Lacrosse Concepts

While a lot of the modern offensive concepts tends to be shifting to up tempo and quantity of shots over quality, my belief as to how an offense should be run is based on the conceptions of time of possession and quality shots. As a defensive minded coach, I do not want my players turning the ball over by forcing a bad shot or attacking in a situation that we do not have the numbers advantage. However, I believe and will continue to believe that my coaching style will most likely not be the exact fit for your team and your player’s skill sets. Because of this all of my sets and concepts should be used as a guideline and should be adjusted to fit your team’s needs and skill sets. If you would like to leave comments regarding your opinion on each of the sets I review please do so as it will greatly benefit everyone who reads this to see different view points allowing everyone to have a full understanding of how to tailor an offense to their team.

When it comes to 6-v-6 half field offense, I do not believe in set plays where players only have one option as to what they can to with the ball. As you read into the sets I have laid out you will see that there are multiple looks the ball carrier can make every time someone new touches the ball with a few exceptions. By giving players to option to make decisions you not only keep the offense more free flowing to keep the defense on their heels, but you also give the players more of a feeling of being in control which boosts their comfort and confidence levels allowing them to reach their potential. With this in mind I will review how different sets exploit different defensive packages so you can determine which ones you would like to implement for situations you may come across. One thing I would like to recommend to everyone is that while there may be a lot of different sets and plays you can run, from personal experience I have found greater success from only teaching and using a handful of sets to they can be run to perfection rather than having 10-15 different sets and plays that players can get mixed up and throw off the flow of the offense.

While I prefer not to have set plays, there are scenarios where it is necessary to have a scripted play. Two of these scenarios are man up and limited time situations. For man up it is typically useful to have 2 or 3 base plays that can be slightly tweaked as the season goes on because as any coach knows, throughout the season other teams get their hands on your game film and prepare specifically for what they have seen on the film. If the defense knows exactly what is coming it is much easier to stop no matter how well it is run. Because of this, I design most of my man up plays to start in the same manner with only slight variations as the play progress to keep the defense guessing as to what will come next. As for limited time plays, this situation is not as common so you may only need one or two of these for the season assuming you find the one or two that work best for you.

You can find all the offensive posts in the offensive menu in the side bar to the right. I encourage everyone to leave their suggestions and experiences in the comments so everyone can get differing opinions that allow them to formulate their offense to best fit their team. Thank you for taking the time to read into my philosophies and concepts and I look forward to learning from everyone’s comments and suggestions.