Success!

The breakdowns of last week lead to breakthroughs a week later.

Frustrated with the progress at the time, the weekend was spent creating position-specific, narrated DVD film study/coaching points with video overlays of what needs to improve. This saved considerable time in addressing the needs heading into game week and affords the players something to focus on (again and again at their convenience) throughout the summer.

The matchup against Evangel went as well as could be expected and the competition helped further define who needs to be on the field and who can contribute.




Next up, 7-on-7 tournaments, weights, and preparing for Fall ball with an intensive film study of all opponents as we transistion to a new (athletic) class this year.

"Plays Like THAT Make Me Want To Jump Out Of A Freaking Window....".

"Its never as good or as bad as you remember it - watch the tape"

2 hours since our first Spring intra squad scrimmage and I am doing my best to lower the blood pressure and relax.... take stock of the positives

I suppose I am frustrated with the performances because I thought we did all we could to best prepare the players (much higher expectations of execution). It wasn't terrible, but my expectations were quite a bit higher than what I saw, and what I continue to review on tape. There ARE positives, there is quite a bit of potential, and brighter spots than once believed.

The good thing is, we have plenty of film on all the entire roster, so it isn't like there are any remaining question marks out there.

* elimination of questions doesn't necessarily mean the production of answers, I'm afraid.

I am still waiting for some lightbulbs to turn on for few players and I'll have to search for new ways to deliver the same information so the executions are more confident and aggressive.







Hopefully, there will be better news to report in one week versus an opponent.

I will take comfort in knowing we have good young men, with good families, who want to take pride in their program. The defense came up with 5 turnovers, everyone hustled (no loafs), everyone got plenty of reps/looks, and we can run perimeter screens competently.

In as much as the title of this blog is an inside joke shared by a former staff, its 'truth' is hard to avoid.


Now, to meditate on all that which is good and soothing...


that's better

Half way through...

Practice 8 down of Spring Ball after being monsooned out on Monday.

All of the SEC (save 4 teams) and half the Big XII have visited for our prized Senior.

We have been treading water on the Oline trying to develop consistency and continuity with the system. We have installed; zone, stretch, 40s, 50s, solid, bubble, jail, slo, power, counter, lead, option, and 90s......(whew!). We have been trying to own the zone, and the last two practices we have committed to using the TT 3ft splits.

FYI - if it weren't for the time put in the last 3 years learning zone from Todd Sturdy, Alex Gibbs (pick up that name), Ken Wilmesherr, Rod Dobbs, Milt Tenopir, John McDowell, and Jim McNally... I would sure be up the creek. TFS has about squat for resources when it comes to specific OLine technique and installation work. That didn't sound frustrated, did it?

We'll get it down, but of course, we just need more reps. Picked up another athletic senior guard and hopefully we can make it stick (attitude wise).

DBs are looking solid and we are getting our turnovers. Decent down to the 2's and trying to get the 3's and 4's (depth chart)to a competent level. We have C3 and now C1 in. We will shoot for 6 turnovers in the final Spring game, next week (vs Evangel).

BTW - am out of town next week for work and will miss two practices (ugh) and be in Dallas for 3 nights with a Pentacostal co-worker (ahem.... Gold's Club? Pandoras, anyone?)

Feet for $10

For our Oline, (coordinated) feet are an essential part of what we ask them to do on any given down. To help develop their coordination and spacing, we encorporate speed ladder work in pre-practice. Typical speed ladders don't work because of the narrow rungs typically employed, therefore we have to build our own.

This weekend after spending a frustrating week using the old speed ladder, I constructed this Oline speed ladder out of PVC pipe (because I am not a welder). Everything cost less than $10 to construct and was much easier to build than I expected.

36" wide and 14" deep, affording the lineman ample room to maintain a balanced football stance vertically or horizontally.

My engineering is about as brilliant as Christopher Columbus' cartography, though.....I made it half as long as I thought it would be. The beauty is, we can continue to add more rungs to this piece in the future without any modifications (will need to double the length).