270. Situations - Grant Myers: 4 Minute Defense

Situational Football Series. Different guests talking about situational football.  

Today's Guest: Grant Myers, Defensive Coordinator, Cherokee (GA)

Topic: 4 Minute Defense

Episode Transcript

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Hey everybody, Welcome to the ParkerResources Situational Football series. But this offseason

(01:11):
we have one hundred guests talking abouta scific situation ahead of the twenty twenty
four football season. Hope you pickup some great tips that can help make
your team better. Enjoy today's guests. Please enjoy this time by coach Grant
Myers, my friend at Devens Cornerat Cherokee High School. Coach, thanks
for joining me, Thank you forhaving me on coach. All right,

(01:33):
we're talking four minute defense today.That's a unique one. I'd have many
of these, So four minute defensefor people that saw that title click here
just because they wanted to hear meand Grant talk, but have no idea
what we're actually going to talk about. Let me explain real quick. They
the other team, Grant, notour team. They have the lead and
they have the ball. That's notgood. It's later in the game.

(01:57):
They have the lead and they havethe ball. So let's say it's like
twenty seven to twenty three, there'stwo minutes, three minutes up in the
game, and they have the ball. So first, before we can even
get into our two minute offense,we have to win this four minute defense
situation. And of course, youknow the other team is teaching four minute
offense, right They're trying to runthe clock out and get a few first

(02:17):
downs here and not let us everhave the ball back to go win.
So what do you think? Allright? The first thing is you kind
of have to have a feel forthe flow of the game. You know,
we are we talking about this isa four minute defense and you're down
fourteen to ten, or it's you'redown forty two to thirty eight. So

(02:39):
what has the flow of the footballgame been? And then how are we
going to attack the offense from thatstandpoint? You know, are we expecting
them to grind the ball out righthere and we've got to try and strip
ball carrier? You know, geteverybody up off the pile as quick as
we can so we can get linedup on defense and be ready to play
again. Or is there the opportunitybecause of who the opponent is in terms

(03:04):
of their offensive identity for us tocreate a strip sack, you know,
if the quarterback drops back, orto intercept a ball. So we kind
of have to have a feel forwho the offensive play color is, what
the identity of the opponent's offense is, and then from there that's going to
kind of lead us to how we'regoing to attack them and try and get

(03:27):
the ball back to give our offensea chance to go and win the football
game. Yeah. Absolutely. Iwrote down three themes that overlap a little
with what you said. But one, you strip the football at all costs,
which is what you're talking about sowe always want to strip the ball,
but the guys that go first manin second guy strip. That kind
of drill, just something to remindthe kids about four minute vote. The

(03:51):
second thing was push runners out ofbounds if they give you a chance.
You know, every now and thenyou get a situation where somebody on the
other team is not really aware ofwhere we are in the football game.
If they'll let you push them outof bounds, push them out of bounce
yep. And the third thing isyou can't have any procedural penalties because remember
in high school ball, you candepending on what it is in the situation

(04:13):
and maybe even the state. SoI'm not going to give an exact scenario,
but there are scenarios where you jumpoff sides. Clock was running,
they reset, move it up fiveand roll the ready so you go like
a minute minute and a half withonly snapping the ball once or the other
team can and that cannot happen ifwe're losing and they got the ball right.

(04:34):
So we got to teach them likethat. There cannot be offside penalties.
There can't be you know, theseprocedural things that allow them to move
up five yards and keep the clockrunning without having to snap the ball and
take it down. No, Iagree with you completely, and that's where
you know, come to each pointyou kind of remind the kids as they
get ready to go out to takefield. You know, hey, this

(04:56):
is why we work our turning overdrills with our you know, our strip
and recovery drill, you know,and then if at all costs, be
able to stop the clock, drivethe ball, carry out of bounds like
you said, or if the ball'sin the air, the clock needs to
stop. Whether it's an interception orit's an incomplete pass, but something to
stop the clock so that we don'thave to burn timeouts. And our offense

(05:16):
has you know, maximum time onthe clock to be able to go down
and work something. And then youknow, playing smart football. I think
some of that also has got tolend itself to your play color, you
know, defensive mentality being what doour kids do well, what could they
essentially go out there and call themselvesbecause we've done it so many times that

(05:39):
they could do it in their sleep, so we don't have to worry about
them having any of those procedural penalties, which is pretty much you know,
going to be a nail in thecoffin for us snap the ball one time
in a minute and a half likeyou were mentioned in earlier. Yeah,
so typically you know, done somany of these that typically around this time.
I asked some kind of follow upquestion or how you practice it?

(06:01):
Well, you know, this oneis a little different because you practice this
practicing all the other things like youmentioned parts of it. Yeah, so
it's hard to say when you practice. Don't know if you practice is Zach
scenario very often, But it's waymore about can you on the cuff,
you know, off the cuff,can you right on the fly, you

(06:24):
know, off the jump, beready to tell those kids the things they
need to be reminded of. Becauselet me make this clear. If a
kid runs out of bounds in you'reon four minute offense, that doesn't mean
the coach told them to run outof bounds, but it does mean that
kid was not situationally aware, correct, And I do think it's the coach's
job to try to make people situationwhere Now if that coach made them situationally

(06:47):
aware and he ran out of boundsanyway, well, I mean that happens,
you know, but your job toget them so like what you were
saying before, we're going out inthis situation, we got to be like,
all right, guys, four minuteboth here, got to get the
ball back, get most times possible. You know, let's strip, drill,
go, get it. Watch thehard counts. You know they're going

(07:08):
to try to hard caunt if theygot absolutely so you know, whatever your
phrase is for that, watching hardcounts, you know, stripping the ball,
pushing out of bounds. If youcan, let's go. You know,
like whatever you got to say,just being aware of knowing when it's
time to give that little spill onthe way out is really what today is
all about, right pretty much.And I think you know, if you're

(07:29):
a team that uses a mock gametemplate on your Wednesday practice or your Thursday
walk through, whatever it may be, I think the time in that that
you can utilize this and just geta nugget out there is, Hey,
we're working four minute offense right now, and so the offensive coaches are talking
about that, you have an opportunityas a defensive staff to say, should

(07:50):
this situation happen, this is howwe need to approach it defensively. You
know, where we've got to getup quick. If we have the opportunity
to drive the ball carry out ofbounds, we do so you know,
we can't have any ignorant penalties.And then this is where we work all
of our turnover drills that we youknow, we emphasize Monday and Tuesday throughout
the week and it just becomes apart, part, whole type deal.

(08:13):
Absolutely no, I agree, man, I think that's exactly right. And
that's the kind of thing you gotto find ways to mix this into practice,
right, yes, So all right, so tell me, I'm gonna
transition. I'm gonna get you outof and so I'm not going to ask
you about practicing. Tell me aboutpracticing. You were the head coach last
year, defensive corner of this yearCherokee big school versus medium sized school where

(08:35):
you were before. How's it going. It's going well. You know,
we have a really good group ofseniors that have bought in from when we
got there in January, you know, and wholeheartedly just believed and invested in
everything we've been doing. Uh,In terms of transition from school size,
I mean the first thing that kindof it was learning all the kids' names.

(08:56):
You know, when you've got onehundred and forty kids in the program
as opposed to about eighty five.Like, it does take longer. You
know, I typically knew everybody's namewithin the first couple of weeks. That's
previous places I was at, whetherit be pickings or faulting. You know,
it took me a good month anda half to learned who all the
kids you know, upcoming ten throughtwelve were, and then we start bringing

(09:18):
the rising ninth graders in, soit took me a you know, a
good minute to do that. Butas far as practice and whatnot, we're
doing things a little bit differently thana lot of large schools where we're crossing
over ninety percent of our kids.They have an offensive end a defensive position.
There's only a handful, and Ithink that that handful will continue to

(09:39):
grow throughout the summer. We'll probablyreevaluate some things after a dead and week
about kids who need to just beoffensive or defensive players. But what it's
done is it's kind of because itis different, it's given the kids a
shot in the arm. You know, some kids that have just been offensive
players or just been defensive players havebeen given me the chance. It's to

(10:00):
show maybe that they can play theother side of the ball. But it
also has created a lot of depthfor us, and it's created competition in
practice, like when we can gobest on best and it's not just the
first offense versus the first defense.It's created instead of us having, you
know, a top twenty two toeleven on offense eleven on defense, we're
probably closer to having like a topthirty two with sixteen guys that we feel

(10:26):
like are our dudes on both sidesof the ball. No, that's right,
man. What's what's the biggest difference? Last question, what's the biggest
difference between going from being the headcoach to the coordinator? You know,
I asked the opposite of that questionall the time, right, I interviewed
if you I interview a whole seriesof people every year that are first year

(10:46):
head coaches or first time you know, or new new maybe not first time,
but new at a school, andyou ask him like, what's different
what's the biggest change from going fromso what's the biggest change from going the
other way? I say this joking, lee and half not jokingly. You
don't have to talk to anybody's mamanow that helps. I mean, you
just go out there and you coachfootball. You know, we've got three

(11:09):
former head coaches on our staff,and there have been several times that we,
you know, look at each other, cut our eyes just kind of
snicker because there are certain things that'snot my job right there, that's the
head coach's job. Now. Wealso, I feel like we take a
lot of pride as a staff ingeneral and making sure we keep as much
bs off Coach Holly's desk as wecan, you know, because one,

(11:31):
it's a school in the highest classification. We got thirty two hundred kids in
the school, one hundred and fortyor so in the program, so he's
got enough issues there. He's firsttime head coach. We need to do
a good job as a staff ofmaking sure that we take care of as
many things as we possibly can sothat he can just focus on the head
coach stuff that's you know, aboveour pay grade. Yeah, no,

(11:54):
that's right. I do think.You know what I hear repeatedly from people
when I asked that the question isI think the second time that you're the
coordinator, the guy right under thehead coach, you're usually a lot better
and you're usually a lot more asstudents because you've had the opportunity of being
the head coach. So I wouldsay that's true for you too. So's

(12:16):
only yeah, there's only about whenthere's only two schools that are within about
ten miles of my house, youknow you left one to go the other
one, so you know I'm cheeringfor you, so we appreciate that.
But I appreciate you guys and gotmy friend Andy Hall as the principal.
Yeah, cross country, yeah andyeah, so you've got a good group.

(12:41):
Man. I'm excited to see whatyou guys can do and looking forward
to talking to coach Hollie and youguys, all of you. See.
So if if I can help you, man, let me know absolutely.
I appreciate you, Chris, appreciateyou having me on, appreciate your friendship
and everything that you do before ourprofession. Yes, sir, take care
man, say thank you. TheParker Resources podcast provides information to coaches,

(13:01):
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