Practice Elements

Academics

This will be a time for players to check in with coaches in the building to check with players on grades. Each player will be expected to check in with a coach regarding grades before practice.  Any player who is on the academically ineligible list will be required to send an email to their teacher and myself detailing how they will achieve a passing grade. This practice will reiterate our commitment to grades first, as well as allow for any off campus coaches to get to school. 

Game plan/Film

To help the visual learners in our group, this portion of Mondays will be designed to give our players a concentrated overview of our upcoming opponent. We will review the base elements of their offense and defense. We will provide guidelines for players on how to watch film on this particular opponent on their own through the week. In our Thursday meeting, there will be a quiz on different game plan elements to hold players accountable to learning and reviewing the game plan. 

Extended Stretch

To aid our players' recovery after two full days off and a day from sitting in class, we will have time to aid in the recovery and increase our flexibility as we go into the week. The goal of this period is for our players to push themselves into a good stretch both with and without the hurdles so they can spend some time loosening up before we go into the week. 

O/D Walkthrough

To aid our kinesthetic learning types, we will spend this time walking through the elements of the game plan that were covered in the classroom. We will review what we expect to take place that week and what to expect from practice during the week. This will also be the time where we talk about scout team alignment so that players present can help scout team players be in the correct position.

Lifts

There will be three lifts each week, each with a different focus. 
  1. Lift #1 and #2 will be our main strength building lifts. These will have different focuses week to week depending on the needs of our athletes. The goal with each lift will be to increase strength, explosiveness, and athleticism while also focusing on injury prevention.
  2. Recovery lifts will be the day after competition, with an emphasis on muscle recovery. Each will be designed independently to help allow for the best recovery.
Each of the above lifts will be done at different times, depending on when a player is predominantly playing. This allows for the best use of our weight room and to better focus on the needs of our players.

Warm up

A good warm up is key to prevent injury and allow our athletes to feel confident in their abilities at practice. This time will not be longer than 10 minutes and it will be taken seriously with focus.The one rule: You are not talking while you’re doing a stretch.  If you’re in line, that’s fine. Between the 0 and 15, those players are not talking. The same will be expected of coaches.  We should be talking with our players in their stretch lines, but not while they are actively in their stretch.Warm up routine - Lines at the goal line, 8 lines with starters and/or leadership council at the front. Lines will be spaced on the numbers, split between the numbers and hashes, on the hashes, and in line with the goalposts. Anything that does not have an initial fast movement (Scoops, lunges, etc.)  is for 10 yards, then the player will burst into a sprint to the 15.  Everything to the 15 and back.
  1. Jog 
  2. High knees/Butt kickers
  3. A Skips/B Skips
  4. C Skips
  5. Inch Worm/Sidewalks
  6. Knee pulls/Quad pulls
  7. Scoops/Monster walks
  8. Forward lunge/Side lunge
  9. Open/Close the gate
  10. Lean fall run
  11. Get offs from a 3 point stance

Neck Stretches

With 8 lines, we will condense down to 4 lines, partnered up with the player next to you. Partners should be on the numbers and the hashes. Helmets will be placed on the ground next to you. One partner will be in a squat position, the other will apply pressure to the directed position. Two reps for 10 count on each side of the head, on top of the head, and beneath the chin. Then the partners will switch and repeat.

Falcon Jacks

Players will return to their lines with helmets back on. Falcons will be spelled out while doing Jumping Jacks. Players will then come together with the head coach, who will give a quick motivation for the day, and then we will go into the team competition period. 

Compete Period

A fundamental part of this program will be preaching competition in everything we are doing. This ties in with our philosophy of getting better. If we aren’t competing, we aren’t getting better.  Competition period will be a time to bring the whole team together to set a tone for the practice and the day. There will be different elements we put together. This could be solo competition, group competition, or entire team competition.  The primary goal of this period is to bring energy into the practice and get everything started off on the right foot.

Individuals/ Special Teams

This period will look different on Tuesday and Wednesday. We will have individual periods on Tuesday and Wednesday to heavily emphasize the fundamentals of the game.  This period is for the fundamental, every day drills we as a program must continue to master. It is expected that some drills are done weekly, and other drills are to emphasize a correction from the previous week.  Our individual time where every player present must be used well, and show what we are working on this week. 
On Tuesday’s, we will have special teams built into our Indy time. One thing that will benefit us during this time is having different players on every special team. When possible, we will have our JV special teams as scout teams for varsity. This is a way to ensure that we are getting maximum participation in practice as well as finding ways to get players on the field in whichever game they are playing. It is understood that some players may be on specials on both Varsity and JV, but we will work to prevent any overlap to allow for the most players to get better during this period.

Group

This time will be used to focus on specific elements of the game plan for the week. The two primary group periods will be 7 on 7 (Tuesdays) and Inside Run (Wednesdays). We will maximize the involvement of players by utilizing two scout groups whenever possible. We will rotate through these groups and create an opportunity for more players to be involved while also maximizing reps in practice. 

Team

Similar to Group, but this period will emphasize 11 on 11 to simulate game situations with our starters and scout team.  Our scout team will be coached by their primary position coach. This will enable all coaches and players to get better through the week. We will expect our scout team to give 100% effort and work to emphasize technique to continue to develop. 

Team Meeting

Every Thursday, before we start practice, we will have a team meeting to discuss a topic other than football. This could be a coach giving a talk, watching a video clip, reading a passage and talking about it. The goal of this time is to give everyone a few minutes to focus on something other than school and football to help reset before we go into our run through. 

Film Review

Film review will be conducted at different times through the week, but Thursday film review will be done to go over what the players have seen in practice and see again what to expect on game night.  This will be split into as many sub groups as possible to encourage players to focus and ask questions when going through the film. JV will also split into their own group so that they can review their game from the previous week, or look at the key base elements of the upcoming opponent. 

Pre-Practice

Once on the field Thursdays, we will have a time for kickers, punters and returners to work on their elements of the kicking game. All others will have a light warm up period. This is to help these players specifically correct any mistakes or issues from the practice week and prepare for the game.