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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Defensive Game Planning

Getting prepared for friday night, from scouting to kickoff
by: David Purdum
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Game planning is all about prioritizing; sifting through all the infinite details that you and your staff have investigated; and pinpointing the most crucial elements.

Every coach worth his whistle charts tendencies from every down-and-distance, from every formation, and from each hash mark. They scout blocking schemes and multiple personnel match-ups, just like you do. They document the number of times you run certain routes; they know what your go-to running and passing plays are and how often your run them.

St. Xavier (OH) head coach Steve Specht’s defensive game plans aren’t much different. They contain all of the above. But what’s helped Specht lead the Bombers to two state championships in the last three years is his staff’s ability to simplify the game plans. In four seasons, Specht’s record is 51-3 and he has been named twice the Ohio Division I Coach of the Year.

“At the end of our Sunday meeting, I’ll say in order for us to be successful, we must do these three things,” said Specht.

But it’s not easy. In fact, for Specht and his staff, creating a focused and prioritized game plan is a lengthy and tedious process. They gather the information through scouts and film work; organize it onto spreadsheets; prioritize the information; and finally implement the plan in practice.

Here’s a breakdown of how St. Xavier designs its defensive game plans.

1. Gathering: St. Xavier often begins gathering information the Friday before an upcoming game. While Specht is leading the Bombers on the field, his scouts are documenting the strengths and weaknesses of next week’s opponent. Of course, when given the opportunity, Specht and his staff will scout their upcoming opponent in person. But when the Bombers are playing on the same night as their upcoming opponents, they’ll rely heavily on the scouts to build the foundation of the game plan.

The scouts provide Specht with personnel sheets, featuring heights, weights, jersey numbers, positions and key backups, as well as their top three running and passing plays and make general observations. St. Xavier also prefers to exchange game film on a Friday night, allowing their video coordinator to get a jumpstart on what can be a long process.

The video coordinator prepares cut-ups of all of the game footage on an opponent. These cut-ups are due no later than Saturday morning. Each assistant receives either a DVD or VHS tape of all the available footage on an opponent.

“Our video guy is a young guy. He’s got to earn his stripes,” said Specht with a chuckle. “They’re going to have to put in the time and bust their tail doing the dirty work.” The video coordinator’s work doesn’t end there. After cutting up each game film, he’ll later group an opponent’s passing plays, running plays and red zone offense onto more specific cut-ups. Assistant coaches and, possibly more importantly, players will get a copy of these cut-ups.

“That’s been huge for us,” said Specht. “Players will be able to see where routes are breaking open over and over and over. Or they’ll be able to see their top pass play and the receiver they’re going to be covering. Our defensive linemen will be able to watch the same running play over and over. They’ll be able to study that offensive lineman and see how his steps are. What can they take advantage of?”

2. Organizing: The coaches begin breaking down film on Saturday. Each assistant has a responsibility. The defensive coordinator breaks down every facet of each play onto a spreadsheet. He charts down-and-distances, field position, hash mark, formation, motion and any other useful information. The secondary coach is responsible for the passing game. He looks for favorite routes, the play-action game, the screen game, three-step game and five-game step. The defensive line coach is responsible for the running game. He focuses on blocking schemes, tendencies and favorite running plays.

A second secondary coach is responsible for all of an opponent’s red-zone tendencies. Coaches are often duplicating each other’s work, documenting the same information from the same plays. But that’s fine with Specht.

“We’re kind of over-lapping one another,” said the four-time Greater Catholic League Coach of the Year, “but that’s fine. It helps us make sure nothing’s slipping through the cracks.”

The assistants are allowed the freedom to break down the film in whatever fashion they like. But, by the time Sunday night’s round-table meeting begins, they better know their responsibility backwards and forwards or they’ll have to answer to Specht.

“They better know the opponent’s offense better than anyone not named me,” said Specht. “The secondary coach better know how many times, for instance, they run their stallion route. How many times did they run it out of pro-right? He better be able to tell me right away.

When I go to our D-line coach, he better be able to tell me if 32 power is the No. 1 play, and if not, what is?”

3. Prioritizing: The coaching staff meets at 5 p.m., Sunday. They scour through each other’s breakdowns and personnel sheets. Each coach explains what he picked up from his film work. The secondary coach will run through the passing game, specifically identifying what the opponent likes to do.

“What’s good about that is that they’ll start talking about blocking schemes, whether they slide-protect or man-protect,” said Specht. “Then, our D-line coach will step in and say that he saw the same thing. So, then we’ll start talking about different stunts and blitzes that we like against certain protections. We try to take advantage of how they’re going to try to block us from a pass-protection perspective with how we’re going to run stunts and pattern blitzes so we can get the numbers on our side.”

Specht analyzes all the information and breaks it down to the three musts.

While the three musts obviously change with each opponent, Specht says they are usually based around personnel match-ups, large tendencies and what his own defense’s weaknesses have been.

“I want to know who can’t beat us? Who is the guy or guys that we cannot let beat us,” said Specht. “I want to know what their best plays are. Do they have the stretch play in their arsenal? Do they like the seam routes?

“The third must usually looks at us as a defense. What’s our weakness? Where are they going to attack us?”

He also looks closely for the offense’s weak link, especially along the offensive line.

“If there’s a certain O-lineman who’s weak, then we have to attack him, overload this side and take this advantage,” Specht said.

Six hours later, the staff hopefully emerges from the meeting with an original draft of the defensive game plan.

4. Implementing: Now that Specht has identified the defensive keys, he and his staff begin to install the game plan in practice.

Monday is recognition day at St. Xavier. It’s a helmets-only practice which Specht says is more of a walk-through.

“The first thing we do is an offensive and a defensive recognition,” Specht explained. “We’ll spend 30 minutes with each coach talking about the game plan. The secondary coach will walk through all the routes. We’ll set formations and talk about their [opponent’s] top routes out of each formation.

“We’ll do the same thing with the running game. Our coordinator will go through personnel. He’ll talk about each player on the offense and what the kids can expect from them.”

Scout teams will show the defense how an opponent is going to try and block them in the running game. The secondary and linebackers will examine how they’re going to need to cover the opponent’s routes.

A film session follows the abbreviated practice to reinforce what the players have been shown on the field. Players receive scouting reports during this session which are reviewed as they watch film.

On Tuesday, the staff goes over the stunt and blitz packages as well as any coverage wrinkles that are being added to this week’s game plan. The entire game plan is thrown at the players during Wednesday’s practice. Specht pays close attention during this practice to see if he possibly has made his game plan too complex or if there are any elements of it that his players are having a hard time grasping.

“There’s been weeks that I’ve felt like we’ve put too much in,” he said. “I’ll come in after practice and say, ‘this wasn’t any good.’ Or a coordinator will come in and say that he didn’t like something. So we’ll just simply erase it. If anybody is concerned with anything, we’ll just get rid of it. We want our kids to be comfortable. We want them to play fast.”

This also applies to the coaching staff. Specht doesn’t want any of his coaches to have to think about what kind of adjustment needs to be made. He wants them to simply react.

“I’m a firm believer that your coaching staff has to go into the game feeling really good about the game plan,” he said. “If they feel good about the game plan, the kids will feel good about it.”

By the end of practice Wednesday, Specht hopes his game plan is cemented into his players’ and coaches’ minds. The staff will continue to add and subtract different facets of the game plan, making sure everything is as simple as possible.

“By Friday, we should all be on the same page,” Specht said. “It really shouldn’t matter who’s calling the plays because we all know in this certain down-and-distance we’re looking at these pressures or these coverages.”






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