Youth Football Practice Organization

I am a high school football coach and have just been promoted to offensive coordinator. High school is where I currently am and want to be. I desire to have my own program within the next 3 years. As such, it is important for me to enhance my knowledge in all phases of the game. With that said designing a practice schedule is something that I learned to do within my first year of coaching, but I haven’t bothered to research it in depth.


Practice Approach

I am a believer in keeping practice fun and exciting. I think practice should be faster than you expect to play and there should be a high level of excitement, competition and productivity. I want to run every play scripted for practice that day as many times as possible. I don’t believe in running plays until you get them right, I believe in running them until you can’t get them wrong. I like to do things at high intensity and I’m not above throwing the kids a bone and calling practice a little early if we are having a great day. As a team it is important to work in-game situations during practice. If you never work goal line situations, driving the field, short yardage or 3rd and long situations, you will not know what plays the team can execute with high percentage in those situations.


Practice Schedule

On Monday’s our practice will be a longer one. Varsity defense will utilize the JV offense and varsity offense will use the JV defense for the bulk of practice. This will be a slow, heavy learning day. Kids will be dressed in shell (Helmet, shoulder pads girdle). Tuesday will be a day where the good will battle good during 1 on 1 and all team scenarios. The kids will be dressed in full pads. Wednesday will be a blend with minor crossover for the team and the athletes will be in shell. Thursday will be a well-prepared game plan scenario. Attire for Thursday will be shirt, shorts and helmet. The kids will perform kick the field on Friday during the athletic period. The schedule will be adjusted accordingly should the school district not provide an athletic period for the athletes. It’s important to note that when the varsity is going good-on-good the JV is working to perfect their game. JV cannot become purgatory, where the coaches and kids get used to losing because they spend so much time running scout team for the varsity they don’t know their own plays.



Honestly, I never thought about why a football schedule should be broken up into five-minute segments. Looking into it more deeply I realize that breaking the schedule up allows more flexibility. It also shortens each activity and causing the kids to work harder and keeps the mind engaged. “The reason for shorten time segments such as 5 minutes coaches learn to push their kids harder through their designated time slots so they can achieve their anticipated results” (Campbell, J. 2018, p. 57).



Football is a game where you might test well when lifting or running but that may not always translate to the field of play. Our assessments will be practice and in game scenarios. As coaches, we will meet at the end of each day and discuss what players will be beneficial to the team and where they need to be playing. After a game coaches will grade the film on their positions and make the appropriate notes to share with those individuals and the team while in film study. Practice is where you build your program and everyone from the coaches to the kids must realize how important each practice is.