September 3, 2002
Learning plays is not an easy task. To look at a sketch you would think "no big deal, X goes here, Y goes there." Taking a step back, you then realize on any given play there are 11 different people (on your team alone) running different directions all at the same time. Throw in the defense and there is potential chaos. You need to be in the right place at the right time. For a running back, a hole is open one second and gone the next.
Take another step back and you realize there is not only one play to learn but fifty or sixty per position. For a lot of us it has been like learning a foreign language, "What do you mean Drag? ROB block, there's no ROB on our team!" Then just when you think it is starting to make sense the coach has a "great idea" for a new play that is similar to something else but "so and so just reverses roles." I finally found myself reverting to the old high school days of learning; making flashcards and taking my play book in bed to study at night.
An offense like ours is dependent on having quick reactions, "selling" fakes and creating a good mesh with others on every play. Selling fakes and good mesh, this lingo is standard football talk and yet sometimes when I say it I pause and think "I can't believe I'm using these terms in a serious conversation."
Needless to say it has taken some time to store all this information in my head. There are still times in the huddle where the quarterback calls a play and there are a bunch of blank stares and crinkled eyebrows. Eventually the plays will be automatic for us; we will get in the huddle, the QB will rattle off a play and we won't even have to think about it. Every practice brings us closer to this goal. You can see the confidence growing in the line, the receivers, the backs and QB. The studying is over, in just a few days we will have our first test.
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