As school is coming to a close and summer is nearing, that means one thing….it’s time to hone in on that football install plan!
For some of us, that is very exciting, but for others, it can create some anxiety thinking about things we may have forgotten to do, or the uncertainty of how we are going to do things during the summer.
With all of the things there are to do, besides adjusting your offense to fit your current personnel, a prudent next step in terms of organization is to create an efficient football install.
Whether your state allows you to install on the field or in the classroom setting, there are many benefits to creating an installation plan for your offense. We will discuss those within this article.
WHAT IS A FOOTBALL INSTALL PLAN?
First of all, if you are new to coaching or even offensive coordination, this may be a new concept for you, and that is perfectly OK.
Installation is simply the method you are going to use each pre-season to teach your players the offense.
What are you going to do first? How are you going to do it? Are you going to begin run-heavy or pass-heavy? How fast should you go?
Do your kids already know the offense or are there a lot of new pieces to this year’s scheme?
Every high school team in the country has a different set of circumstances going into their summer plan, and you need to make sure you have a plan that meets your individual needs.
Not what you did last year, what the previous coach did, or what your high school coach did.
It needs to meet the current needs of your team.
HOW TO BEGIN CREATING A FOOTBALL INSTALL PLAN
There are many different ideas as to how you can create an install plan, and it first needs to meet the needs of your practice logistics (field, classroom, Zoom), players, coaches, and scheme.
How well do your assistants teach your schemes? How many returning players do you have? Is your offense new or is something you have been running for years.
All of these are items that need to be considered when determining your plan, but the first thing you need to do to begin the installation process is to create an expected usage chart.
An expected usage chart (Figure 1) is something you can use to help determine your order of install.
Put together the plays you think you will run a lot or be best at, and begin ordering them from most important to least important, or most used to least used.
Once you lay out this information in spreadsheet form, you have the outline of what you need for completing your summer installation plan.
I do not have a lot on the chart below, but I think it will give you an idea of how to begin the installation process using an expected usage chart.
After this chart is created, you can consider the following ideas for ordering your own install:
- BY IMPORTANCE OR USAGE RATE – As shown by the chart above, after you place your plays in the three expected usage categories, you can begin installing based upon which plays you believe are most important and/or what you will use the most. This is a great way to get your most used plays repped as many times as possible
- ORDERING PLAYS FOR EASIER LEARNING – Using power as an example, if you are a power-based team, even if old-school power is not your highest priority play, it still may be worth installing to allow you to teach the basics of power plays. Under this example, once power is installed, you are now able to very easily teach different counters, power-reads, and other plays, because the plays all have down blocks on the playside and the backside guard pulling. There is not much difference, so you can go at a faster pace after teaching the basic structure of one play.
- SEPARATE RUN PLAYS & PASS PLAYS – Do you have a good enough staff to separate and teach important concepts to different position groups? If so, great! One coach can teach the offensive line on the run schemes while the other is teaching the quarterbacks and receivers a passing game concept. If not, you may need to install only run plays or only pass plays each day, so you know they will be taught properly. Proper teaching at a slower pace is better than having to go back and fix errors that should never have been taught.
- NEW VS. OLD – If you have a new scheme or play you are planning to install for your new personnel, it may be worth adding first. Most likely, your players will remember the basics of your old plays, but need to be introduced to your new plays as soon as possible. This will allow you to continue to review the new plays, as you reinstall plays you have been running for years.
CREATING A SUMMER FOOTBALL INSTALL CALENDAR
After you have determined the order and importance of plays, formations, and other nuances of your offense, you now need to look at your football calendar to determine when you are going to be able to install each of these plays. At this point, you can create a football install calendar (Figure 2).
As you are inputting the information into your install calendar, be sure to give yourself more time than you think you need to install each play.
It can be frustrating to get behind, but if you get ahead, you can always move on to the next item on your list.
That brings excitement to the coaching staff due to the thought that the kids are progressing faster than we expected.
CREATE TIME FOR RUN GAME & PASS PRO vs DIFFERENT FRONTS
Another item to consider is how you are going to install your plays versus different fronts.
If your schedule is like ours, we play 40, 50 and Stack teams, and have different plays or adjustments to our schemes based upon each front.
Due to this, time must be allocated in the summer to ensure kids see these different fronts.
You do not want to install plays or discuss adjustments to new fronts for the first time on the Monday before a game.
Thinking about how you will do this may create anxiety in you now, but you will definitely be happy down the road.
Your kids are smarter than you, and in September, they will remember walking through these plays in June, July & August.
POSITIVES OF CREATING AN INSTALLATION PLAN
As you can tell from my excitement about creating an install plan, I believe there are many positives to having this with you during the summer.
- CLARITY FOR COACHES – Creating an install plan ensures your coaches not only know what will happen in the summer, but agree to it. Show your coaches this install plan weeks before meetings or practices begin so they not only understand, but have time to give their input concerning the order. Knowing the positions the way they do, they will have great ideas that will make you rethink your initial ideas. And if you are a coordinator that allows your coaches autonomy to coach, allowing them say in what they are going to do on their own will empower them to be the best version of themselves once teaching begins.
- WHAT’S NEXT? – Creating an install plan allows you to determine what is going to be next during a time of year when thinking can be more emotional than wise. If you create the plan in the spring, then trust yourself to go in that direction when you are tired or frustrated. It will allow you to make the best decision for the situation. Plus, if you get ahead in one of your areas, you and/or the other coaches know what is going in next. There does not need to be special meetings or phone calls made to determine what to do. Just do what’s next!!!
- LOGICAL ORDER – Like I mentioned above, creating an install plan allows you to consider the ease of learning for your players. If you have a few different scheme categories, you can make sure you install those together so the kids know they are similar and have to learn very little. For example, if you run G/H and G/T Counter, you can potentially install those on the same day, because they are nearly identical.
- KEEP VACATION SCHEDULES IN MIND – Creating an install plan allows you to ensure you have the right coaches there at the right times. If you have numerous coaches out, you may choose to do a review week. If your quarterback coach is out, you may want to determine what concepts you are best at teaching, and then let him have the concepts he feels comfortable with when you are away. All of us need to get away to spend football-free time with our families, but a plan needs to be in place so the football train continues to roll without you on the field.
There is also the player piece.
If you are anything like us, we have numerous kids that play baseball in the summer and miss some of our June & July sessions.
If one of those kids is your quarterback, you need to know when they will be out.
On those days you can install plays he already knows.
- KIDS PLACED IN THE RIGHT SPOTS – Creating an install plan also allows you to pair the run game and pass game so your multi-positional players do not miss anything they need to learn. For example, if you are putting in a run play that needs the tight end to go with the offensive line, you will have already known this and will choose to install a pass play that does not have the tight end in the routes.
- DO WE HAVE TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE? – Finally, creating an install plan will allow you to see prior to getting into the summer if you are able to add more to your scheme, or if you have too much. If you create your plan and feel like you have everything installed before June gets out, you may be able to add more, or begin to install some of your trick plays, concepts you want to try, or touch upon your situational offenses. If you are having trouble fitting everything into an install calendar, you may have too much. If so, you can go back to the drawing board and determine what you definitely want to keep. In this case, the expected usage chart will once again come in handy. It’s never good to see this, but seeing it early sure beats the alternative!
NEGATIVES OF CREATING A FOOTBALL INSTALL PLAN
The only negative of creating a football install plan is how it can make you feel if you get behind or ahead.
Some coaches will have high anxiety if they are behind, while the calmer and less prepared coaches will be happier that the team is moving slowly.
Other coaches get overly anxious if we are getting ahead of the plan due to the concern that we are moving along too quickly, assuming the kids may not know everything we assume they know.
With all that being said as you are inputting the information, be sure to give yourself more time than you think you need to install each play.
If you get ahead you can easily move on to the next item on your list, and that brings excitement to the coaching staff due to the thought that the kids are progressing faster than we expected.
And the list can be broken into pieces, which is the reason for having the running game side and the passing game side of the calendar.
You may be ahead in your passing game and behind in your running game, and that’s OK. You have your order, and with that in mind, you know you are going to get things installed in the order of importance of preparation for your first game.
Due to the certainty that the order and dates will never stay exactly the same way they are, do not print out a football install plan to give to your coaches.
Instead, create a shared document that you can adjust as the summer progresses.
This way, the coaches can continuously go to the document to see an updated version with updated dates & plays, as opposed to there being numerous versions at your coach’s disposal that will have incorrect information.
CONCLUSION
After creating an installation plan over the last two off-seasons, it has now become one of my most important off-season exercises.
The more clarity you have, the better the coaches feel about the order, the pace, and other logistics of the plan.
And because it is a coordinated effort among the staff, they trust it because at minimum they agreed to it.
Like I mentioned in the introduction, this is something that has to meet your team, as every team has their own blessings and issues that need to be addressed during the summer.
Want to see the Pro Style Spread Offense Install plan we start from each year? Check this out here:
Pro Style Spread Offense Install Plan
But believe me, this will be worth every minute you spend piecing together.
