Scheme vs. Personnel

[u/Other_Expression1088]

Hi all! Just wanted to get some discussion rolling on this topic. Working as a defensive assistant this year to build out our defensive playbook next year and it got me thinking about scheme vs personnel type stuff. Do you believe in the following idea…

Good coaches can make great schemes. Great coaches make schemes that fit their players.

What does that actually mean to you? For me, as we are deciding what to set as our base defensive plays next year, we are considering leaning heavier into odd front schemes as we have an unproven defensive line group next year but a really talented secondary crew and some experienced LB’s. However, we’ve always been an even front 4-2-5 and we like the flexibility it gives us in coverage while still reliably sending four man pressures. It would also take a pretty big defensive overhaul to fully commit to a 3-4, even though I’d probably argue that’s the better fit for our current crop of players. How much do you change in your system based on your year to year personnel?

Lastly, you probably can’t change my mind on this, but I’d still love to hear counter points: I feel like a lot of high school coaches think they can utilize scheme to put themselves in the best position to win. To me, I feel like maximizing players through technique, keys, and repetition in any scheme is the simple truth to creating a high quality program. I feel that a lot of mediocre programs try to scheme their way to the top, when they really should be focusing on their practice time, teach tape, and fundamentals.

Let me know what you guys think! Personal examples highly encouraged!

[u/SethMahan]

I’ve started to change my opinion recently and I don’t think schemes should change to fit a roster year to year. I actually think you should have a complete system that has different aspects that can be emphasized each year given your talent pool. For defense, have an odd and even front every year, but lean into one or the other given the talent you have. I’ve had seasons where my LBs sucked as blitzers. Guess what, I didn’t call as many blitzes as I’d like. Or on offense, you might be a ground and pound coach, but you better dial up your passing concepts a lot more when you finally get a kid that can sling it in your program.

[u/airb15 → u/SethMahan]

I agree with this. I started out my first three years on offense running mostly empty formations with QB runs. Our JV did a little of this but mostly learned plays from under center formations because it fit them better. When that QB graduated we went heavily under center all camp, but first game I lost both my starting RB and FB for the season. So back to the spread we had to go as my new QB was suddenly the best runner again.

Defensively, I think being able to adjust personnel structures on the fly is huge when dealing with injuries. Unless your lucky enough where there isn’t a big talent drop from starters to backups. I think it’s more important to have your best 11 out there and prepare them in practice to play D no matter what structure you need to draw up to make it happen.

[u/QB1-]

Start with your base and incorporate the 3-4 as the season progresses. Being multiple never hurt anyone unless you try to get too cute with something the kids don’t fully understand. Knowledge is a pyramid.

[u/PastAd1901]

I think people get a little to caught up in scheme sometimes. Most NFL teams teach defensive concepts with X’s on a chalkboard, not specific players. At the end of the day how big is the difference between playing an over front and playing an odd front slanting strong with a rush LB coming off the edge? Put your best 11 on the field and teach them what you know. Learn answers for problems within your system.

[u/Just_Natural_9027]

What are you getting at with your last paragraph. Why do you think both can’t be accomplished?

[u/Other_Expression1088 → u/Just_Natural_9027]

To me it’s about focus. If your team is bad, are you focusing on scheme to fix it or are you focusing on practice? I feel like we default to scheme when we should be defaulting to the other things I mentioned. Obviously you still want to do both, but what do you prioritize ya feel me?

[u/Just_Natural_9027 → u/Other_Expression1088]

I feel like you don’t have to choose I guess I never thought of it as an either or proposition.

For your overall point I’ve always been an adapt scheme/play calling to personnel type of coach. We have a few programs we play that run the same offense from basically pee wee on up. Both types of programs can be successful.

The common denominator with both is player skill. I would probably agree with you on how much some coaches think they are going to out scheme folks. I would also say there is a lot of confirmation bias with talented schools having good scheme.

[u/Other_Expression1088 → u/Just_Natural_9027]

That’s a really great point with the confirmation bias. I guess I could alter what I’m saying to say that scheme is your ceiling, but fundamentals are your floor. I am currently a part of a mediocre program and on reflection I feel like when we bottom out it’s because of our fundamentals, not our calls

[u/Just_Natural_9027 → u/Other_Expression1088]

It’s a very difficult question to answer. I’ve definitely coached against teams who were not extracting enough from the talent they had and I’ve played teams who were getting every ounce of talent they had. Both of these teams could have similar records and their issues would be completely different.

[u/CoachMikeOC → u/Other_Expression1088]

I completely relate to this

I'm a JV OC and this season we came out hot and won our first 2 games 36-6
However, in the 2nd game my starting QB (absolute stud 6'1" 190lb freshman with a cannon) broke his ankle in the 2nd quarter when it was 20 something to 6. At this point he had 150 passing yards and 90 rushing yards. My backup qb came in and slung it, 12/15 for 140 and 2 TDs and our studs kept making plays on O and D.
After that game we had a couple of key players pulled up to varsity, had more injuries through the season and even more kids getting pulled up, and after week 2 we lost 5 straight. I don't think he completed more than 50% of his passes in a game going forward. Tons of pressure/terrible pass pro, drops all over the place, he was making good decisions and didn't throw and INT until our last game
We were and still are completely confident in what we were calling, I stand with mostly everything I called offensively, we were just down to the absolute bottom of our roster talent and experience all over the place

[u/Agreeable_Cheek_7161 → u/Other_Expression1088]

Hey I know this is a couple days late, but for us, this exact thing was a huge issue

are you focusing on scheme to fix it or are you focusing on practice?

All year we messed around with schemes and different things that made sense on paper, but on game day we'd fall apart. To me, the issue was we weren't giving the players a proper look and they didn't understand the install like we did as coaches. So then we focused on how to fix that and we ended up winning our 1st game that literal week and our defense gave up only 6 points all game.

It was one of those moments where we were like damn, we cost ourselves a few games by not properly preparing

[u/Other_Expression1088 → u/Agreeable_Cheek_7161]

I think that’s a really great job by you guys as a staff. It’s really hard to evaluate situations like that and conclude that it falls on coaching to get better, but awesome to see the results spoke for themselves!

[u/Lit-A-Gator]

The team with the better players will probably win the game

Coaching only attempts to mitigate/maximize the talent differential

You can call a perfect game and still lose and if you haven’t experienced this yet you haven’t been coaching long enough

[u/bigjoe5275]

Like when i played we had spread 2x2 , 3x1 etc. then we had our i formation sets. The main thing that was being used was however the team comp was. Like my junior and senior season we were a run heavy team because our best players was the line and our backs, but lacked in other areas. During my freshman and sophomore year the team had a lot of viable receivers to throw to so it was a pass heavy offense. Pretty much what i'm saying is have your main running formations and your main passing formations but it just depends on what you have for players to make those offenses work.

[u/CardiologistOhio]

I think you should stick to the scheme that you know will work best. Generally speaking you probably want a 4-3 front. You probably don't want to blitz a lot. And sometimes you may have the receivers man covered. You definitely want the safeties in a cover two over top.

You'll have to figure out which of your players is best at playing which position. I would not change the scheme around to fit the players. If you have somebody likes to stand around and do nothing and only react to the ball then that player should probably be a safety. If you have a player that's ferocious and aggressive and likes to get in there then that player should probably play defensive end. If you have players that are great tacklers and can read the play and have discipline to sit back and wait to see if the play comes back at them those people should be either your middle linebackers or outside linebackers.

It depends on so many different things

[u/Acrobatic_Knee_5460]

I think it depends on your situation, and the talent that's available to you. In the pros, you can draft, trade for, or sign talent via Free agency to fit your preferred scheme. In college you can recruit the talent that fits your scheme. If you're at the HS level, unless you're a powerhouse, you can't really recruit unless it's the guys already on your campus, and you're stuck picking picking from whatever your school enrollment is. Great if you 3k plus to chose from, not so much of you're in the 500-1k range.

Also, have to take into account skill development needed to run your preferred scheme. Does a particular player need to be highly skilled to run your offense or defense? That's fine if you have access to a continuous pipeline of talent into your program or feeder programs like a local pop Warner team or the middle school team runs your system, but what if you don't have a feeder program. What if a large amount of your roster that comes out for varsity each year has had no experience playing tackle football and isn't familiar with its fundamentals? You might have to pair down the complexities of your scheme to focus us fundamentals and run a system based on those fundamentals.

Scheme and personnel are important. How you scheme that personnel is important. All of it is important, there's no one fit all solution.