Coaches Advisor – January 2005

January 2005 – This Month in Coaches Advisor…

Penalties – What are you doing about those yellow flags – A plan to reduce penalties

Small Adjustments Big Results – UCONN Kicker turns season around

Planning to reduce penalties: Considerations for a team wide strategy.

Aside from turnovers, there is nothing else that peeves a coach, ruins momentum, and costs teams more victories than penalties. Offsides or illegal motion on 4th a short. Illegal block in the back on special teams. Delay of game on 3rd and 3. Offensive holding on a crucial passing down.
Personal fouls, especially of the retaliatory type, drive coaches to the brink. There are dozens more, and some teams and players make the same
mistakes over and over again.

But, as a coaching staff, what do you do to reduce penalties, besides telling your players not to commit them? Do you have a plan of action that is focused on reducing penalties. Is it worth the time? Do you even know what to do? That depends on how much value you put on the lost yards and downs you create for yourself or give to the opponent.

In the 2005 Gator Bowl, Florida State and West Virginia combined for 295 yards in penalties. This should not come as a surprise since FSU was the most penalized team in Division I with 116 yd/game and WVU was the fourth on that list with 106 yards per game. Both teams also lost close games this year and failed to live up to performance predictions.

For argument sake, let’s say every 100 yards in penalties cost a team 6 points. If FSU could cut it’s penalties in ½, that would create
approximately 30 points. The Seminoles lost three games by a total of 16 points. Again, I am not saying FSU goes 11-0, but would they have had a
better chance if they cut their penalties in ½? I think so.

By comparison, USC and Oklahoma were ranked 69th and 34th, considerably better than the GatorBowl participants. Since Illinois was
ranked 107th in total penalties, you can’t say that the best team is least penalized, far from it. The more athletic a team is, the faster pace
they play at and the more risks they take as a unit and as individuals will dictate, to some degree, the number of penalties. The question is,
how do you reduce penalties and keep specific players from making the same mistake?

I turned to noted Sports Psychology expert Dr. Kay Porter for her opinion on this. Porter, who is the author of the well know book, The Mental Athlete (Human Kinetics) has worked in the past with Mike Bellotti’s Oregon Ducks football program, so she knows a thing or two about the game.

“The first thing I’d say is that long ago in my research I learned that showing video of mistakes too many times engrains it into your mind. It is almost negative programming. So you can’t show the bad over and over again.

Here are some suggestions:

    1. Coaches should review the current year’s and previous year’s film and look for the plays where
      penalties occurred and who was committing them.

    2. Be constructive and brainstorm as a team for ways to
      reduce penalties then set team and position goals to be penalty free. Make goals to play hard and clean.

    3. You don’t want to single people out and try to motivate by shaming someone. Do it by position or unit. The players know who the offenders are, don’t humiliate them, it will not work.
    4. Make a video of the penalties and show it once or twice only for learning purposes. If you can, splice plays that show a similar play with no infraction. For example, with a block in the back penalty on a punt return, slice in a play showing someone holding back on a block in the back, or making a great effort to get their head in front of the defenders shoulder to make the block.
    5. Be constructive and brainstorm as a team for ways to reduce penalties then set team and position goals to be penalty free. Make goals to play hard and clean.
    6. Playing with some anger or aggression is good, but not out of control anger that leads to decision making which hurts the team. Retaliation is an example. Getting back at someone for a perceived slight or cheap hit is outside the goal of helping the team win.

Anger can cloud judgment, that’s why “crime of passion” is a legal term. That is why coaches should do all they can to ensure that their players are clear headed going into each game. If you recruit players who have difficulty controlling emotions, then you might expect them to be heavily penalized if they cannot learn to control their anger on the field.

Small Adjustments – Big Results UCONN Kicker turns season around.

When I saw UCONN play BC this year in Boston, place kicker Matt Nuzie was not a confident kicker. He missed a short field goal that railroaded UCONN’s momentum and it was not a pretty day in general for him. It was open season at UCONN on the kicking game and Nuzie’s job was in limbo. Fast forward to the final play of the first half in the UCONN vs. Pitt game and Nuzie drills a 49 yard field goal as time expires and UCONN rides the momentum to a big win over Pitt. Fast forward again to the end of the season and Nuzie is named one of 30 semi-finalists for the Lou Groza award, given each year to the nation’s best place kicker. Plus he hit 4/5 field goals in the Motor City Bowl and was named to Sports Illustrated’s All-Bowl Team.

What happened?. As you can imagine, Nuzie was a more confident kicker later in the season. But what helped turn it around? Apparently, UCONN sent game film of the kicks to a “kicking consultant” – apparently these people are gurus for hire, but not valuable enough for one team to hire outright – for an analysis.

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