Yesterday, while collecting equipment, somehow one of my assistant coaches and I got on the topic of Geoff Collins and he pointed out something interesting Collins said during a presser heading into Georgia Tech's game against Notre Dame last weekend.
Whether you're a head coach, a coordinator, or an assistant coach, we all have our own processes when we cue up the week's opponent heading into a game.
A lot of coaches prefer to start by watching the game from beginning to end, which seems to give a good feel for the flow of the game and the situations encountered. This is the category I find myself in.
Others prefer to cue up the opposite side of the ball right away and get into filling in the data, fully buying into the belief that the information gathered from reports run from that information is where the game plan is going to come from.
But for Geoff Collins, he cues up two specific things when he gets film on an opponent, and they're both units from special teams.
Why?
"Here are the first two things that I turn on as the head football coach. I turn on PAT / FG block to see how their defense responds to a PAT / FG block situation when it is the one play specifically designed to give points. I want to see how they play on that unit - the passion, the desire, how they can bounce back from something bad happening to them, or having to rise the occasion to try and block the field goal. So I be sure to watch that unit."
"The next unit that I watch is the kickoff coverage unit. When you turn on Notre Dame's kickoff coverage, I think they average 235 pounds on the kickoff coverage unit. They run down the field, they are physical, they are aggressive, they're athletic."
The video may be from last week, but what Collins says about why he turns on those two units is important for coaches to hear.