Rebuilding a program

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The full text of “Rebuilding a program” by Justin Keeler, from the Vol 1 — Winter 2024 issue.

My name is Justin Keeler and I’m currently the Head Football Coach at Colonial Heights High School, lo - cated 30 minutes south of Richmond, Virginia. I’m honored to write for American Football Quarterly about something that I have spent a lot of time and effort thinking about these last 8 years of my coaching career, which is rebuilding football programs. Before I get started about my thoughts on how to rebuild programs, a little about my coaching history with struggling programs.

In 2015, I got my first Head Coaching job at Amelia County High School, a school of around 550 students located in Central Virginia. The football program had a career 38% winning percentage with one season of over 10 wins since it began playing football in 1949. In my three years there, we went to the playoffs twice and won a playoff game for only the second time in school history.

By: Justin Keeler By: Justin Keeler Head Football Coach Head Football Coach Colonial Heights High School Colonial Heights High School Rebuilding a Foo Rebuilding a Foo

In 2018, I had the opportunity to return to where I started my coaching career at Prince George High School and take a coordinator position. I jumped at the opportunity to coach at the school where my two sons attended and where one of my best friends was the Head Coach. My Head Coach, Bruce Carroll, had a similar situation to what I had at Amelia. Prince George had only one playoff season in school history and a school career winning percentage of 40%.

I was there for three years, and we made the playoffs in back to back seasons for the first time in school history. In 2021, I accepted the Head Coaching position at Colonial Heights High School. It was considered one of the tougher jobs in the greater Richmond Virginia area. Colonial Heights has around 800 students and is the smallest school in their district based on enrollment. They routinely play schools that are double their size.

They had a career winning percentage of 35% and had only one winning season since 1996. tball Program tball Program

This past season, we had the first winning season since 2005 and went to the playoffs for the first time since 2015. Here are some thoughts and ideas that I have implemented that I hope may help you at your current situation or may be useful down the road. Choosing the Right Job: Before I go into the hard work of turning around a program, I want to talk about choosing the right Head Coaching job. When I was looking for Head Coaching jobs in the spring of 2021, I interviewed at 3 places.

Here is a quick capsule of each job. Job A: Started football in 1973, 58% career winning record, 3 State championships, previous head coach was there for 17 seasons, one of the bigger enrollments in the district. Job B: Started football in 2003, 49.5% career winning record, recently completed the best season in school histry. Job C: Started football in 1958, 35% career winning record, hadn’t had a winning season since 2005.

Now most people would think that Job C is the worst job, certainly all of the people who gave me advice did. However, winning tradition or facilities is not the most important attribute I look for in a Head coaching job. I want the job where I feel I can get the most buy-in. From players, coaches, administration, parents, the recreation department, teachers, and the entire community. If you don’t have buy-in, you can’t create the culture that you want to instill.

I feel it an be harder in some situations to create buy-in at places that have had recent success. For example, Job B just graduated a huge senior class that had a ton of suc - cess. The administration knew they were going to be down for a couple of years, but I didn’t feel you would get the buy-in from the parents and community if we were struggling after they had such great success. Job A had a Head Coach who ran the program the right way and was very successful.

Would I get buy-in from the players and coaches when we hit adversity? I wasn’t sure that was the case. The quicker you get buy-in from all stakeholders, the easier it is to be successful. So when choosing to apply for a job, I feel you should do your research and see which of those jobs has the best alignment from top down. Those jobs are out there and will give you the best chance to succeed in the quickest timetable.

Family Meetings: When I started at Colonial Heights, my immediate goal was to sell our vision of the football program. I immediately scheduled parent meetings with every returning football player. They are normally held at the player’s house, but since we were in a pandemic, we scheduled them over zoom. The goal of these meetings was to get to know our players, their families, and to let them know about our culture.

These meetings are time consuming and expansive when you have a lot of returning players, but they are extremely important when building a program. Your parents are going to talk to lots of people about

37 the football team and this will shape the narrative of your entire program. If you want this to be positive, I would suggest having these parent meetings. Plus, you get valuable insight on your players that allows you to coach them in the best way possible. I’ve done these meetings at three different places and they have been well received and allowed us to get the immediate buy-in you need from the start.

Recruiting: While we were having meetings in the evenings, we spent a large amount of time focused on getting students to play football. When I took over, Colonial Heights had a hard time fielding JV and Middle School teams consistently. It’s hard to field football teams when success has been fleeting, so I knew the challenge that was ahead of us. But one of my major goals in the first season was getting all three teams (Varsity, JV, & Middle School) filled.

The first thing I asked for is the contact information for every male from grades 5-11 in the school system. We called every one of them and talked to them about playing football. We then made a recruiting board. We ranked kids based on academics, previous sports history, Height/Weight, athletic traits, and character recommendations from faculty. We even got yearbooks and if a young man had a thick neck, we knew he would get multiple calls. We gave them a ranking from 1-4 stars.

If they were a 4 star, we called them mul - tiple times and attempted to set up meetings with the parents to talk about our program and why playing football is important. This may sound crazy, but they had no JV or Middle School football the previous season. We only had 20 returning players in the whole program and we needed to fill three teams. We ended up having 85 players in the program when practice started in August.

Filling those three teams felt like a huge victory that first season, because you have to have feeder programs in order to be success - ful, and we felt this had to be done immediately. Effort: I had no idea how many games we would win that first year. We missed two weeks of practice due to Covid trac - ing. We weren’t big and most of our players didn’t have a lot of football knowledge or experience. I never talked about wins with the players, just effort.

Bronco Men - denhall was the Head Coach at Virginia at the time and spending time watching his team practice and at meet - ings was hugely beneficial to me. I’ve never seen a coach teach and demand effort like he did, and it was inspiring watching how hard his teams played. I know that losing programs have all sorts of different problems you inherit, but one common denominator that I’ve seen is that they play with poor or inconsistent effort. Effort was going to be the bedrock of our program.

We defined what a lack of ef - fort was and I personally graded the effort of every player for every game/scrimmage. It was time consuming to do this and honestly took away time from game planning for our upcoming opponent, but I felt it was so critical to our future success that I made sure I took the time to do it. The percentages were posted in the locker room for ac - countability purposes. We made effort film clips showing the good and the bad.

We felt that we couldn’t compete athletically and fundamentally with most of the teams on

38 our schedule that first season, but we set the goal to out-effort them. The players hated this at first be - cause it was hard, but they bought in when they started seeing some results. We won our last three games of that season and beat an 8-1 team 30-0, and it had nothing to do with schemes or our size/speed advantage; we just played harder than them. My favorite moment of that season was in the last game when the opposing running back broke through the line for a certain 85 yard touchdown.

Our opposite field corner took off and sprinted the entire way to catch him at the 2 yard line. We ended up having a goal line stand, which propelled us to a close victory. If you can get your teams to play with extreme effort, it gives you a chance to be competitive. As the Head Coach, you have to get your assistants to demand this during practice at every individual, group and team period.

If you’re like me and you think it’s hugely important in the outcomes of games, then you have to make it the main thing every single day. Branding: One of my first priorities when I took over at Colonial Heights was to put signs up at our Fieldhouse. It was hugely important to me that our players knew what our program was going to be about. We have our Core Values, our Decision making process, slogans and our Team motto.

I wanted everybody who came into the doors to know what our program was about within the first 30 seconds of walking in. This year I’m going to add signs about our effort grading system, how we hold the football, and how we tackle. I want people to have a daily visual reminder on who we are and what the expecta - tions are. Market Inefficiencies: When you are taking over a struggling program, sometimes it’s best to think like a business CEO.

Do a complete evaluation of your program vs. the teams in your district and see where you can gain a compet - itive advantage. When I was at Amelia County High School, none of the teams in our district had a good passing offense. We had great athletes at the school, but they weren’t as strong in the weightroom as the top teams in our district. We threw the ball a lot and had a lot of success because it fit our players and we were seeing basic coverages to defend the pass.

When I was an assistant at Prince George, we brought in Dale Baskett, a former NFL speed coach to teach our players and more importantly our coaches how to train players to run correctly and faster. We had a good weight room program, but so did the other teams on our schedule. I don’t think a lot of the teams were dedicating the time we did to training players to run faster. This improved our team speed, and was one of the reasons we got the program turned around.

At the school I’m at now, we don’t have many advantages over our competition. They are bigger, stron - ger, faster and there are more of them. So how do we gain an advantage? You have to think outside the box. I’ve been really aggressive (and lucky) at hiring good coaches at the two places where I have been a Head Coach. Good coaching staffs are so important in rebuilding a program. It helps that I purposefully decided not to call plays.

I figured I had a better chance of getting more good coaches if I wasn’t the of - fensive or defensive coordinator. I set the parameters and tell them what I want the game plan to look like, and then let them coach. Coaches want to coach. Be aggressive in trying to find the best people you can and let them do their jobs. Not calling plays has also allowed me to be a better Head Coach because I have focused on another mar - ket inefficiency, game management.

How many times have you watched an NFL or college football game and couldn’t believe some of the decision making at it related to time and game management. We spend a lot of time at Colonial Heights thinking about how we have to play the game each week in order to win When you are taking over a losing pro - gram, there is a lot of negativity coming from all areas.

39 the game. For example, let’s say we are playing a team that is more talented than us and has a bigger roster (this happens more than we like). How do we shorten the game? First, we are going to snap the ball with less than 5 seconds on the play clock. We are going to carry more short passes in the game plan so we can keep the clock moving. The best defense is less defense, so we are going to have to have some offensive plays or fake punts in the game plan so we can stay on offense and continue drives.

Our game management philosophy has allowed us to steal some games that maybe we shouldn’t have won. I want to get better at the “Middle 8” this season, which is a term former NFL general manager Mi - chael Lombardi uses for describing the last 4 minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the 3rd quarter. Statistics show that 75% of the time, the team that wins the “Middle 8” wins the game.

I feel that coaches spend a lot of time researching plays and schemes in the off-season, but spend hardly any time on game management. I feel that this is something you can exploit if you take the time to understand situ - ational football and clock management. Be Positive: When you are taking over a losing program, there is a lot of negativity coming from all areas.

I remember talking to a player early in my coaching career and he was in tears because people at school were call - ing him and his teammates losers and making jokes about the football program. That memory has always stuck with me. I haven’t always been Mr. Positivity, but I have made a conscious effort to change in the last few years. I’ve come to learn that you can be positive but still hold people accountable. The morale of the team is often overlooked but so important to winning.

It’s more important than any tactical decision we make. Find a way to create an environment where they want to be there because it’s fun, not because it’s an obligation. If you see groups of players arriving earlier to practice than they need to be and you are having to kick them out so you can go home after practice, then you are on to something. Acknowledgements: I want to thank American Football Quarterly for giving me the opportunity to write this article.

Special thanks goes out to Bruce Carroll and Bill Mountjoy for mentoring me as a young coach, and the late Ron Gundry for teaching me how to view the game differently. Feel free to email me at justin_keeler@colonial - hts.net if you have any questions.

Justin Keeler, Colonial Heights 2021-2023 Head Football Coach -First winning season in 18 years (2022) -Back to Back winning seasons for the first time since 1987-1988 (2022-23) -First time making back to back playoffs in school history (2022-23) Prince George High School 2018-2021 Offensive & Defensive Coordinator -Made back to back playoffs for the first time in school history. -First winning season in over 17 years (2019) Amelia County High School 2015-2017 Head Football Coach -Made the playoffs in 2 out of 3 seasons -Won a playoff game for only the 2nd time in school history.

(2017)

Passing a wet ball requires the passer to adjust several of his passing techniques. The passer should make the following adjustments when passing a wet ball. 1. The passer should attempt to get more skin contact and thus a better grip on the ball. This can be accomplished by’palming’the ball or laying the hand flat on the ball rather than holding the ball with the finger tips.

This change in grip will also decrease the whip effect as the ball is released, thus reducing the chance of the ball slipping as it is released. 2. The passer should pass the ball slighfly softer by using more of a ‘push’ rather than a ‘wrist snap’ at the release point in order to reduce the chance of the ball slipping. This technique is used on especially bad muddy days. Because of the reduced speed of the ball, the passer should concentrate on timing.

For example, the passer should anticipate the need to release the ball earlier under wet conditions since he cannot pass the batl with as much speed as in dry conditions. 3. On those days when the ball is in such poor condition (completely soaked) that it is difficult to even hold, then the passer should consider changing his release to a more sidearm motion. Note: In effect what you have done is changed from lifting the ball with your thumb to using four fingers to support the ball, 4.

The passer should lessen his grip on a wet ball. Remember, a wet ball is like a wet bar of soap. If you squeeze a wet bar of soap hard enough it will pop out. The same is true of a wet football. A less tight grip on a wet ball will also prevent the Quafterback from trying to pass the ball too hard, which is one of the main reasons that wet balls slip at the critical release point. Squeezing the ball too tightly causes the Quarterback to throw a knuckleball. 5.

When playing on a rain soaked grass field, always use one inch spikes or the longest length allowed under the rules. Passing in the Rain by Bill Mountjoy