The Football Coaching Podcast with Joe Daniel

Once upon a time, the I-Formation Offense was dominating the High School football world. And it's not dead yet. When I started coaching way back when, we were lining up in the I-Formation Offense. Running the toss sweep, Iso, and trap. And it was a pretty good offense. The I-Formation Offense is not dead in the high school football landscape. In today's episode I'll break down when you should use...

The Miami 4-3 Defense was the foundation of my understanding of defensive football. And it's still a great System. The Miami 4-3 Defense is where it all started for me. Not the first defense I ever ran, but the first time I really understood how a defense works.  How do all the parts fit together? Why do you spill the football? Who's the force player? Why does Coverage have to match the defensive...

Nearly every High School Football Team is using Hudl for game film. Are you getting the most out of it? How much has Hudl changed the world of High School Football coaches? If you were around going back to the VHS days, you know that it's been an amazing innovation in our lives.  But there's so much more than just exchanging film with your opponents and watching the game. And we're not talking abo...

It's never a good idea to make huge changes for your football team in the middle of the season. Not if you're a Coach Simple, Play Fast, Win coach. It'll just slow your kids down. But you can make adjustments. You SHOULD make adjustments. But you need to make the right adjustments.  This week's Football Coaching Podcast takes a look at the 10 in-season adjustments you can make, that will actually...

It's Game Day! Here's the full plan, from the end of school to the opening kick, to get your team ready to win.  Coaches are always looking for an edge. Or a solution to a problem (that's what coaches do!). And the problem of starting slow, or starting fast, on football game day can be that edge. We're going to go in depth on the Game Day Itinerary and the reasoning behind each step in today's pod...

Get your 33 Defense Zone Blitz package ready to attack… in the right ways. There's no guessing here.   The 33 Stack Defensive System offers so much versatility...  but you need to know how to use it. That freedom can be a blessing and a curse. This episode of The Football Coaching Podcast will break down 5 different Zone Blitzes from the 33 Stack Defense. Plus how to use them, when to use them… an...

Perfect Thursday, the last practice plan you run before Game Day. Here's the step by step guide to get your players ready.  Perfect Thursday has been a long tradition in football coaching. But every program seems to approach it differently. This is the practice plan for perfect Thursday that has worked best in my experience.  Of course, there's a lot of other factors. This practice plan goes hand...

If your Quarterback fakes can freeze the defense, your offense has the advantage on every snap. Here's how to make it happen.   Coach Dan Gonzalez has been working with Quarterbacks and the passing game for a long time. He's a true expert on the subject. So I asked him to get on the phone and talk Quarterback ball handling for this week's Football Coaching Podcast.  We go into detail about coachin...

The 33 Stack Defense is one of my favorites. Fast. Aggressive. Attacking. Simple. The Stacks are a big part of that. The 3-5-3 Defense, Georgia Military style, was the first defense I ever installed on my own. I've loved it ever since. Even when running other fronts as a base, the 3-3-5 Defense (or 5-3, or any combination of letters and numbers you want) has always been available as a change-up in...

The Unbalanced Single Wing is a great offense. What if we could use the concepts and formation with our existing System?   A few years ago I sat down in a Glazier Clinic that Rick Darlington was presenting. Coach Darlington is a Single Wing guru from Florida and an incredibly entertaining speaker. I was just there to learn something I didn't know and be entertained. What I got was a lot more than...

Pre-Practice periods can be extremely valuable in your football practice plans. But you need to use them right.  Pre-practice has been a huge difference maker for practice planning, but it only works when you use it right. That means educating yourself, the rest of the coaching staff and your players on the purpose and execution of the pre-practice periods. This is a great place to get extra work....

Group Football Drills can target a specific area and clean out all of the noise around it. Plus you don't need as many players.  This episode was planned for several weeks into the future, but it needed to be moved up. These group football drills can do wonders for a lot more teams than even I knew. Recently I asked coaches to tell me what is biggest problem their team was facing right now. No sur...

Time to take a look at a classic Air Coryell Playbook. An offense that brought the passing game to prominence in the NFL.   Don Coryell and the San Diego Chargers lit up the NFL in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Air Coryell passing tree is something everyone has heard about in our coaching journey.  Taking a step into the past, I'm going to investigate the 1983 San Diego Chargers playbook fea...

There's football teams from the past we still love to watch. For many reasons. Here's our Top 5 Teams to Watch from the past. Football coaches all have a little 'football junkie' in us. That desire to watch a game with the DVR remote so we can go back and watch a play again. Or pull games from the past up to watch our favorite offense or defense from the past. Ron Mckie joins me on The Football Co...

Here's how to get the most out of your individuals football drills. Maximize your time without sacrificing your team's performance. You've got a limited amount of time to teach all the skills and techniques your football players need. And it starts with your 1 on 1 football drills in the individuals period.  Follow these 12 key tips to get the most out of individuals with your football team. You'l...

It's the 300th Episode of The Football Coaching Podcast, so Nate Albaugh is back and we're talking Wing-T Belly Series!. The Buck Series is everybody's favorite, but the Belly Series can be deadly for Wing-T Offenses. We're breaking the Belly Series down with a Wing-T Novice and a Wing-T Expert on this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast.  What's the difference between Belly and Down? Why is...

The performance of your Overhang Safeties in your defense is critical to your success. No matter what front you're running, here's how to coach your force defenders. It's one of the most requested topics that I get for The Football Coaching Podcast. Two years ago, we broke down coaching the overhang safeties in Episode 209 . Time to do it again… Start off with understanding the critical Umbrella P...

When your Running Backs are doing a great job blocking for your team, the offense starts clicking. Here's how to get it done. Running Backs spend a lot of their time working on ball handling and jump cutting. Making moves and maybe even catching a pass or two… but there's one skill they better get good at. Run game or passing, coaching up your running backs blocking technique is going to be critic...

There's successful seasons… and then there's a successful program. Here's how you know your team has 'Made It'. There's good teams on your schedule. They have quality seasons and then some years they drop off. The coaching staff has some turnover, the players have even more. Then you've got the perennial powerhouse. No one is ever going to look past these guys, and only a few are ever going to bea...

You've got your playbook all planned out… but how do you get all this in? Here's how to build your Install Practice Plans. Coach Simple, Play Fast, Win. That's what Joe Daniel Football is all about. That means you can get your entire offense or defense installed quickly.  So how do you put those practice plans together? You need an Install Plan first. We put that together last month: https://joeda...

It's a slight technique change for blocking run plays. But it worked. Here's the How and Why on the shift to shoulder blocking. A few years ago, I came to the realization that something had to change in the way we teach blocking run plays on our Offensive Line. We needed to take out the weak link.   Those adjustments had huge benefits. We've got to a shoulder blocking style - but not exactly like...

It's the foundation of one of the most successful offenses in the history of football - the Wing-T Buck Series. Here's how to do it. The Wing-T Offense has always been a fascination for me, and the Buck Series is by far the most used series in that offense. But I needed to bring in an expert for us to break it down. On this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast, Coach Rick Stewart joins me to t...

You've got a great playbook. How are you going to get it all installed in time for Week 1? It can be daunting when you look at all the great stuff you want to run against your Week 1 opponent, and compare it to the number of days you have to actually get that playbook installed. Today's episode of The Football Coaching Podcast is exactly what you need. I'll share a plan for a 5 Day Install on Offe...

Georgia Military College popularized the 3-5-3 Defense for the High School level 15 years ago. What's changed? 15 years ago, Georgia Military College came out with a comprehensive video series on the 3-5-3 Defense. It was all the rage back in 2005, with tons of coaches buying them up. I was one of those coaches. We installed the defense in 2006 and I took over as Defensive Coordinator in 2007. By...

Ready to create your own Defensive Playbook? Here's the simple 10 Step Process to a putting your dominant defense on paper. Coaches love playbooks. Unfortunately, most of the defensive playbooks you'll download off the internet are going to be completely worthless to your football program. There's a 10 Step Process you need to use to putting together the Defensive Playbook for your football team....