Advice on low numbers and short on time

That is an incredibly tall order...but the way I would do it, is determine right now, who the interior line will be. You should be able to figure it out by looking for kids who have no real chance to play a skill position. At that point you have the remaining players for the skill positions...hopefully they have more skill oriented talent.

Now that you have that, you need to pick a system, but I am sure you have an idea what you would run. Based on that, pick out the essential plays, whatever they may be for your system. Keep it a s simple as possible.

Start with basic indy drills. Blocking schems, and drills for the OL...RB and QB fundamentals for the skill guys...routes and catching if you have receviers. You should have access to websites with numerous drills...if not, many on here can direct you to websites that have hundreds of drills that could help you.

Your indy session should be about 15 minutes.

Half line drills will be tough with such low numbers. I believe you can do combo work in the indy drills section of your practice. OL blocking schemes, vs. DL (assuming you would have C, G, T vs. NT and DT, whichc would be the players from the other side of the line). Same plays and blockign schemes over, and over, and over again.

For the remaining players, you have QB, FB, TB (or whatever your configuration is)...you will most likely need to work on execution...this to be done while the OL/DL are going at it. same plays over, and over, and over again.

Do this for about 15 minutes.

At this point you are 30 minutes in, and have taken care of your individual fundamental drills, and small group work. By that point you will have the basics of movement down.

It would be time to put it all together, and you could do some type of half line drill, at least enough to give a look on the D line. Run through your plays...should take about 20minutes.s.

So at this point, you have put down 50 minutes, and you have take care of the fundamental core of your offense.

Now...you put it all together for 10 mintues and run though all of the plays.

This will put you at 60 minutes and you are done with offense.

Time to move on to defense, which is a lot easier to implement, but the most important aspect to get right.

Start with 15 minutes of indy drills...just as you did with offense, but you will break down by DL, LB, and DB.

After 15 minutes, go into some sort of oklahoma oriented drill, which will be like small group sessions...inside running plays over and over again, but place the emphasis on defense, not offense.

While this is going on, have the DBs work on pass coverage and runn support, with various drills, but done in a small group scenario, working as a unit.

At that point you have 30 minutes in on defense.

Now it is time to put it all together, and line them up, going through secenarios, coverages, blitzes/stunts (if applicable), and basic responsibility. Do that for 15 minutes.

At that point, you are 45 minutes into the defensive secion of practice, total practice time so far, including offense if 1 hour 45 mintues.

LAst, work on special teams. You have 15 minutes, and alternate days to focus on specific units. Easiest is kickoff, followed by punt return, followed by kick return, with the punt team being the most difficult in my opinion.

So do 10 minutes with Punt team, and 5 minutes with Punt Return, on one day. The next day do 10 minutes on kickoff return, and 5 minutes on kickoff. Alternate days, and if you are seeing more onside kicks than anything, do 5 minutes KO return, and 10 minutes on kickoff...just identify the need.

At this point, you will have practiced for 2 hours.

Not exactly my practice plan, but with small numbers, I think it can work.

DC

I'm stealing the Pizza Bounty, only I may make it a "Freid Chicken Bounty" after all this the South. Thanks for the Idea.

Joe

I agree with the recruiting Dave C... and i want to help this guy out. I will print some fliers up. When I had this problem I went to the other teams practices when they had there cuts and signed some kids up.

Dave I Sarasota, I'm not so sure he has an idea on what he wants to do as far as scheme... and he is by himself so splitting up may be hard to do unless it is a day i am there. I can lean him in a direction, but I want it to be something he is comfortable with.

As far a skill players I identified 4 of the 7 that were at practice that could play a skilled position. And 2 maybe 3 looked pretty good.

Joe,
We will need it

Case:

I had a similar situation in 07 - not so much with the numbers, but with having a young baby at home and other time commitments, so I didn't coach full time (the only year since I started in 94 that I wasn't fully engaged in coaching). Similar to you, I agreed to help out part time and help the guy who took over my old team. It was very frustrating - only making about a third or so of the practices made it very difficult (and inappropriate, frankly) for me to have a major say in the way things were done. I tried to advise the HC as best I could, but it was really difficult to make much of an impact not being there every night and also since a lot of my advice went unheeded.

I don't think it's realistic that you'll be able to have a lot of input on scheme (depending on much the HC wants your input), but you should be able to help a lot with teaching fundamentals and technique. Yes, halfline is a good way to drill things when you have low numbers.

I also agree with Dave and others that you (and the HC) need to focus first on getting more players. The HC should also be working hard on finding at least two more volunteers to help coach. They don't have to be great Xs and Os guys - just a couple of adults to help supervise, keep the kids in line, and set up drills will go a long way towards keeping your practices efficient and productive.

Good luck Case.