In his first season as a high school head coach, Dave Logan ran practice the way he knew it from playing. Logan spent nine seasons as an NFL receiver, eight with the Cleveland Browns before finishing his career with the Denver Broncos. In the training camps he remembered, “you wore pads twice a day and you went full go. I mean, they were taking receivers down to the ground, running backs down to the ground.”
So his team went full go twice a week, Tuesday and Wednesday, getting ready for Friday. He had one of the best running backs in the state that year, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound player with two years of eligibility left who later played three seasons in the NFL. Early in that first season, during one of those live scrimmages, the back sprained his ankle and was going to miss a game.
Logan wasn’t worried at first. “In the NFL, your mindset is: hey, next guy up, next guy up can play.”
The next guy up was a sophomore, about 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds. During the game, Logan kept wondering why his offense couldn’t get the ball outside.
“It quickly hit me that the difference in terms of level of ability in high school from your star running back to an aspiring sophomore running back is substantial.”
Logan now coaches Cherry Creek. He has won 13 state championships at four Colorado schools. A lot of how he runs a program comes back to what he brought with him from the NFL. Some of it lasted one season. Some of it he still holds high school players to on purpose.
What lasted one season
His decision after that first year: “All right, we’re not practicing like this anymore.”
“Probably since my second year,” Logan said, “we don’t take guys down to the ground, we don’t tackle, we really don’t hit much.”
The offense changed too. Coming out of the NFL, Logan’s offense used a lot of seven-step drops. “I found out quickly in high school we can’t protect on a seven-step drop” without getting the quarterback killed.
Logan still wanted practice to move. Cherry Creek practices for an hour and 50 minutes, not two and a half hours, and he doesn’t want his assistants idle. “I don’t want coaches standing around. I’m sure they’re tired of hearing that from me. You know, find work.”
He believes the pace is what keeps players learning:
“When your practice is quicker and you’re running to drills and you’re getting out of the huddle, you’re getting to the line of scrimmage, snap it, all right, get the next play in, then your players sort of learn to engage and stay in the moment a little bit instead of from time to time standing on the sideline and, you know, chasing butterflies.”
His instruction on contact is simple: “Be smart with your players.”
The part of the NFL he kept
Every year Logan asks his seniors how many of them want to play college football, and usually most of the room raises a hand. “So we know how to make that happen. And so we’re gonna hold you accountable to the level that I know what you’re gonna get when you go to college.”
For the few who might go further than that, he has seen that level too. “I know how those guys are coached. I know how there’s a level of accountability, how you have to do the little things.” One example: Cherry Creek weighs its players every Thursday. “I don’t think high school is too early to start that.”
Logan knows some players aren’t ready for it. “They kind of recoil when you get on them because they’ve never had that. They’ve been told how great they are in Little League football their entire life.” He mimics the player who brings his youth résumé with him: “I was a starter and I threw for 1,500 yards when I was in seventh grade. That’s great. Those are great memories for you. We don’t care. That doesn’t matter. You’re in high school now.”
Logan asks his players directly: “Are you gonna let me coach you? Because if you don’t want me or the staff to coach you, just tell us now.”
He also commits to telling them the truth. “You’ve got to keep it a buck with your players, and players have to know that I’m gonna tell you the truth, even maybe if other people are not telling you the truth.”
And he closes the loop after a hard rep. “If I really got on him, I’m always walking off that practice field with my arm around that player. And I’m telling him, listen, hey, I love you. I’m trying to make you better. That’s the sole purpose of a high school coach.”
Little things win games
“Little things win you football games,” Logan said. “The big things usually sort of take care of themselves.”
Ball security is the one his players hear most. “We’re not going to give games away. We’re not going to be a team that turns the ball over.” He points to last season’s Final Four game. Cherry Creek had four turnovers, nearly five, and was minus four in turnover differential but found a way to win. His running back, now at Colorado State, fumbled twice that night. They were his first two fumbles of the year.
For receivers, that means no admiring the catch or looking upfield before the ball is secured. “I’m old school in that regard. Catch the ball, lock the ball.”
The same goes for individual technique. Logan tells players every day to “find something today that you can get better at.” For a receiver, that might be his stance, his get-off, or his hands against press coverage. For an offensive lineman working on blitz pickup, it might be the first kick step or keeping his shoulders square.
Submerge them in the summer
Cherry Creek runs an eight-week summer program, four days a week. The players lift together, and the last hour and 15 minutes of each day are for installing both the offense and the defense. Those installs go on Hudl so players can go back and study them.
This idea also came from the pros, adjusted for high school. “What I learned from NFL guys was, you know, watered down a little bit, but to completely submerge them early in the summer where you’re putting in about 70 percent of your offense and defense.”
Logan is candid about how much that asks of players. “We are way too wordy in a terminology sense,” he said, and he has tried to shorten it at times. The offense’s language tells every skill player where he lines up, whether he’s in motion, and when the quarterback snaps the ball. The summer is when players learn it.
He asks for that commitment knowing what it costs them. “I guarantee you’d much rather be sitting in a swimming pool or doing something. I could be working on a really bad golf game. You know what? But I’m committed to you guys. I don’t miss a day in the summer.”
A different team every year
Logan’s early teams used a lot of 21 personnel. He was a big believer in the fullback, because “the fullback was big back when I played in the NFL.” Over the years, the offense changed.
He thinks high school coaches have to change more than coaches at the higher levels. “Good coaches have to, in high school, maybe more so than college, and certainly more so than the NFL. You’ve got to be able to adapt because your roster significantly changes every single year.”
This season is an example. Cherry Creek graduated 36 seniors last year from what Logan called an excellent, four-year class. Now the Bruins play ten or eleven sophomores in their rotation, with a smaller but faster group. The running backs may be a little bigger than last year’s, so Cherry Creek may run less outside zone and more counter.
“I have such respect for high school coaches,” Logan said, “because the good ones have to adapt, tweak a little bit, sometimes a lot, every single year with the personnel that they have.”
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Keith Grabowski (00:01.154)
Welcome to National Coach of the Week presented by Modern Football on the Coach and Coordinator Network. Down 12 heading into the fourth quarter against one of Colorado’s premier programs, Cherry Creek, needed a response and they founded they found one. The Bruins put up 16 points in the final quarter to come back and beat Valor Christian 16 to 15 to stay unbeaten this season. And for a program that’s won six state championships in the last seven years.
Moments like this show why they continue year after year with that consistency. And we’re excited to be joined by Cherry Creek, Head Coach Dave Logan, our National Coach of the Week. Coach, I really appreciate you joining us here on the podcast.
David Logan (00:43.361)
No, my pleasure, Keith. Good to see ya.
Keith Grabowski (00:45.784)
So for for our listeners, I have to share this. Dave played for the Cleveland Browns in an era where they were they were called the Cardiac Kids. And I was 10 or 11 and I sh I took a picture and sent it to them. I still have these prints that Shell Oil Company printed up. They’re pretty cool. we have the whole team set still in our basement, big Browns fans, but Dave Logan is on there, so I’m excited to have him on.
as a former Cleveland Brown and at that time I s I told him I was a big fan of of what he was doing as a player and have followed his coaching career too and he’s got thirteen state championships overall, I believe at four different schools. Is that correct, coach? Yeah. So so that I know is some kind of a national record. You’re in eight halls of fame. You you really have done a ton in this game as a player and a coach and I’m excited to dig into that with you today. But before we do that, I want to talk about this past game, another
David Logan (01:25.945)
Correct. Yep.
Keith Grabowski (01:42.466)
Big win for Cherry Creek and I know Valor Christian obviously is a another program that gets national attention.
David Logan (01:50.936)
Yeah, I mean they’re listen, they’re they’re a great program. They’ve had a they’ve had a great program since the school opened. And it’s er every time those two schools get together it’s it’s a battle. It’s it’s never it’s never easy. They’re well coached. they’ve got great talent. And so I think in this game, I I
You know, I I think they had us. And I I told sort of the team the when we were watching film the next day, actually on Monday, said I was proud of them because they they showed mental toughness and physical toughness and and I’m I’m a I always talk about your competitive excellence and what exact I mean, how do how do you quantify that? That that’s
That’s what you summons, I think, as a player, when you have to have a drive, you have to have a play, you have to have a quarter, you have to have something. And you know, Valor Valor played great. I I mean, I’m I’m sure Mike Sanford, who’s a friend of mine, he’s the head coach of Valor, I’m sure he’ll look at that game and say, Man, we left we left a lot out there. And
our defense gave up yards, but they were excuse me, they were good in the red zone. But I said to the kids, I said, you know, they had us on the morgue table twice and maybe maybe two or three times, they just didn’t they didn’t kill us. And I’m sure they look at that the same way. So proud proud of I I think it was a really exciting high school football game if you didn’t have a vested interest or an emotional tie to either side. But two
Two good programs, two really good football teams going at it and I’m I’m quite certain that if we’re if we’re good enough down the stretch, we’ll we’ll see him again.
Keith Grabowski (03:57.251)
Yeah, coach, before we got going, I I I said I shared with you the but I had that picture. I took a picture of it, sent it to you, and you text me back like that’s old school. And old school values is something we’re gonna dig into here and something I think you know, culture obviously is a big part of what you do to to win state championships at four different schools. You’ve been winning them since nineteen ninety seven and thirteen now, including one la last year.
Last two years in a row, and I think six out of seven, if I’m correct. So you don’t win without culture. You know, scheme, all those things are great, but those change that’s constantly changing, and I think you’ve really been able to hone in on the culture side of things and really getting to these kids. So we’d love to hear you talk about the way that you build your program and the important things to you.
David Logan (04:53.901)
Well, I mean, I think i I I agree with you, Keith. I think I think culture is is one of the most important aspects of your team. I mean, how do you how do you identify that culture and then how do you implement it and then how do you sustain it? I’ve always been a big believer that the toughest team, both mentally and physically, gives itself the best chance to win. And so
So toughness, physical toughness, has always been one of our hallmarks. I think mental toughness, the ability to have an even keel, treat every single week the same way. You win a game, you f that’s fine. you look at the film, you process what you saw, you find things, and I always tell my players every every day in practice: find something today that you can get better at.
Whether if you’re wide receiver, maybe it’s your stance, maybe it’s your get-off, maybe it’s your ability to use your hands when you’re facing press coverage. Right? If you’re an offensive lineman and and we’re working on blitz pickup, maybe it’s that initial kick step, right? It’s keeping your shoulders square. There’s the football is such, at least to me, I love the game so much, but it’s it’s it’s an intricate game. It’s not just, you know.
Eleven guys out there just running around trying to knock each other down. Although at times I think maybe to to less experienced observers, it can maybe look that way. But there’s a there’s a real beauty and and a real sort of chess game that I’ve always enjoyed with football. But back back to your original question, I think mental and physical toughness, the ability to be honest.
with yourself. I’m always I I’ve told players for, I don’t know, long time, this is year thirty-four, you know, I I I I ask them a question, and the question is, are you gonna let me coach you? ‘Cause if you don’t want me Because if you don’t want me or the staff to coach you, just tell us now. and then we’ll have to you know, we’ll have to take an an alternate route. Right? I’m gonna coach them hard. hard on them in practice, demanding.
David Logan (07:18.943)
little things, little things win you football games. The b the big things usually sort of take care of themselves, but the little things are are so vital, I think, and that’s part of establishing your culture. one of the things they they’ve heard me talk about is we’re not we’re not going to give games away. right? We’re not we’re not going to be a team that turns the ball over. you know, we we last year going into the Final Four game
and and it was a game that we had four turnovers and and almost five. So we were minus four in the turnover differential, found a way to win the game. My running back who who now is at CSU fumbled the ball twice. It was his first two fumbles of the year. So, I mean, just the little things in football that are so important. We try to stress those things every single day. Receivers who catch the ball. You know, I don’t want to see you catching the ball.
And then looking up field, and then the ball doesn’t come to your body. You want to look at the ball and admire the catch and sort of style thing. I’m old school in that regard. Catch the ball, lock the ball, the tip of the ball. but though those are just a few of the things as I as I sit here tonight. We just we just got home from practice about forty-five minutes ago, and we play tomorrow night, and you know, they probably heard a few of those things today in practice.
Keith Grabowski (08:46.35)
The I think the idea today is that, you know, maybe these kids need to be coached a little bit different. And I’ll I’ll see things go both you know, you see things on social media, I kinda laugh. Like guys looking for validation to yell and scream and do everything like that. I don’t think that’s necessarily hard coaching. you could get after it s for sure, but I think it goes more to those details and being demanding with those little things. and and I you know, we’ve
I think a lot of guys feel the the pressure of, man, you know, these these kids have a different leverage today with you know the transfer portal era and and jumping schools has moved all the way down to the high school level even. But, you know, I I I think also though, and and you said it before we got going, that you know, you you can embrace those old school values and coaching kids hard and and that still will work today.
David Logan (09:40.388)
No no doubt about it. And I think that’s you know, I think when I think back to to some of the really good coaches that I played for, they had they had differing traits, but they also had three or four things that they all did. One one of those things I’ve always believed is the communication you have with players. I think you you’ve got to keep it a buck with your players and players players have to know that I’m gonna tell you the truth.
even maybe if other people are not telling you the truth. and I I think that you know for a coach, me in particular and the staff, one of the things we talk about all the time, listen, we’re going to be demanding in practice. we’re going to get on them and and try to coach them the right way. But I but I always say listen, if you really if you get on a player at practice, and I I I I have and and will
continue to do that. I’m I’m always walking off that practice field with my arm around that player, if I really got on him. And I’m telling him, “listen, I’m I hey, I love you. I’m trying to make you better.” That’s that’s the sole purpose of a high school coach. I mean you’re you’re trying to impart whatever knowledge you have of the game, whatever your experiences have been in the game, whatever you’ve picked up and stolen from other coaches, and we all have have done that, but the years and years and years of
Either playing football and or coaching football, you’re trying to impart as much knowledge to that player so you can help that player become the best version of himself. He’s got all of them have different levels of ability, right? I’m I mean if you ask, and I do this on a yearly basis too, how many of you guys want to go on? How many of you seniors, how many seniors in the room they’ll raise their hand, how many of you guys want to go play college football? And normally
The majority of those kids will raise their hands, right? So we know how to make that happen. And so we’re gonna hold you accountable to the level that I know what you’re gonna get when you go to college and play in college. And then if some of you guys have the ability and you get lucky enough and you stay healthy enough, and maybe you got the ability to go play in the NFL, I know what that’s like too. I know, I know.
David Logan (12:02.959)
How those guys are coached. I know how there’s a level of accountability, how you have to do the little things, how you have to, you know, we, you know, in terms of weight, we weigh our guys every every Thursday. You’ve got to be accountable in terms of the little things. And I I don’t think high school is too early to start that. But it is, there’s there’s a, you know, you’ve got to make sure that you’re communicating with those players, because if you don’t, I think some of those guys are not used.
being coached that way. And so they they they kind of recoil when you get on them because they’ve they’ve never had that. They’ve been told how great they are in little league football their entire life. And I was a starter and I threw for you know 1500 yards when I was a seventh grade. I d we that’s great. Those are great memories for you. We don’t care. That does that doesn’t matter. You’re in high school now and we’re trying to help you be the absolute best player
on and off the field that you can possibly be.
Keith Grabowski (13:04.174)
Coach looking at how how you’ve I guess some things remain consistent. Maybe there’s been evolution over the years. You know, you started coaching in nineteen ninety-three, and as I mentioned, state championships at four different schools. What what have been some of those key things that just have appeared in every single place that that you’ve been that I guess are the backbone of of every
every single one of these programs. I mean, you haven’t lost a lot of games in your career. Three three forty one and seventy. so what what is it that you feel gives you the consistency no matter where you’re at?
David Logan (13:43.982)
I I think that what we try to do, you know, as a young coach, I remember I had a I had a really good my first two years I had a junior, senior, a kid that had two years left, just was w one of the state’s best running backs. And I’d come out of the NFL system and so back in the day, back in you know, back back when I played in training camp, I mean you wore pads twice a day and you had full you went full go. I mean, they were taking receivers down to the ground, running backs down to the ground.
and so that that was my mindset as a younger coach. I was in my late thirties at the time. So we practiced that way. we had, you know, my offense was a lot of seven-step drops. and I found found out quickly in high school you you we can’t protect on a seven-step drop and getting the quarterback kill. Then early in this the first year, my my rookie year as a coach, we we were scrimmaging again. We’d go we’d go full,
Full go twice a week on Tuesday, Wednesday, getting ready for a Friday game. Well, I get the running back who who later played three years in the NFL. I get him hurt with a sprained ankle. So he’s gonna miss, he’s gonna miss, I don’t know, second or third game. And so again, in the NFL, your y mindset is: hey, next guy up, next guy up can play, can play two. And so we play a game, and and that running back was like six-one, about 190 pounds.
The backup running back was a sophomore that was like five nine and like one fifty. And I couldn’t understand why when we’re playing the game, I’m like, why are we not why are we not getting the ball outside? Well, it quickly hit me that the the different difference in terms of level of ability in high school from your star running back to an aspiring sophomore running back is substantial.
And it I you know, so I quickly said, “alright, we’re not practicing like this anymore. So I think probably since my second year, Keith, we we haven’t, you know, we don’t we don’t take guys down to the ground, we don’t tackle, we really don’t hit much. The tempo of practice I’ve always thought is really, really important. You gotta engage those kids. We we don’t practice for two and a half hours, we’re out for an hour fifty. I’ve always believed if if you can’t if you can’t and I d I don’t want
David Logan (16:12.857)
Coaches standing around. I’m sure they’re tired of hearing that from me. You know, find work. I mean, the tempo of our practice has always been significant, I think, in terms of our ability to teach and our ability to when your practice is is quicker and you’re running to drills and you’re getting out of the huddle, you’re getting the line of skirmish, snap it, all right, get the next play in, then your players sort of learn to engage and stay.
in the moment a little bit instead of from time to time standing on the sideline and you know chasing butterflies. So tempo of practice important. Be smart with your players. We don’t we don’t take to the ground. Coach the little things, the details that we went over before. and then I think you have to you have to be able to adjust as a coach. You know, we started in my career early, we were a lot of twenty one personnel stuff.
Big believer in the fullback because the fullback was big back when I played in the NFL. And we we morphed over the years. I think good coaches have to, in high school, maybe more so than college, and certainly more so than the NFL, with respect to those guys. Excellent coaches. But you’ve got to be able to adapt because your roster significantly changes every single year. And then the you know, we had 36 seniors last year that graduated. One of the biggest,
And it was a really excellent class in terms of talent. and d and a four-year class that had great success. Well, now you’ve got, you know, we’re playing ten, eleven sophomores in our in our play rotation. So that offense and defense looks a little bit different this year because you have to adapt to maybe a smaller group but a faster group. Had you know, you’ve got running backs that maybe this year are a little bit bigger than you had last year. So you’re not
You’re not trying to maybe run as much outside zone as you did. Maybe you’re into counter and things like that. So the good coaches, and there are so many out there, I think they they really in high school, I have such respect for high school coaches because the good ones have to adapt, tweak a little bit, sometimes a lot, every single year with the personnel that they have.
Keith Grabowski (18:30.382)
Yeah, I I couldn’t agree with you more. I find myself in that process right now is my first year back after about ten years off the sideline, but going back to it and trying to just figure out with this particular group like what’s gonna fit them, right? And going through some growing pains to finally land on some things they could be successful with. So how do you approach that side of it, Coach, the adaptation part when when you’re looking at, you know, making some of those changes, evolving your team from year to year?
David Logan (19:00.205)
Yep. We you know, we’ve got and we’ve done this for a long time. We run an eight-week program. we go four days a week, and what we do is we we lift together. We have a speed and conditioning crew that comes in. I I think it’s important, at least from my aspect. We used to do it as coaches ourselves. Now we have speed and conditioning folks that will come in. I think it’s important for your kids to hear other voices.
They hear my voice a lot during the season, and I’m sure they tire of it. and so I y I sit down with the speed and conditioning group and go over exactly what the plan is, but then I challenge them to listen, in in the right way, I you know, I want you to be demanding of them. If you see guys that are not working, I don’t I don’t want it to come from me. I want it to come from you. I want to I want you to talk about the preparation necessary for you guys in the summer.
I I stress to my kids in the summer what makes us different. you guys would I guarantee you, I guarantee you’d much rather be sitting in a in a swimming pool or doing something. I I could be working on a really bad golf game. You know what? But I’m committed to you guys. I don’t miss a day in the summer. we start at ten, eleven, twelve start at nine o’clock. We’re out of there by about one fifteen.
Keith Grabowski (20:15.614)
Mm-hmm.
David Logan (20:27.309)
At the last hour and 15 minutes we install both our offense and defense and we start we start working on terminology where you line up and then we put everything on huddle for the players to be able to go back and and and look at it. I I think what I learned from NFL guys was you know, watered down a little bit, but to completely submerge them early in the summer where you’re putting in about seventy percent.
of your offense and defense. We we are way too wordy in a terminology sense. I think and and there are times that I’ve tried to shorten things up. But our offense basically tells every single position player, skill position player, where you line up, if you’re in motion, if you’re in motion, when does the quarterback snap it? So all those things in terms of numbers and terms and everything else, that’s what we
we learn and try to practice in the summer during that eight week period.
Keith Grabowski (21:29.57)
Coach, I know you’re preparing for a game. I appreciate you taking some time. after practice and night before a game. congratulations again to you and your program on being recognized as our national coach of the week and best of luck to you the rest of the season.
David Logan (21:45.68)
Appreciate it, Keith. Great to catch up with you.