I recently
had the opportunity to head up the Lineman Skills camp at the Barton
Football Academy. For Washington, we offer sessions every weekend during this off-season
time to prepare kids to go into the season ahead of the curve. The emphasis of these sessions will be on the development of proper
technique, footwork and fundamentals of offensive and defensive line play.
Offensive Emphasis: Run blocking fits, playing with angles and
leverage, and utilizing solid pass protection footwork.
Defensive Emphasis: Proper explosive get-off, use of proper hand
technique and defeating blocks.
Regardless of level or system these fundamental tools will help any lineman
become a more rounded and explosive player. Sessions are held on Saturday and Sundays at local high schools throughout
the area and are open for registration on-line. Please see the website http://www.bartontraining.com for
more information.
"I'm a strong believer that the structure of your practice is the
singularly most determining reason for your success or lack of success
as a coach." Bob Knight
So this article took shape
a long, long time ago. It has just been very difficult to FINISH
it...but here is what has been completed.
Practice tenant: "The faster we go the better we get."
I
have approximately 20 minutes on Tuesday and Wednesday of game week to
do our individual drills. We split those two days up, Tuesday being a
station day and Wednesday being a refinement/scheme/mental day
(depending on what needs to be emphasized or prepared for.)
Tuesday-3
stations. (I do have the privilege of having 2 assistant line coach
who I absolutely trust. They are extensions of me and I am very
fortunate to have them.)
We have two stations that that never change: a Drive Station and a Screen station.
Drive
Station: 7 or 8 players driving the sled. For us, the sled is not some
mystical object that requires us to move it so much per season or per
day. For us it is a way to ease the banging on the body (as the JV guys
just played the day before) while allowing us to work the fit and the
feet.
Screen Station: Here is essentially what we do. See the video is the best way to show it.
The
final station I usually lead. It rotates between a pass pro drill and a
zone station. The pass pro I call the 'hot box drill' and it's
emphasizes a quick pass set and the quick short post/set steps that come
from that.
For the zone station, we use a target system for the foot movement and step over bags for the track.
Most of this is here. This is from our summer skills rotation:
To kind of condense things and try to make sense of where I am going with my zone system, I built this presentation. This is really my first time doing this from a schematic point of view and not just throwing a bunch of tape together.
If anything jumps out or appears to be odd, please let me know. Would love some feedback.
Was playing around with these thoughts after watching a great Glazier eclinic the other day.
VEER?
As a change up of the backs aiming point, run veer away from the normal stretch of zone. All runs the same, must have tackle execute the sift correctly..ie if backer sits, you must block, if backer flows crack force.
MIDLINE?
Running Zone towards the back. Same look as veer, but a little bit hard hitting (more downhill.) Here the PST would make an under call, to go under the dive key.
We see almost all the teams we play slant to the back on our zone plays, and I think these would be great compliments to take advantage of those defensive adjustments.
Here is a similar concept we ran this year...a simple dive play, with out the reads. You can see, I think, how dynamic adding that wrinkle would make us.
Here are 2 of our favorite counter plays off the base zone action.
The first is a simple power look. We like this action because it starts out looking exactly like zone and then we bend it back over (hence the counter portion of the play.)
1) Covered/Uncovered.
2) Calls- who makes them: the uncovered guys.
****Will call combination then # of who they are working to****
Playside calls:
TED= Tackle and TE working to #
TAG= Tackle and Guard working to #
TAB= Guard and Center working to #
Backside calls:
SLIP= Center and Guard
SCOOP= Guard and Tackle
SIFT= Release over the center
‘If Mike sits, destroy
If Mike goes, crack flow’
So out of a tight end set against an odd defense:
55 51
E
N
E S
O O X O O O
Here the te and tackle are covered= no call
PS Guard calls TAG #51- tackle knows he has help to the
ps b gap
BS guard calls Slip #55-center knows he has help on the
bs a gap
BS Tackle has sift
We work our head/explosion through the aiming points and work the ray technique
(our as some call it, a one arm bench press) with our arm extension if uncovered with our eyes on the number called.
Again uncovered guys make the call.
I think this a much clearer system that can handle all
fronts and gives us more answers against more things than just "follow
your rules."
Bottom line: I think it will help our kids know who and know what.
Well another season is in the books. I foolishly thought I might be able to keep some content up on this site while the season was under way but...well....I was way wrong.
A couple of thoughts before I begin to dig into the evolution of how I teach zone.
1) I got a flip camera to film practice and I will never NOT film practices again. Mainly focused on drill work through the summer, then only filmed the team time (as I ran into a problem with breaking it down, battery life through the course of practice, and watching JV players run through drills.) Here from our spring scrimmage:
2) I really learned that no matter how good a teacher of something you are, very few kids will remember what you taught the year before. I will not make that mistake again.
Ok so...Zone.
Last season, as seen in the previous posts on the zone concept, we employed a true zone concept (ie step and feel pressure and react.) And we got pretty good at it, so I figured we were on to something. Well, what happened is that group of lineman graduated.
I was pretty sure I could teach the next group to get off and feel it just like the last. But what I needed to learn was a system that was player neutral, ie we would have success regardless of the Jimmy's. If we had great jimmy's we would explode, if we had average jimmy's we could get consistent yards. So what this year ended up being was a bastard system, one where we evolved from a straight man scheme to a combo team.With that said. I want to emphasis that we did not get there entirely this season. But for next year we laid a ground work, a teaching method, and a thought process that will lead to it.
Part of coaching is learning how to do something better, and trying to teach the next group kids who are completely different from the last group.
