As I sit here starting season 3 of Breaking Bad and waiting for the Cavs to make their return to the playoffs I thought I would write up what it was like at this year's coaching clinic.
First thing after introductions is the first of four split sessions, usually an offensive coach and a defensive. I had the opportunity to listen to either Tim Beck or Larry Johnson. Something stuck with me when I interviewed for an internship in undergrad with Luke Fickell, when I wanted to work with him because I wanted to be a linebacker coach he told me why not be more well-rounded in terms of coaching and learn a new position. So as a defensive minded coach, I listened to Tim Beck.
Obviously I’m not going to type up drills and stuff, but I felt like Beck is more than competent in being a QB coach. Very high energy and kind of quirky, said he starts off every meeting with a brain teaser for the players to get their minds working. Urban wants QBs who have toughness, technique, and tempo. Beck added that when looking for a QB he looks for a competitor, someone who goes hard, integrity, and is smart. You try and figure out who is starting from that! But I did notice one thing, in the videos of the drills; Braxton wasn’t in half of them. In the other half, he was without pads and working out with some white QB. So Cardale and Collier were doing full drills with JT in the background doing what he could, Braxton was working different drills. But one thing I had not considered until Thursday was that Beck has NO ties with any of these guys. Braxton did everything Urban’s first two years, JT was Urban’s first QB recruit, and Cardale won Urban another 3 rings. Beck has nothing to do with any of those.
After dinner, Earle Bruce was honored. Every year (for the last two years) Urban has honored a coach from Ohio from all three levels. This year was Coach Bruce. As some of you may recall, I FREAKING LOVE COACH BRUCE. When I was taking Tressel’s last class at OSU, I’d sit next to Bruce and just #swoon like you wouldn’t believe. Remy already had a decent write up about it. He started to ramble a bit, but I didn’t mind one bit. He pretty much threw Oregon under the bus by saying they’ll never be tough enough to win a national championship.
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/blogs/remy/2015/04/urban-meyer-and-earle-b...
The nigh session on Thursday was between Brad Burchfield of Bishop Hartley HS (Building a Championship Football Family) and Chip Otten of Coldwater HS (Developing ILB’s in Multiple Defense Schemes). I went with the former. It’s great hearing great coaches just talk about philosophy. Burchfield pretty much gave a lecture on just how to be a great person. I actually don’t have any notes on this because I e-mailed him for his PowerPoint so I could just listen to him. I could learn how to be honest like him without sounding like a jerk haha. Very well-articulated (he IS an English teacher) and very methodical in his approach.
The final event on Thursday is the chalk talk. Pretty much they just wheel out white boards and we sit around drinking beer and talking plays. I do coach offensive line so I went with Warriner because, dude it’s Ed Warriner! I could see him being a CEO of a company. Very well put together, confident, well spoken, etc. One thing I hate is being a group of offensive line coaches; a lot of these guys couldn’t catch their breaths when asking their questions. Warriner definitely had the biggest group around him asking questions. It’s crazy to hear how simple the offense is…for the linemen. A lot of the same concepts ran at the high school and even middle school level. Gap, zone, pin and pull…all things that our offense is based on. The difference obviously is trust and complexity. I’m obviously not going to run a true pin and pull (if there is someone in your inside gap, block them; if not, pull) with middle schoolers who can barely remember which way the play is going. But Warriner simply lays out the rules and puts his players in the best position to be successful. As they were shutting down I ran down Tim Hinton to ask about getting started in college football. It’s way harder than I thought. Pretty much the only way to get a GA position is be a former player/NFL player or GA somewhere else. To intern you have to be enrolled in that school, which means I have to go get another degree or finish my Master’s somewhere and then volunteer my time. Yikes. Lots of things for me to consider.
On Friday I wasn’t feeling too well when I woke up so I decided not to attend the morning practice. The NFL honoree this year was Dan Pees. I had never heard of him, but you can look him up. Current DC of the Ravens, former DC of the 16-0 Patriots. He was very humble and quiet.
http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/Dean-Pees-Wins-Prestigious...
http://www.limaohio.com/news/sports/152816682/Ravens-coordinator-will-be...
Next were presentations by two Meyer protégés, Dan Mullen (Miss St) and Steve Addazio (BC). Dan Mullen talked about changing the culture of Miss St from ho-hum to a championship caliber team. He said he believes in accountability and trust. He wants his teams to be known to play with relentless effort, to play with passion, and to reach their potential every day. He talked about how they never averaged 50,000 fans a season and they’ve never had less than that since he has been there
Now, Steve Addazio yelled for about 10 minutes about his philosophies and then yelled for about another 30 about his plays. Addazio talked about his two core values, truth and love. As long as you’re truthful and honest with your players, then you can get the most out of them. He showed how his run scheme is a gap/zone team. (I might be getting his talks confused with Warriner’s). He showed clips from USC last year and talked about how well his “-2 star linemen tore apart their 10 star defensive end.” Showed lots of clips of them trapping, reading, cutting, and double teaming Leonard Williams.
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2015/04/52642/urban-me...
Chuck Kyle of Saint Ignatius was honored as the high school coach. Wow, this guy is absolutely amazing. 43 years (or 37? My brain is weird, I know it was 3 away from 40) he has worked as a teacher and coach there and seemed like just an honest and well-spoken person. Scout has a good write up already about how Chuck Kyle helped Urban get his first head coaching job.
http://ohiostate.scout.com/story/1538488-kyle-recalls-meyer-recommendation
For the final OSU split session I went to Fickell’s instead of Alford’s because I was hoping he was going to teach the ‘Hawk’ tackling technique (Teaching Tackling Progression with Safety was what was on the schedule). But instead it was just different drills and philosophies.
The final session was between Sean Williams of Bedford (Bringing Character to Your Program) and Enhancing the Run Game with PAP & Packages by Doug Ramsey, of Elder. I went to listen to the Elder coach because I would like to learn more about offensive play calling. It would be nice to be a high school coach and be able to trust the kids like he does! Pretty much every run play in Elder’s playbook has a check. If the play is power but the QB sees the slot WR uncovered or the OLB/S makes a quick move on the run, the QB will throw it to the open WR. It was crazy to see something like this run out of I-formation. We know stuff like this happens in shotgun, but to see it run with the play call being something ‘old school’ was something else.
I missed Saturday because I was still feeling sick. It was just S&C with Marotti; I assume it couldn’t have been much different than last year’s.
One thing I really got from all these presentations is that the coaches, even Meyer and Fickell and Warriner, acknowledge that they don’t win games, the players do. Coaches try to put their kids in the best position possible, but “It’s not about the Xs and Os, it’s about the Jimmys and Joes.” We truly are lucky that Urban is who he is, a CEO as he calls himself. He has the vision. He knows the players he wants to recruit. He knows how his assistant coaches (unit leaders) will coach the players. He knows what plays he will run so that his players can succeed. As long as Urban is here, we will be a contender.
