To Script or Not to Script

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The full text of “To Script or Not to Script” by Ryan Munz, from the Vol 3 — Winter 2018 issue.

A n interesting debate within offensive game planning is how important is a script to ensure you are seeing the right plays against the right looks. Each coach has a plan in place to make sure that what you see from your opponent is what your players see during the preparation each week. We know in a perfect world that this is the best way to ensure your players and coaches are successful each week. The 6 P’s right: Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

We also know as coaches that it is our job to prepare our athletes to the best of our abilities so that we do not see any unwanted surprises come game time. This has always been an area that is highly debated within our program, especially when it comes time for competition periods. The purpose of this article is to provide an opportunity for you to reflect on your current way of thinking/doing and either support what you do or to get you to rethink how you do things. Either way, let’s start thinking.

Scenario #1 I remember my first day as a graduate assistant. I got into the office early in the morning and the first thing was to sit down with the offensive staff and go through what practice is going to look like. What are you implementing, your individual periods and what periods are team periods that need scout? From there, the offensive coordinator picked the plays he wanted to see, wrote them in order for each team period and then behind each play, wrote these three things: front, coverage, blitz.

That information was then handed to me and I was in charge of making the scout cards for the day. Before the invention of Hudl, Playmaker Pro existed and a good old pen and paper! For forty-five minutes of team prep, it took me about two hours to get scout cards ready for the afternoon practice. This is a typical morning for most graduate assistants in the country, right. Then practice began. I had one goal! Get 11 guys to look at a card and run a defense that they have been given little information on.

Everything went according to plan, until…I missed a play and got the wrong blitzes on the wrong prep plays or Jimmy forgot to read the card correctly and went to the wrong gap. The scout team got amped up because their production was amazing and then the offensive coordinator would start shouting across the field to get on script because, well, the scout team was amazing! By Ryan Munz, Assistant Head Coach, University of Wisconsin – Platteville To Script or Not to Script

It was a nightmare that would happen about once a week, usually Tuesdays because every week was a new defense. The offensive coordinator would get frustrated, I would get frustrated, the scout team would get frustrated and our offensive unit would suffer because we where losing plays and production. The cycle continued week after week. To fix the problems, we would extend a period by five minutes just to “redo” all the missed plays. Something had to change.

Scenario #2 Scripting also occurs in practice when you have a one versus one team period. This is where it gets interesting. We all want to win. As much as you can say we want the team to be successful during competition drills, that is a line of bull! If you are the offensive coordinator, you want to score and a defensive coordinator wants turnovers and sacks. It doesn’t make a difference if you are competing on game day or you are competing in a controlled team period.

Here is what tends to happen - whichever side fills the script out last, usually tends to have the upper hand. It starts off pretty innocently and the script is followed down the line. Then, after a couple of rotations, every time the offense sprints out pressure is coming from the field or every time the defense blitzes a screen is magically called.

That will last for so long and then one side goes off script because they realized the drill has been compromised and then hard counts and double passes come out to play! Scenario #3 You can script the first ten, twelve, however many plays of the game! You are going to run these plays in order to see how the defense will line up and what you can set up the rest of the game.

This is all fine and dandy until you get a holding penalty the second play of the game and you are now on your own ten and the next play is a home run that you anticipated running on short yardage. Sure this makes it easy on the play caller in the first quarter and the players are prepared for the plays, but your plan should be to score on every play not show them every play and hope one works. Your homework should be done already. By now, you may have figured out what side of the coin we fall on with this debate.

It’s not something that we decided to do to be different. Its something we decided to do because we feel it makes us a better program. Here is why. Rethinking Scenario #1 We stopped scripting scout defense seven years ago. We used to spend time every day making new cards and having the same conversations over and over about how guys can’t line up right, etc. Our graduate assistant has the job of Defensive Coordinator for the scout team.

He is in charge of looking at the defense each week and preparing a cheat sheet for our defensive scout players to look at before practice each week. During our team-teach period, he takes ten minutes and walks through fronts, coverages, blitzes in the same terminology (if it exists) that our first team defense uses. This provides a huge benefit for us.

It allows our scout team to “play their defense” against us, allows them to play faster, allows the offense to get more reps in a shorter time, and allows us to move the ball up the field. We also spend less time on making scout cards, which frees up more time to break down more tendencies and work to stay ahead on future opponents. Tuesday practice is still a little slower, but by Thursday our scout defense is rolling.

It also forces our young coaches to watch film and then implement the defensive game plan in practice. This pays huge dividends on game day. He knows what the tendencies are by calling them in practice all week and will be able to give you more feedback as to what they are doing or trying to do against you. By forcing him to teach the defense, he is able to learn the defense!

Rethinking Scenario #2 We try to treat every team competition period as similar as possible to a game like scenario without tackling. When we do a two minute period in camp for example, we will communicate the situation and play ball from there.

We have a pretty good idea what we want to run in the two minute practice as does our defense so instead of scripting the entire two minutes, we will exchange formations with the defense in exchange for coverage’s that they will run in that period as this situation is predominantly a pass first mentality. We run our plays, they run theirs. If they catch us in a blitz, then we have to play from there. If we hit a screen and push the tempo, we play from there.

It forces both play callers to be ready for anything good or bad according to the outcome of the previous play. Just like a game, things change in an instant and if you don’t practice this transition it will hurt you when you need it most. Another scenario we use for team periods is opening drives. Similar to two minute, but the offense and defense does not exchange any information. You line up and play your first drive and anything goes.

It gives both sides an opportunity to try new things, if desired, or work on the basics. If we go three and out, we punt and the new group comes on. If we drive ten plays and score, we do it. No worries about going off script. Play the game! Rethinking Scenario #3 Too many times, offensive coaches over think things. We have to establish inside zone so we can run the play action off of it.

I am not denying that this is extremely important to your success as an offense, but sometimes we just run the play action because we get bored. If inside zone gets seven yards the first time you run it, then I would recommend running it again and see if they can stop it. When you script the first part of the game, this doesn’t happen. We all match up differently against different teams.

The worst thing that can happen is you gash them on inside zone and because your script says move on the next play, you don’t come back to it until the next drive. Well, their coaches just saw what inside zone did to them and they are doing everything in their power to make sure if you run it again, they will stop it. Don’t be afraid to run the same play on the same drive if you are having success.

Your guys know the play, they know it is working, and the defense can’t make major adjustments until they get you off the field. Make them bleed. You cannot assure that it will be there later in the game. If it is there, take it now. Don’t wait. I have heard too many times from our own defensive coaches after the game that “they should have run zone read more, we don’t know why they stopped.” Don’t out think yourself. If it is working, force them to stop it.

Then you will be ready to call the play action when you need it. I recommend establishing a set of plays that you will run against any team and see if they can stop them. If you have a new play or package, use it to your advantage and be sure it doesn’t create an advantage for your opponent. Conclusion I know what you may be thinking. How do you know that you have run the correct plays against the correct defenses? Answer is, we don’t. Defenses are always changing.

We call plays that our players know how to run against any defense. There will always be a couple of play calls that don’t match up well with the defense during each game. We know that and embrace that. We are not expert play callers. However, at least once each day in practice this same thing will happen. It forces our players to be in the moment and not be robots. It forces us as play callers to focus on each situation and pick the best play for that situation.

I would rather make a mistake on Wednesday and learn from it. You get the mistake on film, either by the play call or the execution and you can teach what to do when this happens in a game. I would rather be able to fix it in Thursday’s practice rather than be sick to my stomach in Sunday’s film room. If you have gotten this far, thank you. I hope we got you to think about how you game plan and put your practice together.

Whether you use this idea and run with it or think it’s a bunch of bull, I hope it helps you reflect on your program and why you do what you do. If you have any questions, or would like to see this in action, let us know - Ryan Munz, Assistant Head Coach, UW-Platteville, munzr@ uwplatt.edu.