As soon as you take charge of a team, you must define a playing philosophy and implement a playbook adapted to your players, your strengths, your weaknesses, your level of play, etc.

How should you proceed?

• Copy and paste a playbook found online?

• Copy and paste the playbook of the French National Teams?

• Watch the NFL or NCAA and then say, “We’re going to play like that team”?

• Take plays from a video game console?

• Follow the current trends? etc.

I believe it is important to understand a system—especially its foundations and fundamentals—before starting to create your own playbook, and then develop it over time.

What’s the point of installing a double reverse if you can’t move your opponent with your base plays?

Why play a 4–0 defensive front if you don’t have three linebackers (not to mention backups) capable of playing in that system?

Understand that behind every playing philosophy we enjoy watching, there are men who learned from other men… and who will in turn pass that knowledge on to others… It’s an endless cycle.

So you need to go back to the source of the system to understand its meaning, its foundations, its fundamentals… and then expand your knowledge by following the evolution of the system through the coaches who are implementing and developing it.

To understand and learn, the sources are numerous: videos, books, articles, clinics, shadow coaching…

If you like the WEST COAST OFFENSE, then you need to know Bill Walsh’s coaching tree (see attached visual).

If you like the SPREAD and the ZONE READ, then you need to know how that offense was created and by whom.

I invite you to look into the work of Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia as Head Coach, 25 years ago.

You will learn a lot.

Let’s be curious. Let’s dig, search, watch, read, and exchange ideas… in order to build playbooks adapted to our knowledge, our players, and our practice time.