Building an Offensive Game Plan

 

I have been thinking about creating a post like this for a while, but it seemed a little too personal in some ways and perhaps self aggrandizing. I have never been a college coach, and I can guarantee that every single offensive coordinator in FBS football knows more than me about designing and building an offense.

But none of them work here at Touch the Banner, so what you're going to get is how I have built game plans for high school offenses. Some of it definitely translates, and some of it might not. But considering all the criticism of offensive coordinator Jason Beck recently - and he deserves it - I thought this might be an interesting task.

So here's my step-by-step look at how to plan the offense from week to week.

Step #1: What personnel is available?
In any given week, a team can be limited in what personnel is available. You start off the year - even going back to the previous winter or spring - with a grand idea of what type of athletes will be on the team in August, and you build from there. But week by week, injuries and illnesses and discipline issues change what personnel is available. I have mentioned several times before that I like to think about "getting the best 11 athletes on the field" as much as possible. Now that includes figuring out your best five linemen - and maybe they're not the best "athletes" - but football needs at least five relatively big/tough dudes who can play up front. Once you figure out those five guys, you find the other six best athletes who aren't injured/sick/suspended and try to fit them into the game plan. If you're normally in 12 personnel (1 running back, 2 tight ends) but your #2 tight end has a bad shoulder, maybe you need to focus on running plays from 11 personnel (1 running back, 1 tight end) and put another receiver on the field instead of the #2 tight end. Regardless, one of your best athletes shouldn't be standing on the sideline waiting tor a turn to play while an inferior athlete plays every down just because they fit the "body type" of the personnel grouping you want.

Hit the jump for more.

Step #2: What formations and plays have been successful against this team?
I'll admit to being a copycat. When I watch film of a prior opponent, I look for plays of 10+ yards in the run game or the pass game that have been successful against the defense I'm studying. If a team struggles to set the edge against jet sweeps, then I'm going to have jet sweeps in the game plan. If they struggle to tackle guys in space on screens, then we're going to be repping screens that week. If teams have hit verticals up the seam with slot receivers or tight ends, I'm going to look at running seam routes or four verticals. If they run man-to-man coverage but struggle to sort out coverage responsibilities out of bunch or stacked sets, I'm going to put a bunch formation or two into the game plan. Now you also have to keep in mind that when teams struggle against a concept, they often spend quite a bit of time the next week trying to fix that particular problem. So just because they struggled with bunch formations last Friday night doesn't mean they will on this upcoming Friday night.

Step #3: What's my offense's bread and butter?
This is something that fans sometimes forget, but as a high school (or college) offensive play caller, I can't start running brand new blocking schemes, formations, etc. every single week. Offenses are built on systems, and we build on things from year to year or throughout the off-season leading up into August/September. If I'm a Wing-T coach, I can't suddenly start running a spread offense out of 10 personnel just because my upcoming opponent lost 42-10 last week to a spread team. So keeping in mind step #2 above, what plays, formations, and personnel do I have in my arsenal that work well? The opponent's previous loss might have happened because they couldn't stop crossing routes or couldn't fit GT counter correctly, but if my QB stinks at throwing crossers or if I only run zone runs with no gap schemes/pullers, then I can't replicate what someone else did. So what does my team do well? Let's figure out how to make that work. And if there's something we've been doing poorly and can't get it fixed, let's scrap it.

Step #4: What formations/personnel can I use to break tendencies?
I don't want to go into this Friday's game running the same formations and plays that I ran last week, because those plays are going to be scouted. The other team is going to be practicing against them all week. I need to add new formations or motions, or maybe I just need to dig out a formation or two that we haven't run since week three. Especially in high school, players and/or coaches can't feasibly absorb every single play/formation from seven or eight different game films over the first several weeks of the season. So I want to keep them guessing from week to week. I'm also going to use at least some of these formations/motions early in the game to see how the opponent lines up to them. For example, if I only put my trips receivers to the field (the wide side) for the first three weeks of the season, then in week four, maybe I put trips into the boundary (the short side) and see what the opponent does. If they overload into the boundary because that's where I've put three receivers, then I have a lot of room to the wide side of the field to get the ball to my single receiver or a running back.

Step #5: How are we going to block their front?
A few years ago, there was an excellent defensive end playing for a rival school. He was better than either of our offensive tackles, and we didn't really have a tight end who was good enough to play much. So when we went into the game, we ran away from that defensive end. I never called a run toward the side where I knew he would align. And when he went to the sideline a couple times to catch his breath, I immediately called run plays to his replacement's side - not only because an inferior player was on the field, but to give the defense a different look. Also, do they run loops, twists, and stunts? How often do they blitz? What are their favorite blitzes? It's imperative for the offensive line, running back(s), and quarterback to have some time in pass pro to sort out the blitzes and have a plan and some muscle memory for how they're going to react when a certain blitz comes.

Step #6: What coverages do they run?
High school defenses aren't nearly as varied as college defenses. Usually a high school team will come into a game with two coverages and that's about it. Some teams might run Cover 4 and Cover 2. Some might run Cover 3 and Cover 1. Some might run Cover 4 and Cover 1. Either way, I want to come into a game knowing what their "shell" looks like so the quarterback, the receivers, and I can have a plan for how to attack their secondary. Generally, you have "man beaters" and "Cover 2 beaters" and so on down the line, but you don't really have time during practice to run every passing concept against every possible coverage out of every formation. Now in college you have to be prepared for anything and everything, but in high school, if a team always has two safeties (Cover 2 or Cover 4) and leaves the middle of the field open (MOFO), then I have a menu of plays that I think can attack their personnel and coverages. We also might have a bunch of different ways to run the Flood concept or the Shallow Cross concept, but we want to pick the right ones for that week that should work against that particular team's defense.

Step #7: What personnel advantages do I have?
Sometimes you go into a game knowing that nobody on the other team's defense can cover your slot receiver. Sometimes you know you have two guys better than anyone in the opposing secondary, so you just have to figure out which guy is going to have the biggest advantage over the guy across from him. And some years your receivers aren't great, so your best hope might be finding a week defensive tackle or linebacker to attack in the run game or with RPOs. Sometimes you don't have any personnel advantages, and then my general plan is to try to win with scheme, effort, and toughness. I may not have a receiver who can go 80 yards at any given time, so maybe I'm just better off lining up in 12 personnel, punching you in the mouth over and over, and hoping I can wear you down when it comes to the fourth quarter.

Step #8: What do they run in the red zone or on the goal line?
Most teams turn into man coverage teams as you get into the red zone or down inside the 5-yard line, and the field condenses. So the passing attack gets tricky, because all the defenders are now squeezed into a smaller area. On the one hand, this gets very predictable. On the other hand, a mistake on offense can be a huge killer of momentum/excitement. There's not much worse than getting down to your opponent's 2-yard line and then throwing an interception or fumbling a snap and losing the ball. Personally, I prefer having a goal line package once I get inside the 6-yard line and running those same plays repeatedly to perfection (or attempting perfection). My goal line package might be the same in week nine as it was in week one, because we've repped it so much that we know we're going to score inside the 6-yard line. This is something that does not work in college because defenses and defensive coaches are so good, but in high school, you can get pretty dang near automatic if you have 1st or 2nd down from the 6-yard line or closer (barring a fumble or bad snap). We reach a point in the season where we don't have to rep goal line offense much, because we've been running the same thing all year and know what to do.