“It’s not the X’s and the O’s, but the Jimmys and the Joes.”
One of the most quoted phrases in all of football, and yet the one that rings the most true, football is not a game that is about who can outscheme the other coach across the field on an isolated board. Rather, it’s about which coach’s 11 players on the field are more prepared for battle against the opposing force. While scheme obviously plays a big role in the victories we achieve for ourselves and our players on the gridiron, those schemes cannot be executed unless our players are thoroughly DEVELOPED along the way.
In the game of high school football, player development takes on a different role depending on the level that you are working with, and in this second installment of The JV Playbook for coachingshare.com, I’ll be discussing the differences in player development between Varsity and JV (or sub-varsity) football.
The Varsity Lifestyle
As football coaches that use the internet, we’re all aware of the different intricacies of varsity football, and the different jobs a varsity coach is responsible for throughout the season. From creating culture, to gameplanning weekly, or organizing practices to prioritize the most important issues that the opposing team is going to throw at them, Varsity coaches are tasked with the difficult responsibility of ensuring that their program is successful, especially at the highest level. Oftentimes, when that responsibility is not met, and there is a major lack of success in the wins column, those coaches can find themselves looking for new opportunities elsewhere come the end of the season.
Because of that pressure to succeed, Varsity Coaches often find themselves working within a bubble throughout the season, focusing on the next opponent, their weaknesses, and how to exploit them. Their own self scout may not go beyond the night of the game, when they’re watching through their own film before sharing it out on HUDL, or exchanging it with next week’s opponent. The best Varsity staffs will have someone specifically appointed to work with that film all week, but even then, they don’t have the luxury to pay all their attention to what their kids can do better. Besides, by the time they reach Varsity, these kids should already know exactly what to do, right? Why should they need to work on getting better at their own craft, when they can work on exploiting what the opposing team is going to give them that week?
If a program is clicking on all cylinders, from bottom to top, these kids should be coming in with an advanced understanding of techniques, footwork, and scheme, so Varsity coaches don’t have to worry about development. I mean, I can think of a number of times in my own experience where a player on Varsity goes down, and instead of working to develop a kid throughout the week, the HC will come shopping at JV for someone who can do the job. Their job on Varsity doesn’t afford them the opportunities to slow down and fix the problems of their players, especially when they need to be more concerned about getting their next Friday night win and moving up in the rankings. I mean, here in New York, it’s a Sectionals or bust mentality, where once you even get out of contention for making the playoffs, kids are already looking ahead to basketball or wrestling.
So how do programs ensure that their players are DEVELOPED enough to ensure success at the Varsity level? Well, that’s where we come in.
The JV Mission
From my understanding, around the country, JV and Modified football looks different wherever you go. In states like Texas or Virginia, where football is king, the JV team can be made up of the leftovers from the Varsity game who are just trying to get a shot at playing time. Here in New York, though, JV football is its own developmental level, made up of a mix of sophomore and freshman athletes (or only sophomores, depending on what class you’re in), and their schedules exist completely separate from the Varsity. Sure, in higher classifications, you may follow the same schedule as your varsity team week to week, but that’s not always a guarantee, and you could end up like us, playing local teams in lower classifications that your varsity team hasn’t played in 20 years.
Every week, JV and Modified teams have to prepare on an island, keying on different schemes, players, and gamecalling than their Varsity counterparts. My own assistant coach, just this week, called me in a bit of a panic, concerned that our first two games, against (admittedly) what could be two of our toughest opponents, are going to be played within four days of each other.
Whitmore: “Aren’t you nervous that we’re not gonna have enough time to prepare for the second game?
Me: “Nope.”
Whitmore: “Are you nuts?”
Me: “Maybe!”
The fact of the matter is yeah, maybe I am a little nuts. But realistically, I’m really not all that concerned about it. From a JV perspective, I could walk into that second game and get absolutely blown away, but honestly, I’m ok with that! Because at the end of that day, I need to ask myself two questions:
Did my kids get better this week?
Did I get these kids to exhibit the skills we worked on this week?
JV (and all sub-varsity football, for this purpose) cannot live in a realm where we are solely concerned about wins and losses every week, because if we were, THE PROGRAM WOULD BE WORSE OFF FOR IT!
So I’ll say it again for the Coaches in the back, whether you’re just starting out at Sub-varsity, or whether you’re a varsity coach who’s made that your JV and Modified teams haven’t won a game in 2 years: OUR JOB AT THE JV LEVEL IS TO DEVELOP PLAYERS FOR THE VARSITY LEVEL! I make sure my players and my coaches know this at the beginning of every season, because it sets the stage for what I’m expecting out of all of them; they know that each and every day, I’m looking for all of them to get better at what we do as a whole, so that when they get to the varsity level, they’ll all be capable of helping out.
I’ll give you an example: for the first four years of my head coaching career, we won a grand total of 2 games. We had quite a few games where we got the pants kicked right off us, but eventually we had even more games that we were getting close to winning. By the end of the third year, I went to our Varsity Head Coach and I broke down with my pity party. “Fire me now, I’m terrible at this, I can’t win a game, blah blah blah.” He then stopped me and said “Dave, don’t look at YOUR record, look at MINE. We’ve been able to become more successful and win more games because you’re sending me players who know how to do their jobs. Without you and your staff, this program would still be struggling.”
So…..How?
The first step in developing your players at the sub-varsity level is to focus all of your teaching on fundamentals. Get back to basics. In your first two weeks of the season, you need to make sure everyone in every position can be good at three things:
Footwork
Body Positioning
Keys.
Let’s look at this from an OL perspective (you know, the most skilled athletes on the field!) On day 1 of our camp, we’re working stance, start, and get off. I don’t care if it’s a kid’s first day with a helmet on, or they’ve been playing since they were 6, and have been coming to workouts all off-season, we’re all starting with stance, start, and get off. We do this because we’re ensuring that we’re all starting with the same fundamental building block, the standard upon which all other moves and steps are built upon in our program. Then, when we move to day 2, we’re still talking about stance and start, but now we’re incorporating our body positioning on our base play. In our offense, we build from Inside Zone, so we’re making sure that every player is attacking the inside shoulder with the guy across from him, with their inside hand on the chest, and their outside hand from the ribcage down to the hip. We teach them on those steps to key the covering defender, and if one isn’t there we key the LB. And we REP that, over and over again, until it becomes rote. Then, day 3, we do it all again, but we build from their to add in our positioning on the outside zone. Then we begin the process all over again until the install is complete.
In JV football, or any sub-varsity football for that matter, fundamentals MUST trump scheme. We need our players to understand everything about their footwork, body positioning and keys, not only the hows but the whys as well. When our players understand both how to work the fundamentals of this game, as well as why we do the things we do, from moving certain ways, to running certain plays, and why we look for the landmarks we do on the field, that’s when they become truly dangerous, not just now, but 1-2 years down the road under those Friday Night Lights.
For example, let’s take a look at this from the perspective of the linebacking corps, and what seems to be the hardest idea for them to wrap their teenage minds around: STEPPING FORWARD. This doesn’t seem like a difficult idea to grasp, right? When the ball is snapped, you move forward. That seems all well and good, and easy, until two realizations come your way:
1. High school freshmen and sophomores tend to have more flight than fight in them
2. 15 and 16 year olds would much rather look in the backfield than read their keys.
In our defensive system, we spend the first day of install in our individual period working specifically on the initial steps of a linebacker. We begin by repping their first two steps, downhill with aggression. We make them start from an athletic stance, arms loose, weight on the balls of their feet, and while we’re doing this we explain the WHY behind it; athletic stance so their coming out low and playing with speed, arms loose so they can react to situations around them, and the weight on the balls of their feet so they can start the play moving forwards rather than backwards. Then we move to directional movements off of those two first steps, and each time we rep a different direction, we ask them the reasoning behind each piece of their body positioning. This way, we can ensure that the knowledge of the “why” is being instilled along with the “how”. When we get to day 2 of install, we begin to add their key read (foot of the guard) and how to respond to each step. All the whole, though, we review the why’s of each step once again, and so on and so on the rest of the install week, until it becomes absolute muscle memory for these kids, and like Pavlov’s dogs, they’re stepping forward on the snap of the ball.
Does this method slow down our install? Absolutely it does! But again, I’m ok with it. As long as we’re making sure our players are being developed correctly, IT’S OK.
High Reps=High Rewards
The other piece that comes with developing the sub-varsity athlete is creating opportunities for reps in both games and practices. In order to build muscle memory and foundational knowledge, high quality reps is what makes and breaks individual athletes. At the Varsity level it’s just a fact of life; the best players are going to play. In a career field where wins dictate your longevity in a position, coaches need to play your best players all the time in order to ensure those wins come. At the JV level and below, though, especially in schools where we don’t have enough kids to go two platoon, ensuring that every kid has access to high quality reps both in game and in practice is a key factor in further developing your young players.
In our practices, we deliberately script out opportunities and sessions where our younger or more inexperienced players are getting reps, instead of just being used as tackling dummies for the starters. We’ll do this in a number of ways.
Multiple Setups: During our individual periods, we will not do drills with only one kid at a time. If a drill requires it, then we make sure to set up multiple setups for kids to do the drill. As coaches, this makes it tough sometimes to watch everyone (that’s what film is for), but for players it works a lot better than standing in a 10 man line waiting for their turn. Wanna lose your kids interest quick? Make them wait their turn.
Half Line: We will run half-line drills at least once a week, repping out our key run plays on offense, while at the same time ensuring our run fits on Defense. We will typically split the team in half to do this, sending our typical first stringers to one side, and our backups to the other. The reason for this is two-fold:
1. It gives our starters some more equal competition to go against, giving them high quality practice reps.
2. It allows us to rep our backups against similar competition as well, while at the same time allowing us to slow it down for them as need be and fix any kinks we may need to. This way, everyone’s learning what we need them to learn at a level we need them to learn it at (it’s almost like the SPED teacher in me knows what he’s talking about.)
Mixed Squads: At least twice a week, during team offense or defense, we will mix together two different offenses or defenses with starters and backups. By doing this, we’re giving those backup players a chance at success with the starters around them to guide them in a right direction. Also, just as in half-line, it equals out the competition they’re playing against to give them someone across from them who’s about the same skill as they are.
Special Teams Bonus Sessions: During the periods of practice when we work Special Teams, we will obviously try to utilize any of our lower level kids the most we can, but on a team of 43 kids, you can’t always get everyone it at one time. So, what we will do is send different players who aren’t in on reps with one of our assistant coaches to work drills on tackling, blocking, turnovers, etc. The reasoning behind this is simple: sitting around watching kickoff and kick return reps is doing nothing for you when you’re in, so why not go get reps of your own on something that will help you to develop? This way, we can rep out fundamental skills that all players
Come gameday, we won’t forget about reps, either. In New York State, on Modified and in Pop-Warner, it’s required that certain amounts of playing time are given to each kid, but when they get to JV, all bets are off. We obviously want to win games, but playing the same 11-15 kids all game isn’t going to help the program, so we find creative ways to give kids meaningful repetitions throughout the contest.
Create lines: Bring our your inner hockey coach and create lines of players for each position group. A few years ago, I began doing this for different series, and it made a world of difference. For one, the most immediate benefit is it gives some of our starters a break throughout the game. With teams with 2-way players, it’s not uncommon to have players who go from defense to offense, then right back to defense. The biggest place this hurts us in on the offensive line (those hosses are built like dwarves in Lord of the Rings, very dangerous over short distances, but not great for the long haul.) So , to battle this, I began creating 3 different lines that would go out depending on the series. The first line would be my straight up starters, the best of the best. Then, lines 2 and 3 would pepper in two to three different kids with our starters, spacing them out around the line, to give those starters a break. You usually don’t find many OC’s willing to give up their starting linemen, but if it means fresher kids on defense and a happier DC, I’m all for it.
Find one thing every player is good at: This one can be tricky sometimes, but it’s important to find one thing that every player can do well for a big reason; YOU DON’T WANT TO GIVE AWAY THAT THAT KID WON’T HELP YOU. We tell every kid that when they go on that field it isn’t charity, they need to serve a purpose. By finding one thing that those kids are good at, we give them a chance at success, and we don’t give the opposition an easy key to read. Think about your own experiences on offense: where’s the easiest place to hide a kid? If your answer isn’t Wide Receiver, you must be an Air Raid team, and you guys are already weird enough (RIP Coach Leach). In our offense, we’ve learned that when we put those lower level players out there on the wings, teams can assume we’re either running the ball or throwing to the complete opposite side of the field as them. But why not teach that kid the steps for a quick flash screen? Or teach him to motion and take a quick handoff for a couple of yards? This not only develops those kids further, but also gives you the security to know that teams have one less thing to read against you.
Fill your special teams: To go along with that idea, find spaces for those kids on your Special Teams. I once heard a coach say “Football is the only sport in the world where you have 88 different opportunities to play a position.” Those 88 spots don’t all need to be filled with the same guys over and over again. There’s no reason why you can’t take your last on the depth chart Cornerback, have him rep out how to contain, and make him your starter on kickoff at the second spot from the end. Filling out special teams with kids other than your starters gives each kid a purpose for being at that game, makes them more invested, and gives them a chance to develop more than just sitting and watching.
Play every kid at least once before halftime: This is going to sound crazy, but hear me out: how many of you coaches out there have scrambled in the last two minutes of the game to give your kids “pity reps?” What good is that doing for any of the kids? They know at that point that the game is over, and their contributions don’t mean much, so why not give them something to play and come back for week-to-week. Get them involved early, so they’re motivated to not only pay attention on the sidelines, but to also give you more effort in the grand scheme of things. Playing them before the half rather than waiting until the end of the game does more for their development because it gives them a reason to make their reps quality and purposeful.
Now I know what you’re all thinking out there: “you still have games to get ready for, and you can’t just be content with losing EVERYTHING. If that were the case, then why exactly am I listening to you, anyways?”
Well, to paraphrase The Wedding Singer, I have the Blog, so YOU WILL LISTEN TO EVERY DAMN WORD I HAVE TO SAY!
The simple answer is that you can be ok with focusing on developing players and still have a successful season. They actually go hand in hand when you jump on the bandwagon of the phrase that seems to be making its way back around the coaching community like the McRib: Building a System.
Next week I’ll go into more detail about building a system at the sub-varsity level that can help you win AND develop your players. In the meantime, continue to check out all the great stuff being offered on coachingshare.com, and keep finding ways to DEVELOP those underclassmen.
In the meantime, if you’ve got questions or comments, don’t be afraid to reach out here, or on X (@coacheaston268). And remember, coachingshare.com has tons of resources available for all of us coaches looking to get better in the game of football.
