? about two platooning

...I was told by our head coach that this plan (pretty much exactly what you just described) is impossible to implement and we will NEVER even look into doing it. I think it makes a lot of sense, can you describe the benefits you get from this schedule?
We already have coaches who primarily coach one way even though they technically are two-way coaches. Just thought something like this would focus them in even more.

rpetrie:

You may not be able to replicate what we do because of your program situation. Where do your Freshmen practice? Are they still at the Jr.High?

In our situation, we have 9th graders on campus. For us, we don't see much of a gap between our middle to top 9th graders and our bottom feeder 10th graders. The 10th graders are stronger (because they've lifted in our program for the past 9-12 months but they are the bottom feeders since they aren't very athletic. These kids will practice with the freshmen.

By doing this we end up with about a 60 (on varsity/jv) and 60 (9th/lowerJV) by doing this practice split. The lower end 10th graders are having some success vs. 9th graders and the upper end 10th graders are competing at the varsity level day in and day out. Most of these kids will play JV games but will suit for varsity in a backup role.

If I had to do this with your coaching numbers I would do the following:

Go with your TOP 2 kid at each position (This should give you somewhere between 22 and 44 players, right?)
Maybe your #2 Left Guard is also the #2 Right Guard because this is probably reality in a smaller school. But force your own hand a little and put together a 2 deep depth chart for O and 2 deep for D.

By designating your top 22 players on each side of the ball you now have a natural split in the talent.

You'll want something like a 35/35 or 40/30 split between your Offensive Practice and Defensive Practice.

You COULD designate 3 of your coaches as O guys
1. QB/REC
2. RB
3. OL

You COULD designate 3 as D guys
1. DB
2. LB
3. DL

You don't say what type of O and D you run but that could have something to do with how you break it down.

Typical IN SEASON Week breakdown could look like this:
MON - Game Plan Day
(watch video of previous game - not sure when you fit this in - we do ours on Sat morning as we always play on Fri)
Watch video of upcoming opponent
Individual Period (Light contact) - We usually do a Form and Fit tackling circuit on Mondays (but keep everyone off of the ground as we are still a bit banged up from Friday's game.
Condition / Lift

TUES
We start with Kicking game (punt / kickoff) on Tues
Top players go to Defense
Bottom players go to Offense
(for the thread Nazi's out there, we don't call our kids "top" and "Bottom" - we just call 'em vets and young guys)

After 55-60 min we switch - Coaches stay on their end of the field and the kids switch.

During the 55-20 minutes we would look like this:
10-15 Indo Drills
15-20 Group Drills
15-20 Team Time & Situations
On Tues we'll go with larger blocks of time as above on offense

WED
We start with Kicking game (punt block / kickoff return) on Wed
Top players go to Offense
Bottom players go to Defense

After 55-60 min we switch - Coaches stay on their end of the field and the kids switch.

During the 55-20 minutes we would look like this:
10 Indo and/or Combo Drills
10 Group Drills
10 Indo and/or combo
10 Group Drill
15-20 Team Time & Situations
On Wed we cut the blocks down to 10 min increments. Within a 10 min block (Indo for instance) we may go 5 min of RB's pass pro drills and then they will run down the OLINE and Fit their pass pro with the OL pass pro scheme of the day.

Our first 40 min of practice in this scenario are fast and furious. Kids and pretty gassed by the time we get to team and this is one of our goals and the kids know it. If we loaf, we will play a big penalty in gassers at the end or practice.

THUR - Would be a day to iron our all kicking game items (for us - as we play Vars on Fridays). We also cover situations for O and D for our players. We add to this script each week and try to hit the most common scenarios early (onside kicks, blocked FGs, FG coverage, etc) and add the less likely scenarios as the season rolls along (taking a safety, how to properly end the game following a takaway with zero on the clock, etc).

For you if you played on Sat, you'd have a bit more flexibility as to how you'd want to break down your Thurs/Fri.

If I were in your situation and you wanted more quality coaching from your coaches I would find a way to make it happen. By lightening the load for your coaches (do they teach at your school?), you'll make them more effective by allowing them to concentrate on one side of the ball.

Of course, you'll have to decide how to break up the kicking game responsibilities but that could be done in a number of ways.

As HC you'll want to have your hand in everything and a systematic approach such as this (platooning the staff) will provide you with a bunch of opportunities to figure out where your input can be best received and made most effective.

haha school i go to only has 170 kids and we have 35 kids total on team....everyone plays both ways just about...