While you want and coach your offensive team to play each and every down with intensity and concentration, it is important that these two basic traits are emphasized and talked about even more when you reach the opponentís seven yard line. Nothing is more devastating to a team than to drive the ball down the field, get in great position to score and then have the opportunity eliminated by a needless penalty or a blown assignment.

I have always felt that the entire coching staff must talk to their individual players every day at practice and in the locker room about the increased need to focus when you have reached the goal line area and are in position to score.

All to often offensive teams will be so happy to be in scoring position that they fail to understand the the need for complete concentration and intensity in this area.

Any goal line practice time should be based on 100% execution of every play and not be confined into a set number of plays or a pre-determined amount of time. Nothing creates and emphasizes the importance of execution in this area as quickly as having the entire team run a play over and over until every member of the team has executed his assignment corretly. Offensive players must be taught to understand that nothing less than 100% perfect execution will be acceptable to you as a coach when you are working on your goal line offense.

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF GOAL LINE OFFENSE

Prior to actually deciding on, introducing and coaching which runs and passes that we would use in our goal line offense, we took time to explain to our offensive team six basic principles that we felt every offensive player had to know and understand. These were principles that we felt were different than from any other spot on the field.

1. We wanted our offensive players to expect some form of defensive blitz on every offensive down. Our players also needed to understand that the closer we got to the opponentís goal line to more defensive players would be featured and committed to the blitz package. Every offensive blocker had to anticipate that the man they were assigned to block would be attacking the line oif scrimmage on the snap and not playing off the line of scrimmage.

2. We wanted our offensive team to anticipate substitutions by the defense. Whenever we could, we instructed our offensive players as to what defensive substituions they could anticipated based on the yard line and the offensive personnel that we would have in the game. We did not want our players to be surprized in the game.

3. Based on our scoting we wanted our players to understand how we would try to move coverage men out of designated areas that we planned to atttack. They had to know the reason for and what we desired to accomplish with every pattern that they were asked to run. Eventhough they may not be the primary receiver, they had to know why their pattern was important if we were to have success and score.

4. In our passing attack, our offensive players had to understand that we would feature big receivers whenever possible. Our patterns would be disigned to have the receivers facing the quarterback when the ball was delivered and the catch was made. We then emphasized, that if the receiver was not in the end zone, that hy must turn up the field immediately and drive for the goal line. We coached the receivers that this was a position on the field where they did not have the luxury of trying to move laterally and out run a defender. The exception to this coaching would be if their pattern was directing then to the sideline and they could use their momentum to drive to the flag and score.

5. Any offensive player who was assigned to lead the play and block a defender outside of the tight end, was instructed to anticipate the forcing across the line of scrimmage. Our players were coached to expect the block to occur quickly and that they might have to cut the defender the moment that he appeared in the offensive backfield.

6. Finally we coached our offensive players that they had to protect and maintain possession of the ball at all cost, that they must perform each play penalty free and that each play must reult in positive or at least neutral yardage.