How This Mess Started
So, coaching Buffalo High football this year felt like carrying a rock uphill. My ass nearly got fired after losing four straight games early on. Kids looked lost, plays fell apart faster than a cheap chair. Our old playbook? Pure garbage. Handed down from like five coaches ago, stuff nobody understood. Felt like reading ancient scrolls full of useless junk. Needed a full reset.
Tearing Down the Old Crap
First thing Monday after that fourth loss? Grabbed that dusty playbook and tossed it straight into the dumpster behind the gym. Felt good. Called the team together. “Listen up,” I said. “We ain’t running confusing junk anymore. We keep this stupid simple.” Started from absolute zero. My brain hurt trying to fix everything.
Sat down with a giant whiteboard that night. Coffee cold, marker fumes giving me a headache. Made just three lists:
- What Absolutely Sucked: Turnovers! Slow snaps! Defense looking the wrong way!
- What Our Guys Could Actually Do: Simple inside runs. Quick, short passes to Mike – kid has glue hands. Not asking linemen to sprint 50 yards.
- Opponents Kept Beating Us On: That outside sweep every damn time. Long third downs? We always choked.
Basic stuff. Painfully obvious once you wrote it down.
Fixing the Stupid Stuff First
Stopped trying ten different defenses. Chose one look, one stunt, and drilled it like crazy. “Same defense, every practice,” I yelled. Told the quarterback: Snap that ball in UNDER two seconds every single play. Screw “options.” Simple calls. Tried that Pistol formation crap – total disaster when Jimmy tripped over his own feet. Went back to basics.
Built maybe five run plays around our biggest lineman, Barry. Five pass plays, all quick hits to Mike or crossing routes over the middle. None longer than 15 yards. Made the playcalling sheet look like a kid drew it – big numbers, simple words like “BARRY SMASH” for our main run. If a sixth grader couldn’t yell it clearly, it got thrown out.
Practice? Ran those same ten plays over, and over, and over. No fancy variations. Defense? That same look, that same stunt… practiced it blindfolded, swear to god. Repetition until it bored me to tears.
Seeing Stupid Simple Work
Next game? Didn’t feel hopeful. Opponent was tough. But holy crap. First drive? Simple “BARRY SMASH” right up the gut for six yards. Same play again? Four yards. Quick pass to Mike? Nine yards. We looked… like a real team? Nobody stood around confused. Snap was fast. Defense actually clogged the middle on that outside sweep they loved. Won that game. Kids went nuts.
Kept it up. Week after week. We ran the same damn ten plays. Opponents knew it was coming. Didn’t matter one bit. Because we executed it perfectly. Ball snapped fast, blocks hit hard, passes thrown crisp. Our simple defense actually tackled people. We weren’t the most talented team out there, not even close. But suddenly, we started winning. Season flipped upside down.
The real win? Watching Barry, usually quiet, scream “SMASH!” loud enough to rattle the stands. Even that lazy bastard Mike ran his routes sharp every single down. Simple worked. Stupid simple got us wins. Proved you don’t need magic plays, just stuff your guys can do without thinking.