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Observations from Two Feet Away - Divisions [ edit | delete ]
By Adam Knoll | November 11, 2010 at 09:32 PM EST | No Comments (0 new)
A divisional format has always been a goal of mine. After last season’s Conference of Death, it made sense. We have enough teams (with the 5 new teams from this year), the teams are relatively grouped together; the time for the conferences to split into smaller divisions almost makes too much sense. It will cause rivalries to spawn up, while keeping old ones around and change the schedule from a traveling mess to a more manageable deal. Instead of playing 10 teams once, we will play 3 teams twice, all within our districts and play outside division games based on proximity.
I thought I had the divisions all shored up, I looked at a map, and it looked almost too easy. Before last night it seemed the 16th team to be added was going to be from up north, Madison, that area. If that was to be the case, the Divisions most likely would have ended up like this:
North: Rage
Hitmen
Maniacs
(Madison)
West: Phoenix
Nighthawks
Scorpions
(Lynx/Premier)
Central: Sabers
Cougars
Gladiators
Rampage
South: Cowboys
(Lynx/Premier)
Chaos
Titans
As you can see, the only real problem would have been deciding which one of the Lynx or Premier would go where. One of them would have been in the West, the other in the South. Based on rivalries, the Lynx might have been the safe bet for the South. I was sure the divisions were almost a set deal.
Then a curveball was thrown.
The probably 16th team was unveiled last night as a Chicago team…which doesn’t really change things overly. Instead, what is does do is pushes the northern Illinois teams into the Western Division. Now, the new Chicago team has not been voted in, so another change could happen, yet it was mentioned the Chicago team was the most able of any team available to us. So, after looking at it last night, based solely on proximity, here is what the divisions look like now (again, as estimation).
North: Rage
Hitmen
Maniacs
Scorpions
West: Phoenix
Nighthawks
Lynx
Premier
Central: Sabers
Cougars
Gladiators
Rampage
South: Chaos
Titans
Cowboys
(Chicago)
The Central Division is the only group not affected, yet what may be the most interesting part about this is the South and North divisions would have a relatively young core group, with two expansion teams in each, and another team in their second season. In any event, the Owners seem to be taking this, and other interests for the upcoming season quite seriously, which is a step in the right direction. As for the divisions, until we approve a 16th team, nothing will be resolved, yet one thing is clear: the league is expanding, getting better and looking toward a bright future.
Observations from Two Feet Away - Platoon [ edit | delete ]
By Adam Knoll | November 09, 2010 at 01:51 PM EST | No Comments (0 new)
Last season, we had a nice sized roster and some really nice talent to go along with it. Our problem was that some of the players who came around at the end of the season were not ready in the early going to win out starting spots, which caused us to run two way starters, or a two-platoon. In my experience, I am not completely against a two-platoon. If you have a player who is leaps and bounds better than everyone, having him on the field at all times is beneficial. However, I am against it in a team philosophy. Having one player going both ways is one thing, having upwards of four or five is pushing it.
I have read articles from college and high school coaches who LOVE the two-platoon. It teaches players how to push themselves, to play while tired, how to become a leader and own up to their level of talent. It also gives the team a beteer chance of winning in their eyes by having their best players playing all game, while also giving them the opportunity to point out said players to the rest of the team as what a football player should be and what they should be willing to do. Fine, good points and I can understand that thought process. However, I do not perscribe to it.
Having a mass of two way players takes time away from your depth, both in practice reps and in valuable gametime situations. Having a core of players who play both way leads to a talent rift, as well as a perception one among teamates. Additionally, teams tend to rely very heavily on two-way players, they are your studs, they get the ball in tense situations and are asked to make the biggest stops. When they get hurt, a team generally has trouble picking up the slack, on both sides of the ball.
And that leads me to another key point of thought: Since when is a great players 50% better than a good players 100%? This last season at Wilmot, we had, let me think…sometimes as many as 8 players going both ways at one time. Eight, that’s immense. And this is not a school in which we only had 20-25 kids, in a situation where you HAVE to play both ways, no, we had 37 at the end of the year. We struggled, mightily at the beginning of the season. The guys we had going both ways got tired, as kids do, and on multiple plays we would see a guy just merely stand up, get pushed around and not give any umph…not because he didn’t want to or was a bad player, just because he was physically unable to do anything about it.
This led to a myriad of conversations about how to run a unit and expectations of players. Offensively, there was no doubt that once I went to the traditional Starter (a two way guy) + practiced backup for relief, we did much better. And when we started having injuries later in the year, boy, was everyone glad I started paying attention to depth. Defensively, we didn’t change much except that the D-Line that I coach during the week had much more substituting on it. You cannot ask all of your offensive linemen to also run down ballcarriers all game. But you CAN ask them to do it in spurts.
The entire episode got me thinking to our performance last year, and how running the two-platoon not only made us dependant upon a few players, but it weakened us as a team because the backups simply did not get the time to learn and become better. Sure, we ran drills (upon drills) but that’s not team experience, that’s not game exerience. So, we made a change.
In honesty, this entry is supposed to explain the 1.5 platoon, yet I had to give backstory as to why we are doing this. We have enough talent to have 16 different starters, not 11, so why not go that route? Now, if two-platoon is both way starters, what is 1-platoon? That’s when a player has a certain position on a certain side of the ball and stays there. No matter what, that’s his position, and he just works to get better in that one area. Think of the NFL or top-tier college and how they run their depth. Chris Johnson is not also a backup Corner, Brain Dawkins does not also moonlight as a reciever. So those are the two extremems, 1 & 2. We are doing 1.5.
What that basically means is, there will be no two way starters (unless our roster becomes thin), but, a player may play on two sides of the ball as long as one of those positions is as a backup. So what we asked our guys to do is pick a side they want to try for a starting spot, offense or defense, and then turn them loose. If a player does not earn a starting role on one side, they can try for one on the other side. If they are unable to attain a starting spot on either side, they become what I term a ‘hybrid’ and they will get equal practice time on both sides. For a starter, they will practice their starting spot at least 75% of the time. This way, not only are our starters confirmed and game ready, but our backups have good practice time to fill in where needed.
I feel this is a good way to plan for this upcomming season. Already the depth chart is looking pretty good. Hopefully by this weekend, it will be done and we can start focusing on the financial side of the team, starting on Dec 4th
Observations from Two Feet Away - The Winter has Come [ edit | delete ]
By Adam Knoll | November 05, 2010 at 10:17 AM EDT | No Comments (0 new)
With our fall practices coming to a close this weekend, it’s time to go over where we will be going from here, and what we expect to do with the time left to us. It can be seen as coincidental, our closing time is other teams’ starting time. Both the Sabers and the Scorpions will begin their fall schedule this week, while we, after three months, will end it. It’s been a wonderful fall, one filled with new guys, good practices and a good 6-man schedule that met expectations and gave us a nice glimpse into the future.
Yet now, it’s over. Why so ‘early’, as some would ask, when we may have a little bit of nice weather left. Well, for one, we don’t know what the weather will do, it could be great, it could stink. With it so up in the air, and with the travel times for most of our players, it’s really a difficult feat to pull off such a practice. We had a practice a month or so ago in which it rained during the morning and cleared up greatly by noon, yet we were missing a good number of guys because no one knew if the field would be playable. And with the average drive time of a half hour for almost everyone (and for some, much longer), it’s easy to understand why. After this point, you have to factor in the cold as well, and gage whether we would get productive practices out of our time.
Now, that’s not to say that we won’t get together. In fact, we just set our first team activity in stone yesterday (our first fundraiser). We intend to visit our nursing home sponsors a few times, have some team days at a local indoor gym and try to stay together as much as possible over the next three months. Last year, we did put together days in which we played pick-up games in the snow. Will we do a few more, I’m sure they will come up. In fact, we will need to do something before our match with the Cougars in February…so expect a team activity in the weeks leading up to that.
We need to do better getting and retaining sponsorships through our loyalty. I don’t care if it takes an event a month, we must keep our commitments. In addition, Player fees are no joke, you will not get your jersey, decals and whatever else until that’s in. I know for the new players that can be tough, new equipment and a player fee, yet everyone has to do it, so start budgeting now. Save 80 bucks a month till the end of March… from now that’s $250, enough for player’s fee and decent equipment. If you want top of the line stuff, that’s your call, but do not wait till the last second on this, we dealt with bending the rules last year, got killed on it. We won’t do it again this year.
Mostly, use this time to get to know our schemes and to get in shape, whatever shape you want to be in. It’s no secret come March who has been working and who has been sitting. Don’t be a sitter. Our first two practices in March will be our Final ‘Nail in the coffin’ tryouts, whoever is on our team after that is set for the year. As soon as the roster is set, we jump into our 2 practices a week campaign and the season is upon us. It hits quick, no joke. We literally go from months of nothing to a full calendar in barely a week or two. We generally start up practices before most others, yet that is not to say we are the only ones that start that early, nor are we alone for long. By the time April hits, every team is in full swing.
We will have one or two pre-season games. One for sure will be against another team. Whether or not the second one is a Teal vs. White game will remain to be seen. I'm sure the league is going to do a GFL Tournament again, and I’d love to run us through that. So, come May, we will have games to play, along with practices and team activities. So just know…don’t get fooled by the downtime. We take things pretty seriously, but we also have a hell of a lot of fun if you choose to be a part of it.
Observations from Two Feet Away: The New Board [ edit | delete ]
By Adam Knoll | November 01, 2010 at 12:05 PM EDT | No Comments (0 new)
The Board members we have now are unquestionably diehards on this team. You can check the Roster page, the only time and of us miss a practice or a meeting is due to work reasons, and even then they are few and far between. However, getting all of us together at once has proved to be a colossal accomplishment. Why? Well, there are 8 of us…and getting eight people to a meeting can be like pulling teeth sometimes.
It’s good to have a medium sized board (I won’t say big, you want big? At one point the old Storm Board had 11 or 12 people in it), many ideas, everyone wants what’s best for the team; you get some real debates going on. However, we haven’t had all of us together at once, and really, all you need to pass a vote is 5 votes, so even when we have 5 members able to make it, things are still able to be discussed. That happened to us once, yet you feel bad because you want more there than just the five. And coming up is a big meeting, discussing the roster (vets and Rooks alike) and the depth chart. We need as close to max as we can get.
A lot of people ask what the next meeting is about, and how are we going to look at the roster. That’s simple, we will look at our roster now, of guys we kept from last year, and decide if they have continued their commitment to us, and secondly, if they play at a high enough level to stay with us. We have pulled in some really good talent this fall, and we have a self-inflicted roster max that we will not cross. Secondly, we will talk about the newer guys, the Rooks, if you will, and discuss whether they complement our team in a number of areas: Skill, commitment, ability, need and whether or not they fit into what we are trying to do. Make no mistake, some new guys, when they go to teams, have an ego on them that can be seen a mile away…we don’t want that. So either we will think that they will conform, or they will be asked to leave.
It all sounds very harsh, yet it really isn’t. We just want what’s best for the team. I’ve said it before, I’ll play with 10 guys who are all blood, guts and team than 20 of the best athletes that don’t listen, run their mouth and think they are better than everyone else. Will you win more games with group #2…sure, most likely…yet you will be more proud of yourself and your accomplishments if you stick true to your principals. I am far more proud of us as a team in the second half of the year last year, than I was at the beginning.
The third part of the meeting will be about the depth chart, and make no mistake it will not be the final one. What makes up the depth chart now could easily be changed as early as February, when we scrimmage the Cougars. The winter is a crappy time of year, so we will see in Feb who has been busting ass (both physically AND mentally) and who has been waiting for team activities to start. The Depth chart we put up now could easily be used as a motivation tool, we see you as third best wideout, are you ok with that, or are you going to do something about it? You will only be included on the Depth Chart if you make the team, or stay on the team….so if you’re on it; you are a Phoenix, plain and simple.
I couldn’t be more excited to see us through the final few weeks of the fall. In my own estimation the sooner we get to winter, the sooner it’s over with…and then we can start building ourselves into shape again.
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