This article is excerpted from ‘Black Shoes and White Shoestrings’ by David Buchanan, a frequent contributor to AFM and AmericanFootballMonthly.com.
As a football coach, Coach Tony Dungy stresses the concept that the key to post season success is to continue to do what you do and be who you are. He points to Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots as a prime example of a team that continues to do and be what it is all through the season. According to Coach Dungy, the secret to the Patriots is Belichick’s wisdom in not adding things special for the post season. Coach Dungy played for Chuck Noll, the Hall of Fame coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers who won four Super Bowls. Chuck Noll was the first coach he witnessed to follow that lesson – continue into the post season to be who you are and do what you do.
Coach Dungy uses the David & Goliath story to illustrate that point in his book, ‘Quiet Strength.’ In prepping his Colts for their 2007 AFC Championship win over the Patriots, he pointed out that David rejected King Saul’s armor for the battle because he was not used to it. David went into battle doing what he always did. Of course, David was victorious and the Colts were as well.
Before reading Coach Dungy’s book, I learned he was right the hard way. In 1999, when we were preparing for a great opponent in Lexington Catholic, we used a formation that was too big of a change. They were the better team, but I didn’t help us by making our team uncomfortable. I had thought they were too quick up front for us to block them. I was wrong. When we settled into
doing what we could do, our kids played well on the offensive side of the ball. We had also placed our defensive ends in an uncomfortable spot by having them drop and cover the flat from our 50 front. That was the last night that a 50 was our base defense.
In 2003 when we were getting ready for Highlands High School, I had the same concern that they were too quick up front for us to block them. But, I remembered the lesson from 1999 and gave our kids a chance to block them. We didn’t win the game but we did well enough to have a chance to win and we did play the best game we have played in my seventeen seasons here.