Ultimate Frisbee Strategy/Coaching
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Ultimate Frisbee Strategy/Coaching
Welcome. This site is primarily about coaching ultimate frisbee and ultimate frisbee strategy, but we pretty much talk all things involving running after a piece of plastic.
Have a question or suggestion for a future post? Tell me about it here.
Looks like it's gonna be Al over Jim...who knew?
Open Seeds
Next Year versus Right Now
On game tape
On subbing
CCC
Chain at Nationals
Obligatory AC Regional Write-Up
One Coach's Plan for a Semester
What strategy?
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
May 2006
November 2006
April 2007
May 2007
October 2007
April 2008
Parinella's Blog
Count's Blog
Frisbee Spew
Looks like it's gonna be Al over Jim...who knew?
So, I make a brief return to posting just to express my surprise at the state of the blogosphere. In the early days (pre-ultimate talk) it seemed like most of the blogs were going to follow the Parinella model, polite and respectful. George's blog, Zaz's blog, and Marshall's blog all seemed to follow that model. Even Idris' blog and this blog, which preceded Parinella's blog (and aren't quite as milk-toast as Jim's blog) utilized a similar tone.But the recent addition of this blog has got me thinking. The new popular ultimate blogs (Match Diesel's and Karlinsky's) have followed the Count's Blog model--they're irreverent and usually pretty funny. Match Diesel's Blog is even sporting the Count's trademark flames. I thought I was just imagining this trend until I saw Parinella post some of the old T-Man stuff in an obvious attempt claim these new wild blogs as his own. I'm not fooled though...looks like it's Al over Jim in the battle for the future of ultimatetalk. aj...Luke's blog continues to resist categorization.
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posted by AJ | 8:06 PM
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8 comments
 
Open Seeds
Experience has taught us that the single best indicator for success at nationals is the results of the previous year’s nationals. This isn’t a new idea; we’ve known this for as long as I’ve been playing. What’s interesting is that the previous year’s results have become and increasingly smaller factor in determining seeding. I think there are a few reasons for this: 1) the format gurus (ok, mostly just Tarr) have convinced us that seeds aren’t meant to be predictive 2) we now have access to a lot more regular season results 3) we have been influenced by the method for seeding college – where the amount of turnover makes the previous years results a lot less indicative of success. Another factor which seems to be completely ignored is when teams bring less that full-strength squad to tournaments. From the standpoint of creating an algorithm, it’s not clear how you account for this. However, in ignoring the strength of the team that actually showed up to a tournament we are throwing away usual information. I guess what I’m suggesting is that by not considering these two factors, our seeding is not as good as it could be—Chain has been in a pool with 2 semi-finalists the last 3 years. I will say the format at Club nationals is the best at minimizing the effects of initial seeding, but I think it’s naïve to claim that seeding doesn’t matter at nationals. For these and other reasons, I’ve argued before that it might be time for the UPA to get rid of the prohibition on not seeding a team above a team it finished lower than at a series event. That being said, here’s my shot at seeding:The Top 3Due to the above mentioned prohibition, there are 3 possible ways to seed the top 3. 1)Jam, Sockeye, Bravo. 2)Bravo, Jam, Sockeye, 3) Jam, Bravo, Sockeye. The third way makes the least sense to me. If you’re willing to say that Bravo’s season entitles them to a higher ranking than Sockeye, then certainly Bravo’s 3-1 record against Jam should entitle than to the 1 seed. That being said, I prefer the first seeding. I think you have to give credit to Jam for winning the hardest region. 4Furious – the team has been in at least the semis for 8? years. Was strong at ECC before losing to Jam. 5 Sub Zero, If Goat wins NE regionals they are the obvious 5 seed, I think there loss pushes Zero up to 5. They’ve had a good season, only losing to teams above them with the exception of 1 loss to Goat. 6-96)Boston, 7)Goat, 8)Ring, 9)Condors. I honestly have no idea how to seed this group. Ring is 2-0 against Boston and 0-2 against Goat. Condors has no head-to-head games with this group. I’m gonna go with this seeding to avoid regional re-matches, but I think any shuffling within this group can be justified. 10-12The three teams in this grouping are Rhino, Doublewide, and Truckstop. Rhino has a four point win over Doublewide, and Truckstop has a one point win over Rhino. I’m going to going to give credit to Rhino for making quarters last year and generally having a slightly better season than Truckstop, despite the 1 point Truckstop win. 10)Rhino, 11)Doublewide, 12)Truckstop.13-It’s kind of strange for me to say that Chain should be the 13 seed. This is the sixth year in a row Chain has been to nationals, and this will be the lowest we’ve ever been seeded. This, despite the fact they we’re coming off our best year ever, and added several strong players. 14-1614) Machine – featuring a bunch of guys who wish they still played for Chain, and some new guy from the west coast. 15) Pike – the comeback kids. 16) Van Buren Boys – we were all a little nervous about the poor spirit in the mixed division spilling over into open when these guys decided to make the switch. After regionals, it seems like our fears were justified. That gives me the following (obviously correct) seeds:1. Jam2. Sockeye3. Bravo4. Furious5. Sub Zero6. Boston7. Goat8. Ring9. Condors10. Rhino11. Doublewide12. Truck Stop 13. Chain14. Machine15. Pike16. Van Buren Boys
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posted by AJ | 9:55 AM
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19 comments
Next Year versus Right Now
I think it is harder to win a college title that it is to win the UPA championships. It feels like the open and womens divisions of club are inertial. It takes some time for a team to build up some inertia, but after that they can just keep rolling until they run out of steam and get replaced. In the college game you only have 5 years, and you are stuck with the players you have (much harder to transfer than just move cities).With that in mind I feel that as a college coach I am always thinking about next year. Who is going to be picking up the disc? Who is going to be our defensive stopper? etc. So to what extent should a coach let that affect how they play their players at nationals?We need to develop our talent for next year, but at the same time we have a good team and could potentially make a run and go deep . . . but probably not win. My current mindset comes from something that I think Jim wrote about DoG at Nationals. On day 1 you just want to make it to your power pool. Day 2 you want to win one game. That will put you in the semis while avoiding a play-in, and at that point you have given yourselves a chance and it is time to start playing your best. I think at college nationals, if you have a shot of winning the pool you take it, but really you are playing to finish 2/3 and be in a preQuarter game. All the preQs are 2 v 3 games so the talent level shouldn't be that different if you come in at 3 versus coming in a 2. After winning your preQuarter game then you've given yourself a chance to win some big games.So is the mindset to make sure you win your 1/2 games on Friday to advance then focus on talent development with the other 2/1 games for next year? Does having a large freshman class make the subbing lean more towards development for a future chance at the title? Does having a big senior class mean putting it all on the line with those players to give them their one big chance? How much of an affect does worrying about a strength bid have on the decisions? I know these are all subjective to the team, but I would like to hear other people's thoughts/experiences on the subject. Thanks.
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posted by Martin | 12:02 PM
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4 comments
On game tape
I love watching game tape. Being a mostly defensive coach my goal is almost always to see what offenses a team runs, what they do with their dumps, who their main cutters are (and how they cut) and how they respond to a zone. This weekend at regionals we will be watching tape on saturday night in preparation for sunday play. I was wondering what other things people have found useful to focus on while watching tape. I feel that game tape us under utilized in ultimate, not only because there isn't as much of it, but more because people either aren't looking for the right things, or aren't translating what they see into coaching points for their players well. Ideas?
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posted by Martin | 12:40 PM
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6 comments
On subbing
I wonder if other coaches think about the psychological aspect of their subbing players when they call subs. We currently have a situation that I am waffling on and the reason why is because it is a situation where I think we should not play one of our best players on offense (reference Idris' post from a while ago?). I have a player that is very good on both sides of the disc. She is a fast cutter who doesn't tire easily and she plays intelligent D. She is easily amongst our top seven players, however I find myself wanting to take her off of the starting O line because she is somewhat prone to drops. At the same time she also makes great catches at key moments. My raionale is that she will be much more effective as a defensive starter who is expected to jump start the offense and move the disc on a turn that she would be as an offensive cutter. The team has plenty of offensive cutters, so she would be a tertiary target at best, but aside from that I wonder if her dropping the disc would have a lesser impact if we had already gotten a D.On offense her drops can seem catastrophic since there is so much more pressure to score without a turnover. This leads to a stressful situation which I think increases her likeliness to drop the disc. On defense, while her drops may be costly, they shouldn't have the enormous impact they do on the other side of the disc because of the idea that defense doesn't have to be perfect. This should reduce the stress she feels and probably improve her catching.So I guess the discussion I'm trying to start is whether or not anyone pays attention to their players generic mental state when scheming for that player or if people focus on putting their best players in at the most important times? Hell, if any discussion starts on this blog it would be a miracle.
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posted by Martin | 12:14 PM
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4 comments
CCC
So I began my college men’s coaching career this weekend at CCC. After a first round loss to Ohio State, Barrett informed me that the alumni were restless. One loss and the UGA alumni are already calling for my head – a slightly different scenario than when I started with the Emory women, a team that had never won a game at sectionals. In those days, I received congratulatory emails from the alumni following every tournament.We have only had 1 week of practice and this weekend really made me realize just how different coaching here is going to be. At this point, I could insert some generic comments about how different it is coaching men instead of women. But really, the main difference is that I’m coming into an already established program with a lot of players that already know how to play. My last couple of years at Emory, every player on the team had learned almost all of what they knew about ultimate from me and the other coaches. They all had been trained since they started to play in the Emory system and it was therefore pretty easy to make adjustments during the game. As I tried to explain to Barrett after our first round loss – you can’t really blame me – it’s not my fault Stu can’t recruit. In all seriousness, it is going to be a substantial challenge to convert these players into doing things the way I think they should be done. There is also the question of whether it would be more prudent to just leave things as they are given the recent success of the program. Honestly, I don’t know – obviously my belief is that the way I do things is better otherwise that wouldn’t be the way I do things…but if the team crashes and burns this year I’ll deserve all of the blame.In general, I was pretty pleased with the level of effort from the men this weekend. They really do play incredibly hard. I think if we can clean up the offense a little bit, we’re gonna be pretty darn good.My general thoughts about the weekend – Wisconsin is for real. This is probably surprising to exactly zero people, but I was incredibly impressed with them. There man-to-man defense was disgusting and they’re shockingly disciplined with the disc. I haven’t seen the west-coast teams yet, but it seems like right now the Hodags have to be the early favorites to win this year. Colorado also looks really good. The loss of Adam Simon is definitely noticeable, but they’re very big and athletic – they will create match-up nightmares for anyone.I only got a chance to watch the semis and finals on the women’s side. Emory is greatly improved after a coaching change. Their top end players are exceptional and they have a few solid role players. Of course, I believe their system is strong. Their depth is still a big question though. In terms of the AC right now it looks like once again it’s some order of Georgia, Florida and Emory at the top. On the national scene, Wisconsin looked very good to me. Stanford seems to be in something of a rebuilding year, but it’s Stanford so they’ll be good.
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posted by AJ | 6:45 PM
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3 comments
Chain at Nationals
There will undoubtedly be those who consider Chain’s success at nationals a fluke. Those who think Chain’s run was legitimate might still say that a single tournament is too small of a sample size to draw any worthwhile conclusions. I think both of these criticisms are at least potentially reasonable – let that serve as a caveat for what follows.I think Chain’s success at 2006 Nationals was primarily the result of two strategic principles. The first is that relentless (perhaps reckless) aggression is a powerful strategy. The second is that the point at which the replacement value of a fresh tier two player exceeds the value of a fatigued tier one is somewhat closer to 60% of points played (for the tier one player) rather than 50% of points played.In an earlier post, I defended the value of relentless aggression. There my argument was basically two-fold. First, I argued that The Rule demands that all things being equal, a player should throw a longer pass rather than a shorter pass. 2) I also made the more controversial claim the advantageous implications of the huck extend beyond the calculation of giving your team the highest percentage chance of scoring this goal. This claim is based on the fact that once a team believes you are crazy enough to huck at any point they will over commit to protecting the deep cut opening up the underneath. The nice thing about this second point is that it can extend to later games in a tournament/season without your team even having to bear the burden of the additonal turnovers early in a game. I think FG and Sockeye both currently benefit from (2) due to their reputation as mindless huckers.In any event, we (the blogosphere, although not sure I’m still a member) have had this discussion and I don’t mean to rehash old territory. Another facet of our relentless aggression was an insistence on forcing the disc upfield whenever possible. A dump has to be considerably higher percentage than a 20 yard gainer if the dump is to be justified by The Rule. Honestly, I still don’t think HnH is optimal in perfect conditions, but this year’s nationals was far from perfect conditions. I think that anyone arguing that a possession style offense is optimal in this year’s conditions (with the exception of Sunday) is either bad at math or simply not being honest with themselves.The second strategic principle can basically be restated as “you should play your studs more than you are now.” Jim posted on this subject with some fictional numbers a while ago, I’m too lazy to find the link now, sorry. At early tournaments this year we had three considerable comebacks at the end of games when we just put in our top 7 for several points in a row. This led us to make the conscious decision to play our studs more at nationals. It sounds pretty obvious, but the current dominant strategy of splitting O/D has led a lot of top players to play only about 50 percent of the points. In most situtaions, your studs could play more than 50 percent of the points without fatigue impacting their play to the extent that it would make sense to put in your next tier of player.
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posted by AJ | 6:33 PM
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5 comments
Obligatory AC Regional Write-Up
Wow. I can’t believe this is my first post of 2006 – it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long since I’ve blogged. My absence is mostly attributable to two factors: 1) I haven’t had much to say 2) I’ve been insanely busy. I do have a few ideas for some new posts though, and Wood is probably getting pumped about some sort of silly coed nonsense, so hopefully it won’t be another five months before the next post. Alright, onto the obligatory regionals write-up…Coming into regionals I thought that Florida and Georgia were clearly a step ahead of the rest of the region. The format definitely favored the Ho-Dawgs because Florida’s long bench becomes less of an advantage when the finals are the first game of the day. I expected that we (Emory) would be battling with UNC on Sunday for the third bid to nationals. I thought that NC State, Wake Forest and UVA would all be fighting to be alive on Sunday, but probably weren’t strong enough to finish in the top 3. As it turned out, I had definitely underestimated both Wake and State – both teams are very gritty – playing tough D and embracing the power of the long ball.On Saturday we came out and took care of Davidson pretty quickly setting up a quarterfinals match-up with UVA. UVA is the one strong team in the AC region I have no career wins over and I was a little nervous when we only took half 8-7. We made a couple of defensive adjustments in the second half and were able to finish them off 15-9. Andrea Duran is huge for them and would definitely be on my all region ballot (if I got to vote).That meant we were matched up with Florida in the Semis. Both teams were relatively clean offensively and the game only lasted 85 minutes – Florida 15 Emory 10. I actually thought we played pretty well in the game, but they were just too good. Florida doesn’t have the superstars that UGA does, but they are a lot more consistent. I could see UGA finding a way to lose in pre-quarters at natties or getting hot and making a run to finals. On the other hand, I think Florida is a very solid quarters team that could make semis with the right quarters match-up.The biggest news from Saturday was definitely the earlier UNC elimination. Troy posted on RSD about the surprising UNC losses here. I was able to watch a decent chunk of both games, and I don’t really have much to add. I can’t say that I agree that UNC has the regions strongest starting 7, but I do agree that Hack is the scariest all around player in the region. UNC definitely didn’t look to be playing as well as I had seen them play earlier in the season, but you’ve got to give a lot of credit to both Wake and NC State. Both teams did a great job of gumming up UNC’s throwing lanes and then coming down with big huck after big huck. In any event, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pulling for NC State to take down UNC in the last game of the day on Saturday.The format on Sunday basically requires you to go 3-1 to claim the third bid to the show. There’s not much advantage to losing in one round over another because you’re going to have 4 games regardless. So, our plan for Sunday was to go with a really open rotation until we lost a game and then tighten things up. NC State jumped out on us early in the first round and put us away fairly easily. We did have a small late game run that helped our confidence for the rest of the day. As it turned out, losing that game ended up being a big advantage. We basically, didn’t have to run much in the first game against NC State, and our penalty for that was playing zone loving UVA rather than hard running (and still fresh) Wake. We were able to get up quickly on UVA and open up the rotation for the whole game again saving our legs. After we finished off UVA, I jogged over to find Wake and NCST embroiled in a classic Carolina style bloodbath, 11-10 game to 13. I found myself pumping my fist with every punt that sailed too long.Wake ended up pulling it out and so we had a tired NC State next. They went up 2-0, but after a time-out we went on an 8-2 run to take half and never looked back. That meant we had to play Wake in the game to go. We came out playing well and started off 5-1 and I was thinking we were going to run away with it. Next thing I know we’re down 10-8 and we’re kind of scratching our heads trying to figure out what went wrong. I think the hardest time to be a coach is when you’re losing because you’re making unforced errors. It’s just so difficult to know what to say to your team. When you’re losing because the other team is doing something strategically, at least you can tell your team how to adjust to stop what they’re doing. But you can’t really come into the huddle and say, “stop dropping the disc.” Anyway, I’d love to say that I made some brilliant strategic adjustment that gave us the win, but basically we just cleaned it up and pulled it out 15-13. I really can’t say enough about how impressed I was with how much heart Wake showed. I honestly believe we have better athletes and better throwers than they do, but they were able to hang with us the whole time based on just a complete refusal to give up. It was pretty inspiring to watch.Anyway, so we’re off to natties and I’m pretty pumped. Realistically, we can’t win nationals, so I’m just going to approach it like a two day practice – it will be a great learning experience for my young team.Random notes/thoughts from the weekend1) The triple elimination format creates some interesting decisions for coaches.2) If there’s anything more annoying than unobservant observers, I can’t think of what it is at the moment.3) I’m not usually one to hype my players, but Celine Sledge has got to be the AC Rookie of the Year.4) You don’t get 25 out of 26 rosters in on time by accident – so nice work Lindsey Hack and her sectional coordinators (Julia Echterhoff et. al.)5) AC South strongest (mixed) section in the country this year? All 5 AC bids to natties go to AC South
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posted by AJ | 11:34 AM
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7 comments
One Coach's Plan for a Semester
Idris talked about why frisbee blogs are a good source of information (at the very least, I seem to be getting all my post ideas from Idris, whether that's good or bad), and I agree. I actually think it's a good first step in developing a solid base of knowledge that our sport needs before making the next step.So...this weekend I laid out the plan for this semester for the college team I coach. I figured I'd post the general outline here, realizing that this is not the best plan for every team (or possibly even my team), but maybe there is a good idea in there somewhere that you can take, or maybe you can use it as a starting point. If anyone has any suggestions for changes/additions, I'd be interested in those as well.Basics: We have 3 (3 hour) practices a week. Mondays and Thursdays are normal practice, on Tuesdays we scrimmage a local pickup team. We have a pretty small team, with 7-10 guys at practices, so the plan reflects that limitation.Topics: A list of strategy/tactical points to cover, in the order I plan on teaching. The idea is to give at least one week's practice to each topic. In the past I've laid out how many weeks to spend on particular topics, but this year I've just got a list, if we need more than a week to cover it, we'll take it. Once I feel we've covered it enough, we'll move on to the next topic. The topics are pretty basic. It would be helpful to someday post specific discussion points and drills for each topic. One day hopefully. (Jim and Zaz's book is a good place to look for info on all these topics).Dump-Swing/Dump DefenseTrap Dump/Dump DefenseStraight stack offense/Man DefenseBrick and set plays/Man DefenseRedzone offense/Man DefenseRedzone set plays/Man DefenseZone offense/2-3-2Zone offense/alternate zone defensesIf we get through all that we'll probably just review what we've done so far, or possibly look to add some new topics if need be (H-stack, more zone d's, more redzone setplays, etc.)Practice Templates: A basic outline that we'll follow at every practice.Monday:WarmupSpeedwork (1-5 sprints/shuttles/starts/etc.)10 Throw (10 flat backhands/forehands, 10 invert backhands/forehands, 10 outvert backhands/forehands, and 10 hammers)1 Regular Drill (Not necessarily specific to the weekly topic, just working on general skills. ie 3 person marking drill, mushroom drill, throwing drill, etc.)Discuss Weekly Topic (diagram on the whiteboard, hand out review material, answer questions)Walk-through Weekly TopicWeekly Topic Drills/GamesIntervalsTuesday:Warmup10 ThrowWarmup Drill (whatever you prefer, I see a lot of mushroom, but we use a goto drill)Weekly Topic reminder/team discussionScrimmageGame/Weekly Topic Review and QuestionsIntervalsThursday:Warmup10 Throw1 Regular DrillDiscuss Weekly Topic - answer questions1-2 Weekly Topic Drills2-3 Regular DrillsGame (ideally 7 on 7, more likely 3 on 3, hotbox, etc.)Intervals
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posted by wood | 11:49 AM
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16 comments
What strategy?
I read this post by Idris, and it got me thinking about the low level of strategy in our sport. Take the idea that it is truly better (and I actually agree with this) to let a team learn how to flow and adjust on it's own, with little structure. This, to me, is a horrible indictment of the place our sport is at currently. In other, more established sports, you learn the fundamentals, how to make the x different cuts required in your sport, the right way to throw a ball. Maybe I place football on too high a pedestal, but I'd love to have just a fraction of the strategy from football in Ultimate. How hard would it be to have a standard set of cuts, have players run the cuts, perhaps changing them based on a defensive 'hot read'? Is it simply a physics question? Does the disc move too slowly in the air to run a curl or post? I'd like to think we could just add on to the progression idea. I know player x is going to make cut y. I see how the defense is playing him, and know that he is going to switch to cut z. I can then make the throw to z before the player has even turned.I know this happens, to a degree, at higher levels, but I don't think it's actual codified in the offense. There is so little consensus in our sport about the best way to do things, that we actually teach new players to try different (probably incorrect) things out because we're worried that we're wrong or we simply know that the next team a player is on will likely have a completely different philosophy. I'm not talking about the difference between the west coast offense and the run and shoot. At their core, those offenses are much more similar than what we do team to team, even if we're running the 'same offense.'Teaching players to play dynamically makes your team better right now, and probably makes your players better over the next few years. But until we get to the point where we can teach players the right way to play, we're going to be stuck teaching them to play 15 different (non-optimal) ways and we're never going to have real strategy.Strategy in our sport right now is limited to "create 2 on 1's", "get a step on your guy and jack it", "break the mark to get the defense on the wrong side of the field," etc. Maybe I'm silly to think that we can or should move to, "the defense is in an X coverage so I went to the Y hotroute to beat it."What is the most advanced Ultimate offense out there? Does it work? and how 'advanced' is it really? What are the limitations in our sport that keep us from having more precise strategy?
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posted by wood | 12:10 PM
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13 comments
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