Weekly Practice Schedule

Last year was the first year we did a practice with an offensive and a defensive day. Prior to that we basically split up the practices. Offense usually had a little more time. As far as pros and cons - this is what I see:

Pros - Segments don't feel rushed. This is more beneficial, I think in inside run and 7 on 7 periods. We do a lot of our coaching on the fly - but this longer period seems to allow for us to do some teaching in the period if necessary without really falling behind. I feels like it is a more complete practice.

Cons - if you see something you don't like in the game plan - there is less time to adjust. So you need to be really prepared going into the practice. You aren't going to get team every day. I also feel like the kids need to work both sides  of the ball every day - so this plan includes indy offense on the defensive day and team defense on the offensive day.

Speed training - We did this for the first time last year. I coach track along with my LB / RB coach. We do a lot of speed training in track and the summer to get our guys faster, then when we get into the season we do nothing to maintain or grow that speed. I listened to Steve Silvey speak at a clinic about this topic and it just occurred to me that we need to do this. He is a very knowledgeable coach he doesn't give his material away, but he knows what he is doing. A resource i would recommend to anyone. Any way, back to the point. 

We did three different workouts and we alternated them week to week.

Workout 1

3 x 30 yds @ 95%, 1 Minute between each rep
2 x 50 yds @ 95%, 1 Minute between each rep

Workout 2

40 Yards Total - 10 yds Acceleration - 20 yds full speed - 10 yds deceleration x 6 - 1 Minute between each rep

Workout 3

3 x 100 at 75% - 2 minutes between each rep.

You need a good warm-up for these, so kids don't end up pulling muscles. We also did this at the start of practice when legs were fresh. It doesn't make sense to do this training at the end of practice or even after lifting. Thinking about it now, I should probably move this segment to Tuesday to prevent any hold-over lactic acid build-up in the legs. We did it early in the week last year. 

In an ideal world, I would commit 20 minutes to this segment and add some sprinting hurdle drills. You can youtube to see some examples. However, time doesn't really allow for this, so we do the best we can with what we do have. It is important to note, that we coach up technique & form when doing this, but it really needs to start in the summer and carry over from there. We also do the hurdle drills in the summer. If you want me details - just let me know.