Finding Players' Positions on Offense

Spring ball is the first time we get to see pads on players moving or advancing on the depth chart. How do we decide who plays where?

Last week, we looked at deciding what plays/schemes get installed in the spring. This week, we’re going to take an overview of my process then the main characteristics I’m looking for in each position.

In recent years, I have heard this process most often:

1. Players

2. Formations

3. Plays

The idea is that we start the process in the off-season deciding what players we want to run our offense through, use formations to put them in those positions, then think about what plays can be run out of each formation. That process is 100% acceptable, but mine is a little bit different.

1. System

2. Players

3. Plays

4. Formations

Like we talked about last week, everything starts with the system. It’s what we know as a staff, and it’s what players have practiced their entire high school career (middle school and youth league too, if you’re lucky). We don’t want to live in a world where we change up the offense every year because then each player basically becomes a freshman again in terms of schematic knowledge. But remember, the system is the entire library of scheme and vocabulary we have available. Some years, we may lean more into zone than others. Other years, we may lean more into gap. As we’ve looked at in a previous article, maybe some years will be more RPO-heavy or play action heavy based on the QB. To me, that is the “plays” level. The system is everything we can/have run, but plays are what we are going to run. The system doesn’t change because of the personnel we have available. If we’re blessed enough to be at a school for 5-10+ years, we’re going to have a lot of different types of players come through the program. I think of the system as a library. We might pull different “books” out based on the players we have, but the library largely remains the same.

Next, we think about players. How many players do we actively want to scheme touches for, and what are those players best at? This really dictates who plays what position. Paid subscribers will have access to the characteristics I’m looking for in each position. Next week, we’ll finish up this series by thinking about what formations and motions get installed in the spring.