Coach Your Coaches

Remember how unsure of yourself you felt in your first year of coaching? Even after years of coaching, you may still feel uncertainty at times. A good coach not only works through that uncertainty, but helps take it away from his staff as well.

Coaches, you must coach your coaches. 

The best way for you to feel at ease is to know that everyone around you 1) has an assignment, and 2) knows how to execute that assignment.

Practice isn't only for your players' improvement, but for your staffs' as well. When you are working on kickoff, make sure your guys, or special teams guy, know what they are looking for. Offensively and defensively, give everyone an assignment. Your defensive coordinator, when not on defense, may have the best eye to see what the opposition is doing defensively, so make sure that he has a job.

When you are going over scripted plays, two-minute drills, or what have you the day before a game, put the headsets on and practice communicating. Go over your substitution strategy.

I have four guys that assist me. I call the plays on offense and relay them to a coach that gives them to QB, as we are a huddle offense. I am aligned behind our offense  about 15 yards to get a player view of the defense. My play relay coach is close to the line. My o-line coach is at the LOS as well so he can see alignment, pullers and the like. My DC is behind the defense 10-15 yards so he can get a good look at what they are trying to do. Finally, I have a coach in the pressbox who is keying on certain players/plays. It works for us. Everyone has a job. If we are confident in what we are doing, the DC may move from diagnosing the defense to subbing players in. Then we flip jobs on defense. But that's the thing - everyone has to have a job.

Coach up your coaches. Don't ever assume they know something, but don't treat them like they don't know anything. Trust your guys and give them insight into what you are looking for in certain situations.

A staff, just like your team, must work as one, or the task becomes infinitely more difficult.

Be a coaches coach.