Coaching football with limited practice days

[qyntius]

Hey fellow coaches, I'm a coach in the Netherlands where American Football is an amateur/recreational sport, and therefore most players and coaches are only able to commit two days (2 hours each) per week for practice. The team includes inexperienced players who do not even grasp the rules of the game yet, but also veteran players who have the skills to play college football. How do I go about coaching a team like this?

The problems so far in the previous seasons is finding a balance between conditioning, technique, and installing plays. It is great having a super athletic wide receiver, but if he doesn't understand the game or remembers the plays, he will be useless in a game. On the other hand having a wide receiver who knows his routes, but can't catch and is exhausted in the first half won't win you games either. The second problem is facilitating both experienced and inexperienced players without shorting either one.

My plan for practices at the moment can be found here: docs.google.com/document/d/1I_6xnPsARY-9d13gc6QS9kal276hUe1veyRY1oyqH0Q/edit

Do you guys have any experiences with coaching football with limited practices and inexperienced players? Any tips, stories, or suggestions concerning drills, shaving off fat, and general philosophy are very welcome! I would imagine that simply taking practice schedules from high schools and colleges wouldn't work because they're build around being able to be on the field a great deal more.

[freezeoption]

you could condition players by position when they are done with certain drills, and build condition into your drills, running routes over and over again is conditioning, and it will build their knowledge of the route, if you have enough coaches and players you can break it down into indy groups, I would put your less experienced guys in positions where there is only a few skills and things to remember, like d line, I would also put emphasis on them conditioning on their own time, I always tell my kids there is more they can do on their own and cover what I want them to do, I don't know your offense, but I guess you want to find your strengths and play heavy on that, I've coached all ages from ymca kindergarten to 6th grade, jr high and high school, I had one practice a week with my ymca guys for about 2 hours like yours, I had to rotate my kids every week into different positions,

plan everything for your 2 hours and don't have wasted time, I've used playcards, where the play was on a note card, sent it in to the qb, he showed it to the team in the huddle, ran the play and the kid coming out would bring me the card, I kept the cards in plastic sheets that were used to hold individual photos, I don't know if they still have those, but I had a three ring binder so I could see my plays and flip through the pages and get them out quick, if a play worked really well I kept it in my back pocket a pulled that out and used it more, idk if that helps, I complain about only having 2 1/2 hour practices every day and I use a half hour of that to lift a different group, good luck to you

[EnglishOC]

I coach in the UK and we have a similar problem. Conditioning needs to be done by the athlete in their own time. The 3.5 hours practise time we have here needs to focused on football drills and football skills. Many of the athletes we get havent played since they were small either so to many the skills are very different/new to them.
Repetition and make it as much like a game scenario as you can would be my advice. And keep the tempo high. Plan every minute for every kid/position.

[coachc45]

During your Off-season phase spend less time in your group and team situations and more time in Indy. You can teach concepts and techniques better in Indy. 10 minutes of "Group" and 20 Minutes of "Team" is more than enough time. Spend 45-60 minutes in Indy and you will see your guys become better football players.

Make sure you have a playbook. Have them study the plays and defenses on their own time. Test them on it.

During Pre-season. Scale back Indy to 35-45 minutes and increase Group and team. 20 Group and 30 Team is enough.

During the season I still think you spend too much time in Team, but as long as you still give 25 minutes in Indy you should be fine.

[qyntius]

Jul 24, 2014 10:52:32 GMT -6 coachc45 said:

During your Off-season phase spend less time in your group and team situations and more time in Indy. You can teach concepts and techniques better in Indy. 10 minutes of "Group" and 20 Minutes of "Team" is more than enough time. Spend 45-60 minutes in Indy and you will see your guys become better football players.

Make sure you have a playbook. Have them study the plays and defenses on their own time. Test them on it.

During Pre-season. Scale back Indy to 35-45 minutes and increase Group and team. 20 Group and 30 Team is enough.

During the season I still think you spend too much time in Team, but as long as you still give 25 minutes in Indy you should be fine.

During group and team I will have them for tackling drills like Oklahoma's, 1 on 1 tackling, 1v1 blocking, etc. I felt like it would better to have a linebacker practice tackling a runningback, instead of a linebacker practicing tackling another linebacker. I noticed in our league in general, tackling is done very poorly, and I feel I can capitalize on that by creating a very physical team.

During the off season indies I was planning mostly on doing footwork and explaining their roles. How would 60 minute indie session look like for you? (Footwork -> Position drills -> Tackling?).

I give them the playbook 6 months before the first game. I've been looking into ways to have the players make the test at home online, so we don't have to deal with no shows on test days.

You're probably right about too much team in the season, I will talk to the other coaches about scaling it back some.

Thank you for all the respones by the way. I will try to make the most out of all the practices by running a very tight ship.

[coachc45]

60 minutes of Indy for me is a blessing. I coach D-line mostly and I can spend 60 minutes a day no problem.

I spend quite a bit of time teaching Block Recognition and defeating blocks. We are very technical in how we do things and I break it down step by step. From 1st to hand placement to hip explosion. The list goes on and on. A simple rule of thumb I go by..... the closer to the line of scrimmage a player plays the more technical he has to be.

[fantom]

Aug 12, 2014 11:55:17 GMT -6 coachc45 said:

60 minutes of Indy for me is a blessing. I coach D-line mostly and I can spend 60 minutes a day no problem.

I spend quite a bit of time teaching Block Recognition and defeating blocks. We are very technical in how we do things and I break it down step by step. From 1st to hand placement to hip explosion. The list goes on and on. A simple rule of thumb I go by..... the closer to the line of scrimmage a player plays the more technical he has to be.

Clearly, you've never coached DB's, 

[coachc45]

Aug 12, 2014 12:14:31 GMT -6 fantom said:

Aug 12, 2014 11:55:17 GMT -6 coachc45 said:

60 minutes of Indy for me is a blessing. I coach D-line mostly and I can spend 60 minutes a day no problem.

I spend quite a bit of time teaching Block Recognition and defeating blocks. We are very technical in how we do things and I break it down step by step. From 1st to hand placement to hip explosion. The list goes on and on. A simple rule of thumb I go by..... the closer to the line of scrimmage a player plays the more technical he has to be.

Clearly, you've never coached DB's, 

7 Years as a DB coach.  And the rule holds true.  The closer to the line of scrimmage your corners play the more technique required.  If a DB is 10 -12 yards off the ball the technique changes.  Do not have to be as proficient with hands, more footwork.  Close to the line/Press have to have great hand technique and the same footwork, if not more.  Hence the statement I made.  Surely you don't disagree?

[fantom]

Aug 12, 2014 21:04:33 GMT -6 coachc45 said:

Aug 12, 2014 12:14:31 GMT -6 fantom said:

Clearly, you've never coached DB's, 

7 Years as a DB coach.  And the rule holds true.  The closer to the line of scrimmage your corners play the more technique required.  If a DB is 10 -12 yards off the ball the technique changes.  Do not have to be as proficient with hands, more footwork.  Close to the line/Press have to have great hand technique and the same footwork, if not more.  Hence the statement I made.  Surely you don't disagree?

OK, that makes sense. If you're primarily a C.3 team I can see it. If you're a multiple coverage team there's never enough time. 

[coachc45]

Aug 12, 2014 21:09:54 GMT -6 fantom said:

Aug 12, 2014 21:04:33 GMT -6 coachc45 said:

7 Years as a DB coach.  And the rule holds true.  The closer to the line of scrimmage your corners play the more technique required.  If a DB is 10 -12 yards off the ball the technique changes.  Do not have to be as proficient with hands, more footwork.  Close to the line/Press have to have great hand technique and the same footwork, if not more.  Hence the statement I made.  Surely you don't disagree?

OK, that makes sense. If you're primarily a C.3 team I can see it. If you're a multiple coverage team there's never enough time. 

I never implied it is more difficult to teach D-Line than secondary.  I simply stated that The closer to the LOS a player plays the more technical it becomes.  As a D-line coach my guys are as close to the LOS as can be, so I need all the time I can get.

I also told the guy that he needed to increase INDY for all positions, he asked how I would break it down.  Thus my answer.  If your corners play at 12 they need less time than if they played at 5-6.  If they play press then they need more time than if they play at 5-6.  Giving a guy a "rule of thumb" for how much time to allot for Indy.