Drills in Depth - Pass 4 Points with Andrew Clark
Tying everything together through a scoring system
I met Andrew Clark when he became the Technical Coordinator at the University of Utah. We started out occasionally exchanging match files but his friendly and inquisitive nature led to us having in-depth conversations every time our teams faced each other. He coaches for Utah but also helps run Club GSL, coaching both boys and girls teams, so he stays busy with volleyball year-round, which somehow still doesn’t feel like enough, given how deep his passion for the sport, for teaching, and for learning all run.
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Who: Andrew plays this game at Utah but regularly uses it with club teams he coaches as well. Given the nature of the scoring system, it makes the most sense for indoor volleyball but I’m sure a creative beach coach could (or already has) created a similar version for the doubles game. Since the scoring relies on grading reception quality, teams should be comfortable with typical reception grades (either 4-point or 3-point scales) before playing this game. The scoring system and lessons of Pass 4 Points, as described here, work best for teams skilled enough to side out around 50% or better and do so frequently using first ball kills, otherwise it’s hard to see the game teaching the lessons it is intended to teach.
What: Pass 4 Points is a regular game of volleyball that relies on modified scoring and one tweak to regular rotation rules in order to work on serve receive and first ball offense. Even though the scoring is different, Andrew still starts games at 0-0 and plays to 25, win by 2. Games don’t take as long as regular sets of volleyball since points accumulate faster. Rallies are played normally, with the point value of the rally being determined by the reception.
When: Andrew couldn’t think of time in the season when Pass 4 Points wouldn’t be useful for a team. Given the importance of siding out, particularly with the first attack of the rally, Pass 4 Points can be a helpful tool any time you want to work on those aspects of your team’s game. Andrew tends to play this game towards the end of practice, mostly because he plans his practices so 6v6 games take up the last 45-60 minutes of the session. He said this game will often be the first 15-30 minutes of the 6v6 portion of practice and he’ll follow it with regular 6v6 play. He’s much more likely to play the game on weeks/days in which reception and/or side out has been a team focus.
How: Pass 4 Points gets its name from the scoring system it uses. As in regular volleyball, each rally begins with a serve, but it’s the reception that holds the key to scoring. The quality of the reception determines how many points the rally is worth, anywhere from four points (Andrew uses a four-point grading scale for serve reception at Utah) down to one point. The better the pass, the more points the rally is worth. If the server scores an ace, the serving team wins four points. This point value makes the most sense when the team playing doesn’t get aced much. For example, teams in his college conference are typically only going to earn an ace once or twice per set. If teams playing the game typically earn more aces than that, Andrew would decrease the point value for aces, otherwise the games end more quickly and the receiving team has too hard of a time overcoming the effects of things that happen somewhat regularly anyways. Service errors are only worth a single point for the receiving team, just like in regular volleyball. The scoring system is supposed to accent the need for good passing, so rewarding the receiving team for not doing anything defeats the purpose of the game.
Since the game is meant to accentuate serve receive, the extra points are only awarded if the rally ends on the first swing or before. If the rally goes beyond the first swing, it reverts to being worth a single point, regardless of who wins. The receiving team wins the available points if they score on their first swing while the serving team is awarded the available points if the first swing is either blocked or results in an attack error.
Whichever team wins the rally stays in their current rotation and receives the next serve. The team that loses the rally rotates and serves the next rally. Andrew talked about modifying when teams stay or rotate based mainly on how the base rules affected the flow of the game. For example, if you wanted to ensure a team had to side out in several or all rotations instead of racking up points in a particularly strong rotation, you could have winning teams rotate as well as losing teams.
Andrew also discussed other scoring options to invite teams to either diversify how they score in first ball or to focus on specific ways of scoring. For example, he talked about a boys team he coached recently which tended to set a back row attacker only as a last resort in first ball. He changed the scoring so the receiving team would score double points if they scored a first ball kill from a back row attacker. Such a change helps a little if the rally is only worth one point but it helps a lot if the rally is worth three or four points. Another wrinkle is keeping the value of the rally, regardless of if it is won in first ball or in transition. If Andrew has spent time in a given practice or week working on serve receive and transition, it would make sense for him to give opportunities for teams to be rewarded for their work in both areas. But, he points out, he’s more likely to have teams play two different games rather than trying to make one specialized game meet all the criteria.
The Depth
Who: Because Pass 4 Points is scored somewhat subjectively, who evaluates reception quality matters. When I say the scoring is somewhat subjective, I mean that most people will agree most of the time on the grade a reception should receive, but there are always variations based on what a particular coach and team believe about how reception affects a team’s ability to score in first ball. Regardless of if he is at a college practice or a club practice, Andrew is responsible for determining reception grades and rally point values. As a result, he usually stands around the attack line on the receiving side of the court during play. While this puts him in a convenient place to grade receptions, he thinks that location is perfect for facilitating conversations between him and players. Being somewhere that allows everyone on the court to hear the point value of the rally is important, but that position also allows players to easily ask questions about how he determines grades for the more difficult-to-determine receptions. To me, the magic of this game is in those questions and conversations.
What: It’s easy to say this game emphasizes serve receive and first ball offense but consider that more deeply. Why play Pass 4 Points instead of just getting reception reps or pass-to-attack reps? Andrew points out that the game is a way to tie rally outcomes to a team’s first contact. It’s always difficult to help passers feel like they are part of the offense the same way setters and hitters are. This game aids that by awarding actual points for receptions. But, perhaps more importantly, earning those points is still a product of attacking. By making teams perform both skills well to maximize their scoring, the game encourages doing all the things necessary to side out together, rather than performing them in isolation from one another. By tying passing together with attacking, the game makes it easier for Andrew to show passers how their performance impacts the opportunities created for setters and attackers.
The reception grading scale, whether 3-point or 4-point, doesn’t help players recognize just how much a reception helps or hinders actual scoring in a game. Andrew acknowledges that when he says the goal of the scoring in Pass 4 Points is to approximate Chad Gordon’s Expected Value, which shows how each contact either improves or worsens a team’s chances of winning the rally. While the scoring system doesn’t actually use eV, it at least gives players a way to understand that different passes have different effects on first ball attacking. But the scoring by itself can’t do that, so Andrew helps by explaining to players how different factors influence the points available because those factors influence how likely the receiving team is to score.
When: The crucial “when” in Pass 4 Points is in between rallies, when Andrew gives feedback, often about why he graded the reception as he did. It seems obvious to give feedback in between rallies, so what makes this time so different? The answer lies in what Andrew talks about. He told me, “if I’m asking how do we score more in first ball, the scoring system needs to reflect that.” What he didn’t explicitly say is that his feedback should also center on creating more points, even when he’s giving feedback to passers. So, in the precious time between rallies, he isn’t talking to passers about what a pass should look like, he’s talking to them about the effects different passes have on the team’s ability to score.
Also in the “when” category are a few important considerations Andrew has for when this game is most effective. He pointed out that he might not use a four-point scale for grading/scoring because that level of detail might not matter as much with less experienced players. If a team expects to always set the middle close to the setter or at zero-tempo speed, passing within three feet of the net may matter. But if teams move the middle away from the setter more or set a slower tempo set to the middle, the difference between passing three feet off and five feet off might not matter too much. Those differences will have effects on the point values awarded to different passes. One big consideration for Andrew is if the team’s middles can hit down, meaning they attack high enough to hit the ball into the front half of the court consistently. If the middles can do that, passing further off the net or lower makes it harder for a setter to set the ball close enough to the net for the middles to take advantage of their ability to hit down. Those situations are worth identifying and rewarding, but only for some teams.
How: It’s amazing how much depth can be added to a game via its scoring system. But the scoring system doesn’t create the depth on its own. As I mentioned above, the magic of this game is in the questions and conversations that Andrew has because of the scoring system. An important lesson that comes out of the scoring in this game is that there are many factors that go into Andrew’s assigning of a reception grade. He reminded me that Pass 4 Points isn’t just about scoring passing but about teaching passing, and that means helping players see the factors that go into determining a reception grade. He explained that players often grow up with the idea of “little boxes on the floor”, so passing has become a matter of making the ball go into one of those boxes. But that simplicity is put to the test in Pass 4 Points, and for good reason. Andrew told me that, in general, “if we want them to seek a certain goal, we need to explain what that goal means.” Specifically in this game, he wants to help passers understand what he values in passing.
What he values in passing is what allows a team’s first ball offense to function best. For him, a high pass that drops near the center of the net is one that allows him to say to a passer, “there’s nothing you did that impedes the offense”. That might be the best thing he can say about a pass. As passes change height, location, and shape of flight, Andrew does his best to think from the perspective of “an average setter”, meaning one that is solid and competent physically, but one that doesn’t stand out in any particular facet of the physical act of setting (a setter’s “soft” skills don’t matter in this game). When evaluating a medium pass, he’s thinking about if it gives the setter “enough of a chance to set a great ball” to hitters rather than thinking about how many hitters the setter can still get the ball to. To him, a poor pass is one that prevents the setter from keeping pace or tempo on the set or one that prevents the setter from getting their feet to the ball.
The magic of the “how” comes from Andrew giving players insight into not just the broad point categories but also into how small changes in a reception’s characteristics result in changes in first ball opportunities and efficiency. Players learn the relationship between what he stats and scoring actual points. As they learn how many factors Andrew considers when assigning grades, they learn the importance of those factors from someone with lots of experience and data showing the impacts of those factors. He doesn’t see reception as a skill executed in isolation, he sees it as tied to the skills that follow after it and the players learn to see it that way too. Viewing the game this way, as players and skills tied together, allows Andrew to break down a lot of things. Even though he’s scoring the receptions, he can still address all aspects of first ball offense. If a team keeps creating a lot of value by passing well but failing to convert the opportunities they create, the game makes it clear the team needs to either get better at or more aggressive at scoring in those good situations.
You may be familiar with the old cliché that the best passing drill is a pass-set-hit drill. I think Pass 4 Points is the best example of that and not just because it features all three contacts. The game establishes that each of those skills rely on the others to score. “Six bodies in a symbiotic relationship to score one point,” Andrew explained. The game may be called Pass 4 Points, but the game really provides a forum for Andrew to teach far more than just passing.
Have questions for Andrew? You can ask me here or you can reach out to him on Instagram at andrewcclark5.