More than 300 Georgia high school football coaches scattered the sidelines for the final day of Falcons OTAs.
“We felt like we wanted to change it up somewhat this year,” said head coach Mike Smith.
Each of the previous five years that the Falcons have held coaching clinics, coaches arrived in the late afternoon and did not get the opportunity to watch practice first hand. Smith’s idea to allow the coaches more interaction resulted in the clinic’s highest-ever turnout.
As the final horn of OTA’s sounded, coaches gathered for lunch and Smith’s opening of the clinic.
The high school coaches were given four different sessions they could attend. Offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter covered a session on game planning and talked about film study and preparation. Defensive coordinator Mike Nolan covered defensive vision and goals. Nolan talked about finding an identity and scheme to fit personnel and how to set goals as a unit.
Special teams coordinator Keith Armstrong illustrated the art of the kickoff return. Armstrong covered the league’s recent rule changes and different ways they have adapted in order to prevent running lanes for the return team.
Strength and conditioning coaches Beauchemin and Neibel went over different Olympic movements and talked about form and equipment. The duo also covered how to properly use FMS testing (Functional Movement Sytstems). The FMS test has become a way to discover and prevent injuries in athletes based on the balance and stability of their movement.
Going to a coaching clinic is something that nearly every coach does. The amount of football knowledge available at a clinic is too invaluable not to and Smith knows this first hand. Before Smith took the Atlanta Falcons head coaching job in 2008, he had already become involved with the Georgia High School coaching family. While coaching at Morehead State and Tenneseee Tech for over 12 years, Smith frequently travelled to the Atlanta area to recruit. His visits to the Peach State allowed him to interact with its coaches and taught him things that he says he will always keep with him. Two weeks after Smith left Jacksonville to become the Falcons’ new head coach, he was already reconnecting with the Georgia high school coaches at a clinic at the Cobb Galleria.
“I had recruited this city of Atlanta and the surrounding area for a number of years so I was excited to be able to spend some time with them and listen to some of the clinicians,” said Smith.
Smith sees the importance of high school football to the NFL and calls it the pipeline of their league. He believes that the better high school football is in the country, the better the NFL talent and the atmosphere becomes. Even more of Smith’s respect for high school football is aimed towards Georgia’s coaches in particular, as he believes they are the best in the country.
“Some of the best clinicians I’ve ever heard speak at clinics are high school coaches,” admitted Smith. “And high school coaches in Georgia are I think the most technically sound coaches in the United States. I’ve been to clinics all over the country and there is not a group that is more attentive than Georgia high school coaches.”
One of the coaches that attended the clinic has been on both sides of the sideline at Falcons OTAs. Kevin Shaffer was drafted by the Falcons in 2002 and played there for four seasons before ending his career in 2010 with the Bears. Shaffer fell in love with the organization and Atlanta area when he met his wife here during his playing days, and took the head coaching job at Hebron Christian Academy this past offseason.
“I was here for four years and I always enjoyed my time here,” said Shaffer. “I thought that Arthur Blank did an awesome job at bringing the families together. He [Blank] would have get-togethers at his house and have receptions after the game. As far as a family-friendly environment, this is the best team that ever did that in my career.”
Shaffer believes that as a coach, you look to the most successful teams at the most competitive level of football and try to mimic how they do things.
“To have a head coach like Mike Smith that is willing to open his doors to high school coaches, give us all a free lunch and teach us for free is huge, and it speaks for the character and integrity of all the [Falcons] coaches,” said Shaffer.
As to what the coaches will learn from watching such a successful franchise hard at work, Shaffer said that the tempo and speed of practice is the main thing that high school coaches want to see.
“We want to see how they do periods during practice, their warmups, their walk-thrus and all that. They do things full speed. They will teach you and you will do a walk thru, but then when the drill starts it is at full speed. We want to see how they do that.”
Staffs visited from as far away as Beach High School and South Effingham High School in Savannah and Dodge County High School outside Macon to bring back some of this knowledge to their programs.
“This is just one of many events,” Smith said. “We have about five a year where we try to focus on the high school players and the high school coaches.”
One of the offseason’s most fun events will come when the Falcons scrimmage the Tennessee Titans at Gainesville High School in early August. More than 12,000 people packed Peachtree Ridge’s stadium last year to watch the annual Kia Friday Night Lights scrimmage.
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