by Brian Wical
Cardinal Stritch Catholic High School Head Football Coach
Follow @CoachWical
Wow! My first season at Cardinal Stritch
(and as a head coach) is now in the books. There were some positive
things that happened, some negative things that happened, and some
extremely unexpected things, too. Unfortunately, the season didn’t go
the way I had hoped or even expected. There were so many learning
experiences that occurred too, and I am very thankful for that. As life
often times has it, those lessons usually occurred at inopportune times
or in a very rough manner.
Our record this year (0-10) was not indicative of the strides we made as a football program in 2013. The positives: We increased the average weight room attendance from 8 the year before I arrived to 18 per day in the summer (we had 34 players on the roster) and genuinely had kids excited to play football for Cardinal Stritch. We learned what it meant to “Always Compete” and for the most part, did that in every game, winning or losing. We learned that it is not okay to quit on a game, a workout, or practice rep. Our kids improved their fundamentals in the areas of blocking and tackling. We laid a foundation that, despite the wins and losses this year, is going to help us build a solid, winning football program at Stritch. The negatives: Obviously, we lost all ten games. We got blown out BADLY in 3 of those games. Our blocking and tackling is still not where it needs to be as a coaching staff. Our special teams were downright pitiful. We were -29 in turnover margin on the season (ouch, I know!).
My goal by telling the narrative above is not to show you how indecisive I was at times this year or to give you the impression that I am not a good football coach. My goal is to inform you of what can happen in your first year as a head coach so hopefully many others don’t follow in the same footsteps as me when you get your first opportunity. The goal of this blog series was to give everyone an inside look at both aspects of building a football program and what it is like to be a first year head football coach. Because of this, I am going to launch a mini-series within my “Building a Tradition” series that will outline the top-30 things I took away from this season as a first-year head football coach. I will release them in 3 waves, counting down from 30-20, 19-10, and 9-1. I will go in depth as to the lessons I learned (both good and bad). Then, I will start giving you an inside look at our offseason program and what we are doing this year to make sure we start to build the next level of our program.
Cardinal Stritch Catholic High School Head Football Coach
Follow @CoachWical
Wow! My first season at Cardinal Stritch
(and as a head coach) is now in the books. There were some positive
things that happened, some negative things that happened, and some
extremely unexpected things, too. Unfortunately, the season didn’t go
the way I had hoped or even expected. There were so many learning
experiences that occurred too, and I am very thankful for that. As life
often times has it, those lessons usually occurred at inopportune times
or in a very rough manner. Our record this year (0-10) was not indicative of the strides we made as a football program in 2013. The positives: We increased the average weight room attendance from 8 the year before I arrived to 18 per day in the summer (we had 34 players on the roster) and genuinely had kids excited to play football for Cardinal Stritch. We learned what it meant to “Always Compete” and for the most part, did that in every game, winning or losing. We learned that it is not okay to quit on a game, a workout, or practice rep. Our kids improved their fundamentals in the areas of blocking and tackling. We laid a foundation that, despite the wins and losses this year, is going to help us build a solid, winning football program at Stritch. The negatives: Obviously, we lost all ten games. We got blown out BADLY in 3 of those games. Our blocking and tackling is still not where it needs to be as a coaching staff. Our special teams were downright pitiful. We were -29 in turnover margin on the season (ouch, I know!).
To summarize our 10 losses: 3 were ugly (56-6,
63-7, 69-7), 2 we competed until halftime (25-0 and 32-0) and then ran
out of gas, and 5 we competed until the very end (losses coming by 6, 5,
14, 7, and 4.
We never really established an identity on
offense and being the leader of the “O” I take full responsibility for
that. We started running EXACTLY the same things we did when I was at Lima Central Catholic
(one offset back, 2 wings). I figured out about two weeks into practice
that our short yardage set (split backs) was our best offense at the
time, and I decided to feature that primarily. We went into scrimmages
mixing the split back veer with jet sweep concepts. We went with a tight
end and then without a tight end (all changes I thought would help us,
at the time). Then we went back to the original philosophy after week 2.
Then all of the sudden I realized we couldn’t pass protect or run
block, so we put quads receivers out and rolled our QB out to make him a
mobile target. We then evolved into the I-formation mixed with 2x2 and
Quads. If it seems like we were all over the place, well, we were. I
learned very quickly that when you have had success, and then all of the
sudden you’re not, human instincts kick in. My human instincts in this
situation were to change our philosophies until something worked.
Unfortunately, nothing really did. Part of that is probably because I
was asking our kids to do things they physically couldn’t, another part
of that is that we changed just enough concepts that we never got the
opportunity to master anything. You can only beat your head into the
wall so many times before deciding for a change here or there, though.
It should be noted that none of these changes were full-scale offensive
scheme changes. Rather we ran the same plays we had taught all season
long, just out of different formations.
I learned a very valuable lesson: special teams
matter. Now don’t get me wrong, I totally understood this concept before
this season, I talked about it all the time. But never have I
appreciated good special teams more than I do after watching ours this
season. You could definitely argue that, despite all the turnovers we
had, in 3 of those 5 close games if our special teams would have
executed better we would have won them.
My goal by telling the narrative above is not to show you how indecisive I was at times this year or to give you the impression that I am not a good football coach. My goal is to inform you of what can happen in your first year as a head coach so hopefully many others don’t follow in the same footsteps as me when you get your first opportunity. The goal of this blog series was to give everyone an inside look at both aspects of building a football program and what it is like to be a first year head football coach. Because of this, I am going to launch a mini-series within my “Building a Tradition” series that will outline the top-30 things I took away from this season as a first-year head football coach. I will release them in 3 waves, counting down from 30-20, 19-10, and 9-1. I will go in depth as to the lessons I learned (both good and bad). Then, I will start giving you an inside look at our offseason program and what we are doing this year to make sure we start to build the next level of our program.
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