Adding New Ideas Without Losing Your Identity
You’ve watched film all weekend, plus the college games on TV. You see that play that looks great against a defense you’ll be facing this week or next. You pause your screen and rewatch the play, drawing it up so you can think about how well it would fit into what you do. That one play could be the key. It could be the difference in your attack against a formidable opponent.
Innovation keeps your scheme fresh, challenges defenses, and creates answers when opponents take away your best concepts. Something to keep in mind is every new play has a cost—time, teaching bandwidth, and the risk of drifting away from who you are.
This week’s #TXHSFBCHAT focuses on that balance: how coaches introduce, evaluate, and refine new ideas while keeping their offense rooted in its core identity.
Why Add Something New?
Most new concepts appear in offensive rooms for three reasons:
A Defensive Problem Needs Solving – A front or coverage consistently limits you.
Your Personnel Evolve – A new QB can run better, an OL group excels in gap schemes, or a receiver can stretch the field.
An Assistant Brings Something Fresh – Creativity builds when everyone feels empowered to contribute.
The challenge isn’t finding new ideas. The challenge is choosing the right ones.
Personnel First, Playbook Second
One of the strongest habits of successful programs is filtering new ideas through people, not paper. Before adding anything, great coaches ask:
Can our kids execute it?
Does it align with our current teaching progression?
Does it complement what we already do well?
If the answer to any of those questions is “no,” then the play—no matter how exciting—usually needs to go.
This is where testing matters. Good coaches rep a new idea through walk-throughs, group drills, 7-on-7, or even scout-team periods. You learn quickly whether it’s worth building into your Friday plan or whether it only looked good on Hudl.
The Role of Assistants: Creativity With Guardrails
Healthy offensive rooms are ones where assistants feel like their ideas matter. Too often, creativity is unintentionally stifled when only coordinators or head coaches propose new concepts.
Great staffs:
Hold regular idea meetings
Encourage assistants to bring cut-ups or clinic notes
Use shared documents or film folders
Allow assistants to teach or present new concepts during the offseason
But creativity has to exist inside a framework. The offense must remain teachable and consistent. Establishing clear offensive principles—formations, tags, run families, protection rules—helps staff members know which ideas fit and which don’t.
Evaluating a New Idea Once It’s Installed
Adding a concept is only step one. Smart coaches also track:
Practice efficiency (reps, execution, assignment errors)
Game usage (how often it’s actually called)
Game success (yards, explosives, situational value)
Player feedback (confidence level matters)
Sometimes the best coaching decision is removing a play that looked good on paper but doesn’t translate on the field. Cutting a bad idea is just as important as adding a good one.
Innovation Without Drift
Bringing in new concepts is one of the joys of coaching, especially as the game evolves. But the best coaches innovate without drifting from their identity. They know who they are, what their kids do best, and how much their players can realistically absorb.
Innovation should strengthen your system—not dilute it.
This week’s chat is designed to help coaches reflect on these decisions, empower their staffs, and grow their offenses with purpose rather than with volume.
If you are looking for sources of innovation, these coaches do a great job of introducing and explaining concepts for coaches to implement into their systems:
Cody Alexander - Match Quarters
Dan Gonzalez - Read and Shoot