Get The Most Out Of Your Practice

By Don Tyre • Assistant Coach • Our Lady of Mercy High School • Fayetteville, GA

If you want to enhance the productivity of your football team, where can you find time to do it  without making practice longer? Use your imagination to change the pace of practice. Don`t  waste  time. Practice what you are going to do in a game. Do you run sprints in a game? A fast pace in practice is vital and a fast pace in a game is advantageous, but remain  flexible  enough to slow down when necessary.

 My first seven years of coaching I was fortunate to have worked with a legend and learn  first  hand  how to get the most out of every minute of practice. This is a tribute to Weyman Sellers who passed away this January just months after being inducted into the Georgia Athletic  Coaches  Association Hall Of Fame. He was a master of the fast-paced offense. His high energy practices were a way of life for his football teams. His practices were a sprint, but his teams never ran wind sprints.

Coach Sellers offense would  brake the huddle , sprint to the line, get set  quickly and snap the ball. When the play was over, the team would huddle again as fast as they could. The play was sent in by hand signals and the quarterback would call the play one time and off they would go again. The play would be sent in so quickly after the previous play that many times the defense was not in place when the ball was snapped.

 Before looking at the impact of a fast pace offense on the defense, consider the conditioning factor. Superior conditioning can be an equalizer versus a more talented opponent and can even be the difference in the game .In a fast -paced practice working on conditioning while getting a high volume of repetitions is a double pay off. Using conditioning time to execute and execution time to condition is one of the most important coach-facilitated aspects of a practice. Teach your players how to sprint to the line, run the play and run back to the huddle. All the while, they are concentrating on play execution, and getting very well-conditioned doing the skills they need to do. Any team is going to be no better than what is demanded of them. It`s as simple as running the offense of your choice as fast as you can.

   Now, let`s look at the impact that this fast pace can have on the defense. In one word, unsettling begins to tell the story. The defensive call from the sideline has to be made faster  than normal. This can cause the defensive plan to have to be simplified at least to some degree. Defensive substitution also has to be a problem. It has to be anticipated and done a lot faster. As the fast-paced offense brakes the huddle, the defense has to identify the key to the formation in order to make a strength call. Flip-flopping personnel now gets stressed. It has to be done very quickly while the offense is breaking the huddle from practically point blank range. That is a lot to think about knowing the offense is about to pull the trigger as fast as they can. So the normal defensive routine begins to get out of its comfort zone. The problem posed by this relentless fast pace begins for the defensive coordinator trying to figure out how to simulate this pace. A coach told us he used two scout teams to try to give his defense  a picture of what they were going to see. After a while, fatigue can become a factor as the defense tried  to cope with this pace. The offense is in position to take advantage of a weakened  defense  without  adding any  formations  or plays.

 The fast-paced offense can be run with or without a huddle or with a combination of both. Any of these approaches  will stress the defense and force them do things  they are not used to doing. Breaking the huddle close to the line in a sprint and getting set as fast as possible  creates  recognition and alignment problems for the defense. The huddle system also  has a much  more simple  communication system. Speed of operation is a key factor in this system. The faster the  pace,  the more the difficult  it becomes for the defense.

The shape of the huddle  and distance from the ball are also important factors  in this system. Placing linemen in the huddle between eligible receivers ( formation  and strength indicators) and the defense  makes it more difficult to find  them as  they  sprint to the line. Make sure eligible receivers are well-schooled in how to exit the huddle so as not to slow them down. Speed of operation is critically important. After practicing an introduction  of how to huddle, break, sprint to the line, get set and re-huddle. This aspect gets all the practice it needs  with every play that is run.

 The distance of the huddle from the ball in past years was five yards. That was a five-yard sprint every down. This is still a good idea to practice Monday through Wednesday, and  the distance can be varied  depending  on what you want .On game night and the day before the game, move the huddle up closer to the ball. We put the center with his back to the ball at a position so that all he has to do was turn around and in three steps he was set. Are you wondering how do you call plays that close to the line? The huddle is a V shape. Players overlap each other at half a man. Everyone is very close to each other and the quarterback  is  in the  V  enclosed. Code words and numbers and decoy words and numbers are very easy to use. Wrist bands can slow down the operation, because every player has to locate the play and read it. Yes, it is that fast. Trying to locate the play in a hurry can lead to mistakes. In the huddle, the quarterback calls the play one time and the huddle breaks. Remember, it is about speed. The high volume of repetitions negates the assignment  learning  problem.

The speed of the time from when the huddle  breaks  until the ball is snapped is of utmost importance . It must be done as fast as possible. This puts extreme pressure on the defense to be ready when the ball is snapped. If the huddle does not break and line up as fast as it needs to, go back to the huddle and start over. As Coach Sellers would say, “Don`t go to the line adjusting your athletic supporter”. Come out of the huddle the same way everytime, even if you intend to stay in the huddle  longer to run some time off the clock. Occasionally throw in a long count or a shift to keep things interesting. A short yardage multi-player shift can turn into a first down. Train a “clock coach” to watch the official mark the ball is ready for play. In practice,  using  a stop watch,  find out how long it takes to break the huddle and snap the ball. This will give you the ability to accurately take as much time off the clock as you desire.

Your imagination  is your only limitation. Remember the defense is  expecting  the offense to snap the ball in hurry. Call a play with “ freeze”  (in code),  go to the line, call your cadence and  then take a very long time to snap the ball using  shifts or just stare at the defense. Your “clock coach” with a stop watch can keep up with the time. Also, use  a ”check with me” call , go to the line,  call your cadence and wait for your press box coach  to give you a good play. Your coded system with decoys will allow this. The defense does not know when the snap is coming. The offense can be in a more relaxed mode than the defense in this case. This needs to be practiced everyday, but it is a good change up. Sell it from the stand point that it is fun for us and not for them.

Is quality in any aspect  of  your  program  sacrificed with this approach? No. In fact, just  the  opposite is true. It promotes  discipline  and  the speed element lends itself  to an all out effort. There are many ways to get quality reps and conditioning at the same time in other areas of the game.

Defensive   pursuit  maybe the best conditioner of all. Make it as realistic as possible using  linemen  and  wideouts  as  blockers. Every player executes his assignment and pursues to the ball. Make the drills more detailed by attacking the entire  field or  emphasize sprinting on proper angles to the boundary. This will produce an  aggressive  well -conditioned  defense.

The kicking  game  is another area  where quality reps and conditioning go hand in hand. Don`t allow standing  around. Use all your fields and coaches. Divide the team into smaller groups. Allowing  everyone  the opportunity to learn how to execute these  coverages does not take more time, because it is in a fast mode.

Punt protection and coverage versus a rush is critical with a focus on blocking, releases , speed in specific  lanes ,  taking the proper pursuit  angles. Determine your punter’s range , then put the ball on the appropriate yard line. Have fun trying to “down the ball” close to the goal line . They are learning about coverage, having fun trying to pin the ball deep, and getting  a lot of great conditioning.

A team screen drill in the fast mode using defenders with hand shields distributed across the field with a coach  directing them  is an excellent method to get  many  reps. If all defenders do not get blocked,  repeat the drill .A manager  keeps  the ball moving down the field  ten yards every play.

There is a drill named “Stanford”. It is a last play of the game lateralorama. Everyone must stay on their feet blocking to the ball with screen-type blocking and be ready if the ball comes to them. The goal is keep the ball off the ground and score. It could start with a screen pass  or a curl route that has a pitchman. Versus air, the ball has to be pitched immediately and if it  hits the ground,  start over.

Another method to  create  practice time is to get reps while warming up. It is about movement  that is specific to football skills. Begin slowly and build  to a faster pace. It can be offensive linemen doing counter  pulls, receivers  running  routes and catching passes, backs doing the same, defensive linemen running figure 8 pass rush drills and linebackers and the secondary working on man coverage drills. It could be a team punt or kickoff return drill.

An  imaginative coach can find ways to improve  his  team with a little restructuring of the use of practice time. Add so called non-football  aspects to your program without  taking  any more  time out of your  practice to do it. Remember a Hall Of Fame coach ahead of his time, who left us a lifetime of ideas and memories.