Drinkall’s bio

In the first year of recording the Coach and Coordinator Podcast in 2017, I was looking through NAIA stats and saw Kansas Wesleyan near the top in several categories. I reached out to the head coach to talk ball on the podcast and when we talked I knew that he was a bright young football mind. Listen here.

Coach Matt Drinkall has a unique outlook on the game from every perspective. First and foremost, he values and takes care of his people. That was a topic of his most recent podcast on Coach and Coordinator.

Since our first conversation, Drinkall has gone on to AFCA’s 35 under 35 Coaches Leadership Institute and led Kansas Wesleyan to a conference championship, a semifinal appearance of the NAIA National Championship, a top 10 ranking and a 42-17 overall record.

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Drinkall joined us on the podcast for the second time in 2018 to talk about the evolution of the running game. He talked about utilizing personnel groups, shifts and motions, game planning and changing tempo as well as how his team practices. Listen here. The results of the 2018 season for Kansas Wesleyan were eye popping:

Drinkall designs his offense based on simplicity. “I never want someone to leave a conversation saying, ‘Someone does it simpler than those guys,'” Drinkall said. His philosophy and thought process are outlined below:

We have been fortunate to have Coach Drinkall contribute articles to our website. His first was on the idea of assessing your own offense. The game of football has never had so many great things happening offensively. On top of that, there are different levels, coaching changes, player transfers and additional staffing. The biggest challenge facing offensive coaches in football today is not what to run, but rather, what not to run. This article will offer ideas and suggestions as to how to structure an offense to fit your unique situation, regardless of where you are coaching. Read here.

As mentioned earlier, Drinkall is a big believer in simplicity to create success. Simplicity within an offense can streamline the entire process and increase its effectiveness. “Simplify” does not mean to run less plays or fewer play concepts. Rather, it means streamline the thought process. This article will outline some helpful tools that’ll allow you to run everything you want, while remaining simple in your teaching methods and terminology. Read here.

Drinkall utilizes tempo as part of his thought process and includes it in his game planning. Tempo doesn’t always mean “go fast.” Tempo means finding your rhythm. Finding and changing rhythms in a series is an important aspect of offensive football in today’s game. Today, tempos are utilized as a resource the same way as personnel and formations. Read here.

The success of Drinkall’s offense was built upon the gap run scheme. Every offense is looking for effective and efficient ways to run the ball. A good gap system is a tremendous concept to carry because it facilitates an entire offensive system in many ways. This article will detail the value and details of carrying a gap series, our base gap concepts, variations and complimentary plays. Read here.

While hanging their hat on the run game, Kansas Wesleyan was just as effective with the pass. Every pass game needs a pass concept they can lean on as the foundation of their pass game. The spacing concept is a catch-all and is paired with a simple set of rules for all players. This is a hybrid or curl/flat, smash and Y-cross. Drinkall found an efficiency in teaching how he utilizes the rules and progression to be consolidated into this one concept. Read here.

Continuing his theme of simplicity and maximizing teaching, Drinkall has created a dynamic sprint out package. This is another all-purpose package to incorporate into the offense. Any play series that provides multiple resources for the offense is a package worth looking into. Sprint-out passing is an extremely valuable component to offensive production. This article details the value of carrying a sprint-out series, base sprint-out concepts, variations and complementary plays. Read here.

Drinkall joined us again on Coach and Coordinator to give his plan for defeating the popular Tite front. Included in the shownotes is his presentation on building a game plan for the 3-4 defense.

Following the 2018 season, which included appearance in the NAIA semi-finals and a No. 4 national ranking, Drinkall made the decision to join Jeff Monken’s staff at Army. He now serves as an offensive analyst for the Black Knights. Though he is busy with his coaching duties, he still takes time to engage with coaches on Twitter.  He provides info that is both entertaining and educational. Drinkall is definitely a coach to keep an eye on!

Follow him: @DrinkallCoach