Coaches Corner: 10/12/25

Welcome back, Coach.

Welcome back to FCL’s Coaches Corner. Where we dig into coaching lessons, share resources, and work to grow together. Every other Sunday, we distill ideas we’ve learned from great coaches across all sports, hoping to give you a few tools and thoughts you can bring back to your team.

Let’s dive in.

(Missed the last Coaches Corner? Catch up here.)

Matt Dunn & Deemer Class

Today’s Menu Includes:

• 🔦 Coach Spotlight: Mike Tomlin

• 🧠 Some Outside Inspiration: Nick Saban on The Pivot Podcast

• 🤓 A Trip to the Principles Office: Offensive Principles

• 🔥 A Webinar Freebie: Kyle Hayes - Fade the Gap Shooting

🔦 Coach Spotlight
Mike Tomlin - Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach

In this quote, Coach Tomlin references the idea of “big man scarcity.” This is the idea that there are not a ton of highly athletically gifted players (like Aaron Donald or Joe Thomas), so these players will always be in demand.

There are however a ton of players with average height and speed. He respects the players that find a way to play the game at the highest level despite not having an inherit athletic advantage.

These players must possess extraordinary willpower, toughness, and competitiveness to find success. These character traits, which have nothing to do with skill or athleticism, are what allow a player to transcend their own athletic ability and find success at any level.

🧠 Outside Inspiration
Nick Saban on The Pivot Podcast

Nick Saban’s joins The Pivot podcast where he talks about his lifelong philosophy of discipline, preparation, and personal growth. He stresses that success comes from consistent habits, not talent or outcomes.

Leadership, he says, means treating people fairly but individually, helping each person reach their potential. Saban values building character and developing young men over winning championships, viewing his legacy through the impact he’s had on others.

He acknowledges learning self-awareness from his wife, Miss Terry, and organizational precision from Bill Belichick. Ultimately, Saban believes greatness lies in self-discipline, humility, and focusing on the process—not the results.

🤓 The Principles Office
Instilling Principles into Your Offense

Today’s Principles Office focuses on what a principles-based offense is and how to teach it.

Basic Definitions & Assumptions

First, we must define some key terms and assumptions we are operating with:

• Principles are a framework to provide context that governs how a system operates.

• A system is a set of interconnected components that work together according to certain principles to achieve a function or purpose.

• The objective of an offense is to consistently generate high quality shots in order to score.

When building an offense, the principles you choose to prioritize is up to you. The key is making your principles: clear, concise, and simple. They must show up in practice everyday. The principles must tie together and help you achieve the objective of an offense.

We recently had a webinar with LIU Offensive Coordinator coach Kyle Hayes where he discussed installing and practicing principles, and how they show up on gameday. We are going to highlight some of his principles, and how he teaches them in this weeks newsletter.

Principle: Shot Selection

If the objective of your offense is to generate high quality shots, we must define the characteristics of a high quality shot. Coach Hayes uses a simple acronym to serve this purpose: ROA.

• Range: How far from the cage are you? Are you within your own range?

• Open: Are your hands free, or is this a contested shot?

• Angle: How much of the 6×6 cage is in front of us?

Your players need to know what your expectations are. The objective of an offense is to generate high quality shots; thus, it must be clear what that looks like. This simple acronym defines a quality shot to be within your range, hands free, and at angle where you have a good amount of the cage to shoot at.

Principle: Ball Speed

Ball speed is crucial in putting pressure on the defense. Often times, you hear the phrase “don’t let the ball die in your stick,” but why? The purpose of moving the ball with pace is to create an advantage, or to capitalize on one.

When a slide is drawn, you have a limited amount of time to take advantage of that. For a moment, the defense is committing two players to one, leaving someone uncovered.

When you consistently dodge and move the ball quickly during a possession, you open the door for defensive mistakes to appear.

The key to ball speed is simple:

• Let the ball do the work. Free your hands before you throw a pass, have great knee bend, and throw the ball to your teammates ear.

• Hit singles. Make the easy pass and trust your teammate to get the ball to the right spot quickly instead of trying to make the home run skip pass.

Principle: Switch Fields

Switching the side of the field that the ball is on goes hand-in-hand with ball speed. Having great ball speed is the way you switch fields, and switching fields is the reason ball speed is important.

When you dodge and draw a slide, you have created space on the backside. If you do not shoot out of that dodge, it is crucial to move the ball to the backside; this is what switching the field means.

If you move the ball fast enough, you may be able to exploit a late approach. You also force the defense to reposition themselves, and defensive roles change. If their technique and connectivity are not sound, the defense becomes vulnerable.

Coach Hayes talks about switching fields as a progression. He uses the term the third side of the field. The third side of the field can visualized by going through a progression.

Imagine the possession starts with a dodge down the left alley, and the ball is moved to the backside for a wing dodge (1st time switching fields). After that wing dodge, the ball is then moved again to the backside again (2nd time switching fields). The third side of the field is now in reference to that second time the ball has switched fields.

The takeaway is simple, switching the field should be a consistent action that your offense takes. There is an inherit flow to this principle. Dodge, create space on the backside, move the ball to the backside, repeat. You are constantly chipping away at the defense, and it might take switching fields more than once for a quality scoring opportunity to arise.

Principle: Gaps

Gaps are the space between defenders. Gaps are where you attack. Whether the defense is playing man defense, zone defense, or is a man down, gaps are present or can be created.

In settled offense, when you are adjacent to the ball carrier, you want to create a gap for them to attack. You can do this by fading away from the ball carrier or clearing through.

This creates a gap for the ball carrier to attack. As a dodger, attack the gaps and dodge to space. This puts pressure on the defense to execute a longer slide and recovery.

When you are off-ball, cut or step into gaps. Often, young players lack the understanding of the timing and location of the cut. When you cut into a gap, you put pressure on the defense to respect that cut, and if they do not, you are open for a shot. Cutting can also open up opportunities for your teammates by drawing the attention of the defense.

Against a zone defense, ball carriers must step vertically into the gaps. Stepping vertically into the gaps forces the defense to rotate, or leads to two players guarding one. It prevents the defense from maintaining the same shape.

Principle: Two Outlets

As an offense, you must work to have an outlet in front of the dodge and behind the dodge. Having these outlets allows you to switch fields, it enables you to have fast ball speed, and it maintains gaps.

Having two outlets is often fluid, meaning the dodger must attack space first before a player should move to a spot to become an outlet. This is seen anytime a player mirrors, or when players follow and replace the dodger.

An important piece of being a great outlet is moving into the ball carriers vison, and stepping into a passing lane. You want to be light on you feet ready to bounce out wider, or to step in tighter in order for the ball carrier to see you and to avoid the risk of the defense picking off the pass.

Wrapping It Up

In a principles based offense, it is not all about the principles themselves, but how clearly you explain those principles. Players need to have a clear idea of what you are asking them to do. They should be able to watch a play and confidently say whether it aligns with your principles or not.

The language that you use to define and teach your principles is the difference maker. In an offensive system that can sometimes look chaotic and unstructured, clarity is what creates cohesion. Your understanding of the principles is what turns that structure into success.

Until Next Time

Thanks for taking a trip down the hallway. If you are looking for a deeper dive, we have posted numerous videos on our Instagram, Twitter and YouTube channels on this topic.

Stay tuned for more content all spring and email us at [email protected] with any questions and let us know your thoughts.

🚨 Webinar Freebie 🚨

This week’s freebie is from our webinar with LIU Offensive Coordinator Kyle Hayes. Coach Hayes delivered a webinar on installing and teaching a principles-based offense. One segment we really liked was his Fade the Gap Shooting drill. See a brief excerpt of the presentation below.

The FCL Circle community is the best resource on the market for any men’s or women’s coaching staff to continue developing through new drills and strategies. It includes over 30 college coach webinars, 100+ drills for offense, defense and full team compete.

• 🎥 WEBINAR FREEBIE: Fade the Gap Shooting

• 🔦 COMMUNITY TOUR: Watch Community Tour Here.

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