practice organization

Max Meagher

The identity of our program will be built on the 3 greatest core principles of life. Faith, Hope, and Love. These principles will enable our players, coaches and fans to stretch outside of ourselves and believe in each other for the common good of the team. We will always have hope for the best possible outcome. The love for teammates is the strongest bond that can overcome the greatest challenges. A player that loves his teammates, coaches, and community has no option but to pursue excellence always. These three principles practiced in all areas of the program will result in the highest level of sportsmanship and garner respect from our opponents. One thing that opponents will say is that our team is very well prepared and that, regardless of talent, we will play extremely hard. How do we respond when the fire we face is the hottest? There is not a fire hot enough to burn through real faith, hope, and steadfast love.

We will use multiple formations and tempos to build a downhill power running vertical passing touchdown scoring machine. Our offense will primarily run out of the shotgun no huddle with a check with me pace. Multiple personnel groups will be utilized and if need be we will use non-traditional quarterbacks that are athletes in order to create an offensive identity that the players are excited to work out. The foundation of this success will still lie in the proper teaching and execution of sound fundamentals.

Defensively we will base our defense out of an odd front multiple coverage high pressure defense but will never be tied into a system. The defense will have an identity that will be written on the goal post pads to emphasize the value we place on the defensive side of the football. We will attempt to make all of our opponents beat us with their second and third best options. We will find and play our 11 most athletic players on defense even if that means that our starting quarterback has to move to defense. We will emphasize sound fundamentals, and will preach turnovers like our life depends on them.

The special teams will employ a large amount of 2 point conversions after scores and our fundamentally sound punting and kicking game will have changed formations each week with principles remaining the same. We will be known for onside kicking, fake punting, and going for it on 4th down. The head coach will be the special teams coach and we will spend equal amount of time game planning our special teams play as we do building our offensive and defensive game plans.

Teams will not want to play us even if/when we are underdogs.

The booster club and administration will in time love our program as they see us building trust with players, teachers, and other administration alike. The exciting brand of football that is played will increase attendance and interest from the casual fan. We will increase participation from the most athletic students because we are not tied into systems that will limit the use our athletes.

In addition to any equipment and facility needs that are necessary for building a safe football program we will invest in building a community tailgating area for home games as well.

Project #2 Practice Plan

In order to maximize the efficiency of practice when we go to offense and defense we will split the team into two groups. The 1s and 2s will go to the Offense/Defense period and the younger guys will go to the opposite to work on their D/O position. We have 70 players at the V/JV level and need to split them in order to maximize reps. This allows for a much better coach to athlete ratio. We have 8 V/JV coaches, so we are able to split off and def evenly. This also allows the younger athletes on the team, who usually are on the show team, to get some smaller group instruction in order to grasp our base schemes. This also allows us to ensure all drills are evenly matched, we would not want to put a sophomore up against a varsity starter in any drills. A coach would want to break practice into five minute segments in order to maximize practice time in the most efficient way. I have started to use five minute segments and there is a difference in our execution. If the focus is on one thing for five minutes, rather then everything in a twenty minute period, the athletes are able to maximize reps and build muscle memory. Repetition is what we are aiming for on the practice field in order to prepare the team to execute on game night.

Team Stretch 3:00-3:10
We start every practice with a team stretch, including the freshman. We use five lines from the hash to the sideline on both sides, then we fill in all the way down. We begin will calling out an athlete to start our motivation chant, “It’s a great day to be alive and wear that WALTHAM RED!”. Each player does it a bit different in their own way. Then we do team jumping jacks and break to the sideline for dynamics. Following dynamic we come back together and break it down as a team and sprint to the next period.
Team Agility Lines or Team Pursuit 3:10-3:20
Agility lines are set up with four flat bags between the 5 & 10 yard line, with six rows. Everyone fills in the lines and we begin footwork agilities. Each coach picks a line and they count every bag that a player comes into contact with, one touch equals one burped for the individual line group. We also give all the footballs to the skills guys and try to punch the ball out at anytime during the period. If they drop a ball they owe five pushups. The team enjoys this period. Team pursuit is set up in defensive teams with barrels set up as the line and coaches at different spots on the field. Another coach calls out the snap count and plays QB. Once the ball is thrown everyone pursues it, focusing on pursuit angles.

Indy O 3:20-3:35
Each individual group goes through their daily routines. QBs perform the circle pass drill, throwing on the run drill, and two ball boot drills. The QB must be able to throw on the move in our offense. We are a zone run team and the backs drill their steps, tempo, and reads daily. We have 7 formations and 8 motions WRs need to master and we drill them daily. OL perform their zone steps and half team drill daily as the inside zone is the table setting play in our offense. The next period the QBs & RBs come together for out barrel zone mesh routine, where we set up barrels and we run mirror groups going through all of our mesh techniques (IZ, OZ, sprint, boot, etc.). WRs must be able to block first and catch second in our offense, we run bubble or tunnel RPOs with every IZ, thus perimeter blocking must be ripped daily. We run blast, counter, trap and the OL rep these pull steps daily. The last period of Indy O focuses on pass, QBs and WRs rep their motions and the OL/RBs rep their pass set blocking.

Install & Review Period 3:35-3:40
We use this period to install a new play in front of the whole team or correct/adjust an existing play that needs work. We focus on one thing in this period, we do not want to show multiple news plays.

Perimeter Play Blocking 3:40-3:50
The first period focuses on our outside zone runs such as stretch, toss, jet sweep, QB run. The second period focuses on our outside short passes such as RB flares & darts, along with bubble, tunnel, & screen.

Inside Run & 7v7 3:50-4:05
The first period of inside run focuses on our IZ and OZ plays, the next period focuses on our pull plays, and the last period focuses on blitz pickup. We run two groups and the pace is very up tempo. The first period Seven on Seven focuses on our base mirror routes, the next period focus on our base 3x1 routes, and the final period focuses on play action, coverage beaters, and new route combinations.

Team Offense 4:05-4:20
The first period of team offense focuses on our runs using multiple formations and motions. We use the “A Fly” motion as either a decoy, lead blocker, jet sweep. The next period focuses on our base quick passing game. In these two periods we run two groups and focus on game tempo to the whistle. The last period focuses on situational offense or our game plan for the week. The first offense runs this last period and we start it on the 20 yard line and end the drive with a touchdown.

Special Teams 4:20-4:35
The Specials focus for today is kick-off. The first period is focuses on conditioning, we will use our kick-off alignments as lines. We will rep our live kick-offs to the ball, and the next group will go immediately. The next period we will add a show return team and we will focus on tempo and getting down our lanes, then squeezing to the ball. The last five minutes we will work on situational kicks such as onside, squib, angled. Additionally, any free lineman will be going over PAT blocking on the side.

Tackle Station Circuit 4:35-4:45
The 4 tackle stations focus on angle tackle, clubbing up, proper technique, and open field tackling. Each station is 2 minutes long and never changes, which allows for better efficiency as the season goes on.

Indy D 4:45-5:00
The first period focuses on the DL stance, start, and get offs, the LBs on stance, start, and reads, and the Das will focus on footwork technique. The next period, the DL will focus on sled separation drills, the LBs will focus on shedding blocks and the Das will focus on 1v1 ball drills. The last period, the DL will focus on defeating blocks and the LBs will focus on angle tackling. The DBs will focus on coverage assignments working with QBs & WRs running their mirror routes.

Formation Period 5:00-5:05
This install period is used to show the opponent formations and how we will align to it. We will also go over their favorite plays from the formations. Additionally, the scout team will review the formations and get lined up in them as practice.

Inside Run & 7v7 5:05-5:20
The inside run period will be used to show the defense the formations and backfield alignment. The show team will run the base run plays in order for the defense to get familiar with what they will be seeing. The next period focuses on getting to the line and getting to our gaps and the last period focus on our DL calls and LB blitz packages. The 7v7 will focus on the opponents top plays used and how we will cover them. The next period, will focus on getting to our zones or playing our correct technique. The last period will focus on running the plays at a high tempo to get the defense going.

Team Defense
The first period of team defense focuses on the opponents base formations and plays, we will rep the same few plays over and over. The next period will focus on their favorite plays and any read keys they may have. The last period focuses on game situations and will end with goal line defense live 1st and goal.