Brandon Smith’s truck is the only vehicle parked on the back side of South Warren High School a week before the season ends.

It’s noon Sunday and the truck won’t move from the door by the bus loading area for the next eight hours.

He’s perched on the second floor in room 254, the war room where he and his 11 assistants meet weekly to devise a game plan for Fridays. Any attempts to communicate with the coach outside the classroom fall deaf on his tunnel-vision mind. The phone is stashed in a desk drawer and only checked when he’s finished a task on Hudl.

A similar focus is expected of the entire South Warren football coaching staff, which, on this particular Sunday, find themselves as the rare underdogs eight days before a second punch at the top football team in Kentucky.

Every coach has individual responsibilities Saturday and is expected to bring it Sunday. Have a plan for your position group, take notes, offer feedback from Friday night’s evaluations and be able to back it up.

This particular, detail-centric approach is amplified in the postseason when the next Friday isn’t promised. This time it’s for the whole thing. Fourteen weeks of victory have led to a Class 5A state championship game against Covington Catholic, the same team that ended the Spartans’ season a year ago.

“Usually starting Thursday and Friday and even Friday of game day, we’ll start on the next opponent and can get a lot of it done those days so Saturday isn’t as much,” Smith said. “Playoffs, you don’t really know who it’s going to be so it escalates. There’s that natural do-or-die mentality with competitive nature where you’re going to go above and beyond because something is on the line.”

Sometimes the work starts at home at 8 a.m. Sunday. That’s when Smith gets started with game prep and assistants pull their weight Saturday before arriving in the classroom ready to brainstorm after lunch Sunday. Before technology advancements allowed coaches to work from home, the staff would arrive early Sunday morning and work close to 12 hours.

In older days, opposing head coaches would rendezvous to exchange VHS tapes for film study. Now everything is on Hudl, a website dedicated to film study and often used for players’ highlight tapes.

Hudl Assist will automatically break down basic information for coaches such as down and distance, hash marks, play type and overall team stats for both sides of the ball.

Coaches will watch to analyze play type, formations, personnel, motions, defensive fronts and coverages. From there, offensive coaches will make playlists based off personnel. For example, 11 personnel consists of one running back, one tight end, three wide receivers; 10 personnel is one back and four receivers; 21 personnel is two running backs, one tight end and two receivers.

Defensive coaches pinpoint the balance of an opposing offense in the sense of a one-man or two-man show. It’s a matter of personnel involved instead of how run-pass heavy a team might play.

Special teams isn’t treated as a transitional play at South Warren. Coordinator Jeff Ashby, a math teacher at SWHS, takes an analytical approach to breaking down kickoffs, kick returns and punt plays. Where’s the most likely spot a kicker will place the ball on a kickoff? What is the punter’s get-off time? A half-second could be the difference in a week focusing on punt blocks or not.

Ashby, Smith and offensive coordinator Andrew McCloud have worked together on the Spartans staff since Smith was promoted to head coach in 2013. Serving under those three coordinators are position coaches Gary Barnett (defensive backs, special teams), Logan Pemberton (wide receivers), Wayne Bush (running backs), Shaun Young (linebackers), Daniel Hurd (offensive line) and Matt Smith (defensive line). Smith and Hurd work on the junior varsity staff with Dillon Chambliss (linebackers), Brent Huffman (WR, DB) and Brian Bybee.

That level of chemistry is beneficial in any environment where teamwork is key to execution.

“The biggest thing is if we didn’t have football, we’ve got 13 guys that would hang out together,” Ashby said. “I think that is such a unique aspect to this. We’re not just here Monday through Friday. When the season’s not going on, we’re getting together as well. The continuity when you have that, it allows you to be more honest with each other because you’re good with it and you start to understand people’s personalities and when the intensity is picking up and when it’s not. Different things like that, it’s such a huge advantage.”

McCloud and Smith were roommates and teammates at Western Kentucky – McCloud a running back and Smith the former quarterback. When Smith was promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach, McCloud came from Spencer County to join the Spartans staff.

He’s seen first-hand the attention to detail Smith expects from all his coaches, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. A Boyle County native, Smith played quarterback for his father Chuck Smith, the Rebels’ legendary head coach with seven state championships.

Chuck Smith won six straight titles from 1999-2004 and was the AP Coach of the Year in 1999. Brandon Smith was his quarterback in the latter part of that run.

“He’s one of the smartest coaches I’ve met,” McCloud said. “Everyone knows the story of his dad and he has a knack for it unlike no other. We’ve all been able to learn and coach under him and the more experience you get with anybody, you’re going to learn – coaches and players, the whole program and everybody.”

Smith’s obsession with detail is reflected in the week of preparation. Monday’s meeting with the team to reveal the game plan brings the varsity to his classroom after school with PowerPoint presentations to break down every position group and teach players the “why” and “how to” part of the game plan.

Monday’s practice gets the team familiar with hit charts, which is a list of formations for both sides of the ball. What should the defense expect when lined up against a certain personnel with motions? On offense, each day has particular down and distance scenarios with plans formed off the playlist and play call organization chart.

Practice is filmed with a drone and reviewed through the week for corrections.

Building that routine is the style Smith learned from his father. Chuck Smith won the 3A state title with Boyle in 2017. Brandon Smith’s approach and 17 seniors helped South Warren win its second title since 2015 by beating Covington Catholic, a team entering last Sunday on a 29-game winning streak.

“(Chuck Smith) is overly organized and attentive to detail and being in that environment and seeing that works, he’s obviously had a lot of success,” Brandon Smith said. “I was raised that way and now I don’t have to try to be like that. I’m just natural like that and it’s a little bit of a curse, too. Your mind races and you worry about everything.

“Sometimes I can overdo it in that direction and (the staff) is good at letting me know when I do it. I think I get it honest. You figure out what’s necessary and what’s not necessary, what works and what doesn’t. There’s a little give-and-take. There’s a lot different from the first year than my fifth year. I think I’ve progressed as I went along.”

Coaches being educators, they try to make the plan simple while still focusing on minor details. For example, Ashby’s approach to calling plays for punt coverage is based around rap artists. Formations and protections are called Migos, T-Pain and Snoop. All fake punts have name associations, too. Punt returns are named for cities in Florida.

“You think about it teaching and they remember acronyms or songs or jingles,” Ashby said. “I wanted to do something where they know the call and they hear it and immediately know what it is. It’s one of those things where they know what it is because they associate it with something else. We tried to keep it as simple as possible.”

Simplicity has led South Warren to another 15-0 season. The Spartans run defense stuffed Covington Catholic running back Casey McGinness for just 5.9 yards per carry after entering the game averaging nearly a first down per touch.

The Spartans offense kept it balanced with 33 rush attempts to 31 pass attempts. Quarterback Gavin Spurrier, the game’s MVP, completed 17 of those pass attempts to six different receivers for 237 yards.

South Warren’s defense was so good that Ashby took an analytic approach on special teams to let the defense win the game. After leading 20-0, Covington Catholic fought back within 20-14. South Warren took an intentional safety to run clock and set up field position to force the Colonels to march the field for a touchdown.

So rather than punting from its own end zone and risking a return by McGinness, South Warren gave up points for field position.

Covington Catholic fielded the ball at its own 25 and returned it to the 41. The Spartans held on from that point to win.

All because of attention to detail in preparation and letting the best make plays.

“We just let them be better and what I mean by that is we keep it really simple when they’re not thinking a lot and just put them in situations where your key players are in situations to make plays,” Smith said. “Give them an opportunity and we’ve done that. Usually we have success when we go that route.”