The best improvements you made to your program

sometimes, the best improvement is graduation...

for me, it was going to a mat routine geared more towards mental toughness, thinking when tired, execution of assignment more so than the "agility" type of mats.

to me, it's not so much what you do but how you do it. what things are you emphasizing? what will you allow/accept? start with what you feel like should be the #1 thing to address with your team (i.e. competitiveness? hustle? agility? focus? etc.). then, tweak your offseason (in this scenario, mats) to have focus placed on it.

for us, on the mats, we are no-huddle and rule-oriented on both offense/defense. we do the same thing in the same order EVERY day. there are no verbal commands. once it is taught (2 days) then the routine is carried out to the letter EXACTLY the same each day. it's really a simple routine of drills - and no need to go into what they are - because, it is my philosophy of mats that it is procedure rather than the drills themselves. for me, as the "mat guy" i can control the intensity, the amount of actual work being done -- this is a result of our procedure and, i apologize, would be hard for me to type out. but, the point i'm making is that if you want to address something specific in the offseason, then adjust your work to accomodate. it's about procedure more than drills.