Happy Sunday, Coach.
Welcome back to FCL’s Coaches Corner. Our quote of the day is something Deemer learned from Coach Keidane McAlpine, who at the time was the USC Women’s Soccer Head Coach (now Georgia Women’s Soccer Head Coach).
He just said, “treat every player like an individual”, and if you can do that, and you can care for them, he's like, “I think it will it will work out.”
Coach Keidane McAlpine
Let’s rock,
Matt Dunn & Deemer Class
(Missed the last Coaches Corner? Catch up here.)
Today’s Quick Links for Coaches:
🤓 The Principles Office
Princeton’s Offensive Principles with Jim Mitchell
The principles are all things that are very obtainable. They're not like being fast or being able to shoot hard.
It's all the things that you can really work on.
About a month ago, we had the chance to sit down with Princeton’s Offensive Coordinator, Coach Jim Mitchell.
Throughout the podcast, we discussed principles and how they actually show up in games.
With Princeton’s recent 19 goal performance in the Ivy League Championship, we thought it would be cool to revisit this podcast and highlight the principles we saw on the field.
Today, we will distill what Coach Mitchell teaches leveraging clips from that game.
Principles-Based Offense: An Overview
Let’s first revisit what a principles-based offense is, and how Coach Mitchell views it.
First, we must define some key terms and assumptions:
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 are 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.
How Coach Mitchell Views Principles
Installing stuff is really easy because of the principles, not the other way around.
The foundation of everything Coach Mitchell teaches are the principles.
He urges you to trust the process rather than grabbing the whiteboard and changing everything at the first sign of danger.
Within his offense, there is an inherit structure, and players are instructed how to move within that and most importantly: why.
In terms of structure, we saw Princeton primarily operate out of a 1-4-1 set in the Ivy League Championship.
In terms of moving within that set, we saw fades, mirrors, follows, clear throughs, and backside exchanges to name a few.
We don’t know for sure, but one could assume that part of their spacing principles is always having a forward and backward outlet as we see that in many of these clips.
Princeton’s Principles
1/ Pick Coverage
Throughout the game, Princeton created advantages through pick play. We saw razor picks on a shots out of bounds, down picks on the wing, and they even used defensive personnel to set a pick in early offense.
Colin Burns notices his defender showing off of the pick and slips it for a great goal up the hash.
Something Coach Mitchell talks about with his teams before games are how teams will play picks.
He looks at how it might change in different areas of the field, how different personnel may play picks, what the physicality is around picks.
Princeton’s Jackson Green, a SSDM, sets a great pick for a sick goal by Chad Palumbo
Something to note that Princeton is exceptional at is picking the path of the defender. Throughout the game, the picker works hard to move into the path of the defender to create contact or force a switch.
On Princeton’s second goal, they force a switch in the pick game and take the SSDM to X where they score on the ensuing dodge.
2/ Deception - “Everything you add deception to makes it better.”
Coach Mitchell talks about deception at length throughout the podcast.
He gives some examples of ways to add deception to your game.
If you can make it look like you won’t set a pick, and then you do, it is more likely to work.
If you catch the ball on the backside and your body language says you will pass, and then you dodge, you have a better chance of winning your matchup.
On man up, he likes plays with flips and fake flips. All it takes is one defender to be confused to gain an advantage.
Not only is it one of his key principles, but he says it is part of what separates good players from great ones.
This is a really cool example:
Take a look at this Chad Palumbo behind the back assist to Aidan McDonald. Not only is the pass incredibly subtle, but he even looks it off just a little bit.
“If you watch Chad Palumbo play, he has so many levels of deception in how he plays. Like you really have to sort of slow it down to appreciate it.” - Jim Mitchell, Princeton Offensive Coordinator
Here is another look at it. The Cornell SSDM is not expecting the pass to the crease, and let’s his guard down for just a split second. That is what deception can do, and let’s not downplay the incredible finish.
“Man up, I love flips and fake flips. I love all those plays because all it takes is one guy to be like, "Hey wait, who has the ball again?" And then you're slow on the rotation.”
Coach Mitchell almost spoke this one into existence. The flip draws enough attention to freeze the low Cornell defender for just a moment, but it was long enough to generate a hands free step down.
3/ Dominoes - Create an Advantage
This concept is when an offense generates an initial advantage and forces the defense to react. The first step of any offense is creating an advantage and then playing with it.
In lacrosse terms, an example of this is drawing a slide. For just a split second, the defense is not evenly matched up and it provides a short window to attack.
Nate Kabiri draws a slide and quickly moves it to Colin Burns
Princeton does a great job here of not making it easy to recover. They send two cutters, the first who occupies the recovering short stick, and the second who finds space to score.
Colin Burns has his head up, and Parker Reynolds times a cut while the defense is trying to get back to square.
Another great example of this concept would be drawing a switch in the two man game. When a team is able to get a SSDM matched up with an attackman or high profile midfielder, defenses are almost guaranteed to slide.
4/ Possession and Handling Pressure
Of course, we all know possession is important, but there were two key aspects of it that Coach Mitchell highlighted: handling pressure and working hard on the perimeter.
“A lot of guys like dodge hard to the paint, but if you dodge and hard, and you get slid too hard, you need to match your effort getting out that you had going in.”
Here is an awesome clip that displays this principle in action. Here, Nate Kabiri is going toe to toe with Brendan Staub, and Staub is all over him.
But Kabiri’s pace never slows and as he is running to free his hands to move the ball, he finds a sneaking Porter Malkiel to continue the onslaught of 3rd quarter goals.
Working hard on the perimeter is 100% under your control. Moving your feet to shorten passes, freeing your hands, getting to space to provide an outlet, all of this is effort based.
5/ Spacing and Creating Runways
“It’s that constant conversation of what space is available to us on the perimeter”
Spacing is something that shows up all over Princeton’s gameplay. It was something Coach Mitchell talked about throughout the podcast.
Every offense’s goal is to attack the same locations, and every defense’s goal is to defend those locations. Spacing in some ways becomes relative to how the defense is playing.
Are they packing it in, pressing adjacent, how much do they hedge, do they slide fast?
The Cornell SSDM shows to the ball, and Tucker Wade fades to the backside
One core concept he talks about is creating a good runway. This is the offensive equivalent of an approach, it is the dodging angle you set up.
Nate Kabiri working to setup a runway
He stresses “being able to catch the ball with a good runway into what's next.” By doing this, it allows players to see through the defense.
Nate Kabiri assist after the slide is drawn
He notes that there are different types of players. There are some that need a big runway, and some that do better in small spaces, or playing through contact (often Canadians / box players).
It is important for players to know what kind of dodger they are in order to set themselves up for success.
Wrapping Up — Connection
As we wrap it up today, remember that offense is collaborative. Players must stay connected through spacing, communication, ball movement, and understanding each other’s tendencies.
Coach Mitchell wants players contributing ideas and solving problems together.
This connection serves as the foundation for the entire program; it is what allows a principles based offense to function, rather than just six individuals following a script.
Until Next Time
Thanks for stopping by the office. If you are looking for a deeper dive, we have posted numerous videos on our Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube channels.
Stay tuned for more content and email us at [email protected] with any questions and let us know your thoughts.
🔒 Defensive Coaching Clinic: The Approach
Men’s FCL Defense Coach Clinic
🚨 Webinar Freebie 🚨
This week’s freebie is from our webinar with Coach Sammy Jo Tracy. Coach Tracy delivered a webinar centered around draw play in women’s lacrosse.
It is an extremely insightful webinar where Coach Tracy dives into everything from team strategy to personnel.
We wanted to highlight a segment where Coach Tracy discusses a great analogy for communicating where players should set up and try to guide the ball to!
🎙️ FCL PODCAST & COACH COMMUNITY
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🚀 Online Community
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It includes over 40 college coach webinars, 150+ drills for offense, defense, and full-team compete, as well as sessions focused on schemes and strategies.
🔦 COMMUNITY TOUR: Watch Community Tour Here.