Expectations for Assistant Coaches

Jake Brown

Practice Narrative







For athletes, practice can seem like a monotonous and tedious daily task. The goal to focus on is to make practice a fun, high energy, competitive environment. Competition would be the main focus, I feel as though you can achieve great success if you can come out and compete every minute of practice. The energy and standard needs to be set first by the coaches. If coaches come out to practice and are just going through the motions then this will feed to the players. It is also crucial to have the coaches be highly prepared for each part of the practice. They should be continuously working hard to make sure that they are mixing up their drills and approached to individual time. The interactions between players and coaches should be one of a teacher and student. Coaches should be encouraging, coaching up players on the run and on every rep. A large part of coaching will come in the form of film review rather then repeats on the field, unless absolutely necessary. It will be a new transition for some coaches to provide feedback while athletes are getting ready for the next play. I would want my coaches to work hard on finding the good plays in practice, much of the time we as coaches focus on the negative and are constantly correcting. It would be of upmost importance to catch the athletes doing it right.

In regards to keeping the tempo at a high pace, it is important to keep practice intervals and periods to 5 minute breakdowns. It will not only make coaches work hard to get the most results in a short amount of time and highly organized, but it allows for the athletes to not get bored over a long period of time. Having multiple transitions allows for the athletes to be constantly stimulated, which is great for this new generation of athletes focused on quick burst of information. I like to incorporate sudden changes into the schedule, it not only makes for a more realistic game like practice but keeps the athletes on their toes. The drills of utilized in individual time should be focused on technique and development from spring to summer and shift during season to allow the athletes the ability to focus on what they will be facing that week. This means it will be technique to counter what moves or blocks or forms of attack that the opponent uses. This will require coaches to study the film more closely and focus on certain pass rush moves, pass block techniques, coverage techniques, pressed corners, blitzes, main plays. This will allow for athletes to feel confident and know that they have faced everything that may possibly come up in the game during practice, taking the surprises away.

Offensive team times will be set up in varying situations. I like to not distinguish team times as most will break them into a run period, pass period, and then full team. I think mixing run and pass allows for a flow similar to the flow of a game. Mondays would focus on power scheme runs, Long yardage situations, and backed up offense. Tuesdays would be on short yardage, goal line, and turtle offense. Wednesday will be 3rd downs, 2 minute, and last plays/Hail Mary. I would have the yardage marked off and keep track of conversions on those plays. This will allow the staff to make sure the game plan can be executed and a way of grading the team periods. In order to make completion a focus we will incorporate a grading system for 7 on 7 periods, work one on ones at least once a week. It will also be a point to open practice up with a whole team competitive drill in order to boost energy and set the tone for the day. This will most likely be done on Tuesday as that would be the only day in full pad practice. Coaches will be required to watch film each night and using Hudl write notes of encouragement, correction, and points of emphasis according to their positions. These notes would be sent to players and possibly watched as a team if time permits.