When Norwich University finished a season 0-10, many expected the locker room to break. However, Bobby Johnson III, the team’s Offensive Coordinator and Offensive Line Coach, used the setback as fuel. As a result, out of that year came a system he calls the Cycle of the Snap— a framework built to harden players mentally, anchor them in consistency, and teach them to win the next play no matter what happened on the last.
“Consistency is the truest measure of a man’s mental toughness— the ability to perform under all conditions: hot or cold weather, ahead or behind on the scoreboard.”
That belief, shaped during Johnson’s time at RPI and the University of New England, carried into spring ball at Norwich. Since then, the Cycle of the Snap has taken root, already leaving its mark on how his players approach the game.
Teaching Resilience Through Repeatable Process
The Cycle of the Snap provides a five-step mental framework that players repeat after every play. It starts with receiving the play call and ends with a mental reset that prepares them for the next rep. For Johnson’s athletes, especially those preparing for futures in the military, it serves as both a football tool and a life skill.
This framework encourages players to:
- Communicate the play
- Check assignment, alignment, and technique
- Execute with 100% effort for 5–6 seconds
- Evaluate performance immediately
- Reset using verbal, physical, and visual cues
By following this sequence, players turn mental toughness into a repeatable process. In doing so, Johnson helps them stay in the moment and move past mistakes— or big plays— with equal poise.
“You give up a sack? The game’s not over. It’s second down in the first quarter. We’ve got to move on, we’ve got to reset.”
Resetting Physically, Verbally, and Visually
To anchor the reset step, Johnson teaches his players a unique three-part mechanism: a verbal cue, a physical action, and a visual focal point. Together, these help players actively clear their minds and detach emotionally from the last play, whether it was good or bad.
For instance, a lineman might yell a word, slap his pads, and stare at the top of the stadium flagpole for three seconds before returning to the huddle. Through this process, the brain has something to do besides spiral or dwell. It’s all about readiness for the next snap.
“I want our guys to have a verbal cue… a physical cue… and then find a place to look and focus for three to five seconds to clear their mind.”
Embedding Mental Toughness in Culture
The Cycle of the Snap isn’t a one-off talk— it’s a daily commitment. Johnson embeds it in meetings, walkthroughs, and practice drills where players must simulate a setback and execute their reset before the next play is called. Because of this, the system promotes accountability, emotional control, and self-awareness.
In a late-season game, trailing by one, Norwich scored with 1:30 left on the clock. Immediately, the entire sideline wanted to go for two. That confidence? Johnson credits the Cycle of the Snap and the culture it built.
“Not one person on our sideline was saying don’t go for two… all of us were ready to flip it, move on to the next play.”
Conclusion: More Than Just a Football Tool
For Johnson, building mental toughness isn’t optional— it’s essential. Whether in football or in life, players must learn to reset, refocus, and execute. The Cycle of the Snap gives them the tools to do exactly that.
And the best part? It’s not complicated. Instead, it demands coaches who are “all in” committed to teaching, practicing, and living it— every single day.
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Podcast transcript
Bobby Johnson III (00:02)
How you doing guys? My name is Bobby Johnson. I am the offensive line coach and offensive coordinator at Norwich University up in Northfield, Vermont. We’re the oldest private military school in the country and the birthplace of ROTC. It’s a pretty, pretty unique place, pretty awesome place. You know, a little bit about me. This will be my 14th fall coach in football. think 12th coach in college, coach of the high school and coach of the prep school for a year each. What I’m talking to you guys today about
is something that I’ve used other places and we’re going to really implement it here at Norwich. We started to do it in the spring and you could just see the guys here start to click a little better as spring ball went along. But yeah, I’ve used it two previous places, RPI 2018-2019 for really good culture building head coach. His name was Ralph Icernia. And then I was at University of New England from 2021 to 2023. And Michael Lichten, same thing.
kind of great, great guy for building culture. And what I’m gonna talk about again today, I’m gonna put up in the screen here is…
It’s essentially called the cycle of the snap. I’ve never been 0-10 before in my life. I’ve never not won really in anything. And this past year, my first year as an OC here, my best friend in coaching is our head coach here. His first year as a head coach, so we bolted a ton of growing this year. And going 0-10 is a weird thing.
It’s a, you know, every week you’re like, all right, how do we get these guys to buy in still? How do we get these guys to fight? And, you know, you can see it halfway through the year, not that the guys are putting, but you can see that they were like really struggling from motivation and whatnot. So we started to do this a little bit towards the end of the season and then we really got into it. This past spring ball, talking about the cycle, the snap and essentially it’s just a tool where, you know, I’ve taken some bits and pieces from RPI, from UNE.
Brian Kane is a great mental health training guy and you know bits and pieces of that and put our own little spin on it here at Norwich, but you know our guys are unique. Half our team is going to go serve in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Space Force, somewhere on the Coast Guard, know all sorts of branches. So some of our guys on our team are willing to give their lives, you know potentially for our country, our freedom and then the other half of our guys are engineering,
criminal justice, business, exercise science, cyber security. So we kind of have two walks of life in our program. But I think this cycle of SNAP helps you, whether it’s military, whether it’s your civilian, whether it’s 20 years from now and someone’s facing someone trying to shoot them down in a jet fighter or they’re trying to solve a critical problem at work. ⁓ I pitched in baseball my entire life from when I was eight to 18.
and I kind of my uncle played two years in one baseball and he taught me this mentality at a young age and I always kind of struggled looking for a tool to give this to our guys and when I got to RPI and he was like, man, this is awesome. And then like when I got to UNI a years later, I was like, great, another program that uses type of thing. But long story short, how do we get our guys to be mentally tough and ⁓ attack, you know.
Adversity and get over adversity and move on from success, right? So, you know, we talked about here cycle of snap Consistency is the truest measure truest measure of a man’s mental tough toughness the ability to perform under all conditions, know hot or cold weather ⁓ You know, you’re a header behind the scoreboard. You have a great player a negative play You have to be able to move on and play the next step. All right, so really is your cycle snap It’s a you know five steps essentially
It builds a house. a foundation of our program. That’s why I kind of have those arrows as a house But you’re get the play call We’re gonna get you communicated from the coaches to the players and then the players have to give and receive communication to each other You know, that’s where it all starts. That’s the basis Once our guys get the play call We have our checklist and a lot of this came from an offensive line, you know base right and then I kind of now made it so it’s every position but you know
Assignment alignment and technique has always been an offensive lineman base for me. Hey, what’s the assignment of the play call? What’s the alignment of your of your you know gap? Whoever’s in your gap? is the alignment of where’s the alignment of the back? Or you might be assigned to where’s the alignment of the DN maybe in the past in the past protection, know, all right What’s their alignment and that’s going to dictate what technique you use? Okay, so once we get assignment alignment technique now We have our plan. We’re going through it
We’re going to play this. We’re going to play the snap. We’re going to execute the snap. All right. I tell the guys, 100 % effort for five to six seconds. That’s all we want. 100 % effort for five to six seconds. And then we’re in about 25 seconds to catch our breath and get ready to go. Once the play ends, you know, we talk about, we have to evaluate a performance, good or bad, you know.
How do we have we don’t hey do we have a great set there and had a great block or hey I overset this guy I took a really crappy angle on a set or hey I had I had really really bad first step on an angle drive and I whiffed. you know How do you evaluate yourself in a fast, you know fast way fast manner? Where now I need to you know kind of reset take responsibility Right and move on to the next play. You know, hey, you’re a pitcher in baseball, You give up a home run
It’s the first inning. Well, the game’s not over. It’s the same thing. Hey, hey, second down in the first quarter, you give up a sack. The game’s not over, right? Hey, we got to move on. We got to reset. So taking responsibility, moving on to the next play, good or bad, And then it all restarts. And then the one thing I think a lot of people miss is how to actually do this. And how, you know, for us, our guys, when we get to the play ends and we take responsibility, this is where our mechanism come in.
All right. I want our guys to have a verbal cue, you know, it could be a swear. It can be something that they say to themselves. It can be a yell, but I want them to have a verbal cue. All right. I want them to have a physical cue where know, hey, they clap their hands, they pound their chest, they do something verbal, they do something physical. And then the last part that I love from I got from Coach Cain, you know, 18, 19 is find somewhere, whether it’s the top of the flagpole at the stadium.
whether it’s a certain spot on the field, on the turf, just somewhere where you can look and focus for three to five seconds and clear your mind. And then now we can go back to, all right, boom, what’s the next play call? And now restart this whole ⁓ cycle of the snap. So we’ll implement this ⁓ in meetings. We’re going to do a drill during walkthrough this fall camp where we will do a play.
and I’ll give a reaction, know, oh, hey, loss of five. All right. And now everybody’s got to, you know, hey, do your mechanisms, reset, and we’ll give them another point. But again, we started to this in the spring, started to do it a little bit towards the end of this past fall. And, you know, we had a one point loss at the end of the year against a good team in our league. And it was really cool to see the mental toughness because we scored with about a minute 30 left to make it.
⁓ 31-30 and there was not one person on our sideline that was saying don’t go for two. All of us were ready to go. All of us were ready to flip it, move on to the next play and hey coach, we want to go for the win. We got nothing to lose. Let’s go. And I really think we are starting to train our guys with this mentality. ⁓ Really worked towards the advantage there of helping our guys out.
I mean, I think the thing I would finish with with this is it’s not hard to implement. You just have to be educated in it. Do your research in it. know, our head coach at RPI did a ton of research. He brought Brian Kane in to do it. ⁓ I was at a camp this past week, a youth camp, and ⁓ we had a woman come and talk to all our high school guys. And her name was Dr. ⁓ Heather Doucet-Larkin. She was great. She was another another person who’s, you
all-in mentality where you just have to make sure that it’s a priority for your guys. I think this is something that you can’t half ass. You have to go all in with it. And I know for us as an offensive staff this year, we’re really going to go all in on it. We’re going to make sure that we meet about it at least once a day. ⁓ I want us to have this memorized, and not just to it memorized, but I want us to live it too. So again, we’re to start with walk-throughs.
And then I really want to make sure that we implement it on game day too. I want to be able to see our guys physically doing their cue, verbally doing their cue, physically doing their cue, and then finding a place for them to focus. But yeah, that’s all I got on the topic today.