Friday Night Help?

PRIOR PREPARATION (film work, game planning) SHOULD make the Press Box work easier. ONEof the things you are looking for (among others, depending on YOUR system) is: "WHAT ARE THEY DOING DIFFERENT"!

The FOLLOWING is from VA TECHa few years ago - it talks about Game Day Organization (inc. "Press Box"):

GAME DAY DUTIES

COACH BEAMER: ( Head Coach)

1. Make all Kicking Game decisions
2. Injury Report from Mike Goforth - will in turn tell Coach Foster, Coach Hite and Coach Gentry
3. Determine problem areas with coaches
4. Try to determine opponent's strategy
5. Headset - flip to offense or defense

Offense

BILLY HITE: (Field) (RBs)

1. Phone to Bustle
2. Play to signal callers
3. Personnel groupings
4. Back substitutions
5. Injury report from Goforth
6. Onside prevent
7. KO return - deep backs - back wedge
8. PAT/FG - right side
9. Talk to offense on field

BRYAN STINESPRING: (Field) (OL)

1. Phone to Pearman - Shockley
2. Bench organization
3. OL substitution
4. View SG-ST
5. PAT/FG - ready on 3rd down
6. KO return - front wedge

TONY BALL: (Box) (WR)

1. Phone with Bustle
2. WR substitution
3. View coverages
4. Defensive substitution
5. Chart

Rickey Bustle: (BOX) (OC/QB)

1. Phone to Hite
2. Call Plays
3. QB Substitution
4. Talk to Offensive Team (halftime)
5. Checks

DANNY PEARMAN: (Box) TE/OT

1. Phone to Stinespring - Shockley
2. TE substitution
3. View TE and TT
4. Draw fronts/blitzes (half-time)
5. KO return - front wedge - count safeties
6. PAT/FG - left side
7. Drive Chart

GA - GREG SHOCKLEY (Field)

1. Phone with Stinespring- Pearman
2. View C-TG
3. Time snappers on PAT/FG
4. Punt return alignment

Defense

PRESS BOX

LORENZO WARD: (DBs)

1. Identify down - distance - hash to Bud
2. Check formation, passing strength, motion and adjustments
3. Identify routes and coverage responsibilities
4. Substitution of secondary

JIM CAVANAUGH: (SS/OLBs)

1. Identify down - distance
2. Identify personal groupings
3. Help G.A. Identify formation - play - defensive calls
4. Keep problem sheet for adjustments
5. Alert to blocking schemes and any blocking changes
6. Substitution of OLB



GA - BILLY HOUSERIGHT:

1. Record on Call Sheet
1. Down and distance
2. Yard line and hash
3. Defensive Call
4. Offensive formation, play, results and comments
2. Have call sheet and hit chart available at all times


SIDELINES

BUD FOSTER: (ILB/DC)

1. Signal Defense; make defensive calls; front-coverage
2. Check ILB and OLB run/pass responsibilities and recognition
3. Check for force calls and perimeter communication
4. Make any corrections to defensive unit on sidelines (perimeter)
5. Substitution of ILB
6. Responsible for all game data sheets

CHARLEY WILES: (DL)

1. Signal personnel groupings to ILB
2. Check front; stances, alignments, run-pass recognition and responsibilities
3. Signal in front Twists (pass) to ILB/DT
4. Make any corrections to defensive front on sidelines
5. Player-to-player phone
6. Check protections

PHONE COMMUNICATIONS:

1. Down and Distance/Hash - middle (LORENZO)
2. Personnel Grouping (JIM/CHARLEY)
3. Defensive Call (BUD)

HALF-TIME

1. Respective staff meets outside the dressing room to determine second half strategy.
2. Team will take care of business and then sit by groups in Dressing Room. As soon as coaches decide on second half adjustments, Coaches will meet with players. Coaches Bustle and Foster will speak to units about adjustments and substitutions with regard to injury (anything that pertains to whole unit). Then Coaches will break up with individual groups.
3. Five minutes before second half kickoff, Coach Beamer will call team together and go over what we need to do to WIN!!



The following alludes to UCLA (in 1997):

rom the sidelines and the press box, UCLA's 14 coaches put it all together

By Mark Dittmer

Daily Bruin Staff

You might know a little about coaching football. Maybe from coaching a team on your Sony PlayStation. You call plays, make substitutions, decide whether to punt on fourth-and-one, etc.

Having won 63 games in a row, you might decide that coaching football is really pretty simple. "Why does UCLA head coach Bob Toledo need 13 assistant coaches?" you ask. "I play offense and defense on my video team. Coaching my team is the easiest part."

Surprisingly, video games do not perfectly mirror real life. The game-time duties of a college-football coach are too many for one person; in fact, they are more than enough for UCLA's 14 coaches.

Though he doesn't coach with a joystick, Toledo does have a headset that switches from offense to defense. Flipping the switch basically moves Toledo from one chat room to another. He is more active on the offensive side, maybe because he was once an offensive coordinator.

Offense

"I suggest things to Al," Toledo said. "I probably call about 10 percent of the offensive plays."

"Al" is Al Borges, the offensive coordinator, who does the remaining 90 percent of the play calling on offense. And Borges gets input not just from Toledo, but from four assistant coaches.

The Bruins' first 15 to 20 plays are scripted - that is, they're decided upon before the game has even begun. From then on, Borges makes one call at a time, based on data that is being compiled on the opposing team's defense. But Borges doesn't signal the call onto the field.

"I always have things in my hand," Borges said. "It would be awkward."

Instead, Borges passes that job on to his backup quarterbacks, one of whom signals in the actual play. And Borges utilizes dummy signals, so defensive coordinators don't know which quarterback is signalling in plays.

The only UCLA player who needs to look at the signal is the starting quarterback; he then calls the play in the huddle, or at the line of scrimmage.

As Borges calls plays, Toledo's isn't the only voice he hears on his headset.

"Everybody's input affects play calling," Borges said. "Everybody" actually means certain assistant coaches in particular.

Offensive-position coaches Gary Bernardi and Skip Peete do their work from high up in the press box, keeping track of downs and distance and observing the other team's defensive coverages. Their observations from above help Borges, Weber and Caragher make adjustments down below.

Defense

While the offense scripts its first 10 to 15 plays, the defense never plans ahead. Defensive plays are usually not called until about three seconds before the ball is snapped. Up until the call is made, four defensive coaches are trying to keep track of the other team's personnel.

Bob Field and Marc Dove both sit in the press box during game time and communicate via headset with defensive coordinator Rocky Long.

"Rocky's watching very close for substitutions," Field said. "It's critical that he knows what personnel is in the game before he decides what defense we want to be in.

"We're two more sets of eyes up in the press box, watching their sideline, watching who's leaving and watching who's coming in. That all leads to him making a decision as to what defense to use."

When Long does choose a defense and when he signals it in, every defensive player on the field had better be paying attention.

"We don't huddle defensively," Field said. "Every defensive player is responsible for looking to the sideline to see the play."

With plays being signaled in from the sidelines, coaches have to deal with players potentially getting in the way of the signal. That's where Kevin Yoxall comes in.

"The sideline is designed by rules so that no player should ever be in front of the coaches," Field said. "Sometimes it gets awfully hectic on the sideline. Coach Yoxall, the strength coach - we call him the 'get-back' coach - [his] primary responsibility is to keep the players back.

"As long as football has been played, I assume that has been a problem. I'm sure as long as they coach football, unless they chain 'em to the bench, players will always be wanting to crowd and get up close."

Position coaches

Both coordinators and the seven position coaches are responsible for players at different positions. For example, Borges is responsible for quarterbacks; Long is responsible for linebackers and defensive ends. While Borges and Long can address the entire offense and defense, respectively, the other "position coaches" are focused in on "their players." And seldom is the situation where a position coach can advise someone else's players.

"If I saw an offensive lineman doing something wrong I'm not going to gather the offensive line on the sideline and go over it with them," Field said. "Mark Weber's going to do that. You pretty well stick with the guys that you've coached and your expertise for that week. You're zeroed in on your guys.

"Now if any coach sees a kid loafing or not paying attention or not paying attention on the sideline ... if somebody sees one of my players loafing, I want him to get all over him. I'm not offended if some coach gets on my player about loafing or a stupid penalty, a late hit, something like that. But when you really get to technical things, coordinators and position coaches are going to be the ones involved in those discussions."

One exception to the rule comes when a coach is in the press box, and can't communicate directly with his players. When Field is in the press box, he gives a message to Terry Tumey to pass along to his players.

"Either myself or Marc Dove might be saying, 'grab the DBs and tell 'em this.' He's kind of our mouthpiece to be able to do that.

"We also have a player phone on the sideline. If I want to talk to them directly I tell them that I want Atkins on the player phone or Serwanga on the player phone. They'll go to a designated phone on the sideline and pick it up. It will ring in the press box and it will give us a chance to talk."

The head coach

Toledo follows the game on a headset that has a switch, so that he can communicate with both the offensive and defensive coaches. And while he doesn't call many of the plays, he makes many of the big decisions.

"I make calls regarding the kicking game, two-point plays and any kind of trickery," Toledo said.

Toledo calls time-outs and makes the call to punt or play on a fourth down. And, of course, Toledo designed the whole system. So understandably it's Toledo who gets the credit when the Bruins are winning, and feels the heat if the team is losing. Earlier this year, when the Bruins lost two close games in a row, his ability as a game coach was questioned.

More recently, he's been getting the credit. While UCLA's recent surge may not stem directly from decisions he's made, Toledo is the guy who set up the system that allowed the team to play at such a high level.

And while the Bruins haven't had any close wins, no victory can actually be called "an easy win." Unless, of course, it's in a video game.