4th and Goal

 If there is one thing that I will always always always believe when it comes to the game of football, it is that systems are better than schemes. What I mean by that is that your defense should be flexible enough to mold to any offense that you face. The way that I have seen defenses become systematic, and the way that I have made my own defense systematic is through simple rules, simple concepts, and easy play-calls, all of these take the heavy thinking out of the sport for the kids. When we boil down sports, especially in high school, we have to remember that we are coaching angsty, hormone driven teenagers. We do not really have to outthink the opposing play-caller, we just have to get our angsty hormone driven teens to out play theirs. I say that jokingly, but really football at the high school level comes down to execution and skill. To me, the best way to maximize the talent you have on the field is to create simple rules that are universal and spell everything out for your ...

 First things first, I am sorry there was such a huge gap in between this post and the last post. Like for many other people, things have been crazy. My excuse is I got married, started a new job, started coaching, and bought a house. Finally though, things seem to be calming down, at least in those senses. In other aspects, the world is as confusing as it's ever been. Teaching is remote, football practice is canceled, nobody really seems to know what is going on, and I think that is the most frustrating part of it all.  The first thing that I want to take a little time to reflect on is teaching during covid, especially teaching remotely. It is extremely difficult to teach to a computer screen. especially as a special educator. One of the most important things to build with your students is a relationship. That is really hard to do over a computer screen. These kids need to know that you care about them both as a student and a person. We have to look back to Maslow's hierarchy...

ith today's shift towards pass-centered spread offenses, if a defense wants to be successful it has to find ways to pressure the QB. This causes some problems for zone teams. If you have to bring a 6 man pressure (Out of a four-down defense) then you are sacrificing two of your underneath zones. Offenses can key on this and take what you give them. A way to counter this is an overload blitz. An overload blitz focuses on manipulating the O-line's blocking rules to try to get a free hitter through while only bringing a 5 man pressure. The first thing that I feel like we need to understand before running an overload blitz is the blocking scheme of the offensive line. The rules and style of pass protection can be different for every team. The blocking progression on pass pro in the way I taught it was inside-outside-over. In pass pro, if you have a man to the inside gap, you have to pick him up. If you have no man inside, you look to the outside to pick up a man or help. Lastly, if...

Quarantine has definitely given time to experiment and learn about different styles of defense. One of the most interesting defenses to me is the 33 stack. What I like about it is the ability to bring multiple disguised blitzes and the two built-in overhang force players. Not having to worry about having one of your box players to be your force allows you to get creative in your fronts, stunts, and blitzes. I am not an expert on the 3-3, but I wanted to do some research and share some of my ideas. I think cover 1 and 0 pairs best with the 3-3 defense. I feel like this allows you to stay ultra-aggressive with your box players. I have diagramed how I would run cover 1 out of the 33 below. I love cover 1 because it combines the best of the zone, having at least one high safety, with the best of man, being able to walk up your DBs, and being aggressive with them. I also like the simplicity of cover 1, you know your assignment and there is no changing it, as opposed to other over-complicate...

It is hard to believe, but today would have been the last day of my student teaching semester. Of course, the semester was cut short and I was unable to finish in a traditional way because of the Corona Virus. There were a few things that I learned from the experience that goes beyond the classroom. The first thing that I learned is something that I already know but had it confirmed through working with my kids. Each kid that we teach and coach is completely unique. They come from different backgrounds. Some have advantages, while others have disadvantages. We have to be sensitive and understand that. We should stay away from a blanketed method when it comes to teaching our kids. Rather we should look to differentiate our lessons both in the classroom and on the field to best fit our students. Helping the majority of students through one approach is not the goal. The goal is to help all of our students and athletes learn, even if it means offering our instruction in multiple ways. The ...

One of my favorite things I learned while getting my ed degree at West Virginia State was Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development, or ZPD, for short. The ZPD aims to explain an observable educational phenomenon. There is a limit to what a student can achieve at every level, every student is different. The ZPD sets out to help us understand that a student can only achieve so much without help. This level of understanding increases with the assistance of a teacher, but there are still things that a student can not yet achieve. The ZPD is crucial in the classroom because it helps the teacher create their curriculum, the ZPD is tied directly to motivation. If a task is too easy, the students are not learning anything, this is the first ring of the ZPD. In the same line of thinking, you do not want to give your students something that seems impossible. If a student feels like there is no way for them to be successful then they will likely shut down, wasting class time and hurting thei...

Imentioned in a previous post that the 4-3 is considered a stagnant defense. I disagree with that. I think there are several things that a defense can do, out of any scheme, to keep their defense dynamic. It is crucial that the defense is multiple so that the offense can not become comfortable and tee off on the defense.. I am a big supporter of the idea that the defense should dictate the tone of the game, not the offense. The defense should limit what the offense can do, not just absorb the punches. Multiplicity helps with this. While it is important to stay multiple, it is also important to not overload the kids. Keep things as simple as possible to allow your kids to play fast. Build your wrinkles, your tendency breakers, your multiplicity, into your base defense.  On the defensive line, I love stemming. I think stemming is one of the greatest equalizers upfront. The biggest thing that I try to remember is I do not have to fool the OC for the other team. I just have to fool his...

ne of the most challenging (and fun) things about coaching for me has been the fact that I have always been the, or one of, the youngest guys in the room. From coaches' meetings to clinics, I have always looked around and seen people older than me. With that being said, I always take being the young guy with a grain of salt. The world of football is huge with years and years of experience and ways of coaching behind it. I never wanted to be that coach that planned to reinvent the wheel, the one who thought he had the answer for everything. To me, the most important thing was to learn and to know my place. My motto is I should never be the smartest guy in the room. IF I am the smartest guy, I should find another room to be in. thankfully, that has never happened. I want to always be learning. I come from a non-sports background. I am the only one in my family that really cares about sports. My family watches two sporting events every year, Daytona and the Superbowl, for the crashes ...

Simply put, I love the offensive line and all the coaching that comes with it. What I think the most interesting part about it is how it is constantly shifting and changing in the ways that it is coached. We should always challenge ourselves as coaches to try to be at the cutting edge to make sure we are giving our athletes the best chance to succeed and keeping them safe. There has been a lot of change in the coaching cues that we use to teach our lines to move effectively. I think that is what I want this post to focus on, maximizing movement for the offensive line. I could write a post about each of the techniques, but I think this will be more of an overview of the things I like to coach to maximize movement on our offensive line.    The first thing I like to work on is stance. When I work on stance, I like for the kids to start feet shoulder-width apart with their toes turned in slightly then drop into a two-point stance, lean forward and place their hand on the ground. I...

I said in my first blog post that I am a senior education student at West Virginia State University in Institute West Virginia. I am close to graduation, which has caused me to look back at the things I have learned over the past four years. I think the thing that has been the centerpiece of my teaching philosophy is Maslows Hierarchy of needs. In his hierarchy, Maslow theorizes that the basic physiological needs of a student must be taken care of before they can begin to learn and more so discover things about themselves. This theory obviously applies to education, but it also applies to many other things in life. The pyramid at the top of the page is a visual representation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. At the very bottom, the support of everything above it is physiological needs. Things like shelter, food, rest, and water, all the things that we need for survival, belong in this rung of the pyramid. Above that is safety, a person must feel safe before they continue up the rest...

Probably the most interesting part of taking the defensive coordinator job at Nitro High is the learning experience. When I was asked by the head coach why I was interested in coming to Nitro I told him it was because of a growth mindset. To me, the growth mindset means that no matter what happens in life you are constantly pushing forward and trying to learn and grow from it. The most negative experiences can be turned positive if you learn something from them. I loved the school I was at, and I loved the coaches and kids I worked with. This was a huge opportunity to learn and grow, one that I could not pass up. In talking with Coach Davis, the head coach of the Nitro Wildcats, I told him that I was a big fan of the 4-3 structure for its flexibility that it can provide. It is old school, yes, but taking a modern approach to it allows for it to open up to attack more modern offense. The 4-3 is a run-stopping first defense. By having 4 down linemen and 3 linebackers run-fits are no prob...

I have always wanted to start a blog, but I never really knew where and when to start. In light of the Corona Virus pandemic and subsequent quarantine, I have found myself with plenty of time to write, so I have finally started my own blog, 4th and Goal. First, a little about myself. My name is Mike Hughes. I am 22 and a senior English education major at West Virginia State University. This upcoming season will be my fifth year of coaching high school football in West Virginia. I spent the first four years of coaching at the high school where I graduated, Poca High School. I was an assistant coach there where I worked with the offensive and defensive linemen. I loved it at Poca and will always be thankful for the staff there, they taught me nearly everything I know about football. This off-season I was hired at a rival school five miles down the road, Nitro High School, as their defensive coordinator and linebacker coach. They have accepted me as one of their own and they are letting m...