John T. Reed’s football coaching blog

During the season, I get many emails and calls about "trouble we're having with your 10-1" or "problems we're having with your single wing" or words to that effect. First, neither is mine. I got them both from college coaches. Everything is not the scheme's fault Secondly, don't blame everything on me or the scheme I recommended. You have to diagnose any problems precisely before you can fix them. If you put in the 10-1 then get beat off-tackle five times in a game, that may or may not be the fault of the 10-1. Indeed, since neither I nor...

My wife and our two football coaching sons saw the movie When the Game Stands Tall on Saturday 8/23/14. That is based on, and inspired by, but not a documentary of, the De La Salle High School football team during the period when its head coach was Bob Ladouceur. My middle son played a little football but never coached it with me as the oldest and youngest sons did. Also, my oldest played college tailback in the Ivy League. And my youngest was football equipment manager at the University of Arizona for five years—so he was a casual acquaintance and...

Copyright 2013 by John T. ReedThe Niners won today dramatically. The drama was a manifestation of poor clock management. They started their next-to-last possession at 3:20 left and ran six plays before kicking a field goal to take a 20-17 lead. They use 1:35 counting the field-goal play. That play probably took about :04. So the six run or pass plays consumed about 1:35 - :04 = 1:31. In a max slowdown, you can run off about :46 per play. The Cardinals called timeout after one play so SF could have run :46 off on five plays and :06 on...

Because I am the author of the book Football Clock Management, a number of people have contacted me to ask my opinion of the Super Bowl XL mistakes. Here you go. (The official NFL play-by-play is on the Internet here.) End of First half At the end of the first half, Seattle missed a 54-yard field goal. If they had managed the clock better, would they possibly have gotten closer for the attempt?It was 4th & 6 at the time. :07 was left at the time. That may have affected Seattle’s play calling. Could they have had more time for...

Please go to http://www.johntreed.net/fbdictionary.html to see my football terms dictionary. It’s too big to fit into my regular website. Thanks, John T. Reed