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0-8, How A Losing Season Made Me A Better Coach, Part 2: Never Assume a Players' Football IQ

By
Darrin Sheffer
7/6/2017

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You know what my coach once told me happens when you ASSUME: "You make an ASS out of U and ME".  Pardon my language, but he had a very good point.  Unfortunately for me I did not learn my lesson until after going 0-8.  What exactly did I assume going into that season you might ask: my players football knowledge.  I assumed that when I said something about what we wanted them to be doing that they understood what I was talking about.  I assumed that when I was telling my linemen that I wanted them to "Zone block left" that I wanted them to take a step left and pick up anything in their gap.  I assumed that when I said I wanted them to line up in a Pistol formation that I meant QB 3 yards behind the center and the RB 2 yards behind him.  I assumed that since most of the schools in our area run some sort of spread offense that these players would come into high school already knowing what a spread offense was.  Let's just say that I assumed a lot of things, and I definitely made an Ass out of myself.  

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It turns out that many of my players, more than half, had never actually played football at any level.  Many of them only came out to play because one of their friends said it would be fun, or they play a lot of Madden so they thought they must be good a REAL football.  When I asked one player who had played youth football in the area what offense they ran he answered: "I don't know, the coach just told us where to line up".  Long story short, I spent all summer planning this awesome offense thinking that I wouldn't need to spend much time on fundamentals.  Man was I wrong.  

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Basically, less than a week into summer practice I needed to scrap all of my plans I had spent so long on so that we could start over at Level Zero.  I never once thought that as a coach I would need to teach 13-14 year old players how to stand in a single file line so we could run a tackling drill.  

So what did I learn from this?  I learned that as a coach, no matter how much I know I can NOT assume that my players know it as well.  I can NOT assume that my players know where they are supposed to be lined up.  Just Never Assume Anything, Ever.  

If you have a similar story, if you have any suggestions or questions, or if you simply just want to talk more ball please leave a comment below.  I hope to hear from you.

Stay Obsessed.  

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