The offseason for high school football never really begins for coaches because after the season ends they begin to shift their attention to refining the offense and defense and finding new techniques.

Most coaches take a bit of a break, but not for long. With coaching clinics in the spring and talent to assess, coaches have a lot on their plate during what is thought to be the offseason.

“I don’t think any sport has an offseason,” said United South Central head coach Brent Schimek.

Schimek says he spends the first few months reevaluating the fall season and the talent he has and bases next years’ team off of the parts he thinks he’ll have.

Last year, half-way through the season Schimek changed his offense to give his team a chance to succeed.

“You just have try to put kids in a situation where they can succeed,” Schimek said. “It’s like building a car.”

The parts are there, but they change from year to year forcing coaches at schools with smaller numbers to build around what they have.

There are some schools in the Big Nine that are able to plug players into roles and mold them into the type of player they need for their system. Others don’t have that luxury.

“In Owatonna you have competition for every spot and you can pretty much groom what you have for your system and that is ideal,” said Clay Anderson, Albert Lea head football coach. “I would say six or seven Big Nine schools can do that on a regular basis, us not being one of them. We’re at the point where we’re going to have very slim numbers this year. We really have to assess what we have and what we can do and what we can’t do and try to develop a system that is going to work for that.”

Anderson said that his offense is most affected by the numbers and he has to find a way to accentuate his team’s strengths. This season his strength will be the running game, but with an undersized offense line he has to run plays where the line won’t have to sustain blocks for a long time.

“Most everybody is going to have a stronger defensive line than we have an offensive line,” Anderson said. “We have to try to get out of our backfield quick. Instead of running our blasts, our traps, anything like that, we know we’re going to have to go to more outside veer, triple option, deception, and gear towards not having to sustain blocks.”

While coaches could drastically change the offense like Schimek decided to do last season, the problem becomes losing a continuity on offense.

“When kids know what’s going to happen they seem to perform better,” Anderson said.

While the personnel changes every year, the goal becomes establishing a system players can expect for their entire career. New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva head football coach Dan Stork has tried to do that with his program.

“We want something they can buy into,” Stork said.

Stork’s team finished the regular season undefeated and he attributed much of the success to the leadership of his seniors.

“A lot of those seniors paved the way not only in football but working hard, and that filters down,” Stork said.

The changes from year to year are an ingrained part of high school football that present coaches with the task of finding a way to succeed.

“In college you can fit needs,” Schimek said. “In high school you have what’s in the bag.”