Practice & Game Organization -Coach Campbell

Danny Locklear 

Our primary goal as a football program is to equip our players with the knowledge and skills necessary to handle the difficult challenges of life they will inevitably face. This theme will be present in everything that we as coaches do: Our practice schedule and script, our offense, defense, and kicking game philosophies, our leadership development program, our community service projects, and our strength and conditioning training.

Ideally, we want to create an environment where athletes feel like the coaching staff is behind them 100%, sharpening and preparing them for competition. The program is about the players, not about us or how many wins we accumulate. Our pre-season phase of our program initiates our championship run with the inclusion of our strength and conditioning program and daily positional drills. The pre-season starts August 1st, and runs up until August 28th, giving us about a month of time to determine positional placements that best help the team, offensive and defensive alignments, and work on fundamentals as well as include some of our playbook and become familiar with that. Our next phase is our in-season championship run, in which we will apply what we've learned throughout the pre-season and build upon that each week. During the in-season we will have weekly team devotionals that engage our athletes in positive, critical conversation surrounding various important topics in their lives. Our offensive mindset is to control the flow of the game OUR WAY, and use our time effectively and efficiently. Our defensive mindset is to be as aggressively smart as we are on offense. We want to capitalize on the other team's mistakes, and apply as much intelligent pressure as possible, forcing them to error. our kicking game philosophy is to establish the absolute best possible field position for us to go to work on either offense or defense, while hindering our opponent from scoring.

The coaching staff will have various responsibilities delegated to them, and should be on top of them throughout the season. The responsibilities will include: teaching a weekly team devotional, assisting in supervising the weight room during strength training sessions, monitoring various positional groupings on gamedays, and applying and implementing technical skills for their assigned positions that they coach.

Our leadership program will be open to all students and it will allow an open and honest discussion on how to identify and develop strong leadership qualities. This will run from the beginning of the second semester to the closing of the second semester, and occur once weekly afterschool. I myself as the Head Coach, along with several other coaches will lead these lessons. Our off-season strength program will be centered around 3 things: 1.) Developing functional movement patterns to work efficiently in athletics, 2.) Increasing muscular strength and power, and 3.) Increasing power output and anaerobic threshold.

Our service project will involve some means of giving back and serving our community. What we want to accomplish is bringing joy to those we serve by providing aid in some way, shape, or form. The type of project will be determined by the captains of the team, and organized by the coaches.

As the new Head Coach, it will be my mission to implement and establish these things not as a way to instill my will or desires, but as a means to root our football program in strong competition, crucial developmental training and education, and servitude to the community.

Ryan Shimizu

Our game planning for the next opponent starts the day after the previous game. Since I coach at a high school, our games are usually Friday nights so we like to come back on Saturday and watch film. After we watch film, the kids are sent home and we stick around to discuss the plan for the week and game. It might take an hour or two on Saturday to get things organized for the week, but it depend on how much we want to fix based on the film we just watched. Sunday we get a break from seeing each other, but we still have to watch film on our opponent and prepare for practice. Some of the coaches might meet up, but only if it is really important. However, on Saturday after the meeting, each assistant coach is given an assignment to write down what they think the team needs "more of" at practice, and then they text or call in their suggestions to the head coach on Sunday. For example, if the running backs coach thinks we need to do more ball security drills, he texts the head coach, "We need to do more ball security drills." The head coach collects all suggestions and types up a practice plan to send out to all the assistants via text message or email. The assistants must review the practice plan prior to Monday's practice.





The offensive coordinator is responsible for the offensive script for 7v7 and team. On Sunday, he watches film on the opponent's defense to try to find tenancies, weaknesses, strengths, and how other teams attacked them. The offensive game plan. Will be built based on the information he gets from watching film. Once, the offensive coordinator creates a plan, he forwards the plan to the rest of the coaches involved on offense. The rest of the offensive coaches must create individual drills for their position based on the offensive coordinator's plan.





The defensive coordinator and special teams coordinator does the same thing as the offensive coordinator when it comes to making a plan. It is very important that the coordinators make a specific plan for every week based on the opponent. The coaches have to balance the practice plan with corrective tactics and techniques, and strategies for the up coming game. This can be tricky because in order to move forward, you have to take a step back sometimes. Personnel changes might be a puzzle that needs to be solved as well.

To have a strong performance in competition requires elite preparation. Preparation in football is paramount. To ensure players are engaged, active, and getting better each day a strong and detailed practice structure must be implemented.


Football is a game of quick transitions. The sudden changes can occur in any combination and at any time – offense to defense to special teams. Players need to be entrenched in high pressure and tough situations in practice, so that the experiences in a game do not overwhelm them. The atmosphere will be up-tempo, demanding, and intense – both physically and mentally. By creating and maintaining this type of atmosphere, the players will gain confidence as they enter competition, knowing that nothing they can face under the lights will be more challenging than what they have already been through on the practice field.


Breaking down a two and a half hour practice into thirty, five-minute segments allows for ample transition between offense, defense, and special teams. Shorter segments and multiple transitions also serves the purpose maintaining player engagement. Today’s athletes are inundated with instant gratification of information and attention via the internet. To ‘stay in touch’ with the modern athlete’s attention it is necessary to actively and intentionally plan for short teaching periods with clear focus.


The schedule itself begins with a pre-practice period. This period will consist of two five-minute segments combined. This period allows our specialists to work their unique techniques, while all other players get an opportunity for further individual skill development and drill work with their coaches. This individual work is geared towards teaching than physical force. We want players to work the finer points of their techniques and pay particular focus to details from a mental perspective.


Next, we go into our dynamic flexion period. This full warm-up is designed to activate and fire all joints from the toe to the neck/shoulder while transitioning between intermittent portions of higher heart rate and lower heart rate movements. This period will cover two five-minute segments.


From dynamic flexion, we will immediately move to a five-minute critical situation team segment. Typically, this first critical situation will be goal line work. The number offense and defense will each have opportunities to perform. This period is high energy and highly competitive. One unit will win and one will lose.


Following this first critical situation, we have a five-minute circuit period. This circuit will change daily. Flowing from agility (grass) drills, to a tackling circuit, to a blocking circuit, to a ball security circuit. Each circuit has critical elements to success and are vital to player development. We believe rotating these circuits increases engagement, reduces stagnation, and gives players exposure to essential skills.


Our second critical situation segment takes place following the circuit segment. This critical situation is a special teams oriented period. The period can be geared to any number of special team’s situations. Shown in the sample practice plan is our punt team being backed up on their own goal line.


We then go to our first individual segments. These are ten minute segments. One ten period for offensive individual and one ten minute period for defensive individual. We will always have twenty total minutes of individual drill work for both offense and defense. We like to split this up into two ten-minute segments – one occurring before our inside run and pass skeleton segments and the other occurring after. This allows for our coaches to reteach, correct, or address new technical/situational items in the second set of individual segments, after players have gone through an individual period on both offense and defense, as well as, inside run and pass skeleton segments.


Inside run and pass skeleton are designed to be up-tempo, competitive, and intense. We will get ample repetitions of base concepts (both offensively and defensively) while working against our opponents tendencies. The number one offense and defense get equal time to work as units during these segments.

After our inside run and pass skeleton segments, players will have their second individual period as described above. At the conclusion of the second individual period we enter our team portion of practice. This portion is also broke down into a series of down and distance critical situations. 1st and 10, 2nd and 7, 2nd and 4, 3rd and 8, 3rd and 2, and a late game/late half - two-minute situation are the critical situations we will rep. During this period, we will incorporate our entire game plan into these critical situations – run and pass concepts, pressure packages, coverage changes, opponent tendencies and players to stop.


We will finish with a brief conditioning period, followed by announcements and up-coming schedule.

We film every practice and review portions of the film with our players throughout the season. The film serves as our ultimate assessment and improvement tool. The film does not lie. By watching ourselves often our players see the technical points we have taught and where they and us as coaches can improve as individuals and collectively.

Robert

Weekly game planning procedures really begins with wrapping up the previous week's game on Saturday mornings. Following the players' departure on Saturday morning around 11:30 am, we meet as a staff to assess where we are personnel wise and who we will need where to win the following week's game. Once that conversation concludes, our offensive staff immediately gets to work on our next opponent. If the film is not already broken down with fronts, down and distance, blitzes, and coverage then we will quickly divide and conquer that. We will then together watch two games to get a feel for what they are doing defensively (scheme, fronts, blitzes, coverages, etc.). We will also be observant of their personnel and who we will have to account for in our game plan as well as where we have our best match-ups. Coaches will depart around 2:30 Saturday afternoon and watch film on their own throughout the rest of the weekend at whatever time is convenient for them with their family obligations.



Position coaches will focus on tendencies and the personnel that their group will go up against on Friday night as they watch film the rest of the weekend. They will also share ideas with the OC via text or phone call as they are watching. The OC will be responsible for putting together the formalized game plan. One thing we are excited about as coaches this year is utilizing zoom to prevent us from having to come into the office again on Saturday. As all industries have found some benefits to working at home during the Coronavirus, I think this is one that could stick around in the coaching profession. At a time to still be determined (probably late afternoon Sunday), all offensive coaches will jump on a Zoom call and go over the game plan together. Adjustments and suggestions can still be made at this time. By around dinner time Sunday evening, the OC will send out this week's scouting report and game plan to players.



Note: Defensive coaches will follow a similar model Saturday and also meet virtually on Sunday. The HC, OC, and DC will talk again as a group at some point in the day on Sunday to be sure everyone is on the same page.

Gregory

My time spent playing and coaching at the semi pro level in and around Boston Ma I got the opportunity to see at first hand as to why certain individuals had succeeded and some who failed. The ECFL is a league where the game is played for the love of the game. Each player pays their own way for equipment, facility dues, and uniiform dues. Some of the players even had set up sponsors in order to help promote and fund the programs in and around New England. Players range from 18-55+ years old and come from various experience levels. Many it is the first time they got the opportunity to play contact football to the other end of the spectrum those who actually played professional ball and they retired and now just play for fun and a reason to stay in shape.



Objective: The goal in any football program is to build a positive succesfulmculture that attracts football players to that program and makes them want to commit. So, when we are tlaking about what objectives we will concentrate on teaching within our program is very important and needs to be in a succesful transformative fashion. The three major objectives my program will bring to your teamare the following:



- Teamwork ( One individual can succeed only so far; it takes a group of people or team in order to achieve greatness and build a legacy)



- Servant Leadership ( Practice what you preach and be living proof that your methods work regardless of where you are in your career)



- Supporting and practicing healthy psychological, spiritual, physical, and emotional coping skills; building succesful transformtive life long relationships on and off the field (developing unity, empathy, and love for one and other within a sports program; belonging to something greater then ourselves, building healthy friendships, empathy, and support for eachother.



In conclusion, my passion for being a student athlete first, I have succeeded and failed in so many ways. I was blessed to have had many great teachers and coaches who went above and beyond for me as I was growing up in Patriots country. The winter season here in New England is not the easiest place to live and survive. The seasons in New England I feel emulates naturally of how nature relates to a human life. The ups and downs of the time we experience here is similar to the seasons. The hardest season here is winter by far! Mental and physical toughness is part of who we are. Without these simple yet crucial and (at times brutal) lessons we learn playing youth football and throughout the rest of our times as athletes; we have to be able to endure, adapt, and transform constantly to the brutal elemental conditions of our environment set by the seasons. New Englanders who had the experience having no choice but to survive and adapt type work ethic, expected level of intensity, and how to adapt to constant challenges in a competative/ brutal/ unforgiving natural environment; develop almost like the Spartan's or the Samurai warriors. You see, I didnt even realize how intense my experience was until i compared it to what others experienced growing up playing football. I have experienced many positive life changing events throughout my competative years as a athlete and coaching is in my blood. I know all too well what its like getting up time and time again after defeat and carrying onward and upward. Persuing a profession in Coaching and Teaching has always been a lifetime goal of mine.and many external lessons learned through experience. I am passionate to have the abiity to not only continue learning myself in order to be the best version of self; but also have the ability to reach others to support a succesful and transformative learning experience for others while building a championship legacy and culture within the school, team, players, parents, administration and the surrounding community!