HIGH DRAMA
From last-second heaves to well-timed gadgets, sometimes you just have to take a chance. Here's how to tilt the odds in your favor.
By Kyle Garratt
Kyle Garratt is an Assistant Editor at Coaching Management. He can be reached at: kg@momentummedia.com
As the story goes, with 24 seconds left in the 1975 NFC semifinal, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach closed his eyes, threw the ball as far as he could, and said a Hail Mary prayer. Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson came down with the ball and ran into the end zone for the winning score. Staubach told reporters of his last-second prayer, and one of football's most famous desperation plays has been called a Hail Mary ever since.
Before Staubach, the play was simply known as a last-second heave, but by any name, it's something no coach wants to call. Hail Mary passes, lateral returns, onside kicks, and high-risk plays of every variety make coaches decidedly more nervous than giving the ball to a sure-handed back. Yet every coach encounters games where the clock is running down and the end zone is distant. Or maybe the defense seems to be reading your mind and you need to shift the momentum with a well-timed gadget play.
Regardless of their intent, there is a reason that desperation and high-risk plays have earned their names. They are not likely to work. However, there are times you have no choice but to use them, and when the game calls for a high-risk play, your plan needs to be more extensive than Staubach's.
Despite the intensity surrounding desperation plays, they are not much different from the rest of the game. Succeeding with riskier plays_-or denying your opposition's desperation attempt-comes down to many of the same principles that make other plays successful: Practice, confidence, fundamentals, and strategy. High-risk plays just require a little more imagination and faith.
Talking About Practice
Coaches have long preached two practice philosophies: the importance of practicing the way you play and practicing to make perfect. Feel free to apply the same thinking to desperation and trick plays. For all the ways that high-risk plays differ from "normal" plays, they are the same in the sense that you can't expect success without preparation.
"You need to have practiced a desperation play enough times so that you have the kinks worked out," says Virginia Tech Head Coach Frank Beamer. "There are a lot of plays you can draw up on the board, but chances are they won't work without practice."
Few coaches recommend dedicating a large chunk of practice time to plays that are seldom used, but fewer would suggest ignoring them completely. Desperation and trick plays occupy some amount of practice time for all coaches and many practice them daily. Beamer practices onside kicks three times a week and runs a full practice encompassing unusual plays and situations on the last Saturday of the preseason.
"We have a meeting, go over all the plays with the athletes, and then we go out and physically perform these plays against the scout team," says Beamer. "The goal is to make sure no situation comes up in a game that we haven't physically practiced for."
Terry Smith, Head Coach at Gateway High School in Monroeville, Pa., works on trick plays and onside kicks every practice. Thursday practices consist of a preview of that week's opponent, and then all special teams and trick plays until the players get them right.
That may seem like a lot of time to devote to plays you'd rather not use. But all that practice paid dividends in Gateway's 2007 Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League championship game against Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School when it faced a 15-point deficit with 1:02 left to play. After scoring a touchdown, Smith's team converted an onside kick followed by a hook-and-ladder play to score a touchdown with less than 10 seconds left in regulation, sending the game to overtime, where Gateway eventually lost.
"We have practiced that play twice a week for the past three or four years, but had never run it in a game," says Smith. "We practiced it just for that moment when we needed something out of desperation that's still organized. Thanks to all the practice, we were fortunate enough to be able to execute it flawlessly."
One of the most remarkable desperation plays in football history had no dress rehearsal, although some improvisational skills had been developed beforehand. When Trinity University (Texas) pulled off a 15-lateral play on the last play of the game to beat Millsaps College in 2007, it was the first time the play had been run.
"It wasn't diagrammed or planned beyond the first pass," says Trinity Head Coach Steve Mohr. "We simply told the kids in the huddle that our only chance was to keep the play alive by lateraling the football and trying to stay behind the ball carrier.
"While we didn't practice that specific play, we do use a pick-up game that simulates it a little bit," he continues.
"The receivers can't take more than two steps before lateraling, and they just improvise to keep the play alive. But I never would have thought to practice 15 laterals."
Head Games
While practicing high-risk desperation plays will help your players know where to go and what to do, coaches say the biggest benefit is psychological, not physical. "We practice a kick return that involves several laterals, and even though we've never used it in a game, we probably repped it for 20 to 25 minutes three different times during two-a-days," says Andy Hill, Head Coach at Park View High School in Sterling, Va. "We make sure the kids know that even in times of desperation, 'It's not on your shoulders whether we win or lose, just give it your best shot and have fun doing it.'"
Even in times of desperation, football is still football, and it is essential that your high-risk plays not feel like a matter of luck. "When the time comes, you need something in your arsenal that you have faith in," says Mike Gibson, Assistant Head Coach for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League, and a former special teams coach, offensive line coach, and offensive coordinator for several NCAA teams. "Your players have to believe the play you call will be successful, because ultimately it comes down to them executing it."
Hill practices four or five different trick plays each week and runs at least half of those plays each game. Last year, the go-to play that won the team's first playoff game in five years was a halfback pass. "It's fun for the kids to practice these plays," says Hill. "And when we do need one in a crucial moment, they're not thinking, 'Oh my god, I don't want to screw this up.'"
Part of the challenge in developing a mindset of success for desperation plays is creating in practice the kind of pressure that players will face in these game situations. Rather than practicing trick plays and Hail Mary passes, Mohr puts his offense in end-of-game situations with a certain amount of time to score a touchdown or field goal from a given distance.
"The kids get after it pretty good, and it simulates game conditions as well as we possibly can," says Mohr. "I can remember countless times over the years this type of practice experience has helped us in the closing moments to win the game."
Hill tells his players these last-second plays are actually opportunities waiting to be grabbed. "I don't try to create pressure in practice because I don't want them thinking about that," says Hill. "Most of my players grew up watching our high school team win, and they expect to win, too. Because they expect to win, at the end of the game my kids have the mentality that this is a great opportunity for them to add to our school's tradition."
Beamer, meanwhile, believes the key to relieving pressure is proper preparation. "Pressure is not the issue as much as confidence," he says. "Anybody can handle the pressure if they're confident they know what to do. The key is covering how players should react both mentally and physically during a practice so nothing comes up in a game they don't know how to respond to."
The University of Akron has won on the last play of a game in each of the first four seasons Head Coach J.D. Brookhart has been at the helm for the Zips. He thinks that the story he tells of a one-time failed gold miner named R.U. Darby has something to do with his team's resolve in tight games.
After finding gold on his Colorado land in the 1920s, Darby bought mining equipment, and mined for about a year, but found little more. He decided to sell the equipment and land to a man who struck a gold vein the next week by drilling only three feet past where Darby had stopped. Hearing the news, Darby vowed never to stop three feet short and went on to become the top insurance salesman in the U.S.
"I think our success in desperation situations is because of the way we push things," says Brookhart. "We've adopted the motto of 'three more feet,' and thought that one way to separate ourselves is to do a little bit more than other teams. So when we run sprints, we run 41 yards or 101 yards while other teams run 40 and 100. It's the ability to think we're doing more than others whether we really are or not."
Desperate Defense
Defending high-risk plays shouldn't keep coaches up at night, as any study of their success rate would prove. But countless replays of Doug Flutie's Hail Mary and the phrase, "The band is on the field," remind coaches of the torture involved with being on the wrong side of such plays. Disciplined defense is the key to stopping these last-second heroics, but nothing can completely alleviate the anxiety of defending an onside kick in the final minute.
"You get sick to your stomach," says Brookhart. "You know that you've got it covered, that you've worked on it, and that the odds are not in their favor, but you still get that pit in your stomach."
Coaches have gone hoarse yelling at their players not to get beat deep and to bat the ball down on Hail Mary attempts. And there is more to defending desperation plays than having your hands team on the field for onside kicks. Most coaches agree that sound defense is the key to stopping even the most clever gadget play.
"Desperation plays are not going to beat you if your players stay cognizant of what's going on and stick with the fundamentals," says Hill. "We teach our players to put the team ahead of their own personal pride and glory. That means knocking the ball down rather than trying to pick it off or form tackling rather than trying to get the big hit on a guy. Undisciplined teams lose games because they get caught by plays like that."
Traditional wisdom for defending a desperation play is to set your players deep and never let anyone get past them. While no coach argues against the need to keep at least one defender deeper than the opponent, some coaches recommend applying pressure on rugby-style laterals, Hail Mary passes, and other last-ditch efforts.
"The thing about a desperation play is that it takes some time to get started," says Gibson. "I think a lot of people play into the hands of the opponent by playing it safe and not applying any pressure."
In all the madness that was Trinity's 15-lateral touchdown, Mohr says it may have been his defense that learned the most lasting lesson. "Our defense learned a great deal: One, never quit on a play," he says. "And, two, try to get some people behind the ball rather than everyone staying in front of it. We gained a bit of an edge because the Millsaps players largely kept the ball in front of them instead of going behind the ball and tracking potential ball carriers on the laterals."
Scouting (And Stealing)
While everyone in the stadium knows when certain desperation plays are coming, other high-risk plays live and die by the element of surprise. If you are looking to keep a team from fooling you or you are looking for an opportunity to fool your opponent, the opportunities lie in deft scouting. Knowing a team or a coaching staff's history can be the difference between squashing a trick play or getting caught off guard.
"When I was a special teams coach, I watched every kicking play that every one of our opponents used during the whole season," says Gibson. "Not only against us, but against other teams, to see what their trick plays were and to see how trick plays worked against them. Once you've been around for a while, you build a notebook not only on the opposing teams, but also on their coaches. And if not, you can trace the background of the person you're coaching against. If you have access to people he has coached against, you can pick up the phone and say, 'Did they run any tricks on you?'"
As you examine your opponent, keep a careful eye out for any tendencies you might be able to exploit. "From scouting one of our opponents, we knew that when they kicked into the wind, they would try a lob kick," says Brookhart. "So we created a play where our return guy caught it short, and then we protected him. Our deep returner lazily walked up the other side of the field, then we threw it back to him, and he ran up the field.
"It was a momentum-changing play for us," he continues. "They did exactly what we thought, and we gained about 70 yards, putting us in position to score."
A key to gaining an advantage with desperation plays is having a solid knowledge of both your own personnel and your opponents'. Recognizing an unusual personnel package can tip off an upcoming gadget play, and knowing which players to key on can help defend against last-second heroics.
"I think most scouting to prevent desperation plays comes in identifying the players on the field, and figuring out which kids are going to make those kind of plays," says Hill. "If I have to pick up 15 yards to keep the chains moving, I'm probably not going to throw to an untested receiver that I'm rotating in."
The benefits of scouting go beyond simply being ready for what an opponent might do. No matter how creative your staff is, there is always another team that has a play you want. Borrowing plays from other teams is a practice nearly as old as the handoff, and it allows you to judge if a play can be successful for your team.
"All good coaching is stealing," says Gibson. "A good coach sees something he likes, studies it, and then tweaks it to fit his own personnel. If you see something you could use, try to fit it into your repertoire."
Smith and Hill use a wide array of high-risk plays and are constantly on the lookout for new ideas. Some gadget plays come from internal brainstorming, but many more come from watching other teams. "Any time I see something I like, I write it down," says Hill. "Sometimes when we're looking for a certain play, we'll find something that I saw four years ago in a college game that can help us.
"One of the plays we created was a bounce pass," he continues. "We ran a little bubble screen and had our quarterback throw it backwards into the ground. As soon as the ball hits the ground, the defense usually lets up. Then our receiver picks it up and throws it back across the field. But the first time we ran the bounce pass we had a bad formation and called it at a bad time, and it resulted in a fumble. We figured out how to tweak it, changed our formation, and it worked beautifully the next week."
Beamer has a relatively smaller bag of trick and desperation plays that tends to stay the same from year to year. "There's a set group of those plays that we use," he says. "You don't want to over-coach those. With desperation plays, we have ours, and we keep practicing them until we need them."
As a coach, you can spend hours in the office planning for every contingency, but in the end, the game will be won or lost by the 11 individuals on the field. All the Xs and Os will become background noise and something deeper will have to take over. If you want your next high-risk, traditionally low-success play to look like a minor miracle, your players can't think they're one play from losing the game.
"When our kids broke the huddle for the 15-lateral play, they really believed they were going to score," Mohr says. "And that belief is something people overlook. They say it was just a lucky play, and there certainly was some luck involved, but our players knew the game wasn't over and they all believed in themselves.
"You could go an inch one way or the other, and that play is a non-memory, but every once in a while the unlikely occurs," he continues. "You need to instill that type of 'never give up' attitude in your players, because the miracle plays happen, and they happen to people who believe."
