The Football Coaching Podcast with Joe Daniel Joe Daniel Football

Across the United States, approximately 1,161 teams are playing 8-man football. Compared to the approximate 16,000 11-man teams and another 700+ college teams, 8-man coaches are at a disadvantage when it comes to adding to their offensive and defensive systems. You can’t turn on the TV on Saturday and watch the local college team tear it up in the 3-2-3 defense. So, they have to be able to take new content from the 11-man teams and adapt it to fit their situation.
On this episode, Joe and Daniel are joined by Coach Kenny Ridley as he discusses his path from college player to 11-man DC, and then the foot-first jump into the 8-man world and all the new challenges that brought his way. Coach Ridley discusses the origin of his defensive scheme, how he adapted 11-man fundamentals to the 8-man game, and he breaks down the basics of 8-man football to those of us who not had a reason to dig into it.
 

The evolution of football, particularly on the Offensive side of the ball, is something that just about anyone can google and read the history of. However, very few coaches have lived the game and experienced those changes first hand.
On this episode, Joe and Daniel sit down with NE Oklahoma and NW Arkansas coaching legend Bill Blankenship to get his perspective on the evolution of the game, what’s made him so successful over the years, and how he’s kept things simple at multiple levels of football.

Similar to making changes in life, making changes in football can be hard, difficult, frustrating… the list goes on. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” is a mantra that comes to mind. But, if it is broken you definitely need to fix it. You can’t sit on an unsound system just to claim simplicity and not wanting to confuse the kids.
On this episode Joe and Daniel discuss the reasons why you should, or shouldn’t, change your defensive front midseason, what key pieces need to stay the same after the new front is installed, and how to execute a change without muddying the water so much that your players can’t play.

Gaining information on your opponent is always beneficial, and for many reasons. But, it’s only as beneficial as what you do with the information. Putting all of their formations, plays, and personnel evaluations in a binder and tossing it to all of your coaches may not provide the edge on Friday night that you think it will. You have to know what to take out of all of that data, and how to make adjustments to your own defense to defeat it.
On this episode, Joe and Daniel talk with Jamelle Byrd about breaking down your opponent’s offense, how to organize the data and gameplan off of it, and the do’s and don’ts of adjustments to what you do best.

Opponent scouting is an event that can quickly eat up most of… if not your whole weekend. In fact, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, it could steal your whole week away. We’ve all fallen into the “just one more watch through” trap as coaches. We want to make sure we’ve taken everything we can from the film to help us win.
On this episode Joe and Daniel are joined by Southside’s HC Kenny Simpson in a discussion about the benefits of breaking down your opponent’s defense, what changes you should make to  your scheme to attack them, and exactly how film breakdown is most efficiently done.

Yes, Special Teams is one-third of the game of football. If ST hasn’t won or lost you a game as a coach yet, it’s coming. There are times that Special Teams practices can feel chaotic, like no one knows what’s going on, and 1 coach (whomever had that ST Coordinator role thrown on them) is coaching 11 players, and the other Coaches are standing around watching the kicker. 
On this episode we’re talking to Coach Joel Mathews on ways to prevent the nightmare written above. We talk not only scheduling a special teams practice, but having it scripted ahead of time. Let everyone know where to be, who to coach, and what they’re responsible for.