Less than 22 players for practice. Help!

Coach -

Use your best Frosh-Soph/JV guys to fill out what you are missing. Not the best scenerio, but, remember, your job is to win Varsity games, not Frosh-Soph games.

Something else you might want gto think about is staggering practices or practice schedules so those top Frosh-Soph/JV guys don't miss their practices.

You can try doing your pass phase as a 9-on-9 too. It's your regular 7 on 7... but with a combination of the OL & DL up front.

You could have: C-RG-RT or LG-C-RG... etc.


I went through something similar this year - and we practiced with everyone together; because we ran the same schemes.

This led to our Fr/So becoming quite a bit more developed - in some cases later in the year some players were BETTER than our varisyt guys.

I strongly believe that your job may not be to win Varsity games THIS season - you need to build - and you do that through your Fr/So. YOU will be the only one they know as 'Coach' at that school, and they'll buy in to your way of doing things.

You don't do this by sacrificing them... they're your future - INVEST IN IT !

Work your Scout O and Scout D as half line. Work your plays with only half of the offensive and defensive formations. Align From backside guard to everyone on the playside. It limits some of the inside stuff, but then you can do an inside period and forget about the perimeter players.

10 min Left side plays (both strong and weak)
10 min Right side plays (both strong and weak)
5 min middle plays

We use 50 gallon plastic barrels from the local chemical plant. They were happy to donate 8 of them to us. We use them to get more reps out of our V and JV O-lineman. Rather than have 1/2 of your kids not learning, we utilize them for people. Great brainwork!