by Pete Carroll
Our topics for the day might include areas we needed to work on or notable moments from practice the day before. We might call out someone’s birthday or point out a notable academic accomplishment of one of our players. I loved to talk about sporting events and current national and world issues, especially if they could serve as educational moments. Another one of my favorite activities was to acknowledge and introduce notable visitors or former players who were on campus visiting the Trojans.
From a leadership perspective, these meetings were a great opportunity to connect. As a leader, I don’t see any benefit in maintaining a reserve or keeping a distance, the way some other coaches did when I was growing up. I wanted our players to feel my enthusiasm and the coaching staff’s enthusiasm and get geared up for the day. I wanted them to know that we cared and that the task ahead in practice was as much a chance for them to shine as any conference game. We spared no effort to make sure that our guys approached every practice as an opportunity and a challenge. I wanted them to see practice as something to look forward to with excitement and focus. When we did that properly, our practices were as competitive and fiery as any game.
Regardless of whatever we discussed or did in the team meeting, by the time we reached the practice field we were into serious business. Our players needed to channel the energy from the team meeting into an unshakably competitive state of mind so that they could take advantage of the practice opportunities.
Once practice began, everyone was expected to operate at full throttle. I wanted to practice at game speed. We would never allow for anything but full speed and full effort in games, and I wanted us to practice exactly like we played. I believe when you give athletes a chance to perform at varying levels of intensity, you offer an invitation for varying levels of performance. Once we transitioned from prepractice and team stretching to actual practice, I wanted everyone flying around the field. We liked to remind our players, “If you’re walking, you’re wrong!”
On-field practice was carefully scripted as a series of competitive events and situations, building step by step from the individual parts of the team to the whole. We would start with individual work, things like skill-developing drills, blocking and tackling, route running, throwing, and catching. From there we moved on through an ever-mounting series of one-on-one matchups, the wide receivers against the defensive backs, running backs versus the linebackers, offensive line against the defensive line, and so on, getting more and more players involved.
Playing and practicing with “great effort” was one of the hallmarks of our program. The position coaches would lead their groups, but the whole time the coordinators and I were running around the field from drill to drill, letting everyone know how closely we were watching their effort. One of the reminders for our coaches was to “critique effort first,” meaning they were to look at the effort the players were demonstrating before critiquing assignments and techniques.
One of the ways we would heighten the atmosphere of competition was by making sure our players were matched up against the teammates who would challenge them the most. It’s one thing for coaches to talk about how we expect players to compete, but it’s another to put them in actual situations where they must compete. Our goal was for our players to face tougher opposition on our practice field than they would encounter in games. As we went through our practices, our best offense would match up against our best defense as much as possible. By pitting the best against the best we would force our players to maximize their potential in an environment we controlled.
We made a big deal out of these matchups. We wanted to raise the competitive bar as high as possible and create a “competitive cauldron.” That’s a phrase coined by Anson Dorrance, the legendary women’s soccer coach at the University of North Carolina. If you don’t follow soccer and haven’t heard of him, Dorrance is one of the true coaching legends in sports. In thirty-one years as head coach at UNC, he has led his Tar Heels to twenty national championships. As of last season, his teams were 696-36-22 and he has set the bar in college soccer. Talk about Winning Forever!
Anson and I met for the first time in 2005, when both of us had the chance to visit the White House after our teams won national championships. I had been an admirer of his for years and had read his book long before I went to USC. What you want to do on the practice field, he wrote, is to create a “competitive cauldron” where the players are constantly in a gamelike state, competing for even the smallest wins. Instead of just doing drills, you keep score as much as possible. You make it so somebody wins and somebody loses.
After every practice, Dorrance’s staff would post the scores of the day. Dorrance would watch to see how the players responded: Who would be driven to change and improve, and who would argue about whether the scores were fair? The actual results weren’t so important. It was a way for him to drive home the point that you have to compete. You have to focus during every moment of practice or you’ll get your butt kicked. There are no choices: you’re either competing or you’re not!
I adopted Dorrance’s approach for a number of reasons. As a motivational tool, it helped us make sure the players were practicing at a very high level. If our overall job is helping our players be the best they can be, a huge part of that is orchestrating an environment where they are receptive to and ready for what we have to give them. Keeping the competition at a fever pitch is an incredibly powerful tool in this regard.
No one wanted to be the one who got beaten, but unfortunately on our practice field that happened every day. We kept score during everything—one-on-ones, seven-on-seven passing drills, and our team period. We even created a scoring system. For instance, during seven-on-seven the offense got one point for a completion, while the defense was awarded two points for an incompletion. Either side could get three points on a touchdown pass or an interception.
During the team period, we would keep score in every way we could think of: first-and-ten situations, second-and-shorts, third-and-longs, and so on. We often varied what happened at the end as much as we could to keep things interesting and make those victories feel significant. Bragging rights were a given, and the guys loved to get after one another. We practiced with real officials, but even so, there were constant arguments over who had won each play. I loved it when the outcome of the overall practice came down to the last play of the day.
In 2002, on a mid-October afternoon, the energy of practice reached new heights on the Howard Jones Practice Field at USC. During our final team period of the day, our offense lined up in a pro set, one wide receiver on each side of the formation. As the ball was snapped, Carson Palmer handed it off to one of our running backs. Simultaneously, Sandy Fletcher, a receiver, took a direct path toward Troy Polamalu, our All-American safety and captain. Just as Troy was racing toward the ball carrier to make the tackle, Sandy appeared out of nowhere and absolutely blindsided Troy. It was a hit that made the offense run around and cheer wildly and one that stoked the defense’s fire even more.
From that point on, Troy simply took over. He made every tackle, racing from one side of the field to the other, and not just getting in on every tackle but being sure to make his presence felt on every single snap. He was delivering crushing blows to running backs, dishing out forearm shivers to offensive guards and putting them on their backs, and doing it all with a look of extreme focus that made me somewhat concerned for the offensive players’ safety. Troy was proving a point: You may get me once when I’m not looking, but you will never get another shot like that. It became such a scene on the practice field, as Troy was literally making every play, that I ended up calling practice early because we didn’t want him or our other players to get hurt. Nonetheless, it was a great example of how intense it got from sideline to sideline on our practice field at USC.
We would always strive to create continuity and consistency. We were even very careful to be precise with our language and terminology. I don’t like synonyms and varied definitions when it comes to terminol
ogy. If you want to communicate effectively, you need to be clear with the words you use.
We also recognized the need for a certain amount of variety. You cannot coach for very long without recognizing that routine, though necessary for success, can sometimes become monotonous.
Routine is enormously helpful in teaching players essential fundamentals. If you practice something consistently enough, when the critical moment comes in a game, the players will be able to perform without tightening up. They will be comfortable with the situation and make the right decisions. But if you believe in the importance of practice, as I do, you also know that you have to always keep your players interested and fully engaged. You can’t just do the same thing practice after practice or the players will lose interest.
All coaches face this problem in one way or another. Too little routine and the message doesn’t get through; too much, and your players can get worn out. Finding the right balance and emphasis is critical for keeping practices fresh and players focused.
The way we handled it at USC was to have a different theme for each day of the week during the season.
“Tell the Truth Monday” was the day when we got our entire team on the same page in terms of what had occurred in our last game. Who performed well and who didn’t? Why did the game go as it did and what should we take away from this game experience? It was imperative on this day that we think and speak as one and move ahead in harmony.
We asked ourselves: Did we protect the football? Were we physical? Did our defense swarm to the football? If we had not accomplished our goals, we discussed why that had occurred and how to fix it. We had to address the issues, make corrections, and move on to the next game. It was always good for our players because they had been taught that the tape doesn’t lie. As the years went on, Mondays were always great days for our program. They were when we plugged back into who we were and that enabled us to refocus for the week. After talking about the game, we would always show the players a few minutes of TV clips because they loved to hear the announcers and listen to the pageantry surrounding their performance.
Following the overview, the special teams coordinator would address each phase of the kicking game before the team broke into two groups, offense and defense. There, each respective coordinator would delve into greater detail of the truth about the past game. After breaking into specific position meetings to review game film, we would have an hour-long practice. There we would begin with a special teams segment followed by an introduction to our next opponent that involved practicing twenty plays against the base offensive and defensive looks we expected that week. We finished “Tell the Truth Monday” with twenty more plays of eleven on eleven where we split our squad into two groups. On one side of the field the starters on offense competed against the starters on defense, and on the other side of the field, the younger players practiced the same script as the upperclassmen.
I loved to observe the younger players, as this was a big day for them. It was also important for our younger coaches, as I would assign one on offense and one on defense to call the plays and act as the offensive and defensive coordinators. By doing that, we kept a high level of focus across the practice field and started the week off with great tempo.
Our staff would finish Monday by catching glimpses of Monday Night Football, usually cheering for one or more of our former players, while making recruiting calls and finalizing our base game plan for the week.
“Competition Tuesday” was the day we celebrated the central theme in the program—competition. We emphasized creating a great level of competition for the upcoming practice, with minimal attention paid to our opponent and the upcoming game. We accentuated the competitive matchups between individual players, position groups, and the offense and defense.
It all kicked off in our 9:00 A.M. staff meeting. There I would typically prod an assistant or two about competing. Sometimes I’d call out Ken Norton Jr. and his linebackers, who would be going up against Todd McNair and his running backs during the pass protection period, or get Pat Ruel riled up so he would get his offensive linemen to compete against Jethro Franklin’s defensive line. While it may seem somewhat silly, each coach carried so much pride with his position group that he would bring the competitive mentality that I had fueled in the staff meeting earlier in the day to the team and individual position meetings.
In our team meeting we would sometimes have “matchups of the day,” where I would ask a receiver whom he wanted to go against in one-on-ones and he would call out a cornerback, or a defensive lineman would call out an offensive tackle. Sometimes our coaches would call out one another, and that always jacked up the squad.
This was a lot of fun for everyone, but the beauty of Competition Tuesday was not only the one-on-one matchups but the focus it created on that particular day. Tuesday was our largest day of installation of the game plan and the most mentally taxing day of the week. By placing the focus on competition instead of the opponent, Competition Tuesday allowed us to direct our attention on getting better that day. It allowed them to remain focused on one play and one practice period at a time. Of course, we would be sure to play the film of each one of those matchups the next day in our meeting, and the amount of trash-talking among not only the players but the coaches was classic!
“Turnover Wednesday” was completely dedicated to the factor we believed most determines the outcome of football games, turnovers. USC won fifty-three straight games when we had a positive turnover ratio. Simply stated, when we created just one more turnover than our opponent, we were unbeatable. Long before this string was established, the first words out of my mouth when addressing our team each fall and each spring were always “It’s All About the Ball!” I would follow that with a passionate presentation of how important the ball is in determining the outcomes of games. I reminded them that it is every player’s number one responsibility to take care of the football accordingly.
If you’re on offense, you do everything in your power to protect the football at all times—including the running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and of course the decision maker, the quarterback. Even the offensive line must have an undying commitment to protect the ball at all times.
On defense, our sole objective was to get the ball. Every defensive call we made, every technique, every assignment, everything we did was designed to position our players to attack and get the ball from our opponents.
Turnover Wednesday was an entire day dedicated to taking care of and going after the football. On the practice field, Wednesday’s competition was fixed on the ball. If the defense could get one turnover from the offense, they won that day. If the offense could secure the ball all day, with no interceptions and no fumbles lost, then they won that day. Spurred on by the coaches, this was a fierce competition all the way up to the final play in practice. It was an awesome day of the week on the field, but postpractice was almost as much fun.
Wednesday night was designated “Family Night” for our staff, and we had the opportunity to spend about thirty minutes hanging with our kids on the field throwing the football, playing games, and just having fun. It was great when the families could eat dinner together and get quality time with one another. The players also looked forward to this time when they could see their coaches’ kids and understand the demands of this profession. They were always out on the field running around with the kids, enjoying themselves. That night was also our final night to make major game-plan adjustments, so when we walked out of the office we all had a good feeling heading into Thursday morning.
“No Repeat Thursday” was meant to emphasize the execution and precision of our weekly game plan. Practice was shorter on Thursday, with great focus on doing things right. All kicking game phases were emphasized along with a near-flawless demonstration of the game plan to such a precise level of performance that no plays needed to be repeated. Hence the name “No Repeat Thursday.” I wanted to leave the practice field Thursday, our last workday of the week, knowing we we
re ready to perform at a championship level. I would do everything I could to convince our players they were worthy of “knowing” that they were ready to perform.
For coaches, Thursday was the greatest day of the week. Not only were the game plan and call sheet completed, but it was also their night off. Immediately after practice, the coaches would race to the locker room to quickly shower before heading home to see their kids, maybe have a “date night” with their wives, or just get away from work for a few hours. I’m a huge believer in balance, and as hard as it is to create during the season, we did our best to sneak away and be with our families for pockets of time. Being the head coach, I would typically be the last one to leave on Thursday, as I always wanted to see the practice film, but when I would get out of the office, I would hurry home to spend some time with my family.
“Review Friday” was our final on-field practice session and the last opportunity for all position groups to clean up issues and perfect their performance for game day. This was our most disciplined and regimented practice, where we paid strict attention to the fine details.
For our staff, Friday was all about proving to our players that they knew they were going to win and that we had earned the right to feel that way. We relied on our practice efforts during the week to lead us to this mentality, and we looked toward Review Friday to finalize the week.
The energy in the team meetings on Fridays was unparalleled. The players began the day with a variety of chants, songs, and dances. It was not always like this, but the run of championships bolstered the excitement in that room. We wanted to celebrate the upcoming weekend. Yet when we locked in and began to talk about the agenda for the day, the seriousness was palpable. It was usually less than twenty-four hours before kickoff.
