‘Ownership of the plays’: Teams encouraging player input on play calling

When high school football coaches can be heard shouting across the field “Jay-Z” or “Skittles” they are not announcing to the crowd their favorite hip hop artist is or what candy they want from the snack bar. They are calling plays. Largely, but not totally, gone are the days of a player sprinting from the sideline to the huddle with the next play.

In today’s world of high school football, coaches relay the plays to players via a variety of methods, including hand signals, key words, numbers correlating to wrist bands or giant cards with pictures, numbers or colors.

Teams rarely huddle unless they are trying to slow the game down, as offenses are able to move faster and faster the more the players get used to the signals.

And getting players to learn the signs or words is made easier by many teams involving the players in the process, and in some cases drawing them up themselves.

“If the kids have some ownership of the plays, we found it makes it much easier for them to learn them,” Bunnell coach Ty Jenkins said. “The kids name the plays. Through naming them they understand and learn them better. We will have a theme and group plays, like one week our plays will be hip hop artists like Jay-Z, Eminem and Tupac and the next week it will be something else like super heroes.”

At Ridgefield, the name

of the plays changes week to week based on the opponent.

“We always have the kids give input and we change what we call them week-toweek,” Ridgefield coach Kevin Callahan said. “If we are playing McMahon we might use the names of politicians or if we are playing Greenwich we will use the names of birds. Or we make it fun things like pro wrestlers. We want to change it every week to avoid predictability.”

Ridgefield uses wrist bands and verbal cues of play numbers from the sideline to the closest wide receiver, who then echoes the play to the rest of the team, who then look for that number on their wrist bands.

Jenkins said the players name almost every play the Bulldogs run and it is up to the coaches to learn them.

“It’s easier for the coaching staff to learn what the kids want to name them than having 60 kids learning what we want to call plays,” Jenkins said. “We also let the kids make up the hand signals they want to use once we are in the game. Now that we are in year three of being here, we have the upperclassmen teaching the younger players the hand signals. Coaches don’t teach the hand signals, we learn them.”

One of the first teams to involve players in the naming of plays at the high school level was New Canaan under offensive coordinator John Marinelli.

New Canaan’s success started a trend and eventually most teams allowing players to be part of the process.

Marinelli took what he started in New Canaan and improved upon it as head coach in Greenwich, guiding the Cardinals to a CIAC Class LL title in 2018.

Now coached by Anthony Morello, who worked on

Marinelli’s staff, Greenwich has continued to expand and improve the system.

“Player involvement has always been a big part of what we do on offense. Coach Marinelli was big on player involvement,” Morello said. “We put in trick plays named after former or current players. We want names that stick with the players. They are the ones on the field and the more they are involved, the better they understand the system.”

Greenwich, Bunnell and many others also take advantage of technology to help involve players in the process of choosing plays.

After watching film, many teams have players fill out forms or Google documents telling coaches what plays they are comfortable with and which ones they are not.

Players can access plays and provide input back to their coaches, even when they are not physically together. Teams can also communicate through Hudl as they study film at home and highlight their favorite plays.

“Our offensive coordinator gives each kid sheets to fill out after watching film. They let us know what they like and what they don’t like,” Xavier coach Andy Guyon said. “We do it on defense too where we rely on the kids a lot. What do they like, what do they feel like running. After Thursday practice we always talk about what they like. They are the ones on the field and they need to be comfortable with what we are doing.”

Guyon said he has allowed his players to be involved in the play calling process since he began at Xavier over 20 years ago. He said when he coached in college that is how it was done and bringing it to the high school ranks made sense.

Xavier uses wrist bands on offense with a coach calling in a number and the players checking the wrist band for the corresponding play.

It’s like Ralphie and his Little Orphan Annie secret decoder ring in the movie “A Christmas Story.”

What Xavier does is name their defensive categories week to week and let the players create the hand signals on that side of the ball.

“One week our blitz calls will be weather catastrophes or names of states,” Guyon said. “The biggest thing we give the kids a chance to do is create the hand signals. If they create them, it is much easier for them to remember them because they mean something to them. Kids need to feel ownership so they are more vested in it.”

Other schools, like Masuk and Daniel Hand, do not have players naming plays but do involve certain players in the process of choosing them during the week.

“I always feel like if a quarterback likes something, I will go with what he likes and what he’s comfortable running,” Hand coach Eric Becker said. “If he feels like something is open during the game, he can tell the coaches and we will adjust. We want to do things folks are comfortable with.”

The Tigers have used hand signals for the past seven years on both offense and defense.

At Masuk, a lot depends on the experience of the quarterback with veteran players having more input than underclassmen.

“Our quarterback Nick Sacco is a really cerebral kid and I sit with him all the time and talk about what he likes to run,” Masuk coach Steve Christy said. “Each week I have the kids text me their five favorite plays that week. I want to know what they want to run and what they are comfortable with. It’s a fun process because if they are involved like that it makes it easier for them to buy into everything we are doing.”

Masuk runs an up-tempo offense through verbal signals from the sideline, but players also have wrist bands in case an opponent starts picking up on the verbal cues.

“We want to go fast and the best way to do that is by calling in the play. The play is often called in before the ball is even set then we can get right on the ball and run our play,” Christy said. “We want the defense back on its heels and not able to get set when we are running our plays. We do use the wrist bands as a backup but that can slow us down a little in what we are trying to do if every kid has to stop and look at the wrist band.”

Teams also use giant cards with pictures of pop culture items or in some cases just numbers and colors.

Jenkins used the cards when he was an assistant to Jamar Greene in Stamford but has switched to hand signals because he feels it is easier for the players.

“At Stamford we had four pictures and a colored box on the cards and Jamar allowed the kids to pick the pictures so they made sense to them,” Jenkins said. “We decided to simplify that and just use hand signals. I am a special education teacher and I know kids all learn in different ways. Some kids are visual learners, some are audio learners. Some kids get it right away and memorize it, some kids have to work to learn them. It’s no different than how kids learn in school. Kids with learning disabilities might have a harder time with wrist bands or another kid might have a hard time with the cards. We find the hand signs work best. We want all kids to have access to football.”