This week's schedule

We've still got a lot to learn, but our first weeks of the season have to be building the basics. So this week we're working on our man offense. I know most people know it fairly well, so we may throw some redzone offense in if it's going well. For those of you on week 4, Air Alert is T,W,Th this week. Fox is going to try and organize some throwing on campus during the day I think.

Schedule
Monday:
Warmup
5 40 yard sprints
10 Throw
Breakmark Drill
Discuss Pair Offense
Walkthrough Pair Offense
Pair Offense Drill
3 Line Drill
Continuation Drill


Tuesday:
Warmup
10 Throw
Goto Drill
Huddle - Reminder about Pair Offense
Scrimmage
Review Game
7x30/20s intervals

Thursday:
Warmup
10 Throw
Breakmark Drill
Review Pair Offense
Pair Offense Drill
Deep Receiving Drill
3 Line Drill
5 on 5 (1 handler)
7x30/20s Intervals

T-Town Throwdown Review

After my initial disappointment about our results this weekend, I came realize that it was actually a pretty good first weekend for Bliss (with the exception of Jaime, sorry buddy, that is a serious bummer). It was a good example of what kind of shape we need to be in, without actually killing us. Saturday was pretty indicative of how many points we're going to be playing. Sunday was not, obviously. There is lots to talk about this weekend, so I'm going to get to it...

The Bad Things:
Jaime's knee - first point of the first game at the first tournament.

Wind Throws - we all need to be throwing as much as possible. Yes, I'm including myself. We also need to work on catching in the wind.

Zone O - We haven't discussed zone O yet so I'm not too worried. Mostly we just need to get on the same page. I thought our zone O in the second half vs Mississippi was getting a lot better. Once everyone knows what to do we're going to kill teams that try to play zone against us.

Getting Broken - In man D we got broken way too much. Especially for the amount of wind there was.

Sunday Morning Hangover - We absolutely played hungover Sunday morning. Look at Red, who didn't drink, and played amazing. I know there was a Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Contest at the party and all, but if we expect to really compete on Sundays, we're going to have to take it a little easier at the party.

Good Things:

Rookies - I thought all the rookies played really well. You guys obviously haven't had the chance to learn zone O or D yet, but that's not a problem, we'll get to that stuff soon enough. Overall I think we've got a lot of potential in our rookies and I think they'll be solid contributors this season.

Man D - Overall I thought we were playing pretty good man defense. We got beaten back to the disc too often, and got broken too often, but we poached a lot less (and most of our poaching was really just due to being tired, keep running those intervals). We were helped by the wind, but I'm hopeful that our man defense can really be a strength for us.

Comeback - We fought hard in the second half of Sunday's game. Down 8-2 at half, no one gave up and we fought back into that game. We gave Mississippi a scare, and I do believe that if we hadn't gotten capped, we could have won.

Pair Offense - We're definitely learning the offense, finding out who works well together, etc. We had problems occasionally with the secondaries not cutting, but overall I think the O is improving. We set up the trap dumps pretty well. We (me included) need to do a better job of hitting whoever is open, instead of looking for the difficult but high reward pass.

Overall, 3-3 at our first real tournament is a reasonable result. If our rookies keep progressing like they are, and we continue to build offensive chemistry, we're going to do fine. Once we learn zone O and zone D, we're going to be a lot better. Zone D has always been a strength of Pure Bliss in my opinion. If our man D keeps getting better and we can add a stout zone D, we'll be in good shape.

Keep pushing yourselves, keep coming to practice. We've got a long way to go, but I'm excited to see how good we are come Sectionals.

PFB

Countdown to T-Town

Our first tournament of the 'season' is this weekend. Hopefully most everyone will be able to make it. We've still got a lot to learn, but this weekend will be a good opportunity to get the basics out of the way. This week, we're expanding on the dump swing to talk about what to do when the thrower is trapped. This will be different from how we did trapped dumps in the past, so it's important you make it out to a practice this week. Being able to use the dump to maintain possession is going to help us a lot, it means we don't have to force the disc downfield as much, and the swing will really open up our offense if we can do it reliably. We're also going to be explaining our standard offense more this week, to help with the trap dump and also so that everyone is on the same page this weekend in Tuscaloosa.

Tonight we're in the gym due to the weather. Hopefully it will clear up for the scrimmage tomorrow. We've got Air Alert Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Due to the tournament, you can do the last day's Air Alert on Thursday if you want, I'm currently undecided when I want to do mine.

Schedule
Monday:
Warmup
5 shuttles
10 Throw
Goto Drill
Discuss Trap Dump and Trap Dump Defense
Walkthrough Trap Dump
L-Stack Dump Swing Drill
Court Disc (winners run only 3 intervals)
6x45/30 intervals

Tuesday (assuming we don't get rained out):
Warmup
10 Throw
Goto Drill
Huddle - Reminder about Trap Dump and Dump Defense
Scrimmage
Review Game
6x45/30 intervals

Thursday:
Warmup
10 Throw
3 Person Marking Drill
Review Trap Dump and Dump Defense
L-Stack Dump Swing Drill
Deep Receiving Drill
3 Line Drill or Breakmark Drill
Hotbox
6x45/30 Intervals

PFB

Short Week, Short Post

Hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend. Since we didn't get to go over anything new on Monday, we're going to continue our work on the dump swing this week. Unfortunately, it looks like it's probably going to be raining tonight, so we won't be able to do the weekly scrimmage. I'm not officially cancelling yet, waiting for official word on the fields, so check your email before you go to practice if possible. If we can't do the scrimmage, we'll practice indoors. Here is an indoor schedule for you:

warmup
10 throw
Goto Drill
Dump Swing Drill (just like last week)
2 on 2 Dump Scrimmage
3 person marking drill
Court Disc (score in the lane, make it take it, etc.)
6x45/30s Intervals (I hope to be there to run these with you so play Court Disc until I show up)


Thursday's schedule will probably be the same as last week, although we may try and scrimmage Kennesaw, stay tuned.

Intensity

I'd like to build on Fox's email about intensity a little bit. You hear about the great athletes, and how they always practiced like it was a real game, they always played all out. I, personally, have a tough time playing all out in practice pretty often. It's something I'd really like to improve myself, and I think that it can help our team improve a lot as well. I know that people are going to miss practices now and then (I'm not going to like it, but I understand it's going to happen), you'll be sick and miss track workouts, etc. What I ask of you is that when you do come out, you bring a high level of intensity. Play hard, otherwise you aren't going to get better. Give 100%. If you see a teammate not giving 100%, get on their ass. If you see me not giving 100%, get on my ass.

Ok, enough about that, on to the schedule this week. We've got practice on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:00pm. Tuesday we will scrimmage a local pickup team. For those of you who are available, we will be meeting at 6:30 before each practice this week to do the first week of the Air Alert program. After this week, the Air Alert workouts won't necessarily fall on practice dates, we may try to setup a group time at the gym to do the workouts on non-practice days, we'll see. This is not an easy program, but does provide pretty amazing results. You are not required to do Air Alert, but you're only cheating yourself (and, of course, the rest of the team).

This week we'll be working on dump-swing offense and dump defense.

Basic Dump-Swing Offense
Downfield cutters should never get closer than 10 yards to the thrower, this area should be reserved for the dump. We should always be looking to the dump by stall 6. The dump isn't just a bailout for the thrower, it's part of our offense. Dumping makes it easy to swing the disc to the break side of the field where it will be easier to advance the disc. We should always have a swing cut for dumps. The dump should be 5-10 yards from the thrower, if the disc is in the middle of the field, the dump is directly behind the thrower, if on the sideline, but not trapped, you want to be at about a 45 degree angle to the thrower. We'll work on trapped dumps later.

Basic Dump Defense
You can poach a little early in the stall count, but make sure you're in position to play defense by stall 5. Take a position where you can force the dump to cut only one way, then pressure that cut. If they complete the dump, make sure you get a mark on quickly to try and take away the swing. Work on communication with the marker so that he can help you take away the direction you are forcing the dump to cut. We'll work on trap defense later. We'll also probably standard way we want to force the dump in different situations later so that it's easier for the marker and the dump defender to be on the same page.

This Week's Practice Schedule
Monday:
Warmup
5x40 yard sprints w/rest
10 Throw
Goto Drill
Discuss Dump-Swing offense and Dump Defense
Walkthrough dump positioning
Dump-Swing (middle) drill
2 on 2 Dump Scrimmage
Push Pass practice
Short Backhand practice
Hotbox

Tuesday (I have class on Tuesdays, so you'll have to run this yourselves, someone bring a watch for the intervals):
Warmup
10 Throw
Goto Drill
Huddle (go over Dump-Swing offense and Dump defense)
Scrimmage - Game to 15
Huddle (review game)
Intervals - 5x60/50s

Thursday:
Warmup
10 Throw
3 person marking drill
Discuss Dump-Swing offense and Dump Defense, questions from scrimmage
Dump-Swing (middle) Drill
Push Pass Practice
Short Backhand Practice
Deep Receiving Drill
Breakmark Drill
2 on 2 Dump Scrimmage
Intervals - 5x60/50s

PFB