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AFM Magazine


The Secrets to Efficient Practices

by: David Purdum
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“Whatever you accept (in practice) that’s what you’re going to get. If you accept lackadaisical performance or lack of effort, then you can be assured that’s what you’re going to get.”
- Kansas State Head Coach Bill Snyder


Richland (Fort Worth, Texas) head coach Gene Wier has a problem. “I’ve not had many good practices in my time,” he said humbly and with a chuckle. His six state championship rings beg to differ. J.T. Curtis, head coach at John Curtis Christian in
River Ridge, La., is dealing with a similar dilemma. “We have bad practices all the time,” says the owner of a record 19 Louisiana state titles. At Kansas State, head coach Bill Snyder takes a scientific approach to his practice issues. “What comes first the chicken or the egg?” ponders the man responsible for what many consider the greatest turnaround in Division I history. “If there is great spirit and enthusiasm, the effort has probably preceded that. That’s proven to be true for us.

“But not knowing which comes first (the enthusiasm or the effort), I think it’s important to start with great enthusiasm and finish that way. When you boil all the water out of it, and the day is over, if the kids finish the practice with a consistency in terms of spirit and enthusiasm, I would imagine you’ve had a pretty good practice.”

Yes, even the best coaches have bad practices. The secret is to have more good ones than bad. Here’s how Wier, Curtis and Snyder do it....

At John Curtis, practices rarely last over two hours. They are concise and meticulously organized. “The absolute worst thing you can do, in my opinion,” Curtis says, “is having a six or seven minute time period set, and then you spend the first three minutes getting set up and trying to get organized. All of that can be worked out in advance, and once it’s worked out it should stay that way and be very quick.”

Curtis strategically positions the stations to limit wasteful transition time between drills. “I don’t want a coach or player to be on this end of the field this period, then have to run all the way to the other end of the field the next period, then have to go all back to this end in the next period,” he explained. “All that is a complete waste time. I try to group them in a position to where the transition is going to be pretty easy from one group to the next with not a lot of wasted time in between periods.” Curtis’ practice schedules are detailed and definitive. The ultimate goal of each drill, determined by the entire coaching staff, is outlined and written on the schedule.

“Coaches will say, ‘We need to spend a little more time throwing the 90 game, or we need to spend a little more time on the combo block,’” Curtis said, “So I’ll put down there ‘seven-minute period working nothing but combo step; or ‘six-minute period, let’s look at 91 and 92.’ It’s very definitive on what we want to get accomplished.

“We don’t want to get side tracked on other issues or stand around and talk about another issue,” he said. “Let’s address what we want to get done in that drill and let’s get it done well. Then, if we have a question, we’ll talk about it after practice. Let’s not waste time on the field discussing how we should play this. Let’s get that done before hand.”

Once a practice schedule is complete at Kansas State, Snyder asks his coaches to close the door to their office and mentally picture each segment of the workout. “I want them to visualize how they’re going to get to the drill, the equipment that is going to be needed and how it’s going to be set up, how you’re going to start the drill and actually see yourself going through the drill, what you’re going to teach and what you’re going to emphasize,” Snyder explained. The Wildcats’ practices thrive on emotion. Too often, Snyder says, coaches will get caught in the middle of a drill when it’s time to move to the next one, causing a draining delay. “You’ll see coaches scrambling to find a piece of paper to figure out where they’re supposed to be next,” he said. “That takes away from the efficiency and makes you lose momentum.”

To limit this disturbance, Kansas State deploys an alarm, usually just a whistle, one minute before the segment is to end. This gives coaches and players the opportunity to wrap up their current drill and prepare to move to the next station.

In contrast, at Richland, Wier doesn’t utilize any type of whistle or horn to signal the end of a certain segment of practice. “Sometimes you’ll see kids looking around, wondering when the whistle is going to blow, instead of concentrating on the station they’re at,” he explained. With practice time limits in Texas, Wier knows the importance of staying on schedule. Coaches are responsible for timing drills and encouraged to run short instead of long. And when it’s time for practice to be over, it is. “When you say it’s the last play, it’s the last play,” he added. “You shouldn’t have five last plays. End it ... Good, bad or indifferent, it doesn’t matter, just end it.”

But there’s always that last adjustment or one more play, and that can cause more problems then it’s worth. “Most coaches have a tendency to over-schedule,” said Snyder. “Consequently, they include in their practice more than they can actually accomplish. Sometimes certain segments get lost in the shuffle as you go from day to day.”

The freshness of the coaching staff is one of those segments that can get lost. Too many meetings, too long of practices not only wear down the players, but the coaches as well, thus diminishing their teaching abilities. “There’s a fine, fine line from too much and too
little in high school,” said Curtis. “These guys (coaches) are teachers that have to teach five to six periods a day. They have papers they have to grade, they have a family they’d like to go home to, and yet we still want to be as organized on the field as we can be. The last thing I want to do keep is to keep guys here until 9 or 10 o’clock at night talking about whatever.”

Mental fatigue hinders what Wier says is the most important part of his practice – learning. “There’s that saying that football coaches don’t teach. If our coaches can’t teach,” said Wier, “they can’t coach football. I always say that football practice is the best taught class in school. The most important thing is knowledge, and knowledge breeds the confidence they need.”

Wier says one the best tools he has to assist the learning process is the video camera. Richland practices are filmed with three cameras, exactly like a game would be. “Filming practice probably changed the way we practice more than anything else we’ve ever done,” said Wier. “The kids don’t take the chance of goofing off. Their attention span goes up, and no kid wants to come in the next day to see what they did wrong in front of the team and then have to hear about it.”

Always trying to keep the emotion in his practice, Snyder watches for signs of players, “going through the motions.”

“When that happens, it’s hard to redirect,” he explained. “If it starts that way, in all likelihood, that’s the way that practice is going to go. You can notice it by how players finish drills. Whatever you accept that’s what you’re going to get. If you accept lackadaisical performance or lack of effort, then you can be assured that’s what you’re going to get. You have to be demanding in such a way that the effort is as good as it can get.”

Curtis isn’t as concerned about his team’s emotion during practice, as long as he feels his players are learning. He’d rather have team resting then going through a “dress rehearsal.”

“We do not rehearse. When we’re on the field working, it’s going to be live. Even if we’re holding a dummy, the person holding a dummy is going to react full speed. I’m not going to have an offensive lineman fire off the ball, drive a guy with a dummy in his hand 15 yards off the ball, then hand the ball to the running back and let him run 30 yards down the field untouched. That’s rehearsal. That’s not how it’s going to happen in the game.” And it’s not going to happen in a good practice.

To view Championship Football Practice Organization and Drills with JT Curtis, or AFM’s official line of coaching videos, visit www.AFMVideos.com.

FROM DAY ONE

In J.T. Curtis' first season the Patriots went 0-10, scoring just two touchdowns. That is the only losing season he has ever had. Despite the tough beginning, Curtis still utilizes some of the fundamental elements from his first practices.

"The days we're on the field we're going to do some form of tackling, some form of coming off the ball and some form of ball handling. That has never changed and never will. I am a strong believer that if you neglect fundamentals, regardless the time of season, you regress with them."

Before taking over at Richland, Wier spent 22 seasons at Olathe North High School in Olathe, Kansas. At North, the former junior high coach won six 6A titles and had the highest winning percentage in the state in the 90s. Looking back at each practice, he points to one major constant. "Shorter segments with high intensity," Wier said.

Segments rarely last more than 10 minutes at Richland, Curtis or Kansas State.

"Learning takes place better in short, repetitive segments," Curtis said, "as opposed to long drawn out segments. If I do a drill for five minutes a day for four or five days in a row, that's better than doing that same drill in one day for 20 minutes." Both Wier and Curtis also believe in conditioning while you practice. By keeping the periods brief, but at a high intensity.

Even in his days as a California high school coach, Snyder recognized the importance of making opponents miss. Agility drills that require players to stay square to their target, while shuffling and changing directions quickly have always been a part of Snyder's practices. It has helped the Wildcats produce allusive threats like NFL players Terence Newman and Darren Sproles, who, by the way, played for Wier at Olathe North.

"Maintaining the ability to change direction and have efficient, effective and quick movements is vital for our players," said Snyder, who had his streak of 11 consecutive bowl berths snapped in 2004. Kansas State had been to only one bowl before his arrival.’






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