O Line Skills

Following this season’s success, I have had a number of conversations with questions along recurring themes and thought it might be useful to share them here…

Q:  How do you feel about being voted coach of the year by your fellow coaches around the state?

A: I am humbled and grateful for the recognition from my peers. Further, the outpouring of support, thanks, and congratulations from parents, former players, colleagues and members of our community has been remarkable. That all having been said, our success is a reflection of the hard work, dedication, and commitment displayed individually and collectively by our team, staff, and school. While I’m pleased with this year’s success, the real prize is the chance to witness longer term success of our players and program.

Q: Did you ever think you would find yourself a State Championship Coach and Coach of the Year at St Johnsbury Academy after your challenges at Castleton State?

A: One of my former players at the Academy texted me the day of the state championship game and reminded me of the first motivational speech I gave prior to my first game at St Johnsbury.  I shared with the players, “I do not know why I am here coaching this team, but I know there is a reason, and that God has a plan…” He finished the text by stating, “Tonight is the reason.”  I’ve been the beneficiary of an extraordinary group of teachers, coaches, and mentors who saw potential and invested in me. One way or another, I’ve always felt it important to return the favor and invest in others and leave a legacy far more important than wins and losses.

Q: What’s next…Are you headed back to the College Coaching Ranks?

A: The opportunity to coach these kids, two of my sons, and bring a state championship to this community, has been the most rewarding experience of my life.   I feel extraordinarily privileged to have this opportunity and plan on making the most of it. What’s next…? Preparing for next season… In fact, I just published a blog about a coach’s responsibilities for closing out the season and kicking off preps for next year. You can read it at www.olineskills.com.

Additionally, I’d like to share a recent PodCast I did with Coach Keith Grabowski on “The Coach and Coordinator Podcast.” We go in-depth on lessons learned from the 2017 season and you can listen here: Coach Alerio on The Coach and Coordinator Podcast, or via your favorite podcasting app.

Lastly, I’ll be publishing my upcoming list of clinics (January and February) where I’ll be speaking live on many of the topics covered here as well as diving deep into the X’s and O’s, and we’ll have brochures ready for the 2018 Alercio O-Line Clinics.

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss team building, 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 your time!

Midseason Offensive Changes

 

“Every Coach has certain tendencies…” 

“All of them except Ed Henry.” 

“The only time we’d be seeing Ed Henry is at the state championship.” 

You may remember those lines from the movie “Remember the Titans.”  Those words were true then and even truer now.  Other coaches are studying your tendencies. At this point of the season, opponents have multiple games and scouts on you and your team and will have strong tendency data on Play by Formation, Play by Down & Distance, Play by Personnel and Play by Field Position and may have discovered vulnerabilities in your reaction to certain circumstances.

How do we counter such a data advantage?

We counter our opponent’s expectations by “scripting out of tendency.”

Do a self-scout of your offense to see what you are calling in those situations and create a 10-15 play “out of tendency” script. For example, if you have a strong tendency to pass in your 3×1 open set, script a run.  If you have a strong run tendency in a down & distance situation, script a play action pass the first time you are in that situation.

The other change you may wish to consider is a change of your signals, if you are a No Huddle team.  Coaches may be able to see you signaling from the sideline on video.  They most likely have also live scouted you giving signals and may even have videotaped you giving the signal then the play that follows.  You also may be preparing for playoffs and very likely may be playing a team for a second time.

To hear more about scripting out of tendency, no huddle signals and other topics that pertain to preparing for gameday, you can listen to USA Football’s Coach and Coordinator Podcast hosted by Keith Grabowski by clicking  GAMEDAY PREP or the clipboard below.

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss team building, 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 your time!”

 

Coach To Cure MD Follow Up Post

Last week I shared our efforts to support the 10^th Anniversary of Coach to Cure Muscular Dystrophy. I’m happy to report the program was successful both nationally and locally. It was great to see coaches on our sidelines sporting the Coach to Cure MD patches on their shirts, and equally exciting to see Division I coaches on TV wearing the same patches and supporting the same cause. Organizations at all levels raised funds and awareness, and I’m proud of our team’s efforts both on and off the field to support such a worthy program.

I’d like to share an editorial by Mr. Todd M. Smith, from this week’s Caledonian Record, and thank Mr. Smith for the sentiments he expresses. In many ways, he captures the essence of exactly what we as a team and members of the community were trying to accomplish. The Oct 3^rd Editorial is pasted below and can be read in its original form on the Caledonian Record Website here: Mutual Admiration Society

Editorial: Mutual Admiration Society

Oct 3, 2017

The Caledonian Record

On Saturday the St. Johnsbury Academy football team roared back from a size-able deficit to beat previously unbeaten BFA/St. Albans. With the win, the mighty Hilltoppers remain perfect on the year.

We enjoyed reading Coach Rich Alercio’s comments on the game. He credited the hard-fought victory to conditioning and the hard work his kids put in long before the season started. “All the offseason work, in the summer and the spring, the lifting sessions; when it came down to it, BFA was bigger and stronger, but they didn’t hold up as well as we did,” Alercio said. “Our kids are so well conditioned. The work they put in during the summer, prepared them for a finish like that.”

 Being it our experience that hard work is the bedrock of all success, we appreciated Coach Alercio’s behest to players – “Never let anybody outwork you and never let anybody outlast you.”

 Good stuff.

 But there was something we liked even better about Saturday’s indefatigable effort from the Hilltoppers.

The young combatants were led into battle by another warrior – 14-year-old Thomas Chesbrough.

The wheelchair-bound Waterford resident was named honorary team captain as part of the nationwide Coach To Cure Muscular Dystrophy (MD) day. Chesbrough, who was born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, wore SJA jersey number 75, participated in the pregame coin flip, then cheered the boys on as they rallied from a 28-14 deficit to a 36-28 win to establish themselves as the undisputed number one team in Vermont. The Hilltoppers wore patches on their uniforms to mark the occasion.

We were moved and humbled to watch our strongest and most physically capable athletes taking inspiration from those whose daily health fights put gridiron struggles into perspective. Chesbrough said he’s a big-time fan of football players and we’re with him on that. But we’re now big fans of Chesbrough, and we bet the entire SJA football community is with us on that.

I’d like to thank Mr. Smith for his editorial and express my sincere thanks for Thomas Chesbrough’s inspiring example. I’m proud of the team’s accomplishments, and prouder still of the players request to invite Thomas to continue in his role as honorary captain and join us on the field for the remainder of the season.

You can still get involved in the Parent Project for Muscular Dystrophy  http://www.parentprojectmd.org/

Coach to Cure MD

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of Coach To Cure MD.  Coach To Cure MD is a partnership between the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) and Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD).  The AFCA was drawn to this cause because of the unique parallels between Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a disorder which robs young men of precious muscle strength, and football, a game where young men are at the peak of their muscular strength.

On Saturday, September 30, coaches nationwide will take the field wearing Coach To Cure MD patches on their sleeve to raise awareness of the disorder and raise money to fund research to discover a cure.

As coaches, we talk about winning the battles on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons, but our battles pale in comparison to those fought every day by the young men afflicted with this disorder and their families.  We teach our players to fight through adversity, deal with setbacks, and overcome obstacles to help prepare them for life. We hold our upperclassmen accountable to set a good example through the trials and tribulations they encounter on and off the football field.

In the vast majority of cases, the challenges and adversity our players endure pale in comparison to the monumental task of confronting Muscular Dystrophy. Those who do fight it, and the parents and families of those children, often set the most extraordinary example of courage and commitment in the face of such a daunting opponent.

In their honor, and with the utmost hope and prayer those families are granted relief and a cure, I’ll be wearing my patch, and contributing to “Coach to Cure MD,” this weekend and encourage you to do the same.

You can visit http://www.parentprojectmd.org/ to become more involved or click on the clipboard below to donate directly!

A quick update to say thanks for the notes and calls following Saturday’s 30-8 win against the Essex Hornets. 2-0 is a great start to the season and I’m proud of our players, coaches, and the students, parents, and faculty who braved the rain to cheer us on to victory in our home opener.

I’ve been fortunate to develop some great partnerships during my career, and the relationship with USA Football is one of the best. You may recall I traveled to Phoenix earlier this summer to record several coaching videos and we discussed them in blog posts last month.

USA Football just published an article I wrote about going for 2 on Points After Touchdown (PAT). I mentioned last week our student athletes have cultivated the confidence in themselves and each other necessary to consistently succeed when going for 2. We proved it in week one and again on Saturday against Essex. Take some time to consider your options and create opportunities to distance your team from your opponent.

You can read the article here: Why Go For 1, When you Can Get 2?

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss team building, 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 your time!

Now that training camp and game #1 are behind us, I have some time to get back to the blog.  Thankfully this summer’s preparation was time well spent.  I’m proud of the way our student athletes made individual and collective contributions to the team both on and off the field. We focused on the fundamentals, practiced hard, and closed pre-season physically and mentally ready. We opened our season on the road against the team that beat us in the 2016, Vermont Division I State Championship and came away with a 22-19 win.  Tough opener but it did provide great motivation and a point of focus for our players through summer OTAs and Training Camp.

Going for 2 was the difference in this year’s game.  We converted 2-of-3, 2-point conversions and they made only 1 extra point.  In some programs, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see a coach take credit for what some would consider a “gutsy call.” On the contrary, those calls were based on our players’ hard earned confidence in themselves and belief in each other as teammates.

After the game, several reporters approached me to request interviews with our quarterback, who had over 100 yards rushing, 100 yards passing, two touchdowns, and two 2-point conversions, and our running back who had over 100 yards rushing and a touchdown.  After setting up the interviews, one of my senior offensive linemen who had a stellar game both offensively and defensively with 3 pancake blocks, a sack, a tackle for a loss and a blocked extra point, came up to me and said that they are interviewing the wrong guys.  He was so right.  Football is a game of interdependence. Teams, families, companies all find themselves depending on one another. Inevitably some get credit, some get blame, and in time history settles on its version of what actually happened.

Though the local paper may recount the story through a reporter’s lens, we’ll grade the game film recognizing both the things we did well and the things we can do better. Each player will know how he contributed, and it is my sincere hope each will find ways to recognize those who played to their potential regardless of the media’s perspective. But in the end, each has to reconcile with their own conscience earning and affirming self respect and satisfaction born of knowing they selflessly gave their very best.

With that in mind, I share a great article featured at footballscoop.com that my assistant head of school forwarded to me entitled “The 6 most important life lessons you learn by playing offensive line.”

http://footballscoop.com/news/6-life-lessons-learn-playing-offensive-line/

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss team building, 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 your time!

How the Run Pass Option (RPO) puts defenders on the horns of a dilemma!

The last of the four courses I recorded at the Arizona Cardinal’s Training Center for USA Football is entitled Run Pass Option (RPO).  We begin by recognizing that football is a cyclical game.  The “new” shoulder tackling we are now teaching is the same technique players used while wearing leather helmets.  The “new” RPO is the old option football.  The basis of the offense is to put a defending player in conflict. The conflict is ideally a confounding choice where either decision creates a  defensive vulnerability, and in a perfect world the defender’s dilemma results in confusion and indecision leaving your quarterback to decide between the best of 2 good alternatives.

The RPO is also not a new concept.  Teams have been giving the quarterback a Run or Pass Option in a pre-snap read at the line of scrimmage for more than 25 years with the Run or Bubble Screen Option.  Today’s RPO has evolved into a Post-Snap option and incorporates a downfield pass.  Both “old” and “new” lead to a number of concerns we address for the longevity of RPOs in football.

The Old RPO

RPO Concerns:

1. QB Post-Snap option read is expensive
2. Illegal man downfield can almost always be called
3. To avoid illegal man downfield or to allow for protection, the run blocking scheme must be altered
4. If not altered, it is not a good pass protection screen, especially against the blitz
5. Man coverage does not allow for a conflict player. You cannot throw and there is an unblocked player in the box

Today’s RPO

The suggestion of using a Pin & Pull scheme to one side with the pass option to the other side is a recommendation to answer he aforementioned concerns:

Solving the Concerns:

1. The Pin & Pull exchange is a lateral shuffle that allows for more time to read
2. The pullers will not cross the line of scrimmage before 2 seconds.
3. The scheme does not need to be altered for protection or illegal man downfield
4. It is not a good pass protection scheme but it is better due to the change of launch point with the lateral shuffle exchange.
5. Man coverage does not effect since it is an outside run away from the Pass side.

Pin & Pull RPO

A next step in the evolution of RPOs is suggested with a QB Pin & Pull to the same side as the pass option with the similar solutions to the concerns:

The Next Step:

1. Allowing the QB to be on the run provides ample time to decide to run or pass
2. Ball is thrown long before pullers go downfield
3. No change of scheme
4. Great pass protection as it works as a Sprint Out protection.
5. Man coverage is not an issue as it only makes the read easier to keep and the extra player is accounted for by pullers and the Running Back.

QB Pin & Pull RPO

We conclude with offering another option…SPO or Screen Pass Option.  It is the philosophically the same but the conflict player is in a coverage conflict with a pass on one side or a RB screen on the other.

Screen Pass Option (SPO)

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing a little more about my trip to Arizona and the chance to help other coaches through USA Football’s Coaches Academy. Summer OTAs continue and while August summer days are hot, the cool nights here in Vermont remind us the Fall football season is only short few weeks away. I hope many of the topics we’ve covered since last January have been helpful and i look forward to continuing the conversation through the Fall. Best wishes to you and yours in the upcoming season!

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss summer OTAs, 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 your time!

Continuing the conversation on my recent trip to Phoenix…

The second of the four courses we produced with USA Football at the Arizona Cardinal’s Training Center was entitled Leadership and Team Building.

If we really step back and take a look at our coaching roles in the lives of our student athletes, developing young men and women of character, ethics, and morals and reinforcing their potential to contribute to society after they hang up the helmet and cleats is really our greatest mission. We help shape character traits so our athletes can be leaders both on and off the field.

We begin our discussion of leadership by quoting three of our past presidents…

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things.  He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”  President Ronald Reagan

“Leadership is the ability to decide what is to be done, and then get others to want to do it.”   President Dwight D. Eisenhower

“A leader is a person who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do, and like it.”   President Harry S. Truman

All of our presidents agree that leadership is about getting others involved to get the task accomplished. All would likely agree leadership is, and should be treated as a privilege. Given the privilege to lead, one should consider two key concepts: Deference versus Respect.

We recognize there are significant differences between Respect and Deference.  Deference is a reverent and considerate attitude towards someone because of their position (principal, athletic director, coach), but Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone because of their abilities, qualities or achievements.  In a nutshell, deference is given; but respect is earned. As coaches, we’re given a whistle, clipboard, and the authority to run the team, but the deference our athletes, parents, faculty, and community offer only goes so far. Every single day, through our words, actions, and decisions, we earn, cultivate, and maintain the respect of those very same people. In doing so, we model behaviors we hope our players will want to emulate. We must be ever mindful of our example, and understand all the hard work poured into earning respect can be destroyed in seconds.

Then we focused on understanding the millennial generation we now coach. Generations are shaped by the circumstances and philosophies surrounding their upbringing.  If you are a Baby Boomer, you were likely shaped by the prosperity of the Post War Years and the Civil Rights Movement and raised by a working dad and stay at home mom.  If you are used to coaching Generation X who were shaped by the Cold War and raised as latch key kids with two working parents. You may not understand today’s generation without taking a step back and considering the view from their perspective. The Millennial generation are shaped by the events of 9/11 and the War on Terror.  Many of them spent their early childhood in daycare and are now raised by helicopter parents. Their goals and aspirations are shaped by their experiences, and as leaders, we need to understand how those factors affect perspective and motivations if we are to help them maximize their potential and performance.

The conversation continues with John Maxwell’s “17 Undisputable Laws of Teamwork.”  Discussing them in depth, we looked at how they apply to today’s football teams.  Next, we borrowed from a US Marine Corps discussion on team building. I’ve had the privilege of sharing firsthand how the Marine Corps builds a team we know as “The Few and The Proud…” turns out the very same process, tenets, and values they use are just as applicable in building a winning football team.  Both a Marine Corps unit and a high school football team go through the phases of Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing.  Nobody trains teams like the Marines, and by studying their model, we can reinforce our coaching success.

We conclude the course by understanding the differences between team building and hazing and focus on the negative impact hazing and bullying can have on your team, your school and your career.

I believe leadership is a privilege. As coaches, we have a fleeting moment to have a positive impact on the lives of our student athletes. It’s critical we seize the opportunity, set a good example, and cultivate young leaders for our team, and for our future.

Coach Rich Alercio is available to discuss summer OTAs, 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 your time!