Many of us are through the first third to half of the season and as we continue to attack the schedule, the emphasis increases on teaching our players equally as much about our opponents as we do ourselves. What follows below is the daily schedule we use each week defensively to prepare for an opponent. As the staff at Cornell has remained intact and is now in it’s third year, responsibilities and specific task duties have become much more collaborative. If you choose to take any ideas away from here toward your weekly menu, the imperative to remember is that it is much more important WHEN things get done (in order to get information to the players in a timely way in which they can process them) rather than WHO does them.
SUNDAY
-Previous opponent review and summary. Unit and Position measureables are presented to check and maintain progress. Here is what we measure versus each opponent:
1 – Alignment and Assignment = 90% or better
2 – Block Destruction = 70% or better
3 – Pursuit (Swarm) = 92% or better
4 – Tackling = 90% or better
5 – Ball Disruption = 17% or better
6 – Takeaways = +2 as compared to our offense
7 – 1st Down Defense = 3 yards or less
8 – 3rd Down Defense = 35% or less
9 – Red Zone Defense = 45% or less TDs
10 – Mental/Critical Errors = NONE
11 – Scoring Defense = 20 points or less/Outscore them in the 4th quarter
12 – Big Defensive Plays = Score or set one up
13 – Rush Defense = 3.3 yards or less
14 – Pass Defense = 6.7 yards or less
MONDAY
-Every player receives a new game book/player workbook/playbook cover sheet with their name.
-Every coach receives a new game book for each opponent week.
-Everyone on the Unit (coaches and players) gets all of the opponent cumulative statistics and initial depth chart for the week. Any rosters, game notes, play-by-plays, etc., are also distributed.
-This is the day we focus on and present the overall and comprehensive summary of the opponent and our philosophy to beat them. Example: always take away what they do best. What are their top 5 run plays and top 5 pass plays? To that end, as a staff we will have already watched all of the film several times and at this point will have produced our FORMATION HIT CHART for First and Second Down Normal Situations. We will physically put their top 11 formations up on a whiteboard and color-code what type of plays have “hit” where. A paper copy of this is produced for the players and coaches and passed out Monday PM or Tuesday AM. This paper packet has a still slide picture shot of the video of each formation and a picture slide of the formation hit chart that is produced in our video system slide editor function. This can easily be done in PowerPoint or Vizio as well.
*EVERY Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday each player will receive a hard copy NOTES sheet from their position coach regarding tips about the opponent position group they are going against and details of the game plan. The Coordinator will also give each member of the Unit a comprehensive game plan call sheet by personnel and formation broken down into front-stunt-coverage and the sets/plays we are attacking with each call.
TUESDAY
-As coaches, we are always trying to get ahead on game planning throughout the week but this day is our first and second Down Normal Situation RUN/PAP/Base Pass day. This information will be delivered to the players in HARD TIP percentage form and also through video cut-ups. We will present the information in our meetings and then the practice will be scripted accordingly where all of our play segments will only focus on these situations. The staff will make sure that all of the base runs and passes are drawn. However, the major material that is given to the players are our SCRIPTS for the day which are pulled directly from the opponent and marry-up in paper form with a video cut-up in our system and what we will practice that day.
WEDNESDAY
-This is our Third Down and Red Zone day. The same methods and process in terms of information and SCRIPTS are repeated today for these emphasizes. Knowledge of the specifics within these areas is passed along to the players again in video cut-up form; the expectation is that for each area within the Red Zone and for each distance on Third Down we have studied a tendency and developed a plan that is understood by the players.
THURSDAY
-This is our “PLAYS” day in just helmets where we go “full speed to fit” and don’t throw the ball by the scout team. By PLAYS we mean we want to run as many different looks as we can at the players including unique plays pulled from the opponent archives to force the unit to concentrate and react to adversity while not taxing them physically. Especially for the DL, from a key and target standpoint, this day has forced us to be much more mentally disciplined because in essence we are forcing them to learn new information at the end of the week yet still apply defensive calls they have been working on since Monday.
FRIDAY
-This is our ALL MENTAL/WALK-THROUGH DAY. All the players have TIPS and REMINDERS sheet along with GAME TESTS that are picture/draw-in oriented. Any other out of the ordinary or unique details of “what if’s” are given to the players. We will deliver final tips and the final trimmed down game plan in several forms:
*Walk-through/Meeting Clap Session by formation/Top Play video cut-up/Stepping through Plays on bodies on the field.
Again, nothing presented above is very revolutionary. However, our emphasis of compartamentalizing our focus for each day supports our belief in promoting the concept of “see a little, see a lot.” Hope this helps for current ideas or plans for the next ones. Best of luck the rest of the way.