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AFM Magazine


The Perfect Practice

by: Mike Kuchar
Senior Writer, American Football Monthly
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Practice how you play. Perfect practice makes perfect. We’ve all heard the coaching axioms about preparation, and how important it is to practice efficiently. We hear them, but do we really listen? Just by simple word association, practice is tedious. To our players, it’s drudgery. Many of them simply go through the motions, “get through the practice”, and hold back until game day – which is why they signed up, after all.


How do you organize your practices to make them meaningful for your players, instill competition, maintain the correct tempo and include suitable conditioning? In short, how do you design the perfect practice?
Many coaches have found ways for their kids to actually enjoy practices by making them fun. But the trick is finding the balance between an all-out funfest and getting things done efficiently. It’s a balance that many coaches at all levels struggle with each time they sit down to construct their next day’s plan. For some, like the University of South Dakota head coach Ed Meierkort, who has been coaching for over twenty years, success in practice has a direct correlation to success in games. “How to run practice is all I ever talk about in clinics,” says Meierkort. “To me, it is that important. As far as I’m concerned, there are two keys to running an efficient practice. Number one, try to keep injuries at a minimum. Number two, always try to emulate game situations which entail a one-rep, one-play structure. So what we do is a ton of one-repetition drills. We do periods of that as much as possible, no matter the sessions. If the ball is snapped over the head of the punter during punt team, that’s it – the play is over. They go to the sideline. There are no “do over’s” in football.”
Meierkort’s philosophy is mimicked by many coaches that AFM has spoken with who felt that letting players loaf in practice simply because it’s just practice winds up hurting your team in the long run. It was that kind of sluggish practice culture that head coach Jason Freed of Houston High School in Minnesota had to shake up when he first arrived. The school had gone 25 years without making the state playoffs before Freed and his staff got them there last season. Many of the problems lied in how they prepared. “When I got here I tried to find out who we thought were leaders,” Freed said. “I sat down with a lot of the younger and older leaders on the team. We had a five-year plan. We talked about what it would take for us to get there and we realized that it started with practice. We had to put our mentality into practice and teach them how you want them to practice.”


Freed and Meierkort are not the only coaches who place such a high priority on practice organization. In fact, of the thousands of coaches that AFM surveyed, nearly all of them felt it was tops on their list of building a program and creating a culture of success. According to these coaches, developing the perfect practice plan consists of four main principles: emulating game conditions by stressing competition, instilling tempo, using circuits as an effective use of teaching and conditioning with a purpose.


After all, perhaps the greatest football coach ever said, “You need to create an atmosphere where practices are much more demanding than games. When the games come, it is that much easier.” The games were easier for Vince Lombardi and his historic Green Bay Packers and they can become easier for you and your program as well if you follow some of these principles.

Emulate game situations by creating competition
According to the coaches we surveyed, creating competition is the most important element when designing a practice. From the whistle that starts the practice to the whistle that finishes practice and every period in between, players have to be in competition with each other. Just as athletes need to compete during the off-season conditioning program, it is equally important that they learn to challenge each other during the season. The key, according to Mike Davis, head coach at Grant County High School (KY), is to generate competition early and often. He doesn’t waste any time getting his players competing. Right after a brief stretch, he pits his first offense against his first defense in the “Pride Drill” - a goal line period that’s all-out war. It’s a five-minute period in which Davis tries to pack in ten plays. It’s full tilt, in-your-face football and the kids love it.


Sean McDonnell, the head coach at the University of New Hampshire, echoes the same sentiment at the college level. “The biggest thing you need to do is compete in each drill,” said McDonnell. “We have one-on-one pass rush with the offensive and defensive lines. We have one-on-one pass routes with the defensive backs and the wide receivers. This is all done mainly at the beginning of practice.” McDonnell goes one step further by using a points system. “Everything is worth something. Our individual sessions equate to points. We make everything a point total that day. We give them points based on effort and execution. It’s just as black and white as the scoreboard and that way we can assess who is working the hardest.”


Even when the Wildcats work offense vs. defense during their team sessions, points are measured by yardage gained. If the offense gets three yards or less, the defense gets a point. Conversely, if the offense picks up more than three yards, it will get a point. Extra conditioning is assigned to the loser. McDonnell also coaches special teams and his kickers get involved in the action. He’ll get his punt team out for what he calls “red zone punting” where he’ll place the ball on the +38 yard line. McDonnell will line up his punter, personal protector and snapper along with gunners and backups with five or six guys in each line or team. The goal is to down the punt inside the five yard line. “The teams will compete against one another. If the ball gets downed on the five, that team gets one point. If the ball gets downed on the four, it’s two, three-yard line it’s worth three, two-yard line gets four points and if it’s grounded on the one-yard line it’s worth five points. If we can’t get it before it breaks the plane of the end zone, its five up-downs for the punter and if the long snapper has a bad snap its five up-downs for him. If one fails, they all fail. The kids love it. It puts pressure on them.”

Set the tempo of practice
We all know it’s tough for players to stay focused and intense for two hours of practice time, particularly with the limited attention span of teenagers. But should we even bother to make them try? It is a common myth in practice planning that players need to give the old 110 percent at all times to be effective. We’ve all seen coaches who demand it by screaming and grabbing facemasks. But many coaches we spoke to feel it is not only unreasonable but unnecessary to keep full-speed tempo throughout the entire practice. They believe keeping an up-tempo, helmets-to-the-wall pace can actually hinder production. The secret, they say, is to break down practice into periods of high-tempo and low-tempo in order to get the most of a session and the most out of your players. For Mike Davis, high-tempo periods include an inside run game/seven-on-seven pass period, where he rotates players back and forth with no one standing around. Davis will even take some of his defensive staff on offensive days and work fundamental periods like blocking and tackling with players who are not involved.


Low-tempo periods for Davis could be working formation checks on defense or shifting and motioning on offense. “It’s where kids can relax and catch their breaths. We want to make sure they know what they are going to get,” said Davis. “It just means that we don’t need to gas them. But we absolutely never call it low-tempo. They just don’t know it. Thinking that kids will lose their focus and concentration during a low-tempo period is a myth. It’s the exact opposite. If you go full tilt for two to two and a half hours, by the time you get through practice they are burned.”


To keep his players from being burned, South Dakota’s Ed Meierkort doesn’t have any sessions over 10 minutes in length. His philosophy is to keep game tempo 70 percent of practice while using teaching or sideline tempo 30 percent of the time. But don’t misinterpret the term “sideline”. To Meierkort, sideline tempo is more about walk-throughs such as formation recognition for defenses and blitz pickup for offenses than leaning on a dummy slurping down water on the sideline. “They get water on their own,” said Meierkort. “We’re obsessed with water bottles being all over the practice field so we don’t need to worry about scheduling water breaks. You go from standing still to full speed in the game, so you have to find a way to mimic that in practice. We practice at a tempo that other teams aren’t willing to do.” All of Meierkort’s hitting drills are “front-loaded” - worked into the beginning of his practices. “The first hour of live contact is essential, especially on hot days,” he said. “You need to taper contact off as practice goes on. Kids check out physically at the end of practice so you don’t want them to finish that way. Not only do we change the attention of the players by changing from contact periods to non-contact periods we also keep the attention of the coaches by changing from ‘coaching-on-the-run’ tempo to ‘coaching-off-the-film’ tempo. We even have a ‘get-to-the-ball’ coach who makes sure kids are running their butts off.”

Here’s an example of a Meierkort offensive practice progression:
4:05- Offense vs. Defense (best-on-best) - High Tempo
4:10- Red-zone blitz pick-up, one’s-on-one’s, low reps - High Tempo
4:15- Formation recognition vs. Defense - low reps - Low Tempo
4:20- Red-zone offense (3rd and 7+) - High Tempo
4:25- One-Step blitz pick-up - Low Tempo
4:30- Mid-field offense (3rd and medium) - High Tempo

Meierkort is a firm believer in setting the tone of the practice right at the start. “You have to sell your kids that, when the whistle blows, we get after it,” said Meierkort. “If you start slow you can never get it back. Our practices here are very hectic and very chaotic. What it does is gets them to think under pressure and stressful situations which emulates game situations.” USD’s practice sessions are operated like clockwork. After starting practice with a stretch period where players stretch with their position coaches, the Coyotes go right to a competition period for five minutes. Receivers match up with defensive backs and go one-on-one at top speed. One rep only, no mulligans. There’s a winner, and a loser. “If you get your butt whipped, you don’t go again. You sit down and prepare yourself for the next opportunity,” said Meierkort.


Bobby Alston, the head coach at Tennessee Division II-AA state champion Memphis University High School has a different philosophy on practice tempo. “My goal is that we do not have a high- to low-tempo pattern in practice because that is not how we want to play the game,” said Alston. “The game is played at a high tempo for four quarters and we want the boys to practice that way.” In order to do this, Alston has competition in practice and actually breaks down his practice into four quarters. Although practice lasts less than two hours – significantly less than a game – Alston does as much as possible to give his players the feel of the tempo of a game. “We’ll probably run more than 60 plays in a practice,” said Alston. “You need to practice like a game as much as possible from a time sequence standpoint and a competition standpoint.”


Before he even starts practice Alston, like Freed, conducts a practice preview where he meets with players to go over the day’s practice - a technique that is becoming more common among the coaches we spoke with. By simply describing the practice, or posting practice notes, coaches can cut out time wasted explaining practice on the field.
At Alston’s practices, the quarters are planned to include periods of quicker tempo in order for players to acclimate themselves to the pace of the game.

Quarter 1- This is a mix of special teams work and individual position work. “We want to start practice on the run by stressing special teams and we try our best to have our punt team separate from our FG/PAT team so they can work at the same time,” said Alston. “The same applies to kickoff and kickoff return so they can go against each other. That takes usually 10 minutes followed by 15 minutes of individual position work.”

Quarter 2 - Group Work or Group Competition. According to Alston, “This is usually a 20-minute period that might begin with receivers and defensive backs working one-on-one while the offensive and defensive lines are one-on-one with pass protection and pass rush.” The second 10 minutes would be mixed with pass skell and inside run drill.

Quarter 3 - Plays Under Pressure. This is a 10- to 20-minute scripted situation period of 1’s vs. 1’s and 2’s vs. 2’s. According to Alston, this is the most competitive part of practice. Since Alston has over 100 players on his roster, he is able to match his first offense and first defense and work situational downs with an emphasis on third down and red-zone offense.

Quarter 4 – This is usually a 20-minute period of 1’s versus 2’s with 2’s serving as scout team. “The object here is to get as many reps as we can,” said Alston. “A really good practice is when we are getting five to six reps every two minutes. This is an execution period when they are tired. Going against the 2’s, all reps should be successful so it is easy to tell when they are letting their minds wander.”

Finish how you started - condition with a purpose
Remember the days of finishing practice by running 100-yard wind sprints until the traces of vomit were inching up your esophagus? Those days, according to most coaches, are over. Hardly any of the coaches we spoke with rely on gassers, wind sprints or laps around the track for conditioning. The prevailing opinion is that they’re worthless. In fact, the only time they use those methods is as a form of punishment.


“Football is not a linear sport. It’s about quick movements in rapid periods of time,” said USD’s Meierkort. “It’s played in spurts, so you practice it in spurts. No more 100, 80 or 60 yard sprints. It’s a waste of time now to do that stuff. Its twenty five minutes of tearing your body down. Our team is not prepared to run a marathon, wrestle or play basketball. Our team is prepared to play football at a high level for a long period of time because we practice for success.” So instead of grinding out those sprints, the Coyotes will actually just end practice after their last session, which is usually some form of static stretch. Just end it without conditioning. Imagine that. According to Meierkort, it’s exactly what he’s after. “We tell our kids that if they practice for two hours the way they are supposed to, they will be ready to play a game at such a high level because we practice for success.”


Mike Davis of Grant County High School still uses sprints but he positions them more as a competitive, fun event at the end of practice rather than punishment. “We don’t believe in running laps. We have three different pursuit drills and we put them on the clock to time them,” said Davis. “We’ll have relays. We have something that we call ‘eight minutes’ where they run a 100-yard dash, then wait a minute, and then we send them back to do it again. We’ll wait two minutes then send them back for a cool down. We’ll do that for eight minutes.” Davis even gets the coaches to compete. Each coach that is assigned to a group gives them a name and even a motto. “It gets pretty intense,” according to Davis. “The coaches start hooting and hollering during the events.”


Stan Myles, the head coach at Fairlawn High School (NJ) uses more position-specific conditioning to finish practices. Myles, one of the more notable Wing T coaches in New Jersey, sets up what he calls his “perfect play” period which is something he got from Wing T legend Tubby Raymond at Delaware. Eleven cones are set up in various alignments to represent a defense with a 12th cone twenty yards downfield. Because Myles runs a no-huddle scheme, his offense lines up on the line of scrimmage while getting the play call. The players execute the play, chopping their feet in front of any blocking assignment. All fakes are carried out, while the ball carrier runs to the twelfth cone. When the first whistle blows, all members of the offense sprint to the twelfth cone to join the running back. Then, they sprint back to the line of scrimmage. When the second whistle blows, Myles gives his players a time goal for that repetition to count. Any missed blocking assignment negates the repetition. The new formation and play are yelled while players are running back from the last cone to the line of scrimmage. The ball gets moved up ten yards if the play is executed properly. “We want as many groups going at once,” said Myles. “We like position-specific conditioning whenever possible. Whenever you can maximize time and kill two birds with one stone it’s worthwhile. Plus, the kids get tired and they have to execute under strain which is a frequent situation in our sport.”


As for Jason Freed, his conditioning is done at the start of practice and it takes place in the weight room. Yes, the weight room. His players hit the weights for 30 minutes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during the practice week for circuit training. “It gets their bodies rolling right away. We have two coaches in there helping and taking attendance,” said Freed. “It’s just like a practice. Sometimes, the varsity will lift and the JV guys will do some type of speed work in the gym. Then, we’ll switch the next day. Kids are more focused earlier. They are not tired. They are not worn. How many coaches drag kids into the weight room after practice where they can’t lift a thing? To me, particularly during the pre-season, lifting is essential. All weight room sessions are at the beginning of practice. We still get everything done on time in practice. We just need to be more detailed on how we do things.” u






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