with a link to the NFHS rule changes and points of emphasis for 2023, and share a video explanation of one of my favorite 2-point plays!
I received great feedback on my conversation with Lake Oswego High School Coach Steve Coury and look forward to sharing my recent conversation with Ken. I want to thank them both for their willingness to share their wisdom and I am hoping to reach out to many of you in the future! Please message me with topic suggestions and feedback. Additionally, all articles and videos from previous editions are archived and available to subscribers. I encourage you to subscribe for $5/month using the subscribe button found a little further down in the Playbook. I look forward to doing my best to make this a valuable and useful resource!
JM
“One Look on Your Face”
I first heard this expression from Foothill High School Coach Matt Sweeney, when I began coaching there in 1996. It was a message used often by Matt to describe the attitude, body language, and demeanor that your players carry on the field. Football, like many sports, is a competitive game that will include momentum swings, physical mistakes, and good plays by your opponent. While we all strive to play the “perfect game”, nearly every team will face some adversity and challenging situations each and every week. This is where I believe the idea of having one look on your face becomes so important and can help your team overcome these challenging situations without panicking, or giving any indication of doubt or discouragement to your opponent.
I repeatedly tell our team that our “look”, body language and demeanor should be the same if we are up by thirty points or down by thirty points. When things get tough, it is important that your players and coaches have the same positive attitude and urgency as they would if you were ahead. Having a belief, scrappy can-do spirit, and resiliency gives your team a chance to overcome mistakes and bad situations. While it is very natural and frankly, human nature to show disappointment and discouragement when things are going poorly, it is critical for coaches, players and your team in general to not allow this to happen. This must be something that we as coaches model and coach our players to understand. While I was at Silverton HS, I had an athlete come out for football for the first time as a senior after being a state champion track and field athlete his junior year. In our first game, he got behind the defense and dropped what would have surely been a 50-yard touchdown pass. He immediately hunched over and then stood there for a second with his hands on his helmet. I sent someone in for him and brought him over to the sidelines where I told him that I will never get mad at him for making a physical mistake, but I will get upset if he is demonstrative and shows poor body language after one. I then put him right back in the game and he went on to have a great game and an All-State season.
Having one look on your face throughout the game is, in my opinion, the first step in giving your team a chance to upset a higher ranked team or one that is simply more physically talented than your own. Your players need to stay steady and resolute when your opponent has success and makes good plays. You need to coach this idea and stress how important it is for your team to not flinch. Once an opponent can see discouragement or finger pointing, they will sense it and become even more confident. Our 2019 Mountainside High School team was a particularly resilient group that I had coached since the school opened in 2017 with only 9th and 10th graders. Throughout the infancy of starting a program and playing in a varsity schedule in 2018 without a senior class, there were some tough moments and we really had to live this “One Look on Your Face” mentality. In the second round of the 2019 playoffs, we were the #16 seed of the 6A playoffs and faced the #1 seed undefeated Tigard High School team. After falling behind 21-7 midway through the 3rd quarter, our team wasn’t phased and maintained the one “look”. By staying positive and energized, we managed to come back to pull off a 34-31 upset in overtime. None of this would have been possible if our players did not play with one look on their face.
While this belief is critically important when your team faces adversity, it is equally important to talk about not getting too high when things are going well. While you want your team to be excited when you have good plays or are playing a good game, you still want them to keep one look on their face and maintain the same mindset, focus, and urgency. In some games you can sense the emotions and body language of your opponent riding a roller coaster of highs and lows. These teams are all excited and amped up when things are going well, but you can feel the life come out of them when things turn in your favor. A couple of seasons ago, our Mountainside team was losing to a league rival by 2 touchdowns at halftime as this opponent played an excellent first half. As we left the field at halftime the other team was sky high with emotion and acted a bit as if it was the end of the game and not the end of the half. In the second half we quickly cut the lead to seven and then proceeded to create multiple turnovers. As this was happening, you could clearly see the discouragement and frustration of the other team and we won the game going away.
Having one look one your face is not an easy thing to accomplish, but I believe that spending time on coaching the players on its importance will pay dividends over the course of a season. Believe me, there have been many times on the sidelines when I have panic on the inside but I have tried to be careful not to wear this outwardly on my face or body language. In my opinion, the most dangerous teams are the ones that will have the same “look” throughout all four quarters and will keep coming at you with the same emotion and intensity regardless whatever swings will inevitably happen over the course of nearly every game.
One on One Conversation with Jesuit Coach Ken Potter
Ken Potter is entering his 37th year as the Head Coach at Jesuit High School in which time his teams will have amassed well over 300 wins, 4 State Titles, and dozens of League Titles. In addition, Ken is the second winningest coaching in Oregon football history and quickly closing in on the most wins ever. As the son of a longtime, highly successful coach in the state of Washington, Ken has a lifetime of knowledge and great perspective on the game. I met with Ken and we discussed many topics from sustaining success, changes to the game he has witnessed, advice for coaches that are just starting out and more! I had a great time talking football with him……thank you Ken!
Question: With the success you have had over the past 36 years, what are a couple of things that have helped you to sustain success over that period of time ?
KP: One of the first things is getting good assistant coaches that you can really trust. Not so much “yes men” but people that will question what you do so you really have to think and make sure you are doing things the right way.
Secondly, you need to adapt to your personnel. People sometimes come to me and say “you’re an I-Back formation team with 2 backs who really run off-tackle well with some counter game and that is going to be the primary part of your game plan”. While this is often true, you have got to look at your roster and adapt. You may say “we have some great WR’s”, well then you have to get them the ball. The biggest thing is identifying your playmakers. When I first got to Jesuit we had success running the Wing-T. We had an excellent HB named Aristotle Thompson who now coaches at Cal. One game other team took away our outside run game, so we had to run inside with our FB. We got beat pretty badly and as the coaches looked at the stats on the bus ride home, we saw that Aristotle touched the ball 12 times while our FB’s 14 times…..we thought that was ridiculous! We had to get the ball into his hands because the more times he touches the ball, the better chance we have to win! The easiest way to get the ball to a person is to hand it to them, toss it to them, get them in motion and get it to them as a receiver. Bottom line is to get the ball to your best player as many times and ways that you can!
How you communicate about football, and life in general, is probably the most important thing that we will do with kids. One way I do this is by sending each player a handwritten letter through the mail each month. The letter is specific for each player but will contain different themes. It is a very effective way for me to communicate with them. The parents seem to love it and often comment on how meaningful they are and that they are displayed on their son’s bedroom wall with pride.
Question: Being at Jesuit for so many years, what are some things on or off the field that have changed the most?
KP: There have been many changes that have been both good and bad. Video scouting for example is much more efficient now. I am not recording VHS tapes or meeting coaches on Saturday mornings to exchange….it is much more efficient now. Things are much more available and no one is trying to hide stuff from you. One of our opposing coaches from years ago would not show any play in which they scored. You would watch an entire game and there were no touchdowns on the tape anywhere!
The bad part of this new technology with film is that there is so much out there that you can worry yourself into a frenzy that you should be watching film more and preparing more. Every coach operates differently and I try not to compare myself with other coaches. I don’t believe life should be 24/7 football and I don’t want my players or coaches to feel that way. We should all have a life outside of football and enjoy family time, etc. I think if you always feel like “I should have done more, I should have done more” than you may get to the point where you get burned out.
Question: With all your many years of experience, if you were speaking to younger coaches, is there something you would tell them that you know now that you didn’t know when you were starting out?