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Making the Grade – Spring evaluation is essential for maximizing each player’s contribution to the team

by: JohnAllen Snyder
Offensive Coordinator Pequea Valley High School (PA)
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Spring evaluation is essential for maximizing each player’s contribution to the team.

While coaches understand that player evaluation is a year-round necessity, spring is a particularly important time for returning player evaluations as your team heads into the summer pre-season lull. It’s the perfect time to size up the strengths and weaknesses of each athlete and set personal and team goals. What is the best way to evaluate a returning player? American Football Monthly asked seven high school and college head coaches. They included:


Matt Kelchner
Head Coach,
Christopher Newport University

Chris Miller
Head Coach,
Spartanburg
High School (SC)

Kevin Loney
Head Coach,
Nichols College


 John Wristen
Head Coach,
University of
Colorado-Pueblo

John Rodenberg
Head Coach,
Archbishop Moeller High School (OH)

Evan Breisblatt
Head Coach,
Pequea Valley
High School (PA)
Brett Steuerwald
retired Head Coach,
Shenendehowa High School (NY) for 43 years

AFM: When considering players who will be returning to your team, what methods do you use to evaluate them and prepare them for greater responsibility?

Kelchner: We use a system of evaluations at the freshman level all the way through their senior year and graduation that relates to academics, off-season accountability, film study, practices, game success, and entire person discussions. We are concerned with much more than the football player.

Miller: We look at kids and try to determine what positions they will help us be most successful Once we have been around the kids for a period of time, we pretty much know what they can and cannot do. We will evaluate kids on whether or not they are “football savvy”, speed, strength, and finally what amount of work ethic and heart are they going to put into this.

Breisblatt: Our system is designed to be efficient, yet cover all of the major areas we feel a player should be evaluated on. We have broken it down into four major areas – accountability, effort, alignment, and assignment. With regards to accountability, we feel this encompasses a lot. Are they on time? Do they show up consistently? Can we depend on them to be there when it’s easier to go out with friends? Also, are they accountable on the field? Do they have an interest in getting better after watching a tough critique of their playing time? Effort is a lot like accountability in that we can use it to cover a lot of things – off-season effort, conditioning effort, academic effort, practice effort, game effort, etc.

Alignment and assignment are our two more specific and detailed areas of concern. Here we look at each player’s position. Can they play the position? Do they know what to do in this or that situation? We’ve found that keeping it simple actually covers all our bases.

Steuerwald: That’s a very simple question but not a simple answer. It’s a very complex, involved process. We look at a number of things when evaluating a player – performance, commitment, volunteer commitment, and of course, film. In regards to performance, I am interested in what are they doing on the field to get it done? Are they executing our offense or defense correctly? Commitment is a major part of being a football player. Are they going to commit to doing what is necessary to be successful, not only themselves but more importantly the team? Also, we look at what I call the volunteer commitment. This is committing to off-season workouts, football camps they go to on their own, things like that. Finally, we use film because without a doubt the film doesn’t lie! It’s a straight up, look at the player from a football standpoint. We do this every year from the time they enter our program.

Wristen: The jump from high school to college is so big that it’s tough to gauge how the athlete will merge into the college game without actually seeing him versus college players. This is why spring ball evaluations are critical for our assistant coaches. Here, my guys get a good look at what a kid can do skill-wise. We look at three major areas in the spring for incoming guys - strength (what must he improve on to be a player for us); flexibility (which I believe is an ignored area); and finally, mentally (can the player pick up the system, deal with adversity, keep his grades in order, etc.).

AFM:  Do you involve assistant coaches in the player evaluation process?

Loney: I am a huge proponent of having my assistants involved in the evaluation process. The number one trait we look for in coaches is their ability to evaluate players. The assistant coaches meet with the players by position and individually. We feel the personal aspect of the player is extremely important. What are their strengths and weaknesses? What’s their personal life like?  This is what I want my assistants to get into with our players. This helps us tremendously when it comes to coaching different types of kids.

Steuerwald: In my years of coaching, I was very fortunate to have great longevity with my staff. When I first started, I had three coaches other than myself. We were still coaching together nearly 30 years after that. Another coach was with me for almost 17 years, and still another for 10. When I speak with our younger up and coming coaches I preach to them, “be positive with everyone on the team.” We want everyone to have a good experience. As coaches, we must evaluate and do a job, but as younger coaches I tell them “I don’t want to hear that a kid in 8th-9th grade isn’t going to be a player when he is older.” I’m not interested in that, I’m interested in developing the athlete into a player and a lot of that comes from positive reinforcement and not negative reinforcement.

AFM:  How much input do you receive from the player himself on his performance?
Rodenberg:  It’s a two-way street when discussing player input. We have so much at our disposal here when we bring a kid in to talk with him about where he feels he should be on the team. We have lifting records, films, practice films, grades. We have everything and we can lay it right out for them. On their end, they have what they think they can do to help us. One thing I have found out is that these kids have a much better sense of where they fit into the team dynamic than a lot of people think. They get it; they just want to be a part of something special.

Kelchner:  I like to sit down with the athlete and position coach and talk about everything. We want to talk about football, yes, and we do that for sure. We talk about the strengths and weaknesses they have. How can they work to improve their game? Once that is done, we make a strong point of talking about the kid himself. We do this specifically at the end of every season but also throughout the year at various points. In their exit interviews, we talk about academics first. This is a tough school to get in and once you are here, we want you to stay here and graduate. Next, we get into what I call the social part of their lives. We have a spring player exit interview sheet (Chart 1).

Chart 1.

This encompasses everything that doesn’t include football or academics. It can be anything from their living situation, what are they going to do for a job, do they need a job? Are they financially OK? Do they have issues at home? Finally, we talk football. We go through it all with them - good things, bad things, and we set goals for them. They also complete a self analysis. We want them to be able to talk to us about problems they’re having and that’s when we can delve into the plan of how they’re going to get there, fix it, or achieve their goals.

Steuerwald: They have great input into their performance. It’s the one thing they control through their work ethic, effort, things like that. At the end of every season usually between Thanksgiving break and Christmas break, as the head coach, I sit down one-on-one with the player and talk. This is a very non-threatening discussion and more of a conversation between two people who want the same thing. It’s a personal environment, not a coaching one.  I get a completely different reaction from each kid, none two are the same. We use a very detailed question sheet that asks things such as:

1. What are your football strengths, weaknesses.

2. What are your academic strengths and weaknesses.

3. What are your goals both on and off the field. 

4. What did you like best, least about the season.

5. What could we have done as a staff to better develop you a person, player, teammate, etc.

6.  Questions about the rest of the team. How do they feel about the commitment of the team?
       
7. What did they think of pre-game practice on Thursday, Sunday film nights, etc?

    It also has a section reserved for a very honest evaluation from me. I look at all aspects of the person – work ethic, effort, technical, and fundamental aspects. We sit and talk for nearly 45 minutes with each player. I want each player to know that the coaches care and I want them to know I care and they do have a voice and opportunity to speak to me.

AFM: Technology is an integral part of today’s game. Coaches are now breaking down everything that can be filmed in order to get that slight edge over the competition. Is analyzing tape of the player a part of the process?

Wristen: We have a pretty comprehensive system in place for film breakdowns. It is three pronged – assignment, technique, and toughness. Assignment and technique are very simple plus and minus scores. Did he do his job? Yes, then he gets a plus. Running the wrong route is a minus. It’s a very simple process and easy for our coaches to critique and complete. Toughness is also a plus and minus score but graded on many levels. Are you a competitor? Did you commit a stupid penalty? Are you mentally tough enough to make a mistake and come back harder the next play? Things like that.

Rodenberg:  We grade our films and our position coaches handle that, but what we really like with our film system is we have the ability to check in on our athletes and see how much film they have watched. This is an opportunity for the kids themselves to take ownership of the team and most importantly themselves in regards to watching film.

Breisblatt: Absolutely, it’s paramount. In today’s game, more than ever, film is in use and if you don’t take advantage of it you will not be successful. We grade each player’s film after every game. We use a very simple grade sheet (Chart 2) on a plus/minus scale. It’s very simple and allows our coaches to quickly evaluate all of our players and give feedback on where they need to improve.


Chart 2.
AFM: Do you set goals and expectations with each player evaluated?

Miller: We have team goals for sure. Everything is broken down by unit, offensively, defensively, and the kicking game. Here we are looking to encompass all the different aspects of a game. We do use personal goals but stress if you set your goals appropriately, they will help the team achieve the team goals.

Loney: Yes, we use a combination of individual and team goals. I often talk with the players about “Where do you want to go?” We get all sorts of answers but that’s really not what I’m looking for. I’m interested in talking with them about what they are going to look like in getting there? That helps drive our goal setting, in a reverse order. Identify what you want to look like as a champion and then work backwards to determine what you have to do to get to looking like that.

Breisblatt: We have a percentage goal for each player. We want each player to average out at 70% for each game. The players buy into this and are always eager for feedback that is measureable. When a player receives less than a 70% on their overall score, they are looking at a reduction in playing time with the next man up, or their position being moved in order to be more effective based on their abilities.

AFM:  Do you use specific forms in evaluating a player?

Loney: We use two specific forms. First, the self assessment, which we use at the end of the season, when we meet with our players (Chart 3). We sit down and talk through the form with them – it’s great for identifying the strengths and weaknesses. The fixing it portion of the form is the hardest for the athletes. We’ve now identified their weaknesses. Now, how do they want to go about fixing it and taking ownership of their career? When we get to this point is when we really start to have some good, hard, real conversations. Secondly, the evaluation form (Chart 4) is what our coaches use to evaluate the players at the end of spring and at the end of the season. This allows us to get a comprehensive report on each player and where they stand and where we think they can help us. We take this into our meetings with the individual kids as well.



Chart 3.


Chart 4.

Miller: We use a specific profile sheet for recruiting purposes. When a recruiter comes into look at one of our kids, we have this specific profile sheet that we can hand them. It gives the recruiter a basic overview of the player. It has academic information, stats, etc.

Rodenberg: A specific cookie cutter form doesn’t work for me. I would rather sit down with an athlete “man to man” and talk. I value the personal differences that each athlete has and wants to focus on them individually.

AFM:  What are some of the intangibles you look for in assessing a players overall performance?

Steuerwald: Consistent eye level effort. Does the young man give a complete, consistent effort in pregame, the game itself, post game situations? Does he give complete effort in practice? I have never mentioned this to the players but they have taken ownership of their effort. At the end of every practice, each day approximately 50% of the team stays and runs buffaloes (gassers) across the field and back.  When asked about this they say it’s their extra effort to give for the team.

Wristen: The most important is mental toughness. If a kid has all the talent or physical tools in the world but can’t deal with adversity, he can’t play for us. Those types of questions are usually answered in recruiting or that first spring ball where a player finds out if college football is really for him. We are going to coach our kids hard and challenge them and some people just don’t respond to that.

Loney: Without a doubt – mental toughness. Can you take coaching? Will you bounce back after you make a bad decision on the field? Will you keep fighting? This is a moment where we as coaches put the onus on them to understand that they control their effort. In this game mental toughness is at a premium and that’s what we are looking for.

Kelchner: Effort in everything. If they aren’t willing to give effort in the classroom, and in their personal lives, are they really going to give full effort on the field? That’s the biggest intangible for us is what type of effort are they going to give.

Miller: One of my most heralded players was Marcus Lattimore, the running back for the University of South Carolina. He had it all. You could just tell coming up through the ranks he was going to be great. Marcus was faster, had more ability than others on the field. His instincts were second to none. Those are the things we look for when talking about intangibles. Speed, ability, instincts, desire, and work ethic. That’s what we are looking for.

AFM: Have you ever had negative experiences in handling player evaluations?

Kelchner: I try to “accentuate the positives” in everything. I’ve been coaching now for 33 years and how you coach players has changed so much over they years. Players don’t respond to the way we used to coach before. They just tune you out when you speak about what they are not good at or need to work on. We have found that they are very responsive to positive reinforcement, so that’s why we try to emphasize those things while dealing with the negative. When a player does respond negatively, we try to use as much discretion as possible and handle it immediately so that it can’t linger around the team. If the problem continues, depending on what the problem is, we have a set of escalating reinforcement procedures to try and nip the problem. Some procedures may be extra running, an activity we call rollers, cleaning the locker room, etc. In the end we are trying to build them up.

Wristen: It happens, no question about it, and it’s really inevitable. We take the approach of treating them like our own son. We are going to be truthful and look them in the eye and tell them what their faults/weaknesses are, we are going to discipline them, and coach them hard. Again, some kids realize that college football just isn’t for them, and that’s okay, too. As the head coach I take the thought of “I’m not always perfect but I have to make the call.” With our players, we talk about they have the “power of choice”. They choose whether to fight through adversity and get better or be content.

Breisblatt: A player will question you every time if you don’t have evidence of it. That’s when issues occur. When I first started coaching I used to tell kids what they did wrong and they would always ask what play, what formation, etc. I was grasping at straws. Now as I’ve matured as a coach and technology has gotten better as well, I have it all right in front of me. I have all the evidence on film, paper, grades etc. I can tell a kid exactly what they did wrong.  This has helped alleviate a lot of those issues.

Clearly, the ever-evolving technology has helped the detail of player evaluations. Now, each play is analyzed and direct feedback can be given right away to a player. Many coaches will give individual cut-ups to a player so he can assess his own performance. In one area all of the coaches on the subject agreed on one thing – they want the evaluation process to help the individual player improve his performance.







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