Lessons from Football

One of the greatest things I ever learned about coaching is to learn from other sources and then compare it to what I already know about volleyball and motor learning. After learning about some new drill or information, there are some questions I should ask (and answer). Will it teach proper skills, technique, and/or tactics? Are the training goals important within the context of a volleyball match? Will it actually provide enough benefit to warrant the amount of time required? Will it make my athletes better? Will it help them make better choices? Will it promote a competitive drive? Some of these can be answered by critical reading and learning. Some might be moot because the intended outcome isn't crucial to success during matches. Some might require a little experimentation.

When looking at volleyball drills other coaches share, it is essential to run it through that filter to see if the drill is going to be useful. Other sports can also offer insight. As an example a book about coaching soccer was recommended because of a coaching concept that could easily be applied to volleyball. Using that concept has enhanced teams I have coached. That concept is the competitive cauldron. I'm not really going to talk about that now, but I wanted to use it as an illustration of the idea of borrowing from other sources. Look to other successful coaches, regardless of sport, and learn from them. Apply what can help, and don't worry about the rest.

That brings me to a recent experience. I'm a firm believer in the idea of learning from others' mistakes so you don't have to make the same mistakes. The lesson might not have the same personal weight, but it is still a lesson learned. This lesson was a little of both, in a way. I came to a realization watching someone else's “mistakes”, but they made me reflect on some of my own.

The experience in question was the culmination of a full season of watching the high school football team. I noticed (with the caveat that I have never played football at any level beyond flag football) early in the season (and from previous years watching the same system) that the play calling was fairly predictable. The offense could almost be summed up in 4 basic plays. Run left, run right, run down the middle, and pass over the top. There is a lot of variety in formations, motion, and who is getting the ball, but there are basically those 4 options. I would guess that the ratio of run plays to pass plays is about 4 run plays for every pass play, and that might be generous. The pass plays are probably as successful as they are because they run so many times that the secondary falls asleep. At the same time, the pass plays are not very reliable, probably because they don't get a lot of in-game reps.

With that in mind, it's a little astounding to me that the quarterback would go and get the play from the coach on the sideline, and then run it in to the huddle every down. On the surface the system is very simple, but there doesn't seem to be a suitably simple method of signaling plays from the sideline. It made me wonder if the system is so bloated with complexity that the sideline conference is necessary to convey simple instructions. I would think the team uses a stock set of formations, routes, and individual plays. That is a small set of signals. One for formation, another for routes run by receivers, and a third for what they are going to do with the ball. They could even shorten it further to a small amount of set plays that can be boiled down to one signal for times when speed is desired.

This eventually made me reflect on my season coaching the boys volleyball team. In one sense I was completely different from the football coach. I usually let the setter call all the sets on offense. On occasion I would give direction due to things the other team was doing, difficulties we were having, or to give a little more for the other team to think about. For the most part I let them run the show. In another way I was similar to my perception of the football coach. The amount of offensive options amounted to around 50+ possible permutations of offensive combinations. That amounted to an offense that was more complex than it needed to be, and it was all because of coaching decisions I made along the way. And that is not even taking into account that the team's average lifetime experience with competitive volleyball wasn't much more than how far along we were in the season (about half the team were first year players, almost all the rest had only one year previous experience).

I think the football coach would benefit from simplifying his offense to a few core plays with primary signals, and then have a few more multiple signal plays that cover the other stuff. That would speed up his offense, and get the next play running more efficiently. It still doesn't help the variety of play calling, but it addresses one of the big issues of his system. Similarly, I think my offensive system would also have been better if I had it reduced down to a few core plays. After a bit of doodling, I figured I could probably get it down to 3 or 4 core plays that could work for whole matches, and then 2 or 3 “trick” plays that shouldn't be run very often. With 3 core plays, there are at least 12 permutations (more if you consider both middle blockers and the outside hitters switching front row/back row). That really simplifies the offense.

Before each possible hit had a signal (with up to 4 hitters). Before each serve the setter would try to signal 3 or 4 sets to the hitters. I faced the same challenge if I wanted to call something from the sideline, and it was usually easier to just call a timeout. Sometimes the setter, due to inexperience, would call sets that would put two hitters in the same place. Without already having some positioning priority, this was a problem for getting a decent attack across the net at best, and an injury risk at worst.

With a simplified system of about 3 core and another 2 or 3 “trick” plays, the setter or coach could use one signal that assigns sets for all 4 possible hitters. Hitters won't be running into each other, and blockers will have to make tough decisions to cover all the hitters. It will be something that can be used in practice and in matches, enhancing the training effect. This is something I will use moving forward.

This was adapted from a blog entry I originally posted November 3, 2014 on http://agentminivann.blogspot.com/