Ryan Lanigan (Siena) - Teaching Slide and Recovery

Alright guys, it's Q. Welcome back to another episode of The Ride. Today's conversation was with Coach Ryan Lanigan, the current defensive coordinator at Siena University. Coach Lanigan is going into his second year at Siena. Before that, he held the head coach. role at russell sage college for six years where he started the program and he was also the assistant coach at miscaricordia for two years and held an assistant coach role

for one year at Assumption College. He holds the top four single season records at Lebanon Valley College for turnovers. And that's kind of where I started the conversation, kind of getting into the mind of not only a defender who played well and...

you know was out there playing team defense but one that could disrupt and cause turnovers so I talked to him a lot about that we touch a lot on slide and recovery that was not something I went into the show thinking we were going to talk about but you know when we peel back the onion on

you know what coach was doing with the defense last year at sienna that led to a very successful mac championship there at the end of the year a lot of sliding recovery pieces we also have a great drill that focuses on sliding recovery specifically specifically against the pairs set that a lot of offenses are running today so a lot of that but we got into the weeds on a ton so really great stuff as always hopefully you find some value in it and enjoy the ride

Welcome to the show, Ryan Lanigan. Coach Lanigan, appreciate you joining us. We were just having a milk versus coffee debate, which I didn't think we'd ever start a show with, but you're a milk guy?

Well, I just, like I said, man, I try to stay away from caffeine, man. I think it's, it could be a little addicting and you come relying on it. So, I mean, so is sugar. So I'm not saying chocolate milk is much better than a coffee in the morning, but try to get a workout in the morning, try to get a little protein in me. Yeah, it's fine. I mean, you know, every pair that comes on a tour has a coffee in their hand, right? I get it.

I'm trying to stay away. I tell the kids that are 16 when they come on the visit, you see the Starbucks there, stay away, man. Save yourself a lot of money in the long run. I got it. You worked in some pre-workout.

in there as well were you a big pre-workout guy at lebanon valley yeah i mean that's why i had to stop you know because it's like i'd be it'd be game time and i'd be yawning because i didn't have pre-workout yet you know what i mean so i just became too reliant on it so i had to cut out of my life and uh much better for it

I've seen, like, the creatine come back, too. Do you remember, like, in the day, we were about the same age, I think. Remember creatine was, like, this, like, kind of pseudo, you didn't want to take creatine, only the, like, you know, real... I don't know, out there guys were taking creatine for the most part. Now it's like you take it for mental health. Yeah, man. Have you seen that?

For sure. I mean, I remember when we were growing up, it was like, if you're going to take creatine, you better be drinking tons of water, right? That's really all they said. We have college athletes that are definitely on creatine right now, right? They want that extra pump in the weight room. They want a little bigger, you know, so yeah, it's a thing. All right. Well, that's not the traditional.

start to the show that i've ever had but i appreciate you joining man i was very fortunate to meet you in the summertime when you were on your you know recruiting trail we got to you know meet in virginia beach where i'm from you came down for a tournament We got to connect. It was a good time. We also had Kyle Hayes. Kyle was my most recent podcast guest, and you're on now. So I appreciate that very much for joining, Ryan.

Yeah, man, I had a blast. I think me and Kyle probably do that event every summer. It's kind of like at the end of the summer, there's not many other events going on. We get to go to some beautiful area, hang out with you. And honestly, what was refreshing about that event, we do a lot of events in the Northeast.

I don't want to say these guys are spoiled, but, like, they're playing in the best events. There's college coaches around all the time. Those guys are Virginia Beach, man. That was probably, you know, a lot of them their first event where there's college coaches around, right?

It was, you know, you could tell they cared a little more. It was refreshing for sure. Yeah, it's one of the only tournaments I'm sure you ended up on a boat at the end of the night too. That is true. We had a good time. Yeah, so.

Look, we're talking pre-episode, and I appreciate the kind words about the show and the podcast saying that you listen to some. I did not expect you to say that the Mark Hargrave first episode was your favorite. And that's just because it was the first one. We were kind of doing it as a flyer. But you mentioned...

Hampton Roads and that being of interest to you and the growth there and how that kind of spread elsewhere. But I would love to hear from that. Yeah, I mean, I think just hearing, you know, he's a Long Island transplant like myself, definitely have some similarities in terms of... You know, his upbringing and the culture of Long Island lacrosse and then going outside of it. You know, when I went to college in central Pennsylvania, man, I remember doing like a camp and like.

We're just doing a simple drill. We're doing, like, picks behind the cage, and those guys have never seen a pick before. It's like, oh, my gosh, man. So, you know, I was saying it was one of my favorite podcasts. I like to learn about new areas and the growth of the game, but also kind of made me sad because it made me realize, like,

Unfortunately, it's not just a Hampton Roads problem to help grow the game. If you're outside of the hotbeds of Philly, New Jersey, New England, Baltimore, the obvious hotbeds we have now, it's really hard to get the game going. I guess I'd almost challenge. any any lacrosse fans listening man this game's done a lot for you go give back man go coach go coach the youth you know it's fun it's addicting yeah it's just uh

We need it. We need more coaches and we need more refs. And especially if you're in an area that is kind of untapped, you know, like if you play any lick of high school, college, or cross, man, there's a good chance you can help someone. So please get back to the game.

Yeah, I definitely echo that 100%. Are you guys recruiting non-hotbed guys, and how are you doing so? How does that compare to what you're doing? Obviously, up in New York, you kind of have the cream of the crop up there, but how are you guys approaching non-hotbed? fortune, right? I think...

Being in Siena in the capital region of New York, we have a good reputation in the Northeast, especially around the city. So we crush Long Island. The freshman class we have right now is heavy Long Island. I'm from Long Island. Head coach is from Long Island. So we do well there. We do well in Syracuse. We do well in the Northeast.

It's not like we're afraid to go outside the Northeast, right? We think there's good lacrosse players everywhere. So if we see you on the recruiting trail, all right, we got a couple guys from Chicago. We got a freshman from Seattle, Washington this year. We've recruited guys off of our prospect day, you know, as a young man from Kentucky we're talking to, you know what I mean? So for us, if we just think you're good and not necessarily how good you are.

September 1st junior year, it's how good do we think you're going to be by the time you get to Siena, right? We kind of project more than we care about how good you are as a junior in high school, you know, because we think it adds value for us. What is the conversation the coaching staff is having when you look at a guy from Kentucky? Are you saying, hey, look, this guy isn't playing high-level competition every single week?

What other things are you looking at when you have to consider, hey, we want to bring this guy on for the next four years and we don't want to make a mistake? For sure, you know, especially with this roster cap now, which I know you've had some conversations on. You want to make sure you're right. Not that you didn't want to make sure you were right beforehand, but you really, it's tight now.

You know, and I think there's pros and cons to it, right? Like, I think if you're from Kentucky, you're probably, when you make the jump to Division I lacrosse, the speed of the game is probably going to be...

much bigger than the Long Island guy. But at the same time, you know, you probably haven't, no disrespect to, there's some good coaches in Kentucky. I'm not trying to say that, but compared to what you have in Long Island, like, to us, that guy hasn't even touched his potential. Has it even... You know, maybe even been taught a V-hold, right? Or, you know, just played at the level that...

Some of us in the Northeast or what, you know, some of these hotbeds are fortunate to be a part of. Right. So for us, it's like, you know, imagine we get him around some other good players and some high level competition. And it's like this guy can grow into something. You know what I mean? So, yeah.

We're not against it for sure. I love that idea of potential, too, because I have a lot of guys, obviously, that go off and play college that play for Catholic High, where I'm at right now, and the coordinator there. And I always think that they're overlooked because we're not.

You know, in Maryland or New York, all these places you're talking about. And I always say, man, that those guys got a good one. You know, the flourish that's going to happen once they get around that competition, their ceiling is much higher than these coaches actually think they are a lot of times. and to be fair you guys are overlooked and i think i guess to defend the college coaching side you know it's like

It's especially being at Division I level now, right? I've coached, been assistant at D1, D2, D3. I've been a head coach myself. You know, like if you're at Division I level, it's like, why wouldn't you almost recruit from... double-a events you know what i mean and because those are the kids that are from the best high schools and the best club teams and they're playing against the best competition year round so it's like it's a big risk you know honestly to to go outside that uh

that comfort zone you know what i mean but sometimes that risk pays off i know we're spending a ton of time early in recruiting but i like the the quick rabbit hole that we're in for those players that are maybe not from those areas or their coaches that are coaching in those areas what is the

i don't want to say criteria but what is that extra oomph that makes you guys take the risk right obviously talent comes into play and all that but like what are those little pieces that you say hey we're going to go for this guy in kentucky yeah yeah We like athletes, you know, at Siena. So like if you're like a football running back and basketball point guard and long athletic defender or something like that, like, you know.

I think that helps. I think, you know, when you're playing at that level, when you're playing maybe against lesser competition, you still have to make the right looks and you still got to, you know, almost score at will. Right. I think. You know If you put if you put Lyle Thompson down in Virginia Beach, you know that guy if you put a lot of Thompson anywhere He's gonna score 100 goals, right? So like, you know, let's we want to see guys producing every game, you know, and not just you know

Hargrave talked about this in his podcast, right? Scoring 100 goals in Virginia Beach isn't maybe as impressive as scoring 35 on Long Island. But are you scoring... yeah only goals versus the team that hasn't played lacrosse for and getting one goal against the state champs or you getting 10 goals against both of them you know i mean i think if you're producing against the higher level competition that'll help you you know and

But it takes a team, right? It takes coaching. It takes a lot that goes into it, obviously. So it's easier said than done. So upstate New York, are you guys looking at box at all, like a player's box background? For sure. My last goal, I used to recruit pretty heavily off. the reservations. And, you know, we have two Canadians on our team now. One was a very high pick in the junior junior a draft. Yeah, so usually for offense, but we're also – we've looked at Canadian goalies and we had a –

We had a young man from Aquacestine that just graduated from our team last year that was a heck of a box player, still is a heck of a box player because those guys continue to play as they grow old. So, yeah, we're not against it, especially on offense. Those guys know how to score goals.

I'm going to switch the conversation really quick and kind of on the more player development side or kind of just jumping in between the lines here. I was looking at your bio. You hold, I believe, at least at the time of the writing, the top four. single season cause turnover records at Lebanon Valley college. I don't know if that still holds. Is that still there? I haven't checked in a while, but I'd imagine. Okay. And it's a hell of a feat. How did you go about?

developing that play style to, you don't see that a lot at all, like holding the top four, all four of your seasons at the top. I would love to know how you develop that sense. Well, I'll kind of put it in a little more, you know, it's impressive, but it's also we I played for a new program in college. So like we're not like a hundred year historic program. So I think that has something to do with it.

You know, but I was just fortunate, man. I think I had a different mindset than a lot of kids. You know, I wanted to, a lot of guys have a dream of playing Division I lacrosse. I just wanted to play. You know, I was a football, basketball, lacrosse player all four years in high school. And being a 5'11 stocky power forward in basketball.

I didn't play that much my senior year. Right. And rightfully so. So to me, that was like the epiphany. Like, man, I just want to go somewhere and make an impact. So I went to a startup D3 program and, you know, I went from my high school team was pretty good. My senior year, we finished.

We went to Connecticut High School. It's on Long Island. And, you know, we had like three big-time names, right? We had this kid, Zach Oliveri, who was a goalie for the United States 119 team in 2011 that won gold, played at UMass and Stony Brook. This kid Mike Pellegrino, two-time captain at Johns Hopkins, he's now coaching in the NFL, which is crazy. He's coaching the Patriots, coaching the Bills now. He was a freak, man, still is a freak.

And then Kieran McArdle, who's one of those attackmen on the water dogs, right? So I went from covering Kieran every day. who was pretty darn good, and it was really hard to get the ball out of his stick to them playing Division III lacrosse. I mean, I was conference player of the week, my first week in college, you know, so it's just... I think a lot goes into it. I think I had really good coaches in high school that taught me the fundamentals of how to V-hole and all that kind of stuff.

I had a great coach in college, Coach John Haas, who All-American at UNC himself. He was the head coach at UNC. He was the head coach at Johns Hopkins before he went to Lebanon Valley, and that was a big reason why I went there. I wanted to play for a coach with his kind of resume. And the thing I loved about him the most, he's just a man's man, great human, great family man. But he let the players play, you know, and I think there's a lot of ways to coach.

And that's the beauty of coaching. There's disciplinarians. There's guys that tell you how to do everything. There's guys that let the athletes be athletes. And Coach Haas let me play to my strengths. And so I think a combination of I had coaches that allowed me. That taught me the fundamentals and also let me be aggressive. Let me do things a little out of the box. And I went from covering the best players on Long Island to covering Division III players. And then, you know, really.

For any player out there that's listening on a corrupt position you are become as athletic as you can, you know, like Become dedicated to speed training, become dedicated to the weight room, become dedicated to your diet. And that's really probably what helped me and took me the next game. I was dedicated to yoga. I can still put my leg behind my head to this day, even though I'm much heavier than I was and I'm 33 years old.

man because i i really committed to be the best athlete i could yeah and it paid off yeah i want to talk about the mentality of a of causing turnovers right of being a disruptive defender as opposed to kind of just being out there playing

defense and you know what's interesting is when we were growing up I don't know if it was this way on Long Island I heard college coaches saying hey the best check to throw is no check because it's all about body positioning and it's all about just making sure you don't get beat and I know there's

coaches all over the map even at that time but i do feel like there is an element of the checks and the turnovers are coming back into the game kind of like they were maybe back in the day when you see those syracuse highlights and they're going over the head and ding-donging and all that stuff but I'm just fascinated with the idea of causing turnovers, how we balance that with playing sound defense. So just interested from your play style.

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't necessarily what I call like a shark where I was chasing guys and just all over the field. You know, I kind of knew my strengths. I was a stout defender and I would. sitting way few of my stick out in front which you know that's one of my pet peeves when the guys don't put their stick out in front why not you got you got six foot pole man use it to your advantage right when it's to the side you might as well play short stick and uh so i think

A lot of my college turnovers, actually, you know, especially once I built a reputation that I was, as anyone, any pole is hard to dodge against, right? Everyone's dodging short 60s these days anyway. So I'd say a lot of my college turnovers were, you know.

Seeing the back of someone's head and sliding to that rollback or or you know This is where I benefit coach Haas like every defense every defensive coach every coach is gonna say put your stick in the lane Well, I was playing at a pretty high level and I would bait guys my stick would be down the side pretend like I wasn't paying attention

and but trust me i was paying attention you know and i picked that pass off or you know i played a lot of wings obviously as an lsm and causing turnovers there and things like that but on ball I hate a rap check. I hate a slap check. I don't think it works. And I take that from covering Keira McArdle every day, right? Like, didn't work.

Against the best. Yeah, he's a stick protection's elite, right? It's like he tucks it in. I'm a big believer in a poke-dig lift, right? Like that can opener kind of check, right? I think that's, to me, combining that with V-holds. is the best way to play defense in my opinion right so anytime uh someone would dodge on me

And actually, sometimes I give him like the ally. If I knew he was a righty, I'd actually kind of let him go to his right, knowing he was going to take it. And I was actually a step ahead of him because he didn't want to go to his left. Right. It's just these guys that play at 1am and I'm telling you it makes life much easier for us on the defensive side, you know, so stick out in front

Get in the hands. You know, I don't necessarily always need a poke check. I think these guys are so athletic these days. But just making them make their move six feet before you. But then getting on the hands, man, and just getting in between their hands and getting their – if they have two hands on the stick, I'm putting my –

the head of my stick in between your hands every single time. And I'm can opening and I'm lifting, I'm digging and I'm staying on it. And then define dig and obviously lift, but define dig. Like, what are you looking for with that? So it's like, you know, if a player has got two hands on a stick,

you know he's usually got like that gap where you can you could poke in between and i don't know how to best describe it but poke in between that that area right and then once you're in there you kind of like rip it out You dig it out like you can see me if you're watching the Zoom, if you don't have an Apple podcast later, you're like scooping up, digging out, trying to almost lift, can't open that stick there.

Right. And it's going to force offensive players. If you don't drop from two hands to one hand, I am going to take the ball out of your stick.

So now I just made you, the only way to keep the ball, now you have one hand on your stick. And guess what? You're a lot less effective one hand on your stick. You can't really shoot. You can't really pass. You've got to eventually put two hands on your stick. And then when you put two hands on your stick again, I'm going to dig again. Or I'm going to lift you again. Or I'm going to trail check you at that point. you ran to a dangerous spot, you have no other thing to do but shoot.

you know just total believer in stick out in front just getting on the hands you know sometimes it's even just like laying it there on the hands right you don't have to necessarily do anything but just being a little bit of a nuisance and that throw that the guy makes now's a little off target buys your defense another second

I think that's what makes good defense. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I see guys, especially take one hand off the stick, like when they throw that poke check and take the second hand off, when a guy's coming at them.

How do you feel about throwing checks, where your hand placement is, all that stuff, when a guy is going horizontal or backwards as opposed to immediately coming into that body? Yeah, I think a lot of it depends on where you're on the field and stuff, but I think in the general sense, if someone's dodging at you,

I believe the best thing to do is throw a poke check. But I always teach guys you can't lunge and throw that poke check. If you lunge and throw that poke check, if you take a step forward and throw that poke check, you're toast. These guys are too athletic. There's no way you can turn, after moving forward, turn around and run full speed with a guy.

already running full speed right so you gotta drop step you gotta give grounds when you throw that poke check because now you poke as hard as you can in the gut and you also step back while you do it You still keep that six feet cushion. And I'm hearing that guy wants to move it because you just took the wind out of him because you hit him so well on the belly button, you know. But then if they get to a dangerous area on the field, right, we call it the paint.

Here at Siena, right? Like any kind of really if you're in shooting, any kind of shooting space, right? At that point, it's no more checks. It's being physical. It's being with playing with your hands, playing with your fists and your feet and trying to drive them. to a non-dangerous area or an area that we can slide to easily you know so um you know one thing you know and i like to watch a lot of lacrosse and study a lot of coaches and players and

I remember years ago, and I know Coach Hayes is big in the basketball, your last podcast guest, and I definitely, I was a basketball player growing up, definitely helped ease my transition into lacrosse. You see, in lacrosse, we were probably taught at our age when we were playing the drop step. They don't teach drop steps anymore. They teach hip flips.

Right. It's just more it's more athletic. It's more active. And yes, you're taking two feet off the ground, but it's a very quick split second and you're more athletic and able to run with these guys. And kind of the new thing, especially as like a deep midi is. If you're about to get swept on, you're trying to force them down the aisle and you're about to get swept on, I think a lot of people have taught like, all right, that's for you.

drop step or hit flip and try to run with them they're stepping up field almost like an nba pick right where they come off the pick and you see that center like take an upfield step and make them go around them you're seeing that at the pl level pll right now the more confrontational step Yes. They're making them go all the way around. You can't go through them in a way, right? And we're trying to teach that here at CNN. Easier said than done, but it's definitely, it works.

Yeah, I've been getting more into the kick steps and watching defensive backs, and that's kind of where I'm picking up a lot of the open field footwork concepts. But I do remember Lac's film room. This was 10 years ago when I was still coaching at the college level. But he was talking about the hip. The hip flip versus the drop step, and it was a huge debate. How are you coaching that? Maybe primarily to your defensive midfielders? Yeah, usually the D-mids.

And really just kind of getting reps at it. Just like doing some quick 1v1s from time to time. My guys, we do a talent show. Every year and one of the guys didn't impersonation of me and his he said gentlemen approaches that was his impersonation because I I mean I talk about approaches all the time I think

You know, to me, defense is, I don't want to say it's simple. It's not. But I think at any level you're watching, the pro level, the college level, the high school level, the youth level, you name it.

You know, to me, I categorize goals in the three categories. There's, there's goals where I say the ball doesn't bounce your way, right? The goalies, the goalies head mesh rips and it goes through the, you deflect the pass and it goes in the cage. And yes, you can argue that he should have picked it off or whatever, but like sometimes it's just.

It's unfortunate, right? Things don't go your way. So that's one type of goal. Another type of goal we like to categorize is tip of the cap, good offense, right? hey, man, that was just a great dodge, great skip pass, great shot, sometimes good offense beats good defense. But I'd say 90% of the goals out there are due to self-inflicted wounds in the defensive end.

Bad approach, not having the one side, not having the two side, slow to rotate. I mean, any of those controllable things is what we spend 100% of our time on here at Siena trying to control, you know, and that's one of them being approaches. and uh you know it's if you can have a good approach man it takes it makes life so much easier for you

Break down the nuance of teaching that approach. Maybe I'm a new player coming in for the first season at Siena. What are you doing in fall with these approaches? Yeah, good question. The Georgetown head coach. I remember the beauty of, and this is why I'm happy to kind of share my knowledge. I wouldn't be where I am today without other coaches in the past going to the convention and hearing what they have to say. And I remember one year, Coach Warren.

Literally, his whole thing was he broke down the approach in the six steps. Crazy, like a science. I didn't go that deep into it. right because i think sometimes less is more and try to make things simple and to me i've just it's it's more about where you're positioning yourself and you're trying to

I don't necessarily want them to go down the side, but I think there was an old school like Bill Tierney at Princeton. It was like you're lateral. You're basically parallel to the sideline. I don't necessarily want that. I want you to be a little athletic. I want you to squirm up a little bit. But I do want him to go down the side. I think I think makes our life easier, right? So when we're watching film and that's it's really more about our film work

We do a lot of 6v6 work. We do a lot of 4v4s and things like that, obviously. And so we watch film nearly every day. And it's usually like 10, 15 minutes. And it's just teaching points and what we call juice plays. And there's also good plays in there that we like to celebrate.

I mean, I could tell. I mean, I guess I coach lacrosse for a living, but you could tell if the guys can take the middle of the field just based on the approach, right? Is that where the guys lined up or is it? It's where he's lined up. I know what you mean.

Yeah, it's not. I think going back to the Coach Haas mentality, let your players play. I think everyone's strengths are different. I think some people are good at playing the guy outside the box. I think some people have to wait at the box. I think, you know, some people like to crowbar. Some people like to drive.

You know, everyone's some people like that reverse V hold seatbelt kind of things like everyone's a little different. But I think at the base level, whether you close, we want you to take space, right? If you hear me coaching on the sideline, I always say take space, take space, take space. I don't want.

them to get a running start i want you to go crowd them and when you crowd them you got to make sure you're not inviting the middle of the field if he's going to take the middle of the field then you're going to jam him he's got to run around you right he's got to really

not attack downhill towards the cage. He's got a we got to drive him and make sure he doesn't, you know, perpetrate the box, so to say, right, he's gonna. So I mean, it's really just I say approaching the top shoulder, right? So if you're Upfield shoulder, upfield foot. Just try to entice him to make sure he goes down the alley. All the time. Talk about it all the time. Yeah.

A little bit more nuance on the footwork of approaching when you're teaching. Obviously, again, it is simple, but it can be broken down, like you were saying, whatever different steps you want to do as a coach.

you know i would love to get into the first retreat steps too because i'm getting into kickstepping and all that stuff on those first pieces but yeah tell me more about the approach let's stay here yeah you know and that's i get the beauty of it i think everyone's a little different i've seen um i've seen really successful d midis that are so patient and they literally sit there flat-footed and they wait for their midi

to make a move, and if they make the move at them, they're bench pressing them, and if they go down the alley, they just wait for the trail position, and then they're so athletic they can stay in that trail position. I don't want to say typical, but I think... Probably the classic approach is, you know, almost like all sports are so similar, right? Think about it in football, but you go make a tackle. Big stride, big stride, big stride. As you get closer, you chop those feet.

and then you explode. I think an approach in lacrosse is similar. You've got to run and take that space, but as you get closer, if you're taking big strides, the guy's going to burn you. So you've got to start breaking down, chopping those feet. As you get closer, and then stay in an athletic stance and be able to read him and react where he's going and understand that for the way we play defense here at Siena. We like to slide to Allie.

Dodgers, we don't want to slide to sweep. We don't want them to sweep at all. I just think it makes life very difficult. So we almost invite you. I tell them I'd rather you get beat without touching him down the alley. then get beat towards the middle getting downhill. Of course, I still want you to touch them, be aggressive, win a matchup, but...

But, yeah, go take that space. Don't let them get a running start. Don't let them be comfortable. We want to be the ones dictating out here and chopping those feet, breaking down, being athletic, and letting him make the first move. So many guys, it's like. They take one jab step and we're so quick to go freaking cross check them and then they freaking sweep right by us, right? Like we just got to be a little more patient, got to be in that trail position.

Yeah, if you're forcing them down the alley, man, our goalie likes that shot. We like to slide to it. We can be aggressive. We can jump it. We can push out of the X. So it's constantly talked about in our program. Patience is... I feel like one of the more under coached or I guess under thought about.

trait when it comes to just being a great defender you look at those corners man that have to guard the craziest wide receivers the most athletic people in the world and they're barely moving as they're like very minute steps that they're taking but they're you can see their body very patient on those first moves. I love that. Yeah, I'm a Denver Broncos fan, so Pat Sertain is the prototype, man. The guy's built in a factory.

it's it's i remember watching a video online and like chad otrocinko was trying to tell like jamar chase and justin jefferson how to like win on one view on press coverage and they're like dude If you did that against Pat Sertain, you'd be toast. He's just different level, but I'm with you. It's a beautiful thing to watch them be in motion. Yeah. No, I love it. How are you – I call it hand fighting. People call it –

With that first engage portion where you're chunking a guy, how are you coaching that piece where you have to then involve your upper body, obviously? Yeah, you're talking more D-mid or pole or both? Tell me about both. Let's start D-mid and work our way. Yeah, and again, going back to the way I believe is letting our players play. Some of our guys like crowbars, which are now.

kind of illegal in division one lacrosse depending on you know i think they're basically going to call free every time free the crowbar yeah it's it's i'm not the biggest fan of it but one of our top teammates is very good at it so you know

I let him kind of hold on. Why aren't you? Why aren't you a fan of the crowbar? It's pretty disruptive. You get it. I just don't, I just don't think it's a real lacrosse play. It's, you know, it's like, it's just, uh, you're pulling at his free arm, right? This is, there's a reason they're calling it to the hold. Like it's not.

It's not lacrosse. In a way, I don't like the crowbar because all the young guys think it's about knocking the guy down. Right. I tell them all the time. It's about repositioning yourself. It's about getting. And of course, that's what my D-Mitty says. You know what I mean? So we're trying to test the limits in our fall scrimmages to see what the refs are calling. And actually, we played UMass.

Most recently, great program, great players, great coaches, all that kind of stuff, obviously. And one of their guys went for a crowbar and got hold penalty almost immediately. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's been a point of emphasis. Last year and this year, they just think it's a dangerous play. They talked about, I asked the refs before the game, they're like, if we see any disadvantage given, we're going to call a hold.

If we see any disadvantage given to the offense is what they meant. That's how it works. Look, all sports are directed, officiating-wise, towards the offense. That's what it is. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. But anyway, so some guys are good at the crowbar. Some guys are good at the V-hole.

Some guys are good at driving. Some guys are good at lifting. So, you know, I think for us, my philosophy is, you know, I think there's other coaches out there. Like I know Coach Byrne at Harvard when he was at Notre Dame, he liked.

He wanted his D middies to constantly force rollbacks, right? Like he didn't want to, he wasn't a believer in driving them one way. He was, you know, force rollback, force rollback, force rollback. And eventually that slide's going to come and they're not ready for it. teach here at Siena. Once they basically pick away, we do want to drive them that way because we're a big sliding recovery team. We like to be athletic and aggressive and go out in the hands and make them make a play.

And so once they do, if they do beat us in a sweep, we're just going to stay in his hip and continue to drive him out. You know, I think as deep middies. You're better off not throwing checks, you know, but I mean, there's been so many good DMITIs over the years, especially at Division I level that are just like throwing these crazy V-holds and seatbelts and knocking the ball out. And it's like, I'm not going to take away what makes you great.

You know, just like coach Austin and take away. It made me great. Right. And, uh, so those, those D middies that are good at that stuff for you, it's more of a, they have to work on that on their own. You're not in practice saying, Hey, we're going to spend 10 minutes developing this.

Correct. What we say in practice is, hey, we're going to do 1v1s, test the waters, right? Like, see what you're good at. See if you're better at playing them at 40 yards or playing them, waiting for them at 30. Play your angles. See what checks you like. And then, you know. We try to adjust based on that what's working for you. And then talking about polls, I'm a big V-hole fan. It drives me insane when kids don't V-hole.

you know if you're a righty covering a righty coming around x and you're just in that cross check hold man his hands are free and i think that's To be a good defender, you've got to be on their hands. And so, you know, we had a player last year who started every game for us. And again, this is kind of my philosophy. We're going to play to our strengths. So he didn't like V-holding.

But he was so good at everything else. He was so good at side recognition. He was so good at sliding. He was so good at playing a lefty because he didn't have to be hold as a righty, right? So unfortunately, not unfortunately, but we put him on a lefty every single game. You know, because I just didn't want to see him not behold. And, you know, we're fortunate enough to win the MAAC championship with him starting every single game as a true freshman. Right. So but you could bet your.

tale that because i joined the middle of last year right so it was definitely a war when i had a young kid at home learning new names learning new new terminology and things like that. But this fall, you could bet we've been working on the V-hold with him. So he'll be able to cover more than just a lefty this year.

i i love favoring matchups i love getting my guys into the best position possible so for you to say hey i'm putting him on a lefty every time that warms my heart man because that's that's what i'm about is making sure the matchups

look most positive and control what we can control. I was big in the matchups, but I'm also not because we're such a slide in recovery team, you know? So I, like, I do think the matchup matters and if we can win matchups, great, but I think there are teams out there that are so. matchup heavy show and they'll go you know and if you lose your matchup great where we are like let's win our matchup let's have good slide recognition and if we're beat

Let's go. You know what I mean? Like, I'm a big, you know, math's kind of my background. I'm big about playing the odds. You know, I think, you know, some people like seeing an alley shot. I don't like seeing any shots, right? I want to end every possession with a shot clock violation or a cause turnover because if you're not shooting, you're not scoring. You know what I mean? So we try to slide and recover so well.

that, you know, I want to lead the country and I know it's not a kept category, but I want to have the most shot clock violations this year. I think that's our goal is to be below 10 goals against average. I think our offense and our face-off units are so prolific that if we can keep teams under 10, we're going to win games.

It's interesting that you say 10 because I feel like I've talked with coaches more recently since the shot clock got involved. And it's like, well, maybe that should be 12 for defenses now that the shot clock is there. Well, so when I got here last year, I looked at their last year schedule.

And in my first meeting with them, I said, do you guys know where your record would have been if you held every team to nine or less goals? And yeah, not really anyone knew. It took a couple of guesses. And I said, you would have went 15 and one and won the conference. But it was just those couple games where they got to 11 or whatever it was that cost them. And we said we had a very talented offense last year. I think we'll have a very talented offense this year.

You know, that was only not true one game. First game of the year, we lost to Boston University 9-7. Every other game that year where we held the team under 10, we won the game. You know, so... It's easier said than done, but it helps when our faceoff guy was going like 70% at the beginning of the year. Oh, man.

makes life a lot easier, and that's on the defensive side when that's happening. Yeah, we've got a great face-off guy this year, which I'm looking heavily forward to. Are you asking, like when you have a good face-off guy, are you asking your defense and just your team in general to...

play a little bit more transition like take a little bit more risk when you know you can get that ball back as easy yeah i think i'd play that way even if we had a bad face-off guy um you know i think you know for years you know i mean a lot of people You know, Coach Kerwin, who's now at Dartmouth, right? He's kind of been coined with like...

practicing transition, right? I think for years, everyone was playing 66 and they had the mindset of Tufts, like, well, everyone's scoring in transition. So why don't we practice transition a lot more and really revolutionize our game. But, you know, Salisbury was playing transition way before, like. Teams have played fast for years, and I just think we as a defense, we practice 6v6 all the time, and it's very hard to score in 6v6 in today's era of lacrosse, in my opinion. But score in 4v3s.

Pretty easy right scoring and heck 5v5 situations where you don't have all six out there You don't really may not practice that that much and if they go while we're subbing You know, those slides are a little longer than when it's 6v6. But it's definitely a big part of who we are. We actually used to be more of a two-way midi team, kind of classic Albany style when the Thompsons were there. Now we are definitely all O-mids and D-mids, but, you know, we practice shooting.

every other day on the defensive side. I need, I say post-score goals all the time. We have, one of our LSMs is as good as an in-between-the-lines guy as there is in the country. He had 10-plus points last year. We had four different DMDs score last year, you know, so we're pushing. It's definitely a big part of who we are. Are there any principle-based pieces there where your guys are maybe saying, hey, first to the midline? What are you teaching your polls as far as getting upfield?

Yeah, it's really just first three up and out. You know, I mean, we have our clear, but, you know, before the clear happens, if you can play fast, you know, especially our 2-0 sons that played for us last year and they're back this year and our other guys too, but they're very good at when that shot goes.

they're out and our goalies know hit those guys and our team middies are the same way so the first three basically will push it could be two close guys if somehow it just happened that way um you know we had a couple close defenders score last year too so

yeah it's it's it's it's just really be play be an athlete play fast yeah first three up and out and uh and usually you know try to draw someone and pass it to our attack when they're much better at shooting than us right but obviously if they don't

play you, we got to make sure they pay for that. This is a really interesting conversation that I didn't think I'd have because I thought I was going to get into a 1v1 defense, which of course you want to have great, like if you don't have to slide. You probably love that. But the fact that, you know, you're saying, hey, we're going to be a quick sliding team or a sliding recover team. It takes a lot of courage in my mind because you go up to these teams.

in Division 1, and you're saying those guys can sling it like anybody. And so you leave yourself vulnerable sometimes in those scenarios where... If you were just more one-on-one, not going to slide as much, you kind of leave it up to the one guy. So it takes a lot of courage to play that way. I'd love to kind of get into the nuance, but yeah.

Yeah, so I think for any fans out there, if you watch our last year's MAAC championship against Sacred Heart, who's a program we obviously have a lot of respect for, a very talented team. They were ranked most of last season. It's funny, we play two very different styles of defense. I think you can see that on display. They are very much a win-your-match-up team, and they're very good at it. They have some very – their D middies last year were exceptional, you know, and for us –

I just felt the best fit for this team that I took over was we were going to slide over cover. We graduated two all-conference defenders and all-conference D-Mitty. A lot of people didn't think we'd be very good, you know, and for me, I'm like... I don't really care what anyone outside these walls say, right? We're going to go be the best we can be. And I knew we'd win. And yeah, I think we practice sliding and recovering every day.

And I actually call it the Duke drill because I kind of like stole parts of it from Duke, you know, going to those conventions in here. And that was Coach Caputo there, who I think is, you know, who is a legend. I don't think he is a legend, you know. At the Division I level, 90% of the teams, if not more, are running some sort of what I call pairs offense, which is like three two-man games.

going on at the field at once and then if they're not running it they're running some sort of bs play that eventually turns in the pairs in their in their motion offense so to say right so we practice you know we basically set up a drill that practices sliding and recovering to a pair's offense and how we want to slide to it. There's a lot of different ways to slide to it. And we practice those different ways. And we do it so quickly.

And when they dodge the out, you throw forward, and actually the other guys are ready to get the ball out. So we basically make it more difficult in practice than we do in games. And there's times where it's like,

it's impressive how fast our guys can read and react and go to the right spots because we practice it so much. And then when it comes game time, you know, even in our scrimmage, it's really hard to beat a 6v6 because theoretically, what are our offensive teams trying to do? And this is what I hate about these high schoolers.

highlight tapes i watch everything's one dodge and a shot it's like that it's not college or cross right you got to dodge draw side move it dodge draw side move it move it dodge draw side and it's usually right offensive teams are coaching

That if you can get a defensive side or cover two, three times, you're probably going to get a good shot. And for us, it's like we think we can actually side and recover faster than you can move the ball. And that's kind of what we pride ourselves on. And we're very good at it. How much are you favoring?

the leaving the backside open as opposed to leaving uh maybe i obviously you want to cover the crease first but If you're sliding all the time or you're sliding more than usual, there's going to be somebody open somewhere. So I'm just interested in how you think about it. We actually, we're really unique in that I do think the best defense is the near man defense, but I also think it's very hard to coach a near man slide defense. So we actually, like our slide schemes are colors.

And if you hear us yell two colors, that means we have two different side packages based on where they're going. So if you hear us yell, I'm going to make up colors. So not that I give away our colors on air here, but I'll make up two colors. Let's say red-green. Okay, so if you hear red green red is saying that's we're gonna slide red Our slide package will be red if they go down the alley and the second color green is we're gonna slide green if they sweep

Because I think they're, especially in Paris' offense, it makes more sense to slide down the alley with this guy. And I think when they sweep, it makes more sense. You're calling that every possession? Yeah, screaming. I'm a very active coach, especially when they're on my side of the field.

I am yelling the whole time. Hey, we're red, green, red, green. You're the two ready to go rotate. Right. Like, and then when they're on the other side, I like to empower our players. And I always kind of name a quarterback of our defense. And like last year I had a senior captain from Chaminade that.

Very high IQ. And, you know, whenever he was on the other side and they couldn't hear me, he knew exactly how I wanted to play defense. And he would yell out what colors were in. He'd say who was hot and he would say who was too. I tried to put him on a guy that was maybe more on the crease, so he's not trying to cover the X guy while that's happening. So that's a little bit about our slides, but also I think a lot of teams, even at Division I level, we like to help from behind the cage a lot.

So I think a lot of teams, if you're not sneaking, you're playing 5v6. You know what I mean? So we will happily have that defender covering X help up a lot until you make us pay with a sneak. And if you don't make us pay, they're going to be playing man down the whole game. And especially, you know, that pair's offense is popular. So, you know, there's the righty pair, the lefty pair, when I call it pipe pair. So those are two attackmen on the pipes and sometimes they rotate.

Another offense that's been popular in Division I is what I've coined, what we name offenses. When I coach defense, my goal is... that we need we're going to know the offense better than they know their offense right and so we name offenses and when they come down and then we see their set so we'll yell out pairs hey they're pairs and we know exactly what slide package we're running against pairs hey they're nba so nba is

Five guys in front. It's a frontside two-man game, a backside triangle, and then one guy at X. It's become very popular. We probably played five teams last year that ran that kind of look.

and same thing you know in that kind of look they have one guy sitting at x all the time because you need the outlet back there right but so we're helping from x constantly how much of that time when you're helping above cage Does that guy get caught up above the cage and somebody else has to go back there and play that guy?

It happens. You know, I would say probably more often than not what might happen because we show with that guy so much is that we get caught in that what we call look away where he's sitting behind the cage and we're sitting in front. He's hanging out. Yeah, hang up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever term people use, you know. But we don't mind it, right, because we're in the shot clock era.

right so you can be hanging up other all day man like you're not practicing you might practice that maybe 10 minutes a week but your your your offense is pairs your offense is whatever you're not practicing so we'll sit there all day and let that let that crock one i i might we're

on the same wavelength the offensive coaches that are listening to this are like oh god here defensive guys just getting after it but i dude i can never understand i might be wrong but it's clear we think about the same i hate the goalie behind i hate bringing the goalie behind and doing that handoff or whatever i yeah whenever i see it i'm like good god i like why don't offenses take advantage more just throw it to the freaking wing guy and take a shot yeah yeah i don't get it

Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, though, I think teams like our team's getting pretty good at it, you know, because we do it so much that we get because they kind of know how our defense plays now. And we got caught in that hangman situation a lot. And like they're getting really good at like. picking and slipping off it and getting some looks so i'm getting to the point where it's like man maybe we do gotta force the issue a little bit but uh okay um

Yeah, but we help a lot from behind and we will definitely help from the backside as well. It just really depends on the looks. You know, I think, again, you heard me say it earlier, we want to be the ones dictating.

Everyone, I'm telling you, man, if you want to be a Division I offensive coordinator, it's like run pairs and run big littles behind. And I feel like that's like half the offenses out there, right? And everyone's running a big little, but they're all doing it for different reasons. And you've got to watch that on film. I talked about I'm a big math guy playing the odds.

When you watch it and you break it down and you clip it, right? So when I break down film, I clip everything. I clip their 6v6 offense. They're out of bounds. They're big littles. They're inverts. And I put them in playlists. And when you watch big little after big little after big little after big little, you see what they're trying to accomplish.

There are some teams that they're running the big little just to get their attack pin a shot. They're just running off it. He's not even looking for anything. They're just using that pick to get him a shot. There are some people that are looking to get the attack pin and get that. the switch so he can invert. There are some people that are looking to throw it back and let that guy push backside. There are some people looking for a skip pass. So when we watch that in film,

And we talk about it as a team. We will try to take, you know, hey, they like to throw the skip top center. We're not going to give them that look. We're going to play, you know, a certain way. Right. We're constantly trying to make sure that you're not comfortable running what you like to do.

I'm a big stack and slap guy when it comes to supporting the picks. When you're talking about that action of... on ball or the on ball side you have two guys and then off ball you got the three and then the guy behind it x when you're defending the primary action that the on ball action how are you asking your on ball and off ball guy to play Yeah, so it's funny you say that. So this was the first year I've really actually taught the stack and whack. And same kind of thing I said earlier.

There was one day in practice where we practiced all of them. We practiced stacking wacky. We practiced giving ground. We practiced, you know, the four or five different options you could play pick. And then when we did big littles in our 66 session, I told the guys.

do what you like, do what you want. And there were some guys in our team that are unbelievable stack and whackers. And there are some guys it's like, it's like, you should never do that again. You know, you're so bad at it. Right. So, um, I let them play to them, but I think, you know, there's definitely some things we like to finagle back there. I like, you know, if you run, sometimes if we think your big little is so dangerous that you're eventually going to get.

They invert any way that they want, like if it's out of bounds. So one team we played last year, they were very dangerous with their big Littles offhand lines to the point where they always got the attack on the short stick. And I'm like, you know what? Instead of us getting to that point. Why don't we just, every time it goes out of bounds, let's just go on our invert defense, right? So, and it really messed them up.

Because now it's like, you know, they're so predicated on the big little, and all of a sudden it's like they're like, are they in a zone? Like, what the hell is going on right now? It's like, no, we're just in our defense because we think you're so good at it that you're going to get that switch anyway, right? If they run a little big.

You know, like, so if it's, you know, not that many teams would do this, but sometimes you see it where the shorty is dodging a shorty and they set a pick with a pole. We will actually lock off. The shorty will get picked and he will lock off that pick. And now you get the pole on ball. theoretically, right? So we're always just trying to finagle what works for us, what we're comfortable with, but also trying to take away what they're comfortable with. How are you

teaching the on-ball guy to go over and under, and obviously it comes back to what's the comfortability level, but to me, I hate seeing a guy go over the pick 30, 40 yards away from the cage. It drives me insane. It's a location thing. Okay. Yeah. You know, I compare, you know, it's like Steph Curry. Like if you got Steph Curry out there, you got to go over the pick. Right. But if you're within, you know, if you're within that danger zone, that painted area, that, that.

they can shoot from, you have to go over the pick because if you go under it, he's going to come off that pick and shoot it. But yes, if you're behind the cage or 30 yards away from the cage, it's... you should never go over the pick, right? Just create some space and go under it, man. Just run with it and you'll be good to go. You know what I see a lot of our guys do? And I'm sure you might see it too. Once one of the defenders on ball and they hear a pick coming, they keep retreating.

And it's like, stop retreating, right? Like you're making it easier for them, man. Play defense. It doesn't change too much. And then once you hear the pick and you know it's coming, then you take the step back. Don't start retreating before the pick comes. It's like blood in the water when you see a guy do that. The offense knows it. Oh, yeah. No doubt.

i'm interested we call it the paint too we've got the it's kind of oblong it's a very weird shape everyone's got a different shape i saw a square one time i was like a square doesn't really make sense to me based on the shooting angles and all that stuff changing but like you you have that

dangerous area do you have an area outside the dangerous area that you're like this is when they're getting this is when we should put hands on or how are you how are you determining those areas of the field that are dangerous for the guys

That's a good question. I mean, one area that we like to maybe send a double would be near the box, especially for face off, you know, but like outside of that. I would say the one really dangerous area that we talk about a bunch is goal line extended picks. And I think you have to either jump switch it or double it. I just think it's too dangerous.

For a defender to fight through that's just it's too much of an advantage for the offense right so Outside of that though again it goes back to what your strengths are if you are a guy that can hunt and what I call shark You know like if you can go be that shark and hunt that guy down then go ahead and be aggressive outside the painted area. But I don't really want many stick checks, if any at all, inside the painted area. That's when you got to be fist and feet.

Trying to drive him out and trying to force him to a spot that we can easily slide to. But, you know, we're very fortunate. We have a very good, you know, we don't bring him any transfers at Siena, but we got a couple of local guys, and one of them is an absolute.

just 1v1 cover defender, and he's going to make life a lot easier for us this year because I don't think we'll have to slide too much. So he'll have the freedom to go out and play, but at the same time, that's not his strength. He's going to sit in a fundamental position. I don't think we really have any guys that are hunting, so to say. I think our guys are very good at just playing fundamentally sound defense, putting their stick out in front, getting on hands when that dodge happens.

We want the offense to make very quick decisions. That's why we slide and recover so fast, right? Like you have to react faster than we do. And the look you think is might not there, we're jumping it. Like we've anticipated it so well, we practiced it so much that, you know, we're taking away your outlets and sliding to you. And now you've got to sometimes throw that big skip pass. And then our guys are so good at picking it off.

It was a great, you know, I think sometimes you hear in football like the QB coach marriage. I think I had a great marriage with my group last year. You know, we were very much on the same page. We believed, they believed in what I was trying to fly. philosophies that we were trying to play and they bought into it and obviously worked out. We won the first MEC championship in 11 years at Siena.

A lot of fun. Coming in halfway through or right before the season, I don't know exactly what happened, but to accomplish that, that's awesome. So congrats on that. I mean, I walked into a good situation, right? Yeah, there you go. But, yes, thank you. I've got a couple guys that are going to go be sharks this year. I've got an older group that's going to be a little bit more aggressive. I'm really trying to get into the weeds on how I teach the second guy to anticipate that the...

First guy is doing really well. He's putting a lot of pressure on that offensive guy. So there's going to likely be some type of not turnover essentially, but the offense being under pressure and disrupted is going to make a potential for a play to happen.

how do you how do you think about that oh my gosh yeah it's it's one of my pet peeves right like it's the i talk about playing the odds all the time and then you see a pole running down the field and you see one of our lsn's about to jump him and there's our close defender not pushing out in the attack. Right. And of course, we talk about it on film. Like you have to play your odds, man. Go take that away. What do you think they want to do?

They want to pass the attackman and go back on his side of the field. So don't give them what they want. So I think watching it on film and telling guys to anticipate when to push out on those adjacent passes is crucial. And I think... On ball, I think it's a balance. Because I said I wasn't too much of a shark. I would shark at times when I was in college. And I think there's a balance, though, that you can't just be out of control.

Right. You could still play fundamental defense on their hands without, you know. putting yourself out of position. Just rely on your teammates that they're pushing out as well. And that's why I had some of the best teammates in college, man. They allowed me to be the player I was. And, you know, they knew when I was out there being that.

And out in the hands there, they were going to push out and let me kind of be a shark. I think I'm going to – I'm just talking through this with you. I love the combo. But I think I'm going to frame it in like a combo pressure. Like, hey, we didn't do a great job of comboing pressure there. Like we got one, the singular pressure on ball.

You didn't do a good job of comboing that to potentially force a turnover. Yeah, maybe, you know, we have one of our callers. The caller means we're pushing out adjacents. Got it. If you see your pole about to jump in, maybe you yell out red, right? And that red means, you know, whoever's near his guy, you know, Jason passes, go push out on him because we like our matchup right now. Yeah.

It's funny, man. Offensive coaches, when they see me yelling on the sideline, they just shake their head. It's a whole different lifestyle, man. Defensive coaches, it's effort. It's intensity. It's all the time. I know there's some defensive coaches that just sit there.

That's their style. But I'm just like you. I'm very intense. But it's a balance. You don't want to do too much. You don't want to have the guys thinking too much. And honestly, I wasn't much of a yeller on defense prior to this. I think. It was one of those things I started, because I wanted to play a certain way here at Siena, I started yelling and our guys played better when I yelled. So it's like, well, I guess I'm going to keep yelling. You know what I mean?

Yeah, but you know what I would say, though, to give the offense credit? I think there's more work that goes into being a defensive coordinator, but I think it's harder to coach offense. I think it's harder to build the synergy and the chemistry and play to your strengths and score goals than it is to stop goals from being scored, in my opinion. I want to go back to the V-hold really quick.

I was listening to the ecological, the philosophy podcast. God, Jamie Monroe, thanks for that. But Andy Shea. was talking about, and he really opened my mind up to the V-hold. I was never really taught the V-hold correctly based on what Andy Shea was talking about where you're engaging that backhand and really, you know.

attacking the lever right basically like engaging the lever so that it becomes a hold more so than if you kind of just have it sitting and i'm not saying that that not doing that isn't a v hold it's just another element to it But I'm interested in how you coach that V-hole, because I agree with you, man. There's no reason not to be stick-side at these levels, especially with what you're trying to do. Yeah, and you know what? And honestly...

I might have to listen to that one because I don't know if I know the intricacies of the V-hold that well. You know, what I was taught was, you know, you have your bottom hand in the hip pocket, right? And you're not like... you don't want to like squeeze them because that's actually a hold right you're just this thick's kind of 90 degrees from your body and you just it's more about your stance your athletic stance you're not leaning forward because they can roll off of you it's just you're

You're in that stance. Your stick's out. And then I'm a big believer. And when they do roll, you give like a forearm shiver. Yep. Right? And that gives you that little bit of space.

to then if you do need to bring this you don't want to bring the stick too quickly because then they roll back on you right but you trail your patient as we talked about earlier and when he does commit to coming underneath inside then you bring that stick back and you go for that trail position top side of the field don't chase the stick you know which i see all the time guys doing like they go for the over the head check on gle it's like man

That is not the spot to do that. It's got to be the most times a defenseman is scored on is that exact spot over the head. Yes. I'll give a little bit of nuance to the Andy Shea stuff, but first of all, are you telling guys to – dig up or rip up through the bottom hand leverage or are you telling them to kind of uh just sit there you know it's i i haven't um honestly asked them to do either i just asked them to do a v hole

You know, and I think, you know, as I'm kind of hearing it that way, I don't know what I would teach. And I think that might be one of those things where it's like, what's our guys good at? You know, because to me, it's... I'm not doing the V-hole to necessarily take the ball away.

I'm just doing it to not get beat topside and to make sure that he can't. Because if you do the cross-check hold as he's coming around, he's coming around X on the right side. If you're on a cross-check hold, he can do whatever he wants. He can question mark. He can shoot you off your hip. And when your hands are free.

You can do whatever you want. But just having that stick on that side of the field is going to make him either go back to X or inside roll where the coma slide is coming. But what did he teach? What did he teach lifting up?

I think what he was getting at more so was what I call a pin, right? So like you can either, if you're in good position, you can go for the bottom hand leverage, like get up underneath his glove and rip where the same thing on the opposite side you were talking about where they have to take their hand off and there you have an advantage. or you you do what essentially is like a pin where

The way he explained it, and I've always thought the V hold was because you're making the V. This is how I explained it to the younger guys. When I was younger, I thought the V hold was like this thing where you're making almost that Spartan stance. But the way Andy was talking about it is like... when you engage the backhand, that lever makes the stick go from here, like out like this to here. And so you're essentially like, I get what you're talking about. It can be called as a hold.

But if you keep your feet moving, a lot of times, this is where the guys get really caught up is when they throw that Revo or they throw the pin, like the V-hold here, and they stop their feet. Yes. Or they don't continue to move their hips or whatever. Yes. No doubt. So essentially what he was talking about was like instead of kind of sitting here and pushing and driving, what you're doing is engaging the backhand lever.

And still moving, still doing all the things with your feet, but you're essentially pinning the stick across the body. Interesting. And as long as, to my understanding of the rule, as long as he has somewhere.

to run to and you're not preventing it from running in at least one direction, it's not a hold, right? So even if you're pinning him, as long as he can assume he can run the opposite of where you're pinning him from, which is probably what Annie Shady's teaching to force the inside roll, then...

Yeah. That's a good one. I got to dig into that more. Text me. Go out with your guys. Text me how that went, man. I would love to know. That would be like the first time ever. um on the podcast we like talked about something no for sure man that's we this is the beauty of fall ball man in division one you get a lot of hours you know which is i used to be division three coaches well i coached at all three levels but like you know you get way more practice time and and

division one. So we can work on however we want. It's a beautiful thing. So we're like five minutes over the hour. So I don't want to hold you too much longer, Ryan, but how are you teaching that slide in recovery? Like, I know that's a huge question. That's a lot to unpack. But what are the kind of the nuances of having to slide that much? And how do you install it? We we start from kind of base level.

you know i think good coaches are good teachers and good educators right and you got to be able to what i think make what might sound complex to other people i'm trying to make it simple and almost like foolproof right for our guys and so we we draw it up on the whiteboard we show film on it we walk through it and we do it full speed right so that's kind of like a little bit of the teaching methods like you do all four of those things some people excel

seeing it visually some people like the whiteboard some people need to walk through it some people need to do it full speed and we kind of break it down that way hey here's what pairs offense is here are the ways that we can slide let's walk through those ways and now let's do it full speed and um

you know and against especially pairs man i think you can you could slide off the mirror you could slide either adjacent you could slide off the backside pair you could slide off the ball side pipe i guess theoretically you can slide off the backside pipe but i don't really see that much but we practice

the other four spots all the time you know and uh and when that duke drill i talk about you know that's where we're practicing it's it's not it's less about taking it's not about taking the ball away it's not about even your approaches even though it's a big part of it it's just we're just telling

The guys, whether it's our guys dummying in as offensive guys or if I have some offensive guys on my side of the field, they're just kind of either dodging the alley or sweeping and throwing forward or throwing backwards. And we are just constantly sliding to every dodge. It's like dunk, right? It's like skeleton defense in a way, right? This is 6v6? 6v6, right? And we are sliding to every dodge.

practicing whatever color scheme slide scheme we were doing for that day or week or whatever and uh and constantly moving you know and i could i could i could uh Maybe send you a clip one day of what it looks like, but it's just constant and we start by going simple, right? So you start with everything's an alley dodge throwing forward

Right. So you you slide. Let's just say you're going to slide off the mirror. So they dodge down the alley. You slide off the mirror. And if they throw forward, we call it a U-turn recovery. We just kind of turn around and cover the guy that's right behind you. Right. And then everyone else is strong because.

The beauty of that slide package is that the other four can stay strong in their matchups. So then they throw it forward, and then we immediately dodge from the other corner. It's like the ball. You know, the other goalies in the back they throw. And then he immediately dodges the alley. And same thing. And we work on that U-turn. So then eventually we go from dodging the alley. Now they can throw forward or throw.

throw backwards. So when they throw back after we draw a slide, we call that a rotate call. So now we're designating who's going to be the rotate guy in a pair's offense, whether you want to go across the top or the crease or whatever it might be. And so now we're repping out.

Guys going down the alley and they could throw forward or throw back. So now our guy's got to make the decision, are we U-turning or are we rotating? So then once you get good at that, now you start adding sweeps in there. So now you can go down the alley, throw forward or throw back, and now you can sweep and throw forward.

And then once you get good at that, you can do a sweep and throw forward, step back. So then all of a sudden, you're doing this so fast, 45-second reps, constant slide and recover. You're doing maybe literally 15 slides. in 45 seconds and everyone's moving in unison we put d middies on the pipes we put close defenders up top we put everyone everywhere because of the way we play and how much we slide and recover you got to get good at all six spots so to say so um

That has definitely helped us. I mean, that's been the biggest thing for us. And then once we play live 6v6, you know, because we simulate it so fast in that drill, it's just easy, honestly, for us. Going into a game thinking that some guy that's potentially playing a not-so-great player is going to help out with the team defense, or maybe you're going to slide from that guy more. How do you think about that?

Yeah, it's definitely, you know, we try to, again, play to strengths and tendencies. There's times where we say if this guy goes to his left, do not slide. You know, there are times where we say he's not a stretch shooter. So if they sweep. you can help in more. But sometimes if that guy's a stretch, you know, if they're sleeping and the forward pass is a stretch shooter, we're going to go play him and slide from a different spot.

You know, just a good example of this, and this is the beauty of the vision on lacrosse and the high level and the guys that had that can handle so much. Last year in that conference championship, we were trying to go slow to alley dodges, right? And they scored twice on an alley dodge. Okay, so it's like, all right, we got to change it. We got to slide to this. So then we say we're going to slide to alleys and we're going to hard rotate the throwback.

Well, then they scored two goals after that on big skip passes. That's all right. Well, we're going to slide the alleys and we're going to be slow to rotate now. And then we finally, you know, that was like that was like the happy medium there for the rest of the game, you know, so.

Yeah, we're constantly talking about it. We're constantly kind of playing the odds and seeing who do we think is dangerous or who do we have to slide to. I have some confident teammates. I think they can win matchups, and I trust them until they can't, you know, and then we'll start sliding to them.

Yeah, it's a constant thought process. It's interesting that you were sliding and recovering so much, right? Or you're saying that you guys are doing that a ton. How much uneven work are you guys doing? Because it sounds like you're doing it a ton just in practice. kind of live and in very even, uh, scenarios. But like, you'd think that you guys would be doing uneven drills all the time, which I'm sure you are, but how much does that put in?

You know, it's a good question. I would say, and when we do uneven stuff, but I think we do it more for transition stuff. I don't necessarily think I've ever, you know, it's funny. I thought about actually this week, just, you know, random driving. You know, we do a lot of drives. You know, I just recruited in New Jersey this past weekend, three and a half hours there back, whatever. So, like, I get a lot of time to think to myself, listen to your podcast. So.

I thought about this week maybe doing like seven offense versus six defense, right? And not worrying about matchups, but just covering the most dangerous guy and leaving the least dangerous guy open. But, again, honestly, man, We are so fast at sliding and recovering that it's not even like a numbers thing. Actually, what I think the hardest part is when we slide and recover and they do get it to the back side is being able to reset those slides so quickly. But because I think we do it...

so quickly in that drill we do every day or every other day that it has become second nature for us. We've played some offenses, just fully transparent. If your offense is random, we struggle against it. You know, where we have to decide, like, you know, there's been times in film I pause it and it's like, and I'm like, who's, who do you think's the best guy to slide? And like my senior captain's like, coach, I have no idea.

because of just how random they do things. But if you're predictable in your offense and we know what you're going to do, I can promise you we'll be prepared for it and we're going to make life very difficult for you.

I wish we didn't say that on the podcast because now all the offensive coaches I play against are going to be like, damn it, we've got to be more creative. But yes, 100%. Man, we agree on a ton. I learned a ton on this episode. I wish we could go 20 minutes more, but I like to keep these. succinct man i do feel like it it can it can run a little bit but what we can do is in the springtime let's have another podcast episode man because there's

Yeah, man. We're in the summer when I'm there. I could do it in the studio there, you know? There you go. It'd be a good time. But yeah, Zach, I appreciate you, man. You've had some real good guests. It's an honor to be part of it, man. And hopefully if there's one person that took something from this podcast today, man, then it was...

you know, it was a success. Awesome, man. Hey, please send over that drill too. I'd love to put it like at this part of the episode, but again, coach Lanigan, thank you. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. So this is part of our ongoing drill bank series where we have coaches share their favorite. And most use drills for you to take back to your own teams and use as you see fit. So this is Coach Landigan's 4v4 drill that we discussed on the podcast. He is going to evolve this 4v4 drill.

which he calls the duke drill to a 6v6 and i'll show you that at the end of the episode so what you're going to set this up as is obviously having two pairs on both sides of the field so you have the right side pair top right uh here ball you have the on ball pair as well as the off ball pair here

On the left side of the field, you also have two players that are not necessarily part of this drill. They're there to kind of simulate a cycle or an exchange of the ball to the backside, which you'll see, which gets a lot of.

really you know fast action there's no waiting around you have to slide and recover a lot and you have to communicate this through now we have two separate parts of this 4v4 it's either going to be over the top or it's going to come from the inside here you also see a lot of the times there's going to be a u-turn recovery which is a great way to not have the whole

defense have to slide and recover but actually just you know u-turn and find uh you know that switch essentially is what it kind of looks like where you don't have that whole team recovered the first one i'll show you here we'll just go through it it's going to show a live over the top and then i'll show you a second variation of the drill that is the slide is going to come from the inside crease defender and then we'll go to a six on six

All right. So the second variation of this drill is going to be the crease defender here is going to make the slide as opposed to the adjacent over the top defender. So you see essentially the same situation play out on ball. where you can have the U-turn recovery, but if they get over the top, most likely they're going to send a slide from this inside defender here as opposed to the adjacent top defender. So we'll play that out.

All right, now to put it all together, you have this 6v6 version of the same. pairs look that we're talking about the only change is you have these two defenders that you've added now to cover both of these like pipe attackmen or pipe offensive players So you'll see a little bit more intricate slide recoveries. You'll see some of these pipe defenders come across crease to cover or add as part of the rotation.

You'll see a lot of this. If they get topside, they're definitely going to be sliding from various areas. So you can use this drill. You can say, hey, we're going to come from the crease each time or we're going to come from over the top each time.

or you can have them free play but you do have the extra defenders and there's a lot of pressure put on these pipe defenders uh when you're sliding from crease or even over the top because it leaves this pipe attackman or offensive player open so that is really the kind of balance you have to play so you'll see these pipe defenders cover the crease and then recover to their guy

or they're fully sliding, and you'll see one of these topside defenders have to really crash back pipe to cover the fill that's being left open. So we'll play it. So as you experiment with Coach Lanigan's Duke drill here, especially in the 6v6 portion, feel free to add training wheels in the beginning. Say, hey, we're only going to do this type of slide here and rep it out. And then change that as well, saying, hey, we're only going to do this.

going to slide from this portion of my defense. I'm looking to very much have the training wheels on and then as they get more experience with it, take those training wheels off, take the bumpers off and see if your guys can get it. a great side of recovery going so really great stuff from coach lanagan hopefully you guys enjoyed this