Future Goals

Areas of Focus for My Future

Every good coach I have been around is constantly learning and adapting. Our Chief of Staff, Geoff Martzen, has a favorite expression: “Adapt or Die." This phrase is applicable to football in many different ways. Offensive scheme in football is always advancing, so defenses also have to evolve. The 1985 Bears had the best defense of all time, but nobody is running their scheme anymore. This is because it doesn’t apply to our game anymore. It would not work. IF those coaches were still coaching, they would need to learn new offense, how those teams were going to attack them, and what they could do to stop them. The idea of constant growth also applies off the field. Sports medicine is a growing field, and player’s workloads are now being managed like never before. Finally, technology continues to drive and change the recruiting game. Twenty years ago high school were offered off in person visits and the good word of their head coach. Today, players are in constant communication with multiple schools using social media platforms, and all of their film is on the internet. Coaches need to understand the new technology or they have no change in recruiting these kids.

                One of my future learning goals is the other side of the ball. A great defensive coach is able to prepare his players for what the offense is going to try to attack them with. Inform them of their tough duties for the week, so they can practice them. For a coach to be able to teach this to their players, they need to really understand other offenses. I have spent all of my coaching career on defense. It will benefit me greatly if I am able to learn some large offensive concepts. The best way to learn is to be coaching in a offensive system, but I don’t think I want to go that route. I get a lot of practice coaching offense by coaching the scout team offense each week, so I feel comfortable with the X’s and O’s of a large amount of offensive plays. Where I lack in knowledge is the technique of the players. I want to be able to teach offensive players their techniques and reads on certain plays, so that I can turn around and teach the defense what the offense is keying! I plan on attending many offensive-line coaching chalk talks, and spend more time in our offensive-line meeting room here at Michigan State.

                Every major program has a person in their program who is focused on sports science. Their role is to inform the coaches on players bodies, and how they are handling the work load. A lot of advanced science goes into collecting this data. Using GPS monitors to track players top speeds and distances traveled, sports science directors are able to help guide the coaches in making decisions on the length of practices, and how hard certain players need to be practicing. This idea is good to me, but it is stressful that someone is going to advise me how to practice my players. I think I will be more receptive to the support if I understand it better. I plan to inform myself on a lot of this science by studying the published work that has been put out. I also want to sit down with our sport scientist and have him teach me the basics.

                For a coach to truly excel at recruiting, which is a huge part of coaching college football, technology can't slow you down. You can gain a huge advantage if you are proficient with your social media accounts. Twitter runs the game, so it would be wise for a coach to excel on twitter. I plan to take the next step by marketing myself better on Twitter. As crazy as it sounds, some high level recruits won't talk to you unless you have thousands of followers. The best way to get these followers is to market yourself. I plan on taking a social media marketing class to help me better plan out my self promotion on twitter. If I had a plan that I could fall back on, I think my online profile would really take off.