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Penn State coaches clinic: Friday evening

We ate dinner at Beaver Stadium and then headed back to Holuba Hall for the keynote address from Joe Paterno himself. Paterno is still full of fire. Earlier in the day, safety Nick Sukay was covering receiver Derek Moye and was beaten deep on one of Kevin Newsome’s few good throws. Paterno, who was standing in the defensive backfield despite being 83, gave Sukay an earful as he returned to his spot. He threw down his play sheet and screamed “Dammit!” and then proceeded to demonstrate – as well as an 83-year-old can – how to jam a receiver at the line. It was awesome.

Anyway, Paterno’s speech talked about how all coaches are trying to make young men into good men and that only coaches truly understand the importance and purpose of sports. At one point, he said, “Your principals don’t understand. Maybe you should buy them some flowers or a box of candy…if it’s a woman.” Then he paused a minute and said, “Well, nowadays, maybe if it’s a man, too.” The entire place exploded.

The other funny thing he talked about was recruiting:

You got guys out there like Dick Vitale going blahblahplublahgahbuppywuppy [sic]telling us who to recruit. I got coaches who have been coaching for 200 years.
We spend nine hours in the film room. We know who to recruit. But people still
try to tell us what to do.

After Paterno was done speaking, we broke off into question-and-answer sessions. I went to McQueary’s session, where he talked about different ways to beat Cover 0, Cover 1, Cover 2, and Cover 3. McQueary’s a great communicator, but when his receivers screw up on the practice field, they get the Look of Death.I saw safeties coach Kermit Buggs so one of the other coaches and I went over to ask him how he defends the wheel route out of Cover 3. He said the key is communication and in a straight Cover 3 (in which the two CBs and the FS have deep thirds while the linebackers split the short zones into fourths), the ILB has to cover the flat while the OLB runs with the deep man.After that, we saw Larry Johnson walking around and we stopped him to ask how he teaches kids to beat reach blocks. Basically, he maintains his strategy that defensive linemen need to get off the ball fast and hard. Their first steps need to replace their down hand so they cross the line of scrimmage instead of bringing that back foot even with the other; he doesn’t care if his tackles get reach blocked, as long as it’s one or two yards deep in the backfield and not at the LOS.After that, we saw cheese fries at Outback.

Penn State coaches clinic: Friday afternoon

Friday afternoon began with a presentation by Jeremy Scott, PSU’s speed coach. Several outgoing Penn State players, who were training for the NFL draft, went through a workout: center A.Q. Shipley, cornerback Lydell Sargent, safety Mark Rubin, and offensive tackle Gerald Cadogan. They did various agility and speed drills for approximately an hour.

An interesting connection was made at the next session. Strength coach John Thomas brought a graduate assistant and some weight equipment into Holuba Hall. They did a session of manual resistance training, in which the GA did various exercises while Thomas used his strength and body weight to work him to failure. For example, the GA did pushups while Thomas pushed down on his back; the kid looked like he hated him for it.

The funny thing was that Thomas mentioned four or five times that he had learned some of these techniques “from a guy who’s probably going to hate me saying his name, and that’s Mike Gittleson.” He looked over toward the opposite corner from me, as if Gittleson were over there somewhere. Of course, most of the coaches at the clinic were from Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, and New Jersey, so I don’t know if anyone else recognized the name. But I immediately started looking for someone who might be Gittleson. I couldn’t find him initially, but I eventually saw him. I spoke to him for a minute about resistance training, but I didn’t mention anything about Michigan, since I thought that might bring up bad memories. Interestingly enough, when I got home and Googled John Duncan, one of the first hits I came across was this article in which ex-PSU players suggested that players were actually getting fatter and weaker under Duncan; those are the exact same criticisms that Gittleson suffered from fans, although I’m sure many S&C coaches face the same questions.

After Duncan’s presentation, the team came out for spring practice. I immediately scoped out some players of interest for Michigan fans, players like Kevin Newsome, Devon Still, Chris Colasanti, etc. I was concentrating on defensive line and linebacker drills, since those are the positions I coach, but I also spent some time watching Newsome throw. I’ll have a more in-depth analysis later, but Newsome completed 3 out of 15 passes in one-on-ones that I saw.

Penn State coaches clinic: Friday morning

I got home yesterday from the Penn State coaches clinic. The clinic was held on Friday and Saturday and culminated with an intrasquad scrimmage. A lot happened and it was very interesting, so I’ll report it in segments.

The clinic was held at Holuba Hall, PSU’s indoor practice facility. The building is nothing spectacular, but it has two fields adjacent to each other, each one about 70 yards long. There were chairs and makeshift video screens in two corners of the facility. The offensive coaches (WR coach Mike McQueary, QB coach Jay Paterno, offensive coordinator/RB coach Galen Hall, and OL coach Dick Anderson) were going to talk in one corner, and the defensive coaches (LB coach Ron Vanderlinden, defensive coordinator/CB coach Tom Bradley, DL coach Larry Johnson, S coach Kermit Buggs) in the other. I stuck mainly with the defense.

Ron Vanderlinden – linebackers
I was interested in hearing Vanderlinden speak, not only because PSU always produces good linebackers, but because there were rumors that he might become Michigan’s defensive coordinator before Greg Robinson arrived. He clearly knows what he’s talking about, but he’s not a very dynamic speaker. Luckily, he demonstrated some of the drills he does with his linebackers and had highlights of his former star linebackers, such as Paul Posluszny and Dan Connor. He really emphasized the linebacker stance and remaining in that position – knees over toes, almost in a squat position – throughout a running play. He also talked extensively about teaching his linebackers to shuffle while remaining square to the line, saying he doesn’t use carioca drills (where players cross their feet) because the legs cross over naturally, but the shuffle is an unnatural movement. He doesn’t believe in doing a lot of different drills, just doing the same drills over and over.

Tom Bradley – defensive coordinator/cornerbacks
Bradley reminded me somewhat of Tobin Bell (Jigsaw from the Saw movies), slightly because of his looks and slightly because of his voice. He went through his defensive philosophy and stressed tackling; he said that for every 10 yards gained, there’s at least one missed tackle. To add on to that, he talked about “explosion plays” which are plays that gain 25+ yards. Teams that have zero explosion plays average 6.8 points per game. Two explosion plays give you 14.8 points per game. But if you give up three explosion plays, opposing teams will score 28.7 points per game.

Larry Johnson – defensive line
Larry Johnson is the father of the former 2,000 yard rusher and current Kansas City Chief running back of the same name. Johnson sounds like a preacher. If I were a recruit, this guy could make me want to run through a brick wall. A brick wall covered in bee stingers. He talked about being a good person and a good coach, and he wants to start a “new generation of coaching” in which coaches don’t swear at their players. He said that’s not how you teach young men. And it’s hard to argue with his coaching methods, considering the success he’s had at producing first round talent on the defensive line. He had some very interesting things to say about defensive line play, especially the first step. He also had video of some superb defensive line drills that I’ll talk about in more detail when I get to the recap of Saturday morning’s session. He was the best presenter I saw.

Dick Anderson – offensive line
After sitting through three consecutive defensive presentations, I thought I’d go over to the offensive corner. Jay Paterno was scheduled to speak at the last session, and even though I coach OL, DL, and LBs, it’s hard to understand the game if you don’t understand quarterback play. Unfortunately, the schedule had been rejiggered and instead of seeing JayPa, I observed the monotonous skeleton named Dick Anderson. Anderson is approximately 700 years old and was the head coach at Rutgers from 1984 until 1990. A fellow coach on my high school’s staff began counting the number of times he said “all right?” He repeated that phrase 95 times in 25 minutes. But it was more like, “Okay, on the snap of the ball, awwright, our playside guard, awwright, takes a reach step and reads the strongside linebacker, awwright . . . .” From what I’ve seen of PSU’s offensive line, I’ve never been impressed. His linemen don’t finish their blocks and don’t exactly blow people off the ball, so I spent more time thinking about what we were going to have for lunch than listening to Anderson.

In case you were wondering, they served us cold cut sandwiches, bags of chips, macaroni salad, and Pepsi products.

*unh*

There’s no excuse for the #2 hit on this video not being #1.

The reason I like this video so much, though, is that it includes the only good play Chris Graham ever made for Michigan. Which is exactly one more good play than I made for the Wolverines, so good for him.

Go get in the way of someone*

I don’t like the Tennessee Volunteers (Phil Fulmer screwed Michigan in 1997, I wish Eric Berry went to Michigan, I don’t like orange sherbet), but Rocky Top Talk has a good breakdown of zone blocking. I agree with the majority of the post . . . except the explanation of the difference between zone blocking and man blocking. It’s just not explained well enough.

There’s no blocking system out there in which a play calls for an offensive lineman to block a particular defender; “man” blocking is a misnomer. A wham/iso play doesn’t require the “offensive tackle to block the defensive end” because what if there’s no defensive end? What if the defensive end is lined up over the guard and a strong safety is walked up and playing as an edge rusher?

Zone blocking asks the offensive linemen to create a screen. For those of you who have played intramural flag football, some leagues ask you to “shadow block” (i.e. no contact); that’s essentially what zone blocking is. Zone coaches want their offensive linemen to get in the way of a defender and then let the running back choose whichever hole has the fewest obstructions.

Regardless, this is an excellent post by Rocky Top Talk. It’s not entirely applicable to Michigan’s blocking scheme because it’s mainly talking about running the zone play from a single-back set with the quarterback under center, but most of the basics still hold true.

*Unfortunately, I’ve given this bit of advice to several players who suddenly forget their plays when it’s game time.