varsity/jv combined practices?

We do. If your practices are organized and high tempo, it can work. When we go to group sessions, sometimes I let my asst. O-Line coach take the younger guys and do the same drill so we can get in more reps. Ideally I would rather them practice seperate cause they can slow down things sometimes but I have also found it helps them prepare for the varsity level of play faster.

I would say that the majority of teams run them together because of the size of the team and the size of the staff. We would not be able to practice very well if we didn't run them together.

If you have enough coaches to run two separate practices I think that it would be great. In my experience anyway we've never been lucky enough to have enough coaches to split the two.

thanks for the info so far. QUestion comes from my time playing where we practiced seperately even when we had limited coaches to the amount of players. And now with the budget cuts in the education field many schools have fired teachers/coaches. So with the limited amount of coaches this has become a question. But to me it becomes something to think about long term. Especially if you could only have six coaches total for vasity and jv why not practice together. Instead of splitting up your coaches this is how I see doing it practice wise.

3 offense
3 defense

and depending on number of players this is how I would do it. Varsity would be offense/defense first while jv would be opposite and then switch at halfway point. That way all the coaches get to know all of the kids in program. And the players get to know their specific coach. Also the language and terminology stays the same.
Other way that I have looked at is mentioned above. the indy time and some group work would be together but then team work would be as jv or varsity.

Does anyone have a practice schedule to show how they break up practices for each group? I am in the same position.

I'd be interested to see how you coaches structure your practices when you go Varsity and JV together. We've gone together for individual and group time but our team periods have been separate. Although we did do some hybrid 11 on 11. We basically staggered the offensive positions and defensive positions with a Varsity players and JV players. So a Varsity offensive player is up against a Varsity defensive player and a JV offensive player is up against a JV defensive player. Obviously when players do not block players directly across from them, there may be a situation where JV players are matched up against Varsity players. But this at least limits the times that would occur much more than Varsity offense vs. JV defense and vice versa. I don't see any benefit in doing those sort of scrimmage situations at the high school level. Confidence levels of JV players fall dramatically and the egos of Varsity players get bigger. Not a great situation for the program to be in on Thursday or Friday night.

we have jv and varsity together b/c of numbers of coaches and players. just to make sure there is less down time we go in larger groups at the same time to get more reps. touggher to catch a guy doing something wrong than if you are just watching one group but that is the nature of the beast. this way the coach can control the amount of rest instead of them standing in line--which makes for a long practice for the kids and the coaches

We do go together as well, we have 3 on "O" 4 on "D" coaching staff wise, now we have done it with over the years with a very varied staff, we have also Coached 3 teams before by placing the Freshman on the opposite side of the ball as the JV/Varsity. I think it greatly enhances the level of play of the JV kids when practicing with the older kids at all three schools I have done this at there was apprehension at first but by the first or second game kids said the game slowed down for them.

We currently have 67 athletes in grades 10-12 including playing football. 15 Seniors, 19 Juniors, 30 Sophomores, and 3 Freshman working to play Junior Varsity

On Offense,
We run all individual together, now we try to two platoon as much as possible so when the Varsity Offense is running there is another 10 or so JV kids repping with them, when the Varsity is doing defense and the JVs are running offense there is about 15 one way Varsity kids repping with the JV's.
Group time we will rep against our 1 D opperating two offensive huddles, we run a trap drill with DT's and MLB's, we do a 7 on 7 set with LB's and DB's, We do a prim run drill with a 1/2 line on offense and DB's, OLB's and a MLB, we do a Power drill with full teams
Muscle time is our next set, this is with two offensive and two defensive lines we will try and keep an old group and young group but will fill in either with reserves pending on the set, we will do competitive sets with two offensive groups repping against one offensive group for four plays, or we will just run two sets with our DC taking the older kids against me the HC/OC and the older kids the other group is the OLB coach and DT coach with our TE/T coach. We will rep all inside run game and will reps techniques based on what our D will see that week so if we are playing a zone school our OL will work reach technique despite us not running much zone in our scheme.
Finally team, our offensive team we always run two units against a scout team, some of it is typically 1 on 1 and some of it is verse a true scout team. Defensively we generally run reps, so they will be on the field for 8 reps then a young guy group will be on for 6.

I highly recommend it, it creates an environment where each coach is repsonsible for one specific group and coaching it to a high level. It creates a very competitive environment amongst players and Coaches. We do special teams at the begining of practice and we come together for conditioning drills.

We split our staff into offense and defensive staff. When varsity is on O the JV is on D.

I have an idea of how to make it work - but I would like some insight on ways to make it work smooth.

some questions or requests:
Practice plan templates
things that did or did not work
what did you guys do for games? different OC/DC?
who stayed with Varsity if FS had an away game? Our FS plays Thursdays and V plays Fridays...

This will be our first year with 6 coaches & 2 teams. The Coaches are split Offense & defense. When JV is D, Varsity is O ( Like others have stated).

The last 45 minutes we split up JV & Varsity called team emphasis time ( the Coaches go with the team they coach game time).

*** Summer practice 2-adays. Varsity Only Practices in the Morning all coaches on Hand. 2nd session Both Teams are in.