Practice Routines

[Bullaholic]

How do your coaches prepare your team for games each week, i.e., what is the regimen each day for players and coaches? I think most coaches start preparing the Saturday after a Friday night game, do they not?

[jp744]

Sure do. When I was in college and played QB I used to be in the "WAR ROOM" breaking down film with the offensive coaches. I would take notes on what they said we were going to do and then took notes on the game plan and practice plan for the week. It was fun because I saw the coaches real personalities come out in the war room.

[Bullaholic]

Originally posted by jp744
Sure do. When I was in college and played QB I used to be in the "WAR ROOM" breaking down film with the offensive coaches. I would take notes on what they said we were going to do and then took notes on the game plan and practice plan for the week. It was fun because I saw the coaches real personalities come out in the war room.

Thanks, jp, but can you give a short day-by-day description of what you do or did?

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[GreenMonster]

Originally posted by Bullaholic
How do your coaches prepare your team for games each week, i.e., what is the regimen each day for players and coaches? I think most coaches start preparing the Saturday after a Friday night game, do they not?

Friday night after the game we make copies of game film for trade and watch that night's game and make notes. Saturday morning we return and start to break down game film of our next opponent at about 8am. Our kids come in at 10 and all but the coordinators tend to the kids. We usually run through a weight workout followed by some light running to start the process of working out any soreness. Any injuries are also tended to at this time. After weights,run,treatment, we take the kids into film and show them the previous night's game with the coordinators. We go over mistakes and talk about fundamental things that individual kids need to work on. We do this seperately as offense will hold a film session and defense will hold a seperate film session so it takes us a little over an hour for the kids to go over film. After film we send the kids home or into the training room for additional treatment. We also open up the whirlpool for any kids that choose to soak off some soreness. Treatment usually includes extra stretching, ice packs, ice baths, etc. any serious injuries we send them in to our trainer's private facility. After the kids leave we usually start working on the game plan for the following week. Who are the players we need to be aware of, what plays do we think will be successful, etc. Afterwards we go into defensive and offensive meetings and go over what we all have seen and what adjustments we all feel that we need to make at our individual positions that we coach and the coordinators take in all of that information and fill us in on what he sees or thinks will work best and we hash out a game plan for the next opponent as well as the practice structure we want to use. Some weeks we go heavy on the 7 on 7, other weeks we may be heavy on inside hull, if we have had serious fundamental breakdowns we may choose to take extra time in our individual groups to correct those mistakes. We try to be flexible and not get stuck in any certain routine because we may not be correcting our own problems and no matter how good our game plan is if we cannot do the fundamental things our scheme calls for then we will not have success. It also keeps things fresh for the kids and they don't start to look at practice as a grind. We usually leave the school between 3 & 5pm on Saturday. Sunday is an off day for everyone. Monday we tend to use as a teaching day. We run through fundamentals in individual, go over our adjustments for the week in group, then we run some team. Mondays are usually a little longer practice because of the changes and the fact that we want the kids to see what we think the other guys will do to us. We finish up with conditioning, weights, and occasionally film over certain things we think might hurt us so that the kids are aware. Tuesday we get after it and do quite a bit of full speed, full contact work. This is where we really start to sharpen our sword for the next opponent. Wednesday is a shorter workout where we skip either individual or group depending on what we think is more important that week. We follow that up with team. Then conditioning and weights. Our kids should be completely ready to go and have all of our adjustments down by the end of practice on Wednesday. Thursday we polish and make sure everyone knows what specials that they are on, where they line up, and what is expected of them. We cover special teams everyday, but Thursday they are the focus. After we complete that we go to defense and go over our allignments and assignments to make 100% positive we are all on the same page. Then we go to offense and they run polish plays against air and get a feel for the type of play calling rythm to expect. We get out of there around 4 pm. I think it's a pretty standard work week for coaches, we don't really do anything out of the ordinary or off the wall. We still hit in practice because we want to be a physical football team. This last week alone we broke a kid's jaw and another's arm just by being physical and laying the wood.

[Ernest T Bass]

Last few years, schedule has been something like this:
Saturday-report around 7 am, grade film from night before. Workout the kids, watch film with kids. Watching and break down all opponent game film that is available. Usually hit the road around 6 pm

Sunday-report around 9 am, start game planning using information gathered from previous day's film session. Put together scouting report. Usually hit the road around 7 pm

Monday-teaching day. Go over scouting report with kids, go through everything we expect to see from the opponent. Everything in practice is done at "teaching tempo".

Tuesday-"Speed of the game" day. Lots of good on good, full speed practice. High tempo, high intensity. Film inside hull, pass hull, and team sessions. Coaches watch film after kids are gone.

Wednesday-High tempo, half physical/half finesse day. Spit polish on game plan. Film same sessons are previous day, coaches watch after kids are gone.

Thursday-Walk through, special teams, game scenarios. Team meeting after school, JV/Freshman games that night.

Friday-Game day baby!!

[NastySlot]

our scouts will have already broken down 2-3 tapes of the next weeks opponent by Thursday...than scout that opponent on Friday. So I guess the prep starts on that Wednesday before we have gotten through that weeks game..........so Saturday morning at 8:00 two opponents tapes are in the computer and the Friday scouted game will be with soon after 8:00

[Bullaholic]

Wow--Thanks GM and Ernest....I've had general ideas of game preps over the years and I wanted to see if things had changed much, plus hear some things that maybe I didn't realize or that were new.

[GreenMonster]

Originally posted by Bullaholic
Wow--Thanks GM and Ernest....I've had general ideas of game preps over the years and I wanted to see if things had changed much, plus hear some things that maybe I didn't realize or that were new.

So much more film available. Technology is the big change. We do not scout, we only trade 2 films with our next opponent, and we typically do not see those films until Saturday morning. All of our game films/ scout films are loaded on to the internet so our entire staff has access to them from any internet capable location. This has been a really nice addition to our capabilities because it allows us to get home sooner to be with our families. I typically get home around 7 and have family time until the kids go to bed at 9. Then I get some quiet time alone to watch film, usually at least 2 hours, before I head off to bed for the night. Most of our staff tend to do pretty much the same thing and usually comminucate any tendencies or hiccups that we catch by text message to the other guys. It's not out of the ordinary for someone else to pop up and say they have noticed it as well. We have one guy that really breaks down our films and puts in all of the information that we are looking for and then the scouting software will put together a report based off of the things we have asked it to do for us. It's SOOO much easier than our last scouting package. We use HUDL.com and I highly recommend it to all coaches. It's night and day how awesome this setup is. I think the only negative of it is that now, instead of spending my extra time on the downlow I'm watching game film, haha!

[NastySlot]

Originally posted by GreenMonster
So much more film available. Technology is the big change. We do not scout, we only trade 2 films with our next opponent, and we typically do not see those films until Saturday morning. All of our game films/ scout films are loaded on to the internet so our entire staff has access to them from any internet capable location. This has been a really nice addition to our capabilities because it allows us to get home sooner to be with our families. I typically get home around 7 and have family time until the kids go to bed at 9. Then I get some quiet time alone to watch film, usually at least 2 hours, before I head off to bed for the night. Most of our staff tend to do pretty much the same thing and usually comminucate any tendencies or hiccups that we catch by text message to the other guys. It's not out of the ordinary for someone else to pop up and say they have noticed it as well. We have one guy that really breaks down our films and puts in all of the information that we are looking for and then the scouting software will put together a report based off of the things we have asked it to do for us. It's SOOO much easier than our last scouting package. We use HUDL.com and I highly recommend it to all coaches. It's night and day how awesome this setup is. I think the only negative of it is that now, instead of spending my extra time on the downlow I'm watching game film, haha!


Hudl is great....got me thinking that pretty soon there won't be any more going to make an exchange....probably go through email soon.

I wish we only had to break down the video...we still live scout one game....but we don't draw anymore just down, distance etc... formation and play name it....oh also gain and motion.

in all though I don't mind live scouting a game that much.

[Ernest T Bass]

We still scout. Send JH coaches, and if the varsity is off, we all go. JH coaches input all of the film throughout the week and on friday night, so saturday morning it's ready to go.
Ive never used HUDL, but Ive used DSV anywhere. It's ok, but Ive gotta have a cowboy remote.

[hookandladder]

Count up the hours that football and other coaches put into a full years work and you will fiquire out the coaches do it for the love of the game and kids. My hat goes off to all you coaches, keep up the good work of molding our kids to become successful in life. Keep it up.

[XMan]

How many hours a day do the kids practice?

[Ernest T Bass]

My football kids practice around 5 hours a day. But it's ok, b/c we make the baseball kids do their homework so they can rest as soon as they get home.

[GreenMonster]

Originally posted by Ernest T Bass
My football kids practice around 5 hours a day. But it's ok, b/c we make the baseball kids do their homework so they can rest as soon as they get home. HaHa! Nice! We can't do that to our baseball kids because we have them all in the weight room late everyday because we are not sure when their Fall League team plays and we want to make sure that they lift before any potential practices or games so that they will be too tired to perform.

[greenhornet]

Originally posted by Ernest T Bass
Last few years, schedule has been something like this:
Saturday-report around 7 am, grade film from night before. Workout the kids, watch film with kids. Watching and break down all opponent game film that is available. Usually hit the road around 6 pm

Sunday-report around 9 am, start game planning using information gathered from previous day's film session. Put together scouting report. Usually hit the road around 7 pm

Monday-teaching day. Go over scouting report with kids, go through everything we expect to see from the opponent. Everything in practice is done at "teaching tempo".

Tuesday-"Speed of the game" day. Lots of good on good, full speed practice. High tempo, high intensity. Film inside hull, pass hull, and team sessions. Coaches watch film after kids are gone.

Wednesday-High tempo, half physical/half finesse day. Spit polish on game plan. Film same sessons are previous day, coaches watch after kids are gone.

Thursday-Walk through, special teams, game scenarios. Team meeting after school, JV/Freshman games that night.

Friday-Game day baby!!

Wow that is a ridiculous weekend schedule for the coaches, not sure what all y'all are doing but that's a lot of hours.

[GreenMonster]

Originally posted by greenhornet
Wow that is a ridiculous weekend schedule for the coaches, not sure what all y'all are doing but that's a lot of hours. Even with Sundays off the staff I work on averages 85 hours a week from the time we get to school to the time we leave. Regular classroom teachers usually are either just under or just over 40 hours a week.

[greenhornet]

Originally posted by GreenMonster
Even with Sundays off the staff I work on averages 85 hours a week from the time we get to school to the time we leave. Regular classroom teachers usually are either just under or just over 40 hours a week.

I am well aware of the hours we coaches put in but an 11 hour Saturday and 10 hour Sunday seems like overkill to me.

[Ernest T Bass]

There is a little bit of paralysis through analysis at times.

[greenhornet]

Originally posted by Ernest T Bass
There is a little bit of paralysis through analysis at times.

Yea I have no problem with being at work as long as we're getting something done which isn't always the case. We had rarely worked Sundays in the past but our HC told us to plan on working every Sunday this year and he has delivered.

[GreenMonster]

Originally posted by greenhornet
Yea I have no problem with being at work as long as we're getting something done which isn't always the case. We had rarely worked Sundays in the past but our HC told us to plan on working every Sunday this year and he has delivered. Agreed. Sometimes those guys at the top feel the pressure to win and think extra prep will magically improve the talent level. It doesn't work that way unfortunately. Good luck to you guys.

[Ernest T Bass]

Our problem was always trying to reinvent the proverbial wheel. Always trying to find a better way to run a play, add a 5 or 3 step route, tweak a blocking scheme, find another read or key, etc...
Trying to find a way to compensate for lack of talent LOL

[greenhornet]

Nothing like debating on whether we will be in a 4 or 4eye for thirty minutes (PER FORMATION).