HOF Insights- Approach to Big Games

What was your approach to “big games” during the regular season? Did you add things for these games? Did you tend to be more aggressive in your in-game decisions or play more conservatively? Did you pump up the team to make them aware it was a “big game” or did you treat it like “just another game?”

Greg King- Sterling

As everyone knows there are games on the schedule that are circled when the schedule comes out.  Maybe it is a rival or maybe it is an opponent that is going to be tough.  One of the first things is to not let high school kids look ahead.  Many times teams will look ahead and stub their toe because they are worried about the game the next week.  They are called trap games for a reason.  The athletes have to be focused on one game at a time.  

Now as a coach, I may have looked ahead a week or so to look at something they we could add to the game plan for the game in a couple weeks.  If it was something that would take a little time, I wanted to get as many reps as I could.  I would tweak things a little without adding things.  I would add a formation or two sometimes that they had not seen before.  The play(s) were the same, but I wanted to know what their adjustments would be.  If I could get them worrying about their alignment, they may not play as fast.  

When it came to game week, I wanted it to be like another week.  I would actually be more on edge against teams we were highly favored against.  On big game week,  I would have people on Monday say, “Are they ready to go?”  My answer on Monday was, “I hope not.”  I would get strange looks.  I wanted them to be ready on Friday at kickoff.  To keep that intensity for a week is not ideal.  In football, we put the game plan in on Monday.  Tuesday’s practice was usually the worst practice of the week as the adjustments you may have to make are not always the best.  As a coach you may have to throw somethings out because there is too much thinking involved. You want your athletes playing fast!  Ion games like this you had to make sure the little details throughout the week were corrected.  When we watched film of our previous week’s game we made sure our players understood, that if they did not do it correctly this week, it may cost us.  

These weeks were always the most fun for players, coaches, and fans.  Rivalries are needed.  I finally love that there is a rivalry between the Bears and Packers again!  BEAR DOWN

Thom Sigel- Rock Island

I am not sure I have some in-depth details on my perception of the "big" games or rivalry games.  The reason is because we tried to approach every game the same.  Players are smart and know that some games are different and take on a different energy level.  So it isn't like we were going to hide that from them by acting like it isn't a big game.  In fact, I am sure they would pick up on the coaches having a bit more energy and/or intensity during practices with maybe a few more details in the scouting report.  So that speaks to the fact that I think we probably spent some more time on scouts for those games.  However, I don't know that I coached too differently in those games with an exception here and there of mixing in smarkomething we hadn't used yet.

My philosophy was that we should do everything the same in order to create habits and not send messages to the team that we have to do more for a big game.  As I said, they already know which games are a little different.  So our staff wore suits every game.  It doesn't have to be a suit necessarily, but I know I saw coaches who would only pull a suit at some point during a deep postseason run and wondered if that had any impact on the team.  Also, we never had "_____ Week" for any games.  Again, I felt that sent a message that we were going to approach that week differently than other weeks.  As social media picked up, our guys would see "Rocky Week" for some games, and it would fire them up.

Jeff Parsons- Wethersfield, Fulton

Right, wrong or indifferent we always treated regular season games the same. To us nothing mattered but the post season. The regular season prepares you for the post season. We wanted to put our players in high leverage situations so that they were used to it when the post season rolled around. 

Obviously some games had more meaning during the regular season, but our preperation was always the same. Players were always aware when it was a rivalry game or a conference title was on the line. In our thoughts if you treated one game lesser than the other, we felt like it would be less important to the players. We wanted them to respect all fear none.  

The only thing we would change is we would not show our "full hand" with a team in the regular season that we could see in the post season. We would save a couple "curve balls" for the post season so teams had not had a chance to scout yet. We always felt as coaches that if we were uptight for a game then the players would be uptight. If we were relaxed our players would be relaxed. 

Our philosophy was to be the best version of ourselves everyday for a chance to get better daily and make deep runs in the postseason.

Greg Bennett- Lewistown

I always looked forward to the rivalry games on our schedule.  There  was definitely a much higher level of energy, tension, and focus, in the days preceding contests against close geographic or conference rivals.  (This was true in basketball, but it was much more evident for  football, largely due to having an entire week to prepare for one specific opponent.)

I tended not to “overhype” games against  rivals,  due to the fact that the players tended to  “self hype,” in preparation for contests against the kids from “just down the road.”  In addition to simple bragging rights, there was often the additional pressure of battling for traveling trophy items, such as The Stone Axe (Havana) or The Coal Trophy (Cuba/North Fulton).

From my stand point, the message I imparted to the players, in preparation for a rivalry contest, could run the gamut between the “big game” approach and the “just another game” approach.  Even though I myself was often excited to be playing a rival, I always looked at the significance of any individual game in connection to the “big picture” of the entire season.

If the game was going to have a direct connection  to a football playoff berth, basketball regional / sectional seeding, conference championship, etc., I would definitely go with a “big game/must win” approach toward motivating/coaching the players.  If the game didn’t have those additional factors on the line, I was much more likely to take a “just another game approach” for the contest, saving my “big hype,” for “more significant in the big picture” games in the future.  (Sometimes I did have to “reign myself in / dial myself back” emotionally, in situations that required a “just another game approach,” as I always wanted to DESTROY our “most hated” rivals.)

Evan Massey- Galesburg

First, it is important to have “big games” on your regular schedule. If you don’t have many “big games” on your schedule it means you are not very good or you are not playing a tough enough schedule. 

As a coach, I thought it was important to prepare for all the games the same way, whether you were going to play someone who was in last place in the conference or in first place. If you had more intense practices, were more demanding in practice, tried to fire the team up more in the pre-games, and had more detailed scouting reports for some games, and not for others- it was a bad message. For the “big games,” I wanted our players to have the feeling that this is how we approach all our games. 

We wanted the players to feel that going into big games that it was about Galesburg, not about the opponents. The focus needed to be on our execution. The bigger the game, the more we wanted to TRUST our stuff, our teammates, our preparation. We wanted players to realize that we did NOT need anything special- just do our thing.