From the Sidelines
As teams begin to transition to a postseason self-scout period and offseason planning, we are launching a 4-part offensive series focused on Personnel, Formations & Plays.
Series Lineup:
- (11/23) Building from Personnel
- (11/30) Formations, Simple Systems for Multiple Looks
- (12/7) Window Dressing with Motions & Shifts
- (12/14) Pulling together with your Base Plays
Installment #1: Building From Personnel
The foundation of every offense: Personnel (Players) > Formation > Plays
At every level of football, the fundamental truth remains unchanged: one man, moving another man, against his will. Scheme enhances these elements, never replaces them.
Elite coaches differentiate by creating systems that scale, and take advantage, of their personnel - not collections of isolated plays. Whether you recruit to your identify and system (college, NFL) or adapt your identify to your roster (youth, high school), offensive mastery begins with personnel clarity.
Why Personnel Must Lead your Offensive Approach:
Even experienced staffs can drift toward play-first thinking. Especially during the offseason where rosters change, coaches become deep into clinic season and staff's transition. The most disciplined programs continually re-center their focus on personnel because:
- You win with your best 11.
- You build around your top playmakers, beyond the "foundational 6"
- You deploy them into structures that maximize leverage.
- You call plays that make touches intentional, not by chance.
Plays matter. But having the right players in the right spots and knowing how they can impact the game matters far more. Our game is not play-driven, it's personnel driven.
Personnel Fundamentals:
Most staffs follow their own unique language, but the foundation remains the RB-TE designation:
- 10 Personnel = 1 RB, 0 TE, 4 WR
- 11 Personnel = 1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR
- 21 Personnel = 2 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR
- 22 Personnel = 2 RB, 1 TE, 1 WR
The concept is simple, creative application is where programs will separate themselves.
High-level offenses are often not defined by the base personnel designation, but instead how they creatively leverage the same personnel constructs to disguise, achieve matchup advantages and prioritize their top playmakers in play calling.
Step 1: Know the Strengths of your Foundational 6:
On offense, 6 positions are non-negotiable - 5 offensive lineman and 1 quarterback.
In higher levels of play, you can recruit or draft to your system. At lower levels, your system must adapt to your players.
Identifying the strengths/weaknesses of your Foundational 6 is the baseline for optimizing your remaining 5 playmakers.
For seasoned coaches, this evaluation goes well beyond surface level:
- What profile does your OL truly have?
- Where are your strong and weak points for run-blocking and pass-pro (edge, interior, knowledge of the game, communication, etc.)
- What is the profile of your QB?
- Can the process information, what is their capacity for movement, arm strength, risk profile?
From this understanding, your staff can identify what offensive concepts elevate your Foundational 6, and which concepts expose them.
Understanding what your Foundational 6 can and cannot support will define the broad framework of your offensive identify.
Step 2: Identifying your remaining Playmakers - "Top 10 Exercise":
Many staffs already rank their top players. The value of this exercise isn't just the list, it's the staff alignment it forces:
- Who are the true playmakers we need to generate touches for?
- Who thrives in specific roles, is flexible, or requires a specific structure for success?
- Who elevates others by alignment, motions or personnel groupings?
- Who demands planned touches vs. who's role should be primarily organic opportunities?
Once aligned as a staff, you can build personnel groupings, formation families and base plays that are intentional and repeatable.
Step 3: Find Your Erasers:
Erasers = game-changing players who can erase mistakes and can alter the shape of a defense.
Explosive plays remain one of the highest correlations to winning - even rivaling turnover margin. As a result, "Erasers" are critical.
Erasers can come from different positions and yield different results:
- A player who can score from 50+
- A WR with ball skills to win 50%+ of 1-on-1 matchups
- A RB who wears down a defense with 4-yard runs that turn into a 40-yard sprint in late game scenarios
- A player that individually forces defensive adjustments or prioritization
Not every roster has an Eraser every year. The key is knowing:
- who is
- who isn't
- what creativity is required to manufacture explosive plays for them
A ranked list of playmakers and identified Erasers can begin to shape an offense - built around an intentional allocation of touches and in-season play distribution. We will dive into this further in a future Offensive Game Planning series.
Now What - "Does Our Offense Fit Our Personnel?
We can now assess the question:
Does our current offensive structure give our top playmakers the right number of touches, in the right situations, at a sustainable frequency?
When you can answer yes, with a cohesive plan - your system begins to have an identity. If your answer is no, you can adapt with clarity against the personnel vision you are working towards.
Next comes the fun part: applying coaching creativity, adaptability and intuition to build upon your personnel groupings and maximize on-field position through a formation system.
Next Week's Installment: Formation Systems
We'll break down how successful staffs:
- Build an easily understood and highly flexible formation system
- Leverage multiple personnel groupings within a system to maximize top playmakers
- Manufacture ideal matchups with overloading your players with complexity
- Provide an example of a trusted formation system being leveraged at the high school & collegiate levels.
Share your Thoughts: We welcome insights from coaches at all levels - your perspective shapes our content. Email us any feedback, what works for you, or disagreements at football@coachtree.us.
- Team CoachTree
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