All coaches want to make that perfect play call. That play that will be a guaranteed score. The play that there is just no stopping. And every athlete wants to be the one who runs the perfect play.

As athletes, your coach may tell you to visualize running every play perfectly. You might spend those pre-game moments alone in a quiet area just watching the game play out in your mind. And every one of us sees the same game play through our heads. . . The game is tied, and it is up to us to make the winning shot. We have the ball at the end of the game, and only the perfect play will win it all. Well, we all know that there is no perfect play. Things come up. Things usually don't go exactly how we planned.

When you go into a game, athletes have to think they will win. They can’t think they might win. They have to think they will win. If that happens on both sides, it means that there will be two teams entering the game thinking the same thing, and only one will get to live it out. No matter how much we wish we could all win, in the end, one of us will lose. And a big determining factor in who comes out victorious is the infamous game clock.

No matter how much we wish we could, we can’t put more time on the clock in any game. Each game we play is set up to be played in a certain amount of time. Whether it is counted by seconds and minutes or by innings or sets, each game has a set time frame. What we do in this amount of time determines the outcome of the game.

One of the common elements in all levels of football from peewee to pro is the playbook. It contains the game plan each team uses to try to overcome its opponent. Without the playbook teams and players would be in a state of confusion not knowing what to do or where to go. On the other hand, no matter how good the playbook is, it’s absolutely useless if the players don’t study and apply it.