Coaches,

Just a quick heads up.

The Summer Development Plans have been moved from the “What’s New” folder to the “Film & Evaluation” folder to help keep things organized.

You’ll find all position-specific development plans there moving forward.

As always, let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

• Chad

Not rules.

Not expectations.

Non-negotiables.

As I worked through the process, I realized something:

Most offensive line coaches have standards, but very few have actually identified the handful of behaviors that drive everything else.

If everything matters, nothing matters.

Players need clarity.

They need to know what is expected every day.

Step 1: Think Beyond Football

Most coaches start with schemes and techniques.

I think you should start with behaviors.

Ask yourself:

“What habits make everything else better?”

For us, one answer was being early.

A player who is early is usually prepared.

A prepared player learns faster.

A player who learns faster performs better.

One behavior impacts everything else.

Step 2: Identify What Frustrates You

Think about the things you constantly have to correct.

Not once.

Every day.

For me, one of those is players talking while coaches are talking.

The problem isn’t talking.

The problem is missed coaching points.

Missed coaching points become repeated mistakes.

Sometimes your non-negotiables are hiding inside your biggest frustrations.

Step 3: Think About Your Ideal Position Room

Imagine the best offensive line room possible.

What does it look like?

What does it sound like?

How do player act?

One thing that showed up for us was communication.

The best offensive lines I’ve coached weren’t always the biggest or strongest.

They were usually the groups that communicated the best.

Communication became a non-negotiable.

Step 4: Cut the List in Half

This is where most coaches go wrong.

They try to make everything important.

Players can’t focus on 15 things.

Neither can coaches.

After brainstorming your list, cut it in half.

Then cut it again if needed.

Keep only the standards you are willing to enforce every single day.

What We Landed On

After going through that process, our list became:

• Be Early

• Pay Attention While Coaches Are Talking

• Hustle Everywhere

• Finish Every Rep

• Be a Great Teammate

• Communicate Everything

Could we add more?

Absolutely.

But the more things you emphasize, the less attention each one receives.

Final Thought

A non-negotiable isn’t something you put on a poster.

It’s something your players know will be addressed every single time it isn’t met.

Before the season starts, sit down and answer one question:

“What are 3-6 standards that I am willing to coach every single day?”

Those are just your non-negotiables.

They’re the foundation of your culture.

What are the 3-6 non-negotiables that define your offensive line room?

I’d love to hear them in the comments.

Looking for more practice offensive line coaching ideas, culture-building strategies, and weekly drills?

Join the GameDay Systems Vault and follow the GameDay Systems Diaries throughout the summer and season.

Your starting QB goes down.

Now you’re standing on the sideline trying to decide:

Do we run our offense…
or do we survive the night?

Most coaches make the same mistake—
they try to run the same system with a kid who can’t run it.

That’s how games get out of hand fast.

If you’re forced into an emergency QB situation,
this is what actually matters.

1. What can he actually do well?

Not what’s installed.
Not what you practiced in August.

What can this QB execute right now, under pressure?

Can he:

• handle a snap clean?

• make a simple read?

• run with confidence?

Start there.

Build the plan around him—not your playbook.

2. Cut the menu in half (or more)

The worst thing you can do is give him “options.”

Options create hesitation.
Hesitation kills plays.

Strip it down to:

• your best run

• your safest pass

• your best answer vs pressure

That’s it.

If he can play fast, you have a chance.

3. Build around one identity

This isn’t the night to be balanced.

Pick something you can lean on:

• inside zone

• QB run game

• quick game

• perimeter screens

And commit to it.

You’re not trying to be multiple.
You’re trying to be functional.

4. Eliminate long-developing plays

Anything that requires:

• full-field reads

• long protection

• perfect timing

…needs to be gone.

The ball has to come out fast
or the decision has to be obvious.

If it takes time, it won’t work.

5. Protect him with formation

You don’t have to out-scheme the defense.

You can out-structure them.

Use:

• tighter formations

• extra gaps

• motion to declare coverage

Make the picture clearer before the snap.

A confused QB plays slow.
A clear QB plays fast.

You don’t need a perfect plan.

You need a clear one.

Most emergency QB situations don’t fail because of talent—
they fail because of confusion.

Simplify it.
Define it.
Let the kid play fast.

That’s how you give yourself a chance on game night.

I used to think the smartest coach always won.

I believed Friday nights came down to knowledge. More plays. More checks. More answers. If I studied more and installed more than the next guy, we’d have control.

If something didn’t work, I added to it.

If we got stuffed on the first drive, I started thinking about changing structure.

Under center not working? Spread it out.

Learn something new on Wednesday? Squeeze it in.

I thought that’s what good coaches did.

Then we played a guy I knew wasn’t more technical than us.

And they beat us by four touchdowns.

That loss forced a harder question:

If he wasn’t smarter than us… what was the difference?

His practices were simple. Clean. No long speeches. No constant wrinkles. His kids played fast. They weren’t overloaded. They were clear.

That’s when it clicked.

I wasn’t losing because I didn’t know enough football.

I was losing because I hadn’t decided enough before Friday.

I used to overcomplicate everything.

I’d take a simple concept and turn it into a five-minute explanation just to prove I understood it.

I’d stack tags on tags. Checks on checks.

And when it didn’t work, I added more.

Then I’d get frustrated when the kids couldn’t execute it.

It wasn’t that they didn’t understand football.

It was that I hadn’t given them something simple enough to execute under pressure.

There were games where we’d get stuffed on the first drive and I’d start thinking about changing the entire identity.

Instead of diagnosing the problem, I was reacting to the moment.

That wasn’t control.

That was insecurity disguised as adjustment.

Over time, I built rules for myself:

• If we haven’t installed it by Tuesday, it doesn’t go to the game with us.
  
  

• If we get stopped early, we find the cause before we change who we are.
  
  

• If we see a wrinkle on Saturday morning, it has to fit us — not impress us.
  
  

• And the crowd doesn’t get a vote in the headset.
  
  

Experience didn’t make me smarter.

It made me more disciplined about what I refuse to carry into Friday.

I’ve learned the same lesson at home.

With three kids, more structure isn’t always better. More rules don’t create control. Clarity does.

The older I get, the more I realize leadership isn’t about proving how much you know.

It’s about removing enough noise so the people around you can perform without hesitation.

Early in my career, I tried to control the game by adding more.

Now I control it by deciding less.

If it hasn’t been decided by Tuesday…

…it doesn’t deserve to ride with us on Friday.

This is the mindset behind everything inside GameDay Systems.

Most of your players are not going to play college football.

That’s not a negative.

That’s reality.

So, the question becomes:

What are you actually coaching them for?

It’s easy to fall into it.

You’ve got one or two guys who can really play.

They’ve got a shot.

They’re the ones getting recruited, talked about, noticed.

Naturally, they get more attention.

More time.

More detail.

More energy.

And everyone else?

They get reps.

They blend in.

Even if you don’t mean for it to happen… it happens.

That’s where we get it wrong.

The truth is:

Those other guys need you more.

They’re not walking into a college locker room.

They’re not getting another four years of structure, discipline, and coaching.

For most of them…

This is it.

This is the last time they’ll ever be coached.

And they don’t need your playbook.

They need your standards.

They need:

• discipline
  
  

• accountability
  
  

• preparation habits
  
  

• how to be coached
  
  

• how to respond when things don’t go their way
  
  

They need to learn how to show up.

How to do what’s right.

How to be part of something bigger than themselves.

We feed our kids multiple times a week.

And all we ask for in return is simple:

Say thank you.

If they don’t — they don’t eat.

That’s not about food.

That’s about respect.

We take our guys into the community.

Reading at elementary schools.

Working food banks.

Helping after storms.

Serving people who need it.

Because we’re not just building players.

We’re trying to build men.

Standards are standards.

No matter who you are.

I’ve kicked Division 1 players out of meetings for clowning around.

Didn’t matter who they were.

Didn’t happen again.

Because there is no tier system here.

• You will show respect.
  
  

• You will be on time.
  
  

• You will give effort.
  
  

Those are not suggestions.

They’re non-negotiable.

And here’s the part that matters most:

Years later, those “average” players come back.

Not the stars.

The ones who had to fight for everything.

They come back to help coach.

They give their time.

They pour into the next group.

They’re great husbands.

Great workers.

Great men.

And you realize…

That’s what this was really about.

I’ve also coached kids who needed football.

Needed the structure.

Needed the discipline.

Without it, who knows where they go.

But with it?

They found direction.

They found purpose.

They stayed out of trouble.

They did something with their life.

I’ve always believed this:

Football saves a lot of kids.

So no — most of them won’t play college football.

But they will carry what you teach them.

How they work.

How they respond.

How they treat people.

How they handle adversity.

That part doesn’t leave.

If a former player comes back one day and says:

“Coach, what you taught me mattered…”

I hope he’s not talking about a play.

I hope he’s talking about doing what’s right.

About being a man of integrity.

That’s the job

March is one of the most important months of the year for a football program.

There are no Friday night lights. No opponent to prepare for. No game plan to install.

That’s exactly why it matters.

The programs that use March wisely usually have smoother springs, more organized summers, and fewer problems once the season starts.

Here are ten things every head coach should be doing right now.

1. Finalize Your Spring Ball Plan

A lot of coaches go into spring without a real plan.

They roll the equipment out, blow the whistle, and start practicing. But spring practice is not about preparing for a meaningful game on Friday night. It should be about preparing your program for the future.

Sit down and determine what your real goals are.

Maybe it’s getting a young quarterback meaningful reps. Maybe it’s finding out if a young offensive line can handle certain protections or run schemes. Maybe you’re trying to identify your best two linebackers.

Have clear goals for spring practice and make them measurable.

When spring ends, go back and evaluate whether you accomplished those goals. That’s the only way to know if your plan actually worked.

2. Meet With Your Coordinators

March is the time to get aligned as a staff.

The biggest topic in these meetings should be team identity.

With the roster you currently have, which direction should you lean?

Are you built to run the football between the tackles and control the game? Or do you have speed that allows you to attack the perimeter and push the ball down the field?

Head coaches should clearly communicate what they expect and what direction they want the team to go. At the same time, coordinators should give honest input about what they believe fits the personnel best.

These decisions will shape everything your staff works on for the next five or six months.

3. Self Scout Last Season

One of the most valuable things a staff can do in March is rewatch the previous season.

But watch it with a different perspective.

Instead of focusing on individual plays, focus on situational performance.

How did you perform on:

• 3rd Down
  
  

• Goal Line
  
  

• Two-Minute Offense
  
  

• Four-Minute Offense
  
  

Identify where your team struggled and where it performed well.

Also look for plays that were close to working but just missed. Sometimes a small adjustment turns those into explosive plays.

Go game by game and take notes. By the end of the process, you should have a clear picture of what needs improvement and what deserves more emphasis.

Read more

Each year a lot of young coaches are getting ready for their first season.

They’re excited.

They’re nervous.

And most of them are spending their time studying scheme.

Plays.

Fronts.

Coverages.

But the biggest mistakes young coaches make usually have nothing to do with scheme.

They come from not understanding players, practice, and how coaching actually works.

Here are a few lessons I wish someone had told me before my first year.

1. Players won’t automatically respect you

When I first started coaching, I thought it worked like this:

I’d walk out to practice, blow the whistle, and the players would all stand at attention waiting for instructions.

I thought respect came with the whistle. I was now a coach and kids would do what I say..

Boy was I wrong.

My first year I was coaching junior high football, which is a crazy age group. Those kids had me figured out by about the second week. They laughed at me, pushed the limits, and practice became miserable. I dreaded it every day. I was almost defeated.

There were a lot of days I drove home thinking about quitting. Some days I’d even stop by a local bar after practice just to unwind and deal with the stress.

Finally someone gave me a piece of advice I’ll never forget:

“Don’t ever let a 13-year-old kid ruin your day. Be yourself and quit trying to be perfect.”

Once I finally relaxed and started being myself, things got a whole lot easier.

But it took me over a year to really figure that out.

Understand this before you walk onto the practice field:

Respect isn’t automatic.

It’s earned.

2. Young coaches talk too much

One of the biggest mistakes I see young coaches make is talking too much during practice.

They think coaching means lecturing.

They want to show everyone how much they know, so they stop drills and explain things over and over.

The problem is practice isn’t a classroom.

It’s practice.

Players get better by repping things, not by listening to speeches.

Good coaches keep practice moving and coach while the drill is happening.

Less talking.

More reps.

3. Don’t try to be the players’ friend

Another mistake young coaches make is trying to buddy up with players.

They think being liked will make coaching easier.

It doesn’t.

Players will figure that out quickly and start working you.

It also creates problems in the locker room because other players see it and start losing respect.

You can be approachable.

You can be positive.

But you’re still the coach.

The lessons above are the things I learned the hard way early in my career.

But the things below are what actually helped me become a better coach.

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4. Be authentic

Players can tell when a coach is trying to act like someone he’s not.

Young coaches sometimes try to imitate another coach’s personality — the tough guy, the screamer, the hard-nosed disciplinarian.

The problem is players see right through it if it’s not who you are.

Just be yourself.

If you’re naturally calm, coach that way.

If you’re energetic and loud, that’s fine too.

But don’t try to play a role.

Players respect coaches who are genuine and consistent much more than coaches who are trying to act like someone else.

Authenticity builds trust.

5. Show players you care

There’s a saying in coaching that’s been around forever:

Players don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

And it’s true.

If players know you care about them as people, they will respond to you as a coach.

Talk to them about things outside of football.

Ask them about school.

Ask them about their life.

When players know you care about them as people, they’ll respect you a lot more when it’s time to coach them hard.

6. Fix one thing at a time

Young coaches often try to correct too many things at once.

A player messes something up and the coach starts giving three or four different corrections.

The player walks away confused and learns nothing.

Keep corrections simple.

Fix one thing at a time.

One teaching method that has worked well for me is something I call:

Right → Wrong → Right

First show the player the correct technique.

Then show them what they are currently doing wrong.

Then show the correct technique again.

Players usually understand it much faster that way.

7. Don’t assume players know football

Another thing young coaches learn quickly is that players today often know less football than you expect.

Many of them don’t watch the game the way older generations did.

You can’t assume they understand terminology, structure, or concepts.

Start with the basics.

Explain things clearly.

Build their knowledge step by step.

8. Execution beats scheme

One of the biggest lessons you eventually learn in coaching is this:

You are probably not going to out-scheme everyone.

The truth is Jimmy’s and Joe’s still matter more than X’s and O’s.

The coach who can get his players to play hard, play disciplined, and execute technique will usually beat the coach with the better whiteboard.

Keep things simple.

Teach the details.

Execute the small things well.

The first year of coaching can be tough.

You’ll make mistakes.

Every coach does.

But if you stay authentic, care about your players, and focus on teaching the fundamentals, you’ll be just fine.

And remember something that took me a while to learn:

Don’t let a 13-year-old kid ruin your day.

There is a good chance that you may be over-coaching during games.

Ask yourself:

• Are you trying to fix technique between series?

• Are you having long sideline conversations, assuming the kids are absorbing it all?

• Are you yelling cues they don’t fully understand?

• Are you getting angry over things you haven’t repped in practice?

• Are you shouting, “Catch the ball. Block your man. Don’t let him by you”?

That’s over-coaching.

And most of the time, it doesn’t come from ego — it comes from caring.

And believe me, I used to be that guy.

Friday night was my time to shine. Two Red Bulls. Fired up. Ready to coach my ass off. It felt right. I was a high school coach — that’s what we do, right?

In the heat of the moment, coaches feel like they have to say something. It’s what they do. They convince themselves their players can’t function without constant instruction from them.

But in reality, it’s probably doing more harm than good.

Friday night isn’t for teaching.

It’s for deciding.

Teaching happens Sunday through Thursday — meetings, practice, walkthroughs.

Friday is the kids’ performance day. It’s their chance to show you how well your teaching actually worked.

Friday is for:

• confirmation

• communication

• adjustments

Friday is the test.

If you fail the test, you don’t reteach it mid-exam.

You study harder for the next one.

A good rule of thumb:

If you haven’t repped it during the week, you can’t fix it between series on Friday night.

Calm staffs talk less, see more, and decide faster

The best coaching staffs don’t say less because they don’t care.

They say less because they are prepared.

If you want to coach harder on game day, coach smarter Monday through Thursday.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed.

A lot of problems that offenses face start long before Friday nights in the Fall.

They start when the OC and the OL coach aren’t completely on the same page with what matters most.

These are four conversations that need to happen in the offseason so that everyone is pulling the rope in the same direction.

1. Do our offensive values actually align?

Before you talk about installs, scripts, or formations, the coaches need to be aligned on who your offense actually is.

Not plays.

Identity.

Too many coaches jump straight into scheme conversations and realize mid-season that they have no identity and are pulling in different directions.

These are the conversations that matter early on:

• “Are we physical or finesse?”

• “Do we want to control the game or stress people with tempo?”

• “Are we comfortable winning games 17-14 or do we want to push the pace?”

• “When things get tight, do we lean on the run game or trust the pass game?”

• “What is the personality that we want our offense to have on Friday nights?”

This alignment and being on the same page matters more than any call sheet.

If the OL coach thinks the offense should impose their will, but the system is built around space and speed — there could be friction. If the OL coach believes in huddling and controlling games, but the OC wants NASCAR tempo — they are not on the same page.

When coaches are aligned philosophically, everything else becomes easier:

• Practice structure

• Player development

• In-game decisions

• Situational football

Once you figure out what you want your identity to be, then you can start talking about running plays and scheming up opponents.

2. Does our OL personnel actually fit what we want to run?

Both coaches should sit down and really look at the offensive line and the rest of the offense.

What can our kids do well?

Some coaches have a scheme they’ve always run and will run it no matter what. They have their favorite plays that they believe in and they think they should work no matter who is running them. This causes many offenses to underachieve.

Examples:

• Smaller guards in heavy power schemes
  
  

• Limited movement ability in wide zone systems
  
  

• Asking big stationary tackles to pass set for 4 seconds over and over
  
  

That doesn’t mean you can’t run it every once in a while.

But if you want your kids to be successful, sometimes you have to adapt.

The goal should always be this: Put the players in the best position to succeed.

Good coaches and good offenses fit their scheme to their players.

Not the other way around.

What that conversation may sound like:

• OC: “Looking at our OL, what do you feel like we can be really good at?”

• OL Coach: “These are the schemes and situations I think fit our guys the best.”

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3. Does the OC fully trust how the OL coach is teaching the system?

This one matters more than people think.

Does the OC have full confidence in the OL coach to teach it exactly how he wants it taught?

Or does he feel like he has to peek over during indy periods making sure things are going the way he wants?

The OL coach should be the OC’s “right hand man” on the staff.

There has to be authentic trust there.

And that trust has to be built over time. If it’s not there, the whole thing never really works the way it should.

What that conversation might sound like:

• OC: “Do you feel like you know exactly what I want our OL to look like? Are you unsure on some things that we want to accomplish? Tell me what we need to go over more so that you understand exactly what we want to do.”

• OL Coach: “If something isn’t the way you want it coached, let me know and let’s fix it this offseason.”

  

4. Are we practicing what we actually call in games?

This one is big.

Some OL coaches spend a lot of practice time on drills that they have always done. It’s all they know and they truly believe in them. The problem is that they might rarely show up on Friday nights.

Because of this, the plays that decide games don’t get enough reps.

The two coaches should sit down and discuss:

How much of our OL indy time is spent on:

• Our core runs?
  
  

• Our protections?
  
  

• Our short-yardage identity?
  
  

• Our two-minute situations?
  
  

Drills should be ones that show up on Friday night.

Conversation to have:

• OC: “Are we sure that all of our drills we are doing will show up in our offense during games?”

• OL Coach: “Here’s how I will adjust the drills to match what we are asking our guys to do.”

Final Thought

The best OC and OL relationships I’ve seen are built on constant communication.

Not just during the season.

But especially in the offseason.

If you have these four conversations now, you’ll solve a lot of problems before they ever show up in a game.

I hope you guys have a great offseason. Can’t wait until August!