Off season timeline

Is there a method behind your winter meetings? For instance, what are you looking to cover in your first January meetings as opposed to where you end up in late May/early summer?

Red here is what I do at my current school:

December - Players lift wednesdays - Fridays. I hold invidual meetings with EVERY player in our program. Go through the season, expectations.. I send out coaches survey and begin meetings with them

Janaury - We go M-W-F weight room. Finish up coaches meetings. Defense has a two month period to go over a 60 point check list. On offense we start our self scout of opponents. We record each play d/d, formation, front, stunt, coverage, draw up each position with number. Who made the tackle, gain.. Each play takes around 6-8 minutes to do. This last through February.
Our DC will also burn copies of all of our 3rd and long, medium, short, stunts... All of this I will have on DVD and review. he will have the numbers for me.
February - Players finish up their three day routine and we test them end of February. We give them a week off and starting March we go to our four day routine - M, T, Thr, Fri.

Our DC will meet with my the first week of march and go through his check list.
Starting Mid March we begin weekly offense and defense stafff meetings. These meetings will go from 2:30 PM - 5:00 PM (one day offense staff and other day defense). Each session we cocnetrat on one opponent. Go through the tape and begin a preliminary game plan for next year. We do this through May.

April - We continue same thing. 4 days lifting (We will test them before spring break and give them off before spring break).

April - May - We begin weekly 7 on 7 passing tournaments. In our county. Usually Wednesday or Thursday fom 6-8.

End of May we have our first official staff meeting together. Go through summer calendar and activites (Camps, Weight Room, August..).

First week of June we have a four day camp. Give kids off the following week for exams.

Week of June 15th - Start SUmmer routine - M, T, Thr, Fri - 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM (Varsity comes in at 9:00, JV 10:00, 9th grade 11:00). We lift and do our speed, agility and sport specific training through June and July. We begin this in the spring when it gets warm in April and May.

We have a Four day Team Camp in July (We get 6 - 7 practices in uppers. We film practice. Good stuff). After we return from team camp we work our for another 2-3 weeks.

I give the players off the first week in August (Since they work so hard - we pace ourselves for this) . We report August 9th @ 6:00 AM.

Our goal for our March - April - May staff meetings is to have a binder on each coach and team with a preliminary game plan. Once we get to game week on 2010 we will open that binder. Example - We play a team Springfield. Well we break them down and make a binder for them in March. When we meet on Sundays inseason we go back to that binder and game plan and review it. The defensive staff presents this to me in June.

We will also visit two different colleges in March and April (Weekend visits for spring practice).

This is what I did last year. Worked well. We went from 1-9 to 7-3 and the second round of the playoffs. Kids get it and are on board.

This is something that I put together. Hope it helps.
I also have an in-season check-list. If you are looking more for strength/speed plans I have that too.

I have been a varsity assistant for the last 4 years. Our HC is also the wrestling HC, so once football is done he goes straight to wrestling mode, and i am the one who pretty much runs the football program in the offseason(although their is really no offseason)

In the past i would take off until after thanksgiving break (2 weeks off), but we made the playoffs this year so i only had Thanksgiving week off. Started the weight room daily after thanksgiving

The offseason for me breaks down like this

Off season: Dec 1- last day of school (mid June here)

Summer: End of school until new school year starts

Once the season ends i start making the team highlight and all of the individual highlights. I start talking to kids about sending their film and stuff off to colleges, and do whatever i can to help out our upper classmen with getting recruited.

I take no time off from watching film and learning. Much of my "off week" during thanksgiving is spent breaking down film (which included crying the whole time watching our playoff game that we lost although we outgained our opponent, jk) and trading, buying, and watching all the coaches DVDs i can get my hands on to learn learn learn

Ill usually hit a couple clinics during the winter as i continue to try and get our kids in the weight room. Ive actually spent the last couple weeks spending hours on power point working on an entire offensive playbook and position manual for my linemen

Spring ball comes in May, by this time the HC will have been done with wrestling and have relxed and rested enough to come back out to football. All of our varsity coaches will come from Spring Ball on...

2 weeks of spring ball, then we have finals.. no practice

Once school gets out we will practice M-Th the entire summer
We will usually attend a couple camps, or scrimmage a couple teams over the summer
We usually go to at least 2 passing tourneys - just a side note, i love going to tourneys, they are so much better than having to drive to passing league once every week.

We usually give the kids 1 week off , usually the last week of July, then we come back in August and crank up the intensity, and then eventually have 2 weeks of 2 a days (2 practices with a short break inbetween, not the all day 2 a days of old)

I have the kids in the weight room during the entire summer as well
Then we start school and start playing

I run the weight room during the offseason, always working to get our kids in there. The kids that do come have huge gains in size, strength, and SAQ.

One piece of advice for all HS coaches to try and remember, for sake of yourself as well as kids:

Too much of a good thing, even football, is still too much.

Sometimes "working smart" means, "Take a break!"

I agree, you need to schedule in things like:

wt training for football
your own workouts
errands
chores
play with kids
date with wife
walk the dog, at least pet him/her
feed the cat
read to kids/tuck them in
pray
go over calender with wife
find a quiet hour to reflect on program direction/next action

I mean theres only so much time in the day and we still have a real job.

When I first became a HS head coach my background was college football (had played some, coached few years immediately prior to taking job).

I thought football was as important to everyone else - players, coaches, administrators, etc. - as it was to me.

What I learned is a lot of teachers who are good people will coach football (and do a good job) but have a lot more going on in their lives - family, classroom, second job, coaching other sports, hobbies, additional coursework - and if you try to make coaching football a career in itself you will run them off.

And there are a lot of kids who like football and play it well but it may not even be their favorite sport and they likewise have other interests. By the end of the school year, especially if you have had them in class, they may be sick of your voice - and you may need a break from them also.

If you lose people from either group you may rationalize it by telling yourself they "weren't dedicated enough" or "not willing to pay the price" or whatever, but the problem may be what YOU are demanding of them.

So I want to make sure we do enough to be prepared and give our kids a chance to win without burning any of us out or running anybody off.

I am curious as to HOW you accomplish this goal. If I ever become an HC, I would like to find a balance between all of above things that you mentioned. Personally, I think we go into an OVERKILL mode on everything (scheme, practice time, etc...). I am a proponent of "work smarter not harder". I must find (or become) a HC that will follow this philosophy or I will leave the profession. Look forward to your thoughts.

MCRSA75