O Line Skills

The 2023 Vermont high school football season will kick off under the lights on the campus of St Johnsbury Academy on the last Thursday in August.  

We embrace the honor of being the state’s first game, but it is due to necessity and not desire.  Vermont, like so many other states, has such a shortage of football officials that we cannot have all of our teams playing on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons.  Each week this season at least one school will host a Thursday night game.  To keep player safety paramount, the VFCA has unanimously voted that opponents playing a Thursday night game will not have played on the previous Saturday to allow players adequate recovery time.

My lifelong friend and former high school teammate who is now a North Carolina football official informed me that they are playing varsity games on Thursdays and Sundays to combat the shortage of officials.  

 A couple of years ago, I heard that a shortage of softball officials would cause many JV games in the state to be canceled so that varsity games could be staffed, so I became a Vermont softball umpire and have thoroughly enjoyed the role and the camaraderie of my fellow umpires.  Needless to say, I did not play high school softball, so you do not have to be a former player to be an official.  I encourage you to contact your local association and sign up to be an official.  In Vermont, those interested in helping the game of football by becoming an official can contact Paul Trono at paul.trono@gmail.com

We’ve often talked about the benefits of High School Sports and how the lessons and experiences encountered on the field, in the locker and weight rooms transcend school echoing through the lives and communities of players for decades. Leadership, teamwork, character, ethics, resilience, and empathy all stem from team sports and athletic experiences. Please consider helping foster such growth and benefits for today’s youth, as they will very shortly be tomorrow’s leaders.

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time! 

We wrap up our Spring Football practices this week and are fortunate to have an indoor fieldhouse since our outdoor turf field is covered in several feet of snow!  Our focus has been teaching fundamentals, team building, and having fun. Working together, we can accomplish these objectives regardless of location.

Spring practices provide an outstanding opportunity to bring a diverse group of people with different skills together to accomplish a common goal. We do so while fostering mutual support, and build the program increasing task difficulty until players realize they are better off working together than going alone. Fostering such recognition reinforces the value of teamwork through experiential learning.  Football, unlike baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer, brings together players with vastly different skill sets and body types. The offensive lineman and the wide receiver have entirely different job descriptions.  Emphasizing each other’s strengths and knowing one cannot succeed without the other cultivates interdependence, reliance, and dependability, all of which contribute to team-building.   Lastly, but perhaps more importantly, we want the players to have fun, so we end every practice with a 10-15 minute period where we play a game.  However, we don’t play a football game.  Any player-led, competitive game that fosters inclusion while requiring communication, cooperation, and decision making is the baseline requirement. Additionally, we want to see character components such as leadership and followership, as well as athletic components like acceleration, deceleration, and rapid change of direction during play.  Besides being entertaining for our coaches to watch, it is a great opportunity to observe and evaluate players’ athletic abilities and other desirable qualities.  

We start strong with clear guidance, expectations, and goals. By ending each practice incorporating fun, we hope student athletes depart feeling both like they accomplished something during training, and with the smiles and fond memories of fun likely to entice their return both the next day and ultimately this summer and fall to commence next season.

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time! 

The Vermont Football Coaches Association will gather tomorrow (10 March) for our Spring meeting followed by our annual coaches clinic.  We will gather at Rutland High School with an agenda including honoring our divisional Coaches of the Year, voting for our state Coach of the Year, discussing rules changes, reviewing our new league and divisional alignment, approving our budget, getting updates on our state all-star game, and discussing state championship day sites.  

This is the inception year for the Vermont Football Coaches Association and thus my first year in the role of President, I look forward to gathering, not as adversaries as we do in the Fall, but as colleagues working together for the benefit and development of football in the Green Mountain State.  Just as we coaches bring players from diverse backgrounds together to build a team and strive for collective success, we need to gather as coaches, come together, and work on improving the game, our programs, and communities.  Doing so is something we all share in common, and with a common vision we look forward to “moving the ball.”.

After our meeting, we will begin the clinic portion of the event with coaches from Husson, Bowdoin, Norwich, Plymouth State, Middlebury, University of New England, Castleton, Bellows Falls HS, and Queensbury HS.  With 3 presentations every hour, we will ensure one of our coaches is in attendance at each presentation so the information they gather can be shared with the rest of our staff.  I am particularly looking forward to seeing my former player, Paytton Hobbs from Husson University, and my son Shane’s former Coach from UNE, Kenny Treschitta.

Lastly, I look forward to our staff joining coaches from all over the state for a coaches’ social at Applebee’s.  With our busy schedules, it is challenging to get our SJA coaching staff together socially.  Further, given the distance between our schools here in the Northeast Kingdom, it is even more challenging to gather with fellow coaches from other schools. I find the camaraderie we felt with teammates when we were young can often be replicated through gatherings like this. Working together, learning together, and socializing together so that we can better the game of football in our towns and throughout the state. 

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time! 

The NFL Combine kicks off this week.  Prospects will be measured for height, weight, arm length, hand length, body fat percentage.  They will be tested for speed, strength, power, and agility with a 40-yard dash, bench press, vertical jump, broad jump, shuttle, and 3-cone drill.  Then they will take an intelligence test to measure cognitive ability and problem-solving aptitude.  

On the field, football players need to react to ever-changing circumstances, solve complex problems, and make sound judgment calls all under time constraints.  (A great training ground for the events and pressures players will face later in life.) Playing football requires a great deal of concentration, resourcefulness, and spatial reasoning, all tested by the NFL with the Wonderlic test.  The Wonderlic test, created in 1936, contains 50 math, vocabulary, and reasoning questions.  Each question is worth 1 point and a score of 20 is considered average intelligence.  A good score is 26+.  There has been one perfect score; a Punter from, as you might expect, Harvard.

The average scores by position reveal that the Offensive Linemen score the highest on the Wonderlic. Offensive Tackles average a 26, Centers are a close second at 25, Quarterbacks come in 3^rd with a 24, and Guards round out the top four with a 23.   Although it may surprise some, it comes as no surprise to us OLine guys who have for years served as the quiet professionals who consistently deliver performance without pursuit of accolades or attention. 

Come learn more about OLine play and the quiet professionals who excel in these roles at the Alercio OLine Clinics at the Hun School of Princeton (NJ) on 23 April and St Johnsbury Academy (VT) on 11 June.  (Register here: 2023 Alercio O’Line Clinic Brochure)

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time! 

The Golden Rule is to treat others the way you want to be treated.  The biblical pretense to the Golden Rule comes from Mathew  “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.”  But there is a better way to treat people.

In celebrating Valentine’s Day this week, I am reminded of a test a life-long friend and high school teammate once shared with me.  The love language test that I encourage everyone to take with their spouse or significant other (link to the quiz follows below). Reviewing your spouse or partner’s results allows you to better understand how they want to be treated.  You will learn despite your best intentions, he or she may want something very different from you. Whether acts of service, words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, or gifts, once you understand their perspective you’re more likely to deliver on the intent behind the golden rule.  

Just such a lesson was reinforced early in my career when I was coaching (in a very loud and direct voice) a player we recruited out of a rough neighborhood.  After practice, he very courageously approached me and said that he had some bad life experiences with males yelling at him and that if I yelled, he would just tune me out.  I was coaching him the way I liked to be coached and not how he wanted to be coached. If I wanted his best, I needed to shift my perspective. 

One of the superpowers I think we as coaches (and many of us as adults) can cultivate is empathy. Empathy starts with believing in the dignity of others. If we believe in others’ dignity, we’re predisposed to giving the benefit of the doubt and investing in their wellbeing. Part of the investment is in getting to know the player, student, mentee, etc., and understanding where and how to engage, motivate, and guide them to achieve more than they ever believed possible.

In returning to the Golden Rule, I think it’s fair to say we’d like to be treated in ways that best help us realize our potential, and we should apply a similar lens to those in our care or influence.  Ultimately, we both end up better for the effort.

More on the Love Language Quiz here: Love Language

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time! 

This week’s blog comes as a follow-up to last week’s discussion of Cost Benefit Analysis and how we try to assess the “benefit” of a given play during games vs the “cost” to install and refine plays during practice. I’ve noted on several occasions how fortunate we are as coaches to enjoy a culture of shared knowledge and experience amongst coaching colleagues. The following response once again reinforces my point.

Coach Frank Francisco, a longtime friend, mentor, and author of “Evolution of the Game: A Chronicle of American Football,” responded to last week’s blog offering the following:

Coach,

This is not meant, in any way, to be critical of your recent OlineSkills blog. What you are doing is a great approach.  I’ve always been a strong believer in doing a “post-season self-scout.” A lot of coaches move right on to the next year with only a cursory, subjective evaluation without doing any real cost-benefit analysis. However, I have found the analysis doesn’t always provide an accurate measure of play success vs. input/practice time.  I’m going to give you some things to think about using additional variables that might increase the accuracy when coaches measure play success. 

Measuring Success:  Five yards on third-and-4 are more difficult to get and consequently more valuable than five yards on first and 10; and much more valuable than five yards on third and 12.  Red zone plays are probably worth more than plays in other locations of the field. Certainly, it is easier to gain five yards in the middle of the field.  There are a number of other factors that can differentiate one five-yard run from another.  Are you up by two scores in the fourth quarter (4-minute offense) when the play is called, or are you down by two scores (2-minute offense) and trying to catch up? Also, a play gaining five yards vs. the defending state champions is more difficult and more valuable than five yards vs. a team ranked near the bottom of your league. 

Coach Francisco, a former Division 1 coach, offers a much deeper dive into play analysis.  Referring back to my college statistics class, I have used descriptive statistics for play analysis which summarized data using indexes such as mean, median, and mode.  Coach Francisco’s ideas offer additional value or weight to a given situation and the potential to attribute greater or lesser benefit over the course of a season. Although a more complex and potentially arduous process in play evaluation, his inferential statistics approach should yield more accurate predictions from the data, and offers an interesting point of comparison.  

As February’s arrival signals the heart of winter here in the Northeast Kingdom, perhaps some time perusing spreadsheets and statistics will help us prepare for Spring practice and better reinforce success.

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time! 

As an Economics major in college, I learned to use cost-benefit analysis as a systematic process of evaluating the outcome of a decision by weighing its potential benefits compared to costs.  In business, those costs and benefits are most frequently expressed in monetary units.  In football, and particularly offense, the costs are the investment of time and attention, and the benefits are yards, touchdowns, and ultimately wins.  

Every postseason, I evaluate how many times we called a play, the mean, median, and mode of yards gained per play, and the efficiency of each play.  Efficiency is determined by the play earning 4+ yards, a first down, or a touchdown.  That determines the relative benefit of a play.  The cost is determined by how much time it takes to install or teach the play in meetings and how much time is allotted in practice to work on the techniques and schemes associated with a particular play.  Simply stated, plays that do not yield high averages, efficiencies, or touchdowns are not worth investing time in (particularly if the play is “expensive” costing us a great deal of coaching time.)

This past season we learned that we must evaluate an additional cost:  The investment of time into backup players.  We believe we invest equally in the mental, physical, and emotional development of all of our players in meetings and training sessions, but this season proved we have not invested adequate time to back-up players in practice.  The 2022 season was fraught with injuries at multiple positions forcing us to take a “next man up” approach every week.  The next man may not be as big, strong, fast, or skilled as the starter, but he must be equally prepared.  

In 2023, we need to be more resilient. We need to be able to “take a hit” to the team’s overall ability, yet bounce back and remain competitive. I plan to ensure we invest more time in practice for our backups to get repetitions, build proficiency, and ultimately resilience. Along the way, we’ll also focus on resilience as a character trait, noting that life may require us to bounce back from an unexpected “hit,” and in doing so, continue to help our student-athletes carry lessons from the field into their future.

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time! 

The Alercio OLine Clinic dates for 2023 are set.  We will be returning to the Hun School of Princeton NJ on Sunday 23 April and St Johnsbury Academy VT on Sunday 11 June.  Both clinics will run from 9am – 1pm.  

There is a saying in football that games are won in the trenches.  The Alercio OLine Clinics have specialized in teaching techniques for the trenches for over 20 years.  We believe that the true “Skill Players” in football are the offensive linemen.  A skill, as defined by Wikipedia is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both.  We teach the coordination and execution of learned physical tasks that allow linemen of any size to achieve both individual and team success within a given amount of time and energy.

The 2023 electronic brochure and registration form can be downloaded here: (OLINE CLINIC BROCHURE).  Team discounts are available and coaches are always welcome to attend at no cost.  As stated in last week’s blog. I plan to spend more time leading, teaching, and mentoring student-athletes.  The Alercio OLine Clinics afford me the opportunity to do that for hundreds of high school and middle school-age student-athletes every year.  I feel blessed and honored that so many players and coaches continue to attend my clinics.  

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time! 

Many of us are familiar with the tradition of a “New Year’s Resolution.” A quick Google search indicates that more than 90% of resolutions in the U.S. are fitness or weight loss related, and less than 10% last more than 90 days (most in fact, last a month or less).

A close friend shared the notion of an annual review, rather than a resolution, and I’m intrigued by the idea. The review he shared comes from Shane Parish at the Farnum Street blog and encourages us to ask ourselves some questions as a guide to assessing aspects of our lives from the last year and using the assessment to make conscious decisions about things we want to add or reinforce in our daily lives, and things we should consider eliminating (or at least reducing). Some of Shane’s questions help us look at our day(s) from a different angle (If a film crew followed you all day, what would you want the crew to film? What would you definitely not want them to document?) The questions are thought-provoking and introspective.

Tim Ferriss, the author/owner/host of one of the most popular podcasts available, suggests conducting a review by making two columns: Positive and Negative, and then looking through your calendar (by week) and noting the people, activities, and events or commitments triggering peak positive or negative emotions, placing those items in its respective column in order to clarify the things we want more or less of in the New Year. Tim suggests reviewing the Positive column, identifying the 20% of things that brought the most joy or satisfaction, and planning more of those items into your annual calendar right now. Similarly, walling off or refusing the 20% most negative. More from Tim’s blog on Annual Reviews here: Tim Ferriss’ Past Year Review.  

So much of today’s marketing and media communications bombard us with messages of “the new (thing, service, product or practice)” that if we only add, will solve all our problems. Of course, as soon as we pay for and add that new item, we’re reminded of its looming obsolescence and how “version next” is really the answer…  However, the reviews proposed by Parrish and Ferris encourage us not to “add new,” but rather reinforce the goodness we already have, and consciously minimize the negatives.

When I think about my own review of 2022, I clearly want (and am actively planning) more time with family, more time leading, teaching, and mentoring student-athletes, and more personal time outdoors (I’m amazed by the energy and renewal I derive from skiing, hiking, and time in the sunshine!). I’m also looking for ways to minimize time inside behind my desk, time spent worrying about things outside my control, or contending with others whose negativity saps my energy.

What’s in your review for 2022, and what are your plans for ’23?

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time! 

I am honored to join an outstanding lineup of college and NFL coaches speaking at Championship Football Clinics Annual Offensive Line Clinic on 16 January (MLK Day) in Bergen County, NJ.  I will share the schemes and techniques used in our Screen Pass Options. While I have shared this presentation at the USA Football National Conference, Nike Coach of the Year Clinic, and Glazier Clinics in the past, I will do a deeper dive into the specific techniques used by our offensive linemen on the plays. It’s often said, “Football is a game of inches,” and I’m excited for the opportunity to cover the nuances giving offensive linemen advantages that can turn inches into yards.

As I have mentioned many times in previous blogs, the most remarkable thing about the coaching profession is the willingness coaches have to share their knowledge.  I have used the analogy that when two people meet who each have a penny and share their pennies with each other, they walk away still possessing only a single penny.  But when two people meet and share ideas, they each walk away with two ideas: each far richer for the experience.  

This clinic also affords me an opportunity to listen and learn from two of my favorite offensive line clinicians, Kyle Flood from the University of Texas, and Pat Flaherty formerly of the New York Giants and Jacksonville Jaguars.  I have learned much from these professionals over the last three decades and anxiously await hearing what they will share on Monday 16 January.  

For more clinic information regarding registration, speakers, topics, and location click on the Link here: Registration

On another note, it’s hard to believe it’s been six years and more than 275 posts on olineskills.com. I’d like to take the time to say thanks for coming along on the journey, engaging in dialogue and discussion, and affording me the opportunity to share with you the same way so many others have shared with me. I wish you all the best in 2023!

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss coaching philosophy, X’s & O’s, or teach his O-Line “techniques in the trenches.” Contact Coach at richalercio@gmail.com and share http://www.olineskills.com with your colleagues and friends. Thanks for supporting this blog and joining our conversations, and as always, thanks for your time!