Teaching Players the Game: Football IQ, Situational Awareness, and Practice Systems

On The Coaching 101 Podcast, hosts Daniel Chamberlain and Kenny Simpson open with season updates and playoff goals, then share a James Clear quote about falling to the level of systems and habits. Simpson promotes his Fieldhouse sessions, including a previous discussion on halftime procedures and an upcoming one on weekend coaching duties, before sponsor mentions for Ace Sports, Winning Edge Performance Analytics, and Blended Threads. The main topic is how much football players should understand beyond their assignments, emphasizing scheme fit, situational football, “if-then” adjustments, and knowing where they can’t get beat, while recognizing different players can handle different amounts of information. They discuss why coaches often overcomplicate or oversimplify, the funneling of scouting data to key players, and how to develop diagnosis through film, real practice scenarios, scrimmages, games, and asking players what they saw before correcting. 00:00 Podcast Kickoff 00:43 Season Check In 02:58 Scheduling And Peaking 04:35 Quote On Systems 06:23 Fieldhouse Coaching Clinic 08:34 Sponsors And Tools 10:34 Teaching Football IQ 13:12 Beyond Assignments 14:25 Scheme Situations If Then 23:05 Pre Snap Post Snap Reads 24:52 Pre and Post Snap Vision 26:06 O Line Processing Keys 27:30 Too Much vs Too Little 29:32 Differentiating Player Load 32:46 Learning Through Failure 36:10 Why Coaches Oversimplify 37:46 Teaching Diagnosis by Reps 41:56 Ask What They Saw 48:07 Progression From Board to Team 48:50 Sponsors and Wrap Up Daniel Chamberlain: @CoachChamboOK [email protected] chamberlainfootballconsulting.com Kenny Simpson: @FBCoachSimpson [email protected] FBCoachSimpson.com