I believe that athletes take on the personality and demeanor of their coach, so as such I aspire to cram as much energy and passion into my coaching as possible - everything has to be done fast, with great enthusiasm and a steadfast belief in the team.
I believe it's important for the athletes I work with to master the things that require no talent; they have to be enthusiastic, they have to be prompt, they must be willing and able to communicate, they must put in effort and be disciplined in their personal lives, at practice and in games.
The devil is always in the detail, so those little things matter - you never know when they will be needed. I always use a ball in all my drills - players never know when it's going to head their way - so they have to be prepared. Thousands of times I throw the ball in drills over the season, because sooner or later an intercepted pass is going to make the difference in a game. The aggregation of those marginal gains is so important, little things add up to a lot.
At Tamworth we talk about three core values - three characteristics that every player must have. They cannot survive with just one, and they cannot thrive with just two. I look for players to be AMBITIOUS, I look for players to be SELFLESS, and I look for players to be RELENTLESS.
I want the players who play for me to WANT to be the best player, best student, best employee, best teammate, and best person that they can be. They have to be driven to be the best. If they don't have ambition, then they won't want to push themselves, and escape their comfort zone. I want them to grow and develop and aspire to be the best.
The concept of TEAM is vital in my coaching philosophy - everyone has a job, so everyone knows their roles - what they have to execute to perfect play. It's more than that though - every single player has complete trust in their teammates and the job that they will do. I want them all to be superior leaders and superior teammates.
Football is fun - I want to keep it fun. Everyone should be running around having the time of their lives. I take great interest in the lives of all the players I coach; I want to know what makes them tick, I have their best interests at heart, and I want them to know that I have their back - in the same way that I know that they have mine and their teammates.
Schematically, I like to run a 3-4 defense, with an aggressive, penetrating front and a Cover 2 'palms read' behind it. Within the overall scheme, I utilise firezone and zone blitz concepts to apply pressure and on the offensive personnel and coaching staff.
For my scheme to work, it all begins up front. The defensive line have to be tough, smart, and have to be be able to read a blocking scheme on the move. They have to stress the protections, whilst being tenacious and relentless.
In this scheme, pressure is the key - but at the linebacker position, I covet intelligence, pursuit and tackling. It's not necessarily their job to create pressure, more often they will be capitalising on it.
The defensive backfield have to be superior communicators and competitors. They must be smart enough to make sure that the entire defense is on the same page, and violent enough to make those smarts count.
We want to create turnovers. We want to be the best team in the nation on third down. We want to score points.
Every time the ball is snapped, the entire defense is looking to affect the ball. They know that it's #ALLabouttheBALL and they have to #GETtheBALL - we cannot score without it, so we must do everything we can to force, create and generate turnovers.
On third down we talk about being like popcorn - when the heat gets turned up, we get more and more excited and really come alive. We want to bounce the opposition off the field, and give our offense an opportunity to shine.
Everything we do is at 100 miles an hour. We want to play fast, and we want to play with swagger.
COACHING PHILOSOPHY
DEFENSIVE PHILOSOPHY
The Tamworth Phoenix methodology to a sound defense
Phoenix Firezone Presentation - 2015 BAFCA convention