Offense

I was recently reading The Huddle about set plays and it got me thinking if this was something we might want to incorporate into our offense? Our first priority should of course be getting the offense flowing well, but maybe down the road throwing in a set play or two.

I have also been thinking about our redzone offense within the H-stack. Will we want to keep it in a H and let the handlers homie it in; or should we set up a vert stack and work it in that way? Of course with the later option that would require us going over a vert stack. I wanted to put some ideas out there, so later in the season we can come back and look at them.

Morning team runs

After talking last night with Grabe and Jmah about how to set a serious tone, I thought of something. What if the team has morning runs about twice a week. They'd be voluntary, but would set a tone for how serious the team is going to be. I am thinking longer runs, 2-5 miles around campus to build up endurance and strengthen legs a little. Also might want to consider team weightlifting, or at least try to get buddies lifting some.

Defensive Philosophy

3rd post of the day, no way I keep this up. 

My first thought about defense this year was that we should ignore it for the most part.  The offense is still too raw to spend time on defense.  Good defense is only going to frustrate our players who are trying to learn the offense.  But, I don't want the players to develop bad defensive habits, and it will probably also be frustrating on the offense if they show up to tournaments and the O suddenly doesn't work because the opponent is actually playing defense.

My second thought was to work on switching defense.  I think it makes the defense much better if our players are able to switch easily and effectively.  Also, learning to switch on D will do wonders for increasing our players' field awareness.

My third (and so far final) though is that switching is not the kind of thing we want to really focus on.  I'm ok with allowing switching, maybe talking about it a little, but it isn't the kind of fundamental defensive skill we want the players to learn.  Instead, I suggest we focus on two things:  force flick on the mark and play behind on the open side downfield.  This is a sound defensive philosophy, particularly on the college level where I think teams will struggle to complete lots of short passes.  This defense will encourage teams to trap themselves on the sideline.  Later, we can talk about how to defend the trap dump.  Also, this defensive philosophy is very simple, and is built around the concept of dictating where the offensive player can go.  I think that is a tough concept to teach, but in this situation, we don't really have to talk about it directly, they can just learn by doing.

I still don't want to spend a ton of time talking about defense, but this simple philosophy should improve our team defense.  We'll work mostly on marking, then just reinforce the downfield positioning in scrimmages.  We can also encourage switching in scrimmages, but I don't want to make it a point of emphasis.

A team - mandatory practice

Attendance at practice is sucking.  I was thinking about the A team/B team thing, what if we just say, A team is people who commit to coming to every practice.  B team will practice with A, but will play tourneys separately.  That way, you get the people who are really committed, those are the ones we want playing the important games anyway.  Hopefully the B teamers will up their commitment next year.

A lot depends on money.  Also, thinking about who to let see this blog, we could just invite the captains to join, and let them pass down stuff.

Restarting this blog

I come across things throughout the day that I want to remember for SPSU.  Maybe it's a play, or something to focus on for defense.  Maybe we can't work on in the next practice, but I want to keep it in mind for down the road.  So, I was thinking of restarting this blog.  We have to decide, do we want to keep it just for the 3 coaches, or if we want to open it to the players.  If we open it to the players, we can use it to pass on articles that we find that the players would find useful.  Fox, you could post the track workouts here (are you making those yet?)

What do you guys think?

Sectionals just 5 days away

Well guys, this is it. The last week of practice before Sectionals. We've got a scrimmage tonight, but after that we're going to take it pretty easy. Tuesday let's try and meet at the field at 7 to throw. Just throw till it gets dark since we probably won't have the field. We'll also just throw on Thursday, again, starting at 7. We may go a bit longer and talk some strategy on Thursday.

Drink plenty of water this week, eat healthy, get plenty of rest (Fox), and do whatever it takes to get your head in the right place for this weekend. You should probably try to run a little once or twice this week, just a few laps around a field.

2 more weeks

2 weeks from now I'll be talking about our practice schedule leading up to Regionals. As for Sectionals, we've got one last hard week, then next week we have a scrimmage Monday, and lots of throwing for the rest of the week. Really push this week, just like that last interval, give this week everything you've got. For instance, if we get a scrimmage scheduled for Tuesday, I'll skip my class to go.

Schedule
Monday:
Warmup
10 Throw
5x40 yard sprints
Dump Swing Drill
Trap Dump Drill
Continuation Drill or 3 line drill
Individual work
10x20/10 intervals - sprints

Tuesday:
Scrimmage or in the gym
Warmup
5 suicides
10 Throw
5 suicides
Court Disc
10x20/10s intervals - burpees

Thursday:
Warmup
10 Throw
1 on 1 Defensive coverage
HC + DS Drill
Continuation Drill
3 Line Drill
Individual work
10x20/10s Intervals - sprints

3 weeks out

3 more weeks of practice until Sectionals. Last week was pretty weak. FYI I threw up doing intervals on Saturday after I played 2 games of Spring League savage. Is anyone else running on the weekends? We really need to start pushing, the finish line is close and our intensity has been for shit. Tonight for practice we're just going to play, whatever we have enough for. Let's try to get as many out as possible.

Schedule
Monday:
Warmup
10 Throw
Games
10x20/10 intervals - sprints

Tuesday:
Scrimmage or in the gym
Warmup
5 suicides
10 Throw
5 suicides
Court Disc
10x20/10s intervals - burpees

Thursday:
Warmup
10 Throw
1 on 1 Defensive coverage
HC + DS Drill
Continuation Drill
3 Line Drill
Individual work
10x20/10s Intervals - sprints

One Month until Sectionals

We've only got one month before THE tournament for Pure Bliss this year, Sectionals. We've still got lots of work to do, as individuals and as a team.

Schedule
Monday:
Warmup
3 suicides
10 Throw
Dump Drill
Trap Dump Drill
2 on 2 dump scrimmage
Individual work
Court Disc
10x20/10 intervals - burpees

Tuesday:
Scrimmage or in the gym
Warmup
5 suicides
10 Throw
5 suicides
Court Disc
10x20/10s intervals - burpees

Thursday:
Warmup
10 Throw
1 on 1 Defensive coverage
HC + DS Drill
Continuation Drill
3 Line Drill
Individual work
10x20/10s Intervals - sprints