From the Archives: This podcast was originally recorded right after Longo made his move to Ole Miss from Sam Houston State.
Today’s guest is Phil Longo, offensive coordinator at Ole Miss. Longo talks about the difference between playing enthusiastically versus emotionally, how he evaluates players on instinctiveness and how he tweaks 7on7 time to make them even more effective for his team. He also discusses how he turns weaknesses into strengths by always optimizing his playbook.
Show Notes:
1:53 Start as a football coach
2:52 Lessons learned as a young coach
4:33 Building culture within an offense
6:30 Establishing relationships with players
8:28 Emphasizing instinct with players
9:57 Longo’s grading system for evaluating instinctiveness
12:30 How Ole Miss breaks down its spring practice schedule
14:09 How Longo turns weak links in the playbook into strengths
16:39 Tweaking plays for red zone and goal line situations
18:04 Special Teams and trick plays
19:35 Don’t install RPOs just to say you run RPOs
20:59 Play repetition
22:23 Coach technology
24:45 Keys to running an effective walkthrough
26:17 Role of assistant coaches on game day
27:28 Getting the most from 7on7s
29:25 The winning edge
Coach Grabowski’s 3 key takeaways:
1) Playing enthusiastically not emotionally
2) Having 26 plays and sticking with it
3) Get your players to play instinctively
