How Do You Want To Lose?

Nobody wants to lose – nobody plans to lose – but if you were going to lose, how would you want it to happen? Would you rather fall behind early and never manage to catch up? Or would you prefer to hold the lead for most of the game only to give it up at the end?

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.

Having lost our first game on a last-second 4th-and-10 defensive break-down, I'm pretty sure that’s the worst way to lose. At least if you get soundly defeated, you can console yourself with the knowledge that the other team was just plain better. But if you lose right at the end, it's not because they were better, it's because they beat you. You got beaten. You let them beat you. If you get an early lead, the best that can happen is you completely crush the other team, which is a hollow victory. If you don't completely outclass the other team but still hold on for the win, well, that's good. But the worst that can happen is that you blow the lead and lose, and that's the worst thing that can happen.

On the other hand, if you give the other team the lead early on, then the worst that can happen is you end up losing at the end. But if it’s close, your team will likely be playing hard to the bitter end, which is good. And the best case scenario in this case is a glorious come-from-behind victory. The further you fall behind, the more glorious the comeback! And that's the best thing that can happen. Not only will you have the win, but your kids will have learned to never give up.

Conventional game theory says you should play to avoid the worst case, so all things being equal, you should play to give the lead up early rather than late. This is not just academic theorizing. In a league with minimum play rules, you will be required to play your scrubs for a certain number of plays. Most teams start their starters – that's why they're called starters – but game theory would tell you to start your replacements. Let's look at a grid with our choices:

	Play subs early	Play subs late
Other team much better	After giving up some big plays early, the team managed to slow the other team's momentum.	The team struggled early on, but then seemed to lose hope as they opened the floodgates to a rout.
Other team slightly better	After struggling early, the team put together a comeback that just fell short.	An even match in the beginning, the team blew it in the end.
Other team slightly worse	After struggling early, the team never gave up, and put together a glorious comeback for the ages.	The team led early on, but let the other team chip away at its lead. After the other team threatened a comeback, our team held on for the win.
Other team much worse	The team took its early lead and only built on its own momentum.	The team took its early lead, and although its momentum slowed, the outcome was never in doubt.

In every case except possibly the last one (when you completely dominate the opposition) playing your subs early presents a better outcome. This tells me I should start my subs – the worst go first – putting the better players, who are more capable at mounting a comeback or preserving a lead, on the field at the end.

What if when you play your subs affect the outcome?

My assumption so far has been that your timing of your substitutions will not affect the outcome; they will just affect the “story” of the game. What if this is not true?

Well, certainly from an operational point of view, it may be disruptive to pull players on and off the field after only one play. The players are going to wear themselves out running to and from the sidelines, and they will be unable to learn from and build upon their experiences from the previous play. I like to keep offensive subs in for a whole drive, which is self-limiting of the poor combinations: if a personnel package isn't working, the drive will be short and the subs will come off quickly; if the package is doing well, then they get to play more as the offense drives down the field. On defense, the opposite is true, but I still wouldn't want to pull a player out after just one play. I'd say leave him in at least three or four.

But this post is more about the strategy of the timing of your substitutions, particularly with respect to the play of your MPP’s (minimum play players). Earlier I had advocated getting their play time over with early in the game so that your more capable players could take the field to clean up the mess. But if you're using your MPP’s to give your two-way starters a break when they get tired, then playing them before your two-ways even get going does not serve this purpose. However, I still think it is important to get all your players their minimum plays in the first half if possible, or by early in the second half, rather than the current common scheme of trying to put multiple MPP’s on the field at the end of the game because they have not yet met their quota.

9/25 Practice Report

Rapid fire offense! We lined both our first-string and second-string offensive backfields up next to each other (with first- and second-string centers) and had them alternate running the same play: first the first string, then the second string. We did it quickly – as soon as one of the squads completed their play, the other squad ran its immediately, and the first squad had to hurry back into position to be ready as soon as the second squad was done. It meant both our starters and their relievers got lots of reps and were able to practice some plays until they got them down good. (I won't say perfect, because 7-8 year-olds don't do perfect.)

I also liked that drill because it got our players hustling. I hate to see players just walking back to their positions after a play. I want to see them move with a sense of urgency! If nothing else, we’ll get more reps in at practice.

Hindsight Bias

With 1:15 left in the first half of today's Saints game, Drew Brees threw an uncharacteristically off-target pass to a wide open uncovered Pierre Thomas who, after falling to the ground to scoop up the errant pass, was able to get up and run the remaining 4 yards untouched into the end zone for a touchdown. The referee then went under the hood for several minutes to determine whether Thomas used the ground to assist his catch. At the time, I watched the instant replays and decided that it was unclear whether he used the ground to assist his catch. When the ball reveals itself, it is safely cradled above his hand. The commentators themselves could not decide whether there was sufficient justification to overturn the call on the field (catch and touchdown), and announced that whatever decision the referee announced would be as good as any. In the end, the referee reversed the call on the field: there was sufficient evidence to overturn it. Only after the decision did I view the replays and say to myself, “Yes, there! There you can see the ball move as it touches the ground.” What was unclear to me just seconds ago had now become crystal clear: the referee had clearly made the right decision based on the video evidence.

What I was engaging in is what is called hindsight bias. The end result inevitable because, well, it happened. In retrospect, the result that actually occurred seems to have been inevitable, even if it wasn't at the time. This is an important evolutionary trait that allows us to draw conclusions about cause and effect apply lessons from the past on our actions in the future. However, it also means that it is easy for spectators to criticize you in retrospect. Even when you look back on your own performance in retrospect, you may conclude that maybe you shouldn't have gone for it on 4th down, or maybe you shouldn't have called the play you did.

When a parent criticizes you after a loss, it may just be that he or she is engaging in hindsight bias.

9/20 Practice Report

Had a great practice this evening. One advantage of having a big coaching staff is you can give more players individual attention. We were playing 3-on-3 drills, and, with six coaches, we could give every player the attention he needed. A player did not move out of the drill until the coach watching him was satisfied that he was doing his best.

I love those practices where you feel every player had improved!

Conditioning

My first day of football practice when I was 10 years old (my second year playing football), our coaches laid down the rules. Everyday before practice, before we started calisthenics, each player was to run 10 laps around the field. We were practicing up at the National University of Singapore’s football fields, where “football” meant soccer, and a soccer field is even bigger than an American football field. To a 10 year-old boy, not only was 10 laps a really long way, I wasn't even sure it was possible. So the next day, we all showed up at practice and each dutifully jogged 10 laps around the field before we could begin practice. At which point our coach told us that our 10 laps didn't count because we hadn't done it as a team; we had all jogged our laps individually, and we were now instructed to do it again – 10 more laps! – all together, sounding off at the corners with with a team “Broncos!” If you do the math, 10 laps is around two miles, so we did 4 miles that day. I do not think I ran that far again for 7 years, when as a senior in high school I was trying out for a Himalayas expedition. Everyday now, in the August-September heat of Singapore, in full pads, we ran 10 laps as a team, sounding off with “Broncos!” at the corners (a total of 40 times), all before we even started our calisthenics. We weren't fast – we could only run as fast as our slowest man (which, thankfully, wasn't me) – but we did it, and we did it as a team. And we won our first four games of the season. Easily.

Granted, back then we practiced everyday. There was no six-hour maximum per week. On the contrary, league rules mandated a minimum: a player had to practice a minimum of eight hours the week prior in order to be eligible to play on Friday or Saturday. Back then it was considered a safety issue: a player who was not in shape was more likely to get injured. But when teams practice 5 times a week for two hours, even with a half hour each day spent on conditioning, that still leaves 7 1/2 hours a week for practice. We do not have that luxury. We practice just four hours a week, and taking half an hour before both of our practices would leave us with only three for everything else, so we need to prioritize how important conditioning is.

I myself am not certain that conditioning is all that important to 8 year-olds. Certainly my view has been that football experience is more important than anything else to such inexperienced players. Now I am not so sure. Part of my thinking was that I wasn't certain that boys can even build that much muscle prior to puberty, but my reflections on my experience that year on the Broncos indicates otherwise. Apparently, prepubescent boys can condition.

However, if our players were in better condition, not only would they not fade in the fourth quarter, but they would play better throughout the game. When you're in shape, everything is easier: learning new skills, adapting to different conditions, having the energy to gang tackle, etc. Being in shape covers over a multitude of shortcomings.

Certainly I doubt ten laps is doable for our younger players, so I am not advocating precisely the same regimen we did at ten. However, one thing we learned from the experience was that sometimes what seems impossible isn't. When I was in Army basic training, they took us down to the confidence course, and we had to do some seemingly impossible tasks – some of which we thought were downright dangerous and might get some of us killed. As it turned out, we all completed it and no-one died. And we gained confidence in our abilities. Maybe pushing our players harder than they think they can go will be good for them? I don't know enough about child psychology to say. But the question remains: how much emphasis should we put on conditioning versus learning/practicing skills and scrimmaging?

On my 10-year-old Broncos team, undefeated at midseason, our coaches decided to spend more time in practice teaching us new plays. No team had come even close to us in our first four games, so at the bye week, they cut our laps down from 10 to 2, giving us more time to work on new things. The damage was psychological. We now thought we were invincible, and instead of pushing ourselves even harder, we relaxed. We were awesome. And we lost our next 4 games to end the season 4-4.

Motivating Youth Players To Play O Line

We lost our first game of the regular season today, 18-13. Three touchdowns to two. Our defense, which was strong, gave up only three plays all game, including a touchdown on the first play of the game, and a fourth-and-ten touchdown on the second-last play of the game. Our defense was whatever the opposite of bend-but-not-break is. But my big concern was not our defense – we can train for that – but our offense. Specifically, our offensive line.

Everyone wants to play defense. I remember when I started out playing youth football, I preferred defense over offense. Part of it was that it is more fun to tackle than to block. Part of it, though, is that if you mess up on defense, most football defenses defend in depth, so as a weaker player, there is someone stronger behind you to back you up, to make the tackle if you miss it. A defensive break-down is a team failure rather than individual. On the other hand, on offense, if you miss your block, your man will get through and make a tackle in the backfield; and then the coaches and player who got tackled can assign you the blame. It really is easier to run the ball than block.

So on our team, all the offensive linemen want to play defense. At practice, the players always want to scrimmage on the defensive side of the ball. During today's game, Coach Johnny was asked by a player in the offensive huddle when he was going to get to play defense. There is no doubt that players today – just like me 30 years ago – still want to play defense. But as Coach Johnny pointed out, if all we play is defense, the final score will be 0-0, and we won't get anywhere.

When I got older, I came to prefer O to D, but I must admit that I did prefer defense until about 7th or 8th grade. And if I am honest about it, it's not that I liked playing offensive line, it's that I liked playing fullback and center, where I got to handle the ball. But offensive linemen know that they toil in obscurity, only getting noticed when they make a mistake. Who would want to play there, where there is no chance of glory? Even the most obscure defensive player has the opportunity to make tackles and make a name for himself. So how do we get players to embrace playing the offensive line?

The NFL has it worked out: they pay them. A lot. Over a quarter of an NFL team's payroll is dedicated to offensive linemen. We who have seen "The Blind Side" know that the left offensive tackle is one of the highest paid players in the game. Of course, we can't do that in youth football.

So what can we do to (1) motivate our offensive linemen, and (2) teach our offensive line to play? The internet is full of advice on the latter. One brief page by John Reed is his ideas about the types of blocking that work well in youth football (http://www.johntreed.com/block.html). On the other hand, there is a dearth of information on the former, which I might argue is more important. For $39.95 you can buy Dave Cisar's DVD "Developing a Dominant Offensive Line Play in Youth Football – Step by Step" (http://winningyouthfootball.com/offensivelineyouth.php), which may or may not include the motivational aspects of the offensive line, but before I shell out $40 for a DVD, I'd want to know if it will work with 6, 7, and 8 year-olds. Youth football goes all the way up to 12, 13, and even 14 years old in some places, and there is a big difference between coaching 7 year-olds and 7th graders.

The only thoughts that come to mind are to (1) put our best players on the O line, and (2) select our captains from the offensive linemen. As I said earlier, running the ball is, in fact, easier than blocking, and since our running backs aren't going anywhere without good offensive line play, it makes sense to put dominant players on the line to open up holes for weaker running backs to run through. A practice or two, and we should have our second string ready to start in the backfield behind a first-rate offensive line. We tried a new guy out in the backfield on Thursday, and he picked it up quite quickly. He is not as quick, and he doesn't know the system yet, but he's a lot further along than a player who has practiced just one day on the line.

Lacking ideas for improving the prestige of the offensive line, we can perhaps choose blocking schemes that work with weak blockers. I'm thinking (1) wedge blocking, or (2) severe angle blocking. Neither of these schemes require the blockers to block one-on-one. And wedge blocking seems to produce some long plays, too. I've never coached the wedge, but it seems to get good reports in my readings online about youth football at the lower age levels. Some YouTube examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeQNxBsL8fw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5v042kpVRw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRq-H2LpPps.

I’m not saying we have to adopt these ideas – or even that we should – but they're the best ideas I’ve got right now. I expect us to be a championship team this year, and I think we can, but it's not going to be easy for either us or our players. Today was a wake-up call to all of us.

The View from the Press Box

Went to the University of South Alabama football game on Saturday. The game against Nicholls State was unremarkable (USA won 9-3), but I got to watch the game as a guest up in the press box. Since most people don't get to do that – it was my first time – I'll describe what it was like.

First of all, the press box is a work area. There are all sorts of football writers with their binoculars and laptops reporting on the game. There are signs up requesting that you please be quiet and that you will be removed from the box if you are not. It was quiet up there, but not completely silent. People did carry on hushed conversations with their neighbors.

The view from the press box is identical to the view you are used to seeing on TV (and the luxury boxes, if you're lucky enough to get an invitation to one of them): high up side view of the action. From the standpoint of actually watching the game, they are certainly the best seats in the house. I am partial to the behind-the-quarterback view of video games, but this wasn't a video game, so the press box is the next best thing.

Physically, it was quite comfortable, but not luxurious. Certainly it was enclosed and air-conditioned, and the chairs were standard cubicle-style armchairs. Free food and drinks were provided, but it was standard catered fare – baked chicken, macaroni and cheese, iced tea and soft drinks. To our left was the official instant replay booth. It had mirror glass around it so we couldn't see in. To our left was the ESPN booth. It had standard glass, so we could watch the crew performing their broadcast for ESPN3. They worked hard.

This was a working press box, so one of the best things was all the information available to you.

There was an announcer who would assist in player identification by announcing players involved in each play: who took the hand-off, whom the pass was to, who made the tackle, etc. This takes a lot of pressure off the reporters, allowing them to concentrate on their writing. Occasionally the announcer would make a mistake, and a reporter would call out the correction, but the announcer was the only significant noise in the booth.

The printed material was my favorite part. Besides the 100-page full-color game program any fan can buy, they provided a press kit at every workstation with all sorts of background: team and player histories; human interest stories (which two players were roommates at such-and-such community college); lists of players, where they're from, etc.; sheets with depth charts at every position; and so on. My personal favorite was a couple of pages with what must have been every obscure fact you can imagine – several hundred in all. When was the last time a South Alabama player ran for 100 yards in two consecutive games? When was the last time South Alabama held an opposing team scoreless in the first half? When was the last time an opposing player recorded two interceptions in the same game? When was the last time South Alabama returned a fumble for a touchdown? Etc. and ad infinitum. Most of the facts won't be used, but just in case a player scores five touchdowns today, you'll be able to say, "And that hasn't happened since…."

In addition to the preprinted stats, new printouts came throughout the game. Periodically, someone would come by and distribute updated stat sheets and play-by-play listings for the game in progress. And for those of you wanting to update your readers on other games occurring at the same time, there was also a sheet distributed periodically that had scores of the other games in progress. There were probably about 40 games that overlapped at some point with our game, though the sheet also had the scores of games already completed that might have any relevance at all (top 25, Sun Belt Conference, SEC, and other teams in the region).

I really enjoyed the game from the press box. Although the environment was subdued (at one point I unthinkingly called out "Yes!" after something good happened on the field, and then felt embarrassed because I was the only one who had made a sound), it was an excellent vantage point from which to see the whole game. As a youth football coach, I sometimes regret the view I get from the sidelines of the field: I really can't see what's going on from so low down.

Whither Jamboree?

We had our preseason jamboree yesterday. We were a bit worried about two of our players – our two best running backs – weighing in overweight. There is an 80-lb. maximum for ball carriers and players who line up in the offensive backfield. One of our running backs, TiShun, the faster of the two, came in just under the limit, at 79 lbs. That's a precise weight, since when someone is close, they take them to a separate, more accurate set of scales to get an exact weight. The other RB, Johnny Morris, who really is a great fullback, and whose father, head coach Johnny Morris, had had him on a starvation diet to to keep him below the limit, came in well under, at 72 lbs. He didn't even have to be reweighed.

Because of our high number of 8 year-olds (15), we consequently had a lot of "stripers," players over the weight limit, so-called because they are required to wear a stripe on their helmet to indicate their status.  Our heaviest player came in at a massive 150 lbs, three times the weight of our starting QB!

After the weigh-in, we play a short scrimmage game 30 minutes running time.  We played against Foley Blue, and defeated them 13-7. Our team still needs a lot of work. Our conditioning was poor (it was hot), and even the communication and substitutions between the sidelines and the field had some problems.  That will come in time.

When I was growing up in youth football, we didn't have a jamboree or any kind of preseason game. Yet I look around south Alabama, and preseason jamborees seem to be standard practice. I may well have had an unusual upbringing, playing in the Singapore American Football League, but it does make me wonder what is the point of the jamboree?

Jamboree For Money

The first thought of any cynical American must be that it all has to do with money. After all, we were invited to an invitational jamboree in Fairhope two weeks ago where they charged both admission and parking, and, of course, for concessions. I dare say that that was a good moneymaker for Fairhope athletics. Even though we were not making money on the deal, it was still in our best interests to attend for the additional experience our players would get from playing. Spanish Fort had the same opportunity to put together an invitational jamboree of our own, but we didn't, so Fairhope reaps the benefits of their initiative and effort.

However, the official Baldwin County youth football jamboree in Foley charged neither for parking nor admission, and as far as I could tell, they were not even selling concessions, so I don't see money as the motivating factor.

Jamboree For Experience

The jamboree does, however, offer the opportunity for all teams to get a little game experience prior to the regular season. But if this were the motivating factor, then why not have a real preseason game? Unlike the Fairhope invitational, we only faced one opponent in one short “gamelet.” The league could have just as well scheduled the weekend as preseason games played in accordance with regular game rules and time. This would have been better preseason experience for our players than the artificially short “gamelet” they had us play.

On the other hand, why have a preseason game at all? Why not schedule the jamboree weekend as week 1 of the regular season? That would give the players even better experience and every team an extra game.  Since all teams make the playoffs, your regular season record only affects your seeding in the postseason, so if it takes your team a week or two to get to prime form, it is no matter.  All that really matters is that a team be at its best at the end of the season.  If a team wanted to, it could treat its first few games as preseason and not worry about whether they win or lose, and instead concentrate on firing on all cylinders at the end of the season.

In the grand scheme of things, youth football records don't really matter at all. It's all just “preseason” for higher levels. I don't think there is really any reason to have a preseason in youth football, and I don't think it would be a motivating factor behind having an official preseason jamboree.

Jamboree For Logistics

That leads me to conclude that underlying purpose of the jamboree is the other thing we do there: weigh the players. Logistically, it may just be easier for the league to weigh all the players at a single place and time, allow anyone to be present to observe to ensure that it is fair, and get it over with and get on with the season. There certainly are other ways to do it, and while arguments could be made for the superiority of one method over another, I don't think there is any method that is unarguably better, so the jamboree is the traditional way that has evolved to get the logistics of the weigh-in done and so get the season underway with a minimum of problems.

I shall have to write another entry sometime about how I feel about the weight restrictions of our league (preview: I don't like them), but just because the weigh-in is the primary motivation of the jamboree doesn't mean we coaches and teams can't make the most of it and get some valuable experience out of what would have otherwise been a waste of a trip to Foley. For the same reasons we benefited from the Fairhope jamboree, we still benefited from the official jamboree. At the end of the day, the players benefit, and that is what is important.

How Big Is Football Here?

Football is serious in this part of Alabama. Our local high school football team, the Spanish Fort Toros, were 5A state champs in 2010. Daphne, our rivals in the local youth football league, their high school has been 6A champions the last two years running. This in the state that has posted the national champion college football team the last three years in a row. How big is football? Spanish Fort High's season opener on September 3 – Labor Day – is being televised nationally on ESPN – not ESPN 8, ESPN!

I am assistant coaching for one of three under nine-year-old teams our city is fielding in the Baldwin County youth football league. Our head coach, Coach Johnny Morris, has six assistants just like me on the practice field. Spanish Fort fields nine youth teams below the middle school level. Assuming every youth football team has the same number of coaches, Spanish Fort, population less than 6,000, has a total 63 volunteer youth football coaches – more than 1% of the population of our city coaches football!

In fairness, our city teams draw players from the unincorporated parts of the county outside the city limits, so the denominator is actually larger and the percentage smaller. However, add to that our middle school team, freshman, junior varsity, and, of course, varsity, and every Friday night you'll find half the city at Toro stadium cheering on our boys.

I'm not saying it is good or bad, but that is what it's like down here in coastal Alabama, where we're about equidistant to Auburn, University of Alabama, and LSU.

Go Toros!