GAME STRATEGY AND PLAY CALLING: THE “HEDGEHOG” PHILOSOPHY

By Bruce Reynolds Former Head Coach William Penn High School, New Castle (DE) Game day strategy and play calling should not be too elaborate. Go with what got you there. Too many coaches make the mistake of trying to put in too many “new” things for the big game. My father, the Dr. Brooks E. Reynolds, a Methodist minister, was always preaching Steven Covey’s theme: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” You can apply that to any phase of your life. In football it has its own application: concentrate on what you know how to do best. Stay within your system. Stay with your basic philosophy of offense and defense. Go with what you’ve practiced a thousand times. Players can’t have the necessary experience and confidence in wholesale changes before the big game. Stay with the core plays and base defenses that they know. That