When you have “finished” offseason R&D and it’s time for spring install, one of the things we do to streamline our process as far as what to take out and what to put in is our Scheme Map. A scheme map is simply a graphical representation of our offensive scheme menu. We operate on a 3 day spring install plan. This doesn’t mean we install the entire offense in 3 days, but we install the base scheme and categories. So if on Day 1 we installed 2 quicks and 2 dropback passes, when we wrapped back around to day 4 we would be working on those same passes but potentially with tags added. In season we will have more scheme than in spring, but we operate with the same basic principle. Our practice schedules don’t change a ton, so we have a standard group of things we work on a Monday, Tuesday, etc. based on the practice periods. For example Tuesday in season is a longer, more physical day, so we work goalline and short yardage on those days. In spring training we have more time and less constraints because we are not going to put in a goalline package or situational offense for a spring scrimmage. In spring we want to accomplish these things:
“Kill Your Darlings” A famous apocryphal quote about writing (supposedly said by Faulkner and about 20 other people) is that one must “kill your darlings”. In other words a writer must learn to eliminate self-indulgent passages that don’t serve the larger narrative. I love scheme, as much as (probably even more than) the next guy, and when I find 37 pass plays I want to run every offseason, all of which I can rationalize that we need, it is a very difficult thing to kill them off. How do you do it? Math. There are literally only so many calls in a season. And you are going to repeat calls. A lot. So understanding you have to make difficult cuts in your base scheme should be self-evident. Here are some things you should know:
Now you should start to have an idea of how many calls you need to carry into a game. If you actually do this it can be a sobering reminder of how often we carry too much scheme. Now, the above process is more relevant to in-season work than spring, but you know going in that even though one of the joys of spring training is experimenting, in the end, you’re going to have to throw out some (or a lot) of stuff. That said our philosophy has always been to introduce a ton in spring and summer, but never carry a gigantic menu into each game. Once you have created the knowledge base, week to week install is easier because you can reintroduce quickly by bringing things back out of the toolbox. The Map Below is a generic (blank) scheme map. Yours probably won’t look like ours. But here are 11 categories we might look at after the R&D period. Clearly Spring might look different than in- season if we were making this chart, and I have a spring map as well as a tentative season map of where we think we might end up. There is some (and usually a lot) of carryover in the map. For instance we know that in spring we will install our 2 base screens so I would put those in the scheme map and then we may have one additional screen we want to experiment with. "Combos" are what many are now calling SPOs (Screen Pass Options) where we attach a pass to a screen. These combos would use passes installed elsewhere (probably in the quick category), thus carryover. Likewise the play-action categories would probably use patterns already found in the Quick or 90 (dropback) category. The Shift/Unbalanced section wouldn’t have any new plays, only new movement patterns or formations. More carryover. If we had a running quarterback we might not have anything in the Wildcat category. If that entire category is wiped out, then you can redistribute the time and reps elsewhere. We might not install any one word calls in Spring, so that category doesn’t have to be distributed. Every category can change from year to year. Once we have our scheme map it is a simple process of taking each play/concept from each category and plugging in the day and period of practice we will work them. Since we have a general idea of how many particular schematic concepts we can fit in during spring, after the R&D period is over, if we’re going to add something new we have to cut something old out. This is why the evaluation process I described in part 1 is so important. Even input from players can be taken into account. If one of our QBs tells me during QB School that he hates a particular pattern, I’m going to weigh that pretty heavily in the decision of whether or not to keep it. You also need contingency plans. We have always focused more on run game in spring because we have the entire summer to work passing game, but last spring we really wanted to reemphasize vertical concepts with a returning veteran QB. But as he was a key member of our baseball team which was advancing in the playoffs, we didn’t have him for a majority of our practices. Instead we reoriented our scripts/install toward run game and screens. While I certainly recommend experimenting in spring ball, as with most things in life, when it comes to new scheme, moderation is key.
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