What is the one unifying component that underpins the success of all the best coaches who have and still play this game? A Plan. In an eight-week (or so) series, I'm going to spend some time exploring what a Plan looks like and how to develop your own. What you won't find here is very specific advice - put this player in this depth chart slot; use only this kind of passing in this scenario; spend this much money on this recruit right out of the gate. That's actually of limited use. Give a man a fish, feed him once; teach a man to fish, and he'll overfish certain species to extinction. Or something. Instead, I'll provide my own brand of abstract guidance on how to develop, or fine-tune, a Plan. I hope you enjoy and find some value in my words.

The first article in the series is an overview of Have a Plan. It provides an introduction to the thought-process and utility of the Plan, as well as a landing page from which the subsequent eight articles will originate.

Have a Plan

Are you ready to make the jump into a world or to the next level up?

Have a Plan, Pt I - Team Selection

You've got your team. Now what? I'll tell you what now...

Have a Plan, Pt II - Roster Composition

You don't want those new players of yours to regress in their attributes, do you? Of course not. So go read

Have a Plan, Pt III - Practice Plans

So you've got your players, now where do you put them?

Have a Plan, Pt IV - Depth Charts

How do I get all those wonderful recruits to sign with me?

Have a Plan, Pt V - Recruiting

How do I score and stop my opponent from scoring?

Have a Plan, Pt VI - Game Planning

How do I figure out what my opponent is doing on offense and defense? How do I know what adjustments to make?

Have a Plan, Pt VII - Breaking Down Boxscores and PBPs

reserved

Really excited for this!

Super excited!

Thanks for putting time into this idea, Vince. Can't wait to read each edition:)

Part I is posted above. I've got a special request with this one, for those that have the time/interest...

Once you've read this, I'd love to hear your feedback. How was it? Was anything missing? Was this what you were expecting? Was it useful?

You can post here or sitemail me. Thanks!

Posted by vhoward415 on 3/3/2016 3:36:00 PM (view original):
Part I is posted above. I've got a special request with this one, for those that have the time/interest...

Once you've read this, I'd love to hear your feedback. How was it? Was anything missing? Was this what you were expecting? Was it useful?

You can post here or sitemail me. Thanks!

Hi Awesome piece. Here are some of my thoughts provoked by the piece: you talked about hidden value and I agree completely with its importance but it did seem to me that you were a bit too afraid of detailing how that expresses itself in practice. I know it is to a certain degree an abstract and adaptable concept, but I would have enjoyed some more examples of specific things one can look for. That said, it is useful particularly when one for example looks at the wilkinson maps and the coach distribution etc. For coaches who move up the first time to a specific division (my current case with DIAA in Warner, and likely to be the case in a few seasons in Wilk) it is hard to get a grasp though, of how many coaches a specific region of the country can sustain at each level even if you know how many coaches are where. For that you need to be able to juxtapost the coaches map over how many recruits are there, which is much more difficult information to properly understand at a new level. In other words finding hidden value very often requires that you already are in possession and have some understanding of 'hidden information' I.e. for example the distribution of recruits across the country (there is some info on it on some old message boards, but it will not be easy to find for many coaches, and it is not adapted to new times) or the development trajectory of certain player types (i.e. some poitions need more depth and/or development than others)