Prep football goes virtual
One Goodyear Desert Edge football player is in his garage, his computer directed at him. Another has cleared living room space. Another is in his bedroom.
Wherever there is space, they’re good to conduct a spring football practice in the age of the coronavirus that has not only shut down schools but sports, including spring football.
No problem, new coach Marcus Carter says.
Ever the optimist, Carter is in control of this spring football practice on a Wednesday late afternoon that runs an hour and a half. There are 28 participants for this Zoom-world workout with Carter starting it out with stretches and explosive moves.
Player follow their coach’s directions on their laptops.
“Side shuffles!” Carter says.
“Myles go! Jonas go! Nigel go!” “Three up, three back!”
“Make sure you rip and stack. Make sure you’re working a move.”
“Good job, fellas.”
It’s not hands on, but it’s the closest thing to football a high school team has right now as players and coaches grind through the uncertainty of spring. They are hoping that summer paves the way for a 2020 season, although nobody can say for certain in will start on time, if at all, because of a pandemic that has turned the sporting world upside down.
“I feel bad for them,” said Carter, who is co-head coach with his twin brother Mark. “It’s not face to face. But we have a plan. Big things are coming our with with spring ball. We’re doing spring ball virtually. How to attack it. I think it’s going to open a lot of eyes. We’re thinking outside the box. It’s just having meeting after meeting getting things drawn out.”
“Obviously, I would rather be around our guys and interact with them in person, but since that can’t happen, we are adjusting and I can’t be more happy with how it is going so far.”
Jason Jewell
Phoenix Brophy Prep football coach, on holding virtual practices
After the stretch, Carter, who runs the defense, there is a short break before a “blitzing meeting.” They go over diagrams that are first Xs and Os, then a Madden-like video of how the blitzing would look on the field with an aerial view.
Then, he breaks the meeting and says, “Everybody up.”
The safeties, linebacker, corners go through their movements, as Carter barks out the terminology.
“For the game, set...”
Carter claps his hands and the players make their moves.
Later there is a coverage meeting with graphics and illustrations and video, how to defend an RPO team.
“It’s a creative way to have virtual spring ball,” Carter said. “You have to have fun with it. Take off with that. See how it works. It’s only going to make it better. You have to think outside the box.”
The Carter brothers aren’t the only ones thinking outside the box during what would normally be spring football on their schools’ fields.
Football life in a Zoom world
This is now a Zoom world, and they all have to embrace it or be left behind.
“Obviously, I would rather be around our guys and interact with them in person, but since that can’t happen, we are adjusting and I can’t be more happy with how it is going so far,” second-year Phoenix Brophy Prep coach Jason Jewell said. “Our kids are bought in. We had 120 kids on a virtual meeting for the first day of spring ball on (April) 27th and have had great turnouts for our offensive and defensive installs this week.”
Jewell said strength coach Joe Denk uploads two workouts every day to a training app the Brophy players use, called, “Train Heroic.”
“One lift is body weight,” Jewell said. “The other is with free weights so the kids can adapt based on what they have access to. He also hosts live Google Meet training sessions three days a week.”
For football specific, Brophy utilizes Hudl and “Just Play,” a playbook app. The Broncos also upload videos and slides with plays so the players can study ahead of time.
“We currently meet three times a week on offense and three times a week on defense to teach the fundamentals,” Jewell said.
Phoenix Moon Valley defensive backs coach Justin Southwick said the Rockets are meeting as a team by position groups through Webex. Defensive coordinator Gabe Hernandez and offensive coordinator K.J. Anthony have been spending countless hours preparing videos, assignments, drills, home workouts, quizzes and feedback forums, using Google Classroom, Southwick said.
“This has allowed our kids that were a part of the program last year to continue to grow in our system and the young guys coming up to jump in and learn,” Southwick said. “We obviously would love to be back on the field together, but until then we will do what we have to do to coach and build the culture of our team online.”
Fountain Hills coach Jason Henslin calls moving everything online “an interesting challenge.”
“But I’ve been encouraged to see a core group of players lead the charge,” Henslin said. “For the past five weeks, we’ve taken to the online platform by using Google Meet for video meetings and the Band App for sharing the workouts.
“Each week our strength coach Rob Ripley shares the home workout plan for the players and does a video explaining what he wants them to do and the emphasis for each lift. Every Tuesday evening our coaches do a video chat to review film and fine tune our playbook. Wednesday afternoons we have video meetings with our leadership council followed by position group meetings with the players, where we watch film or go through the playbook.”
Mesa Desert Ridge’s spring football program follows a weekly schedule that typically looks like this:
Mondays and Wednesday: Meet at 5:30 p.m., quarterback meeting at 7:30 p.m. Lifting during day using Rack App, or if kids have weights, they are given a program via text.
Tuesdays and Thursdays: Offense coaches reach out to their players individually. QB meeting at 7:30 p.m. Same lifting routine.
Coaches meet once a week through Zoom.
Team meeting Thursday at 11 a.m., through Zoom.
Team leadership meeting Friday at 11 a.m., through Zoom.
“Coaches were given direction to read certain books during this time off to develop themselves,” Desert Ridge coach Jeremy Hathcock said. “I have also empowered my coaches to get our kids ready. If our kids are not ready, then I will know which coaches did not do their job. If only a few kids are not ready, then that means our kids were lazy and did not do their job. Our team leaders are required to reach out to their groups at least twice a week.”
Gilbert Highland coach Brock Farrel said team Zoom meetings and films have gone well.
“I believe our team is getting more football intelligent through this process,” he said.
Chandler strength coach Chris Chick realizes it can be tough to put together a lifting routine if not all the kids have the weights and equipment at home. Everybody is different.
So the Wolves have put together a series of workouts -- one with weights and the other without weights.
“It’s like having a quarterback workout without a ball,” Chick said. “It would be like a basketball practice without a basket.”
The Wolves become accountable with each other during their workouts, making sure everybody is doing what they’re supposed to do, especially if they want to defend their Open Division state title next season.
“We have a saying, ‘Worry about us,’ “head coach Rick Garretson said. “When the bell rings, are you gonna be ready to go?
“Our kids know the work it takes to give them a chance to compete and get in between the white lines on a Friday night.”
Henlin of Fountain Hills said the greatest challenge during time is helping the players have hope.
“For some of the guys it’s easy, but for a portion of my team, they are dealing with parents who have lost jobs and now they are helping out or they are having a hard time seeing how life can go back to normal after all of this,” Henslin said.
“It’s strange times indeed, but we just keep telling them there is hope for the future and when we do return to playing, it is going to be easy to see who did work and who did not.”