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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2014 17:42:47 GMT -6
As a player and as a coach, we always used Spring Practice to install core schemes, experiment with new ideas or players at new positions, and give kids a preview of what the season would be like. We'd have 1-2 scrimmages. Growing up, we'd end it with an intrasquad scrimmage/fund raiser in front of the whole school where everyone got to a chance to make some plays. At my last school, we treated the scrimmages as games, including full-on gameplanning and talking about them as "must wins." This stuff was fun and helped us to develop younger/newer players, establish our routines for the season, and get a better feel for what we had going into the summer.
At my current school (which is 1/3 the size--just under 400 kids), the HC is concerned we may not have many kids out, so we're not going to do any actual install or team scrimmaging--we average about 17 a day in our weightroom, with 6 playing baseball, 1 injured, and another 5 returning players MIA when it's time to lift. Last year, we just made spring ball into a 4 team 7 on 7 tournament (29 kids out) to try to build enthusiasm, but 1/3 of the kids we got out didn't bother coming back in July and a bunch more quit when we started hitting. Our plan for this year is to bring kids out for 2 weeks of drills (stuff like sled work, Oklahoma drill, tackling circuits, 7 on 7, etc.) and try to just coach them up on fundamentals for an hour or so a day after lifting.
For those of you who also get to have spring practice, what do you do with that time? I'm especially interested in hearing from coaches in small school/low number programs to find out your ideas.
Thanks.
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Post by holmesbend on Mar 13, 2014 19:06:18 GMT -6
...at a school a little larger than yours. We have about 700 and rural. Most of our skill kids play baseball and are either starters/contributors. Last year for example, of the 9 baseball starters, all were football. Our other skill kids are running track.
Moral of the story? We make it more of a Linemen camp which I've grown to really love.
Good times.
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Post by dytmook on Mar 14, 2014 10:57:54 GMT -6
I'm in Ohio, what's spring practice?
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Post by holmesbend on Mar 14, 2014 11:18:47 GMT -6
Off track here a little dytmook, but when are you all allowed to start actualy practice in Ohio...August 1?
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Post by dytmook on Mar 14, 2014 11:22:13 GMT -6
Pretty much first week of August. We get 10 team camp days to be used throughout the summer also. Nothing more fun than coaching lineman for hours who can only wear a helmet. They do have a new rule this year that a coach can teach football things to no more than 4 kids, but it has to be completely seperate from other groups of kids. It's an improvment, but being an oline guy it stinks not being able to have my whole group together.
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Post by coachharvey on Mar 14, 2014 11:37:57 GMT -6
Pretty much first week of August. We get 10 team camp days to be used throughout the summer also. Nothing more fun than coaching lineman for hours who can only wear a helmet. They do have a new rule this year that a coach can teach football things to no more than 4 kids, but it has to be completely seperate from other groups of kids. It's an improvment, but being an oline guy it stinks not being able to have my whole group together. I loved coaching high school but this rule was one of the things I hated it. The thing was our kids loved to come out and do stuff and we couldn't do more. I coach DIII football now and we can't wear helmets or have contact in the spring but I still can get a lot of things done with my safeties. |
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Post by dytmook on Mar 14, 2014 11:43:31 GMT -6
It's good for the skills guys but it's a struggle with the big guys after awhile. We have it a little more difficult than some also considering we have no sleds, chutes, or things of that nature. We make do, but it could be better. I have some ideas for this year to hopefully make things better.
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Post by fballcoachg on Mar 14, 2014 14:23:42 GMT -6
In TN we would work our base but also try out the things that looked great on the board. Figured this was a great time for that because what we really were doing was trying to help players see the gains they made in the weight room as well as see some of the "new" guys in action. Obviously we wanted to set the core but switching some things up and trying things out in spring allowed us to weigh the real positives and negatives vs. the hypotheticals.
Now in OH where spring ball doesn't exist.
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Post by rbrown5 on Mar 16, 2014 12:31:56 GMT -6
I was wondering. For spring ball, do you guys worry more about fundamentals or concentrate solely on install???
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Post by keysersoze on Mar 16, 2014 13:58:38 GMT -6
This year we will spend most of our time this spring on fundamentals and some basic install. After school is out, we're going to have a three day install camp for both offense and defense, then we will go to a contact team camp.
We used to do five pad-less spring practices to install the basics and really spend a lot of time working on installing the passing game (since you really don't need pads to get good at that). We would have a few passing workouts prior to a summer retreat where we would again install the offense and do team building stuff. Finally we would show up in the fall and do a four day "camp" and finally doubles. By the time we got to doubles we had already installed the offense three times (four if you count our football class). It also meant we didn't need to spend a lot of time on the passing game because it was 100% installed during the summer and spring.
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Post by IronmanFootball on Mar 17, 2014 6:22:02 GMT -6
Mostly fundamentals. Teach the basics: blocking, tackling, pursuit to the ball, routes, the real small stuff. We install 2 formations, a motion, 3 runs and 2 passes, 1 PA.
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Post by coachphillip on Mar 17, 2014 8:34:05 GMT -6
I've done both ways: spring install and spring fundamentals. I like fundamentals better. I'm an OL coach. Knowing how to block has always been more important going into summer than knowing who to block. I'm also a DC and I like to treat spring as a chance to reteach tackling from step one.
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Post by IronmanFootball on Mar 17, 2014 9:35:28 GMT -6
I've done both ways: spring install and spring fundamentals. I like fundamentals better. I'm an OL coach. Knowing how to block has always been more important going into summer than knowing who to block. I'm also a DC and I like to treat spring as a chance to reteach tackling from the step one. I'm with ya coach! |
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Post by irishdog on Mar 17, 2014 11:07:37 GMT -6
I've always been at small schools. Same issues with spring practice. With no seniors our numbers go down from 50 to 38. Out of the 38 a number of them are either playing baseball, lacrosse, or running track which leaves us with around 25. So...during the spring we will lift the spring sports kids early in the morning before school starts. After school our schedule goes like this:
Monday - Weights (1 hour)
Offense - Run Fundamentals (1 hour)
Tuesday - Film (1 hour)
Offense - Pass Fundamentals (1 hour - includes 7 on 7 & linemen competitions)
Wednesday - Weights (1 hour)
Defense - Run Fundamentals (1 hour)
Thursday - Film (1 hour)
Defense - Pass Fundamentals (1 hour - includes 7 on 7 & linemen competitions)
Friday - Weights (1 hour)
O Team and D Team (30 minutes each)
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Post by coachphillip on Mar 17, 2014 11:30:02 GMT -6
What film are you watching in the spring, coach?
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Post by irishdog on Mar 17, 2014 12:59:27 GMT -6
Week 1 we watch cut-ups of our game film from the previous season. Week 2 we watch Week 1 practice film. State only allows a 10 day window for spring practice. Typically takes an hour (30 minutes for run and 30 minutes for pass). It has been a great formula for us since most of the guys we have for spring practice are the ones who can really benefit from improving their knowledge, and their fundamentals. Most of our really good athletes are playing a spring sport.
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Post by coachorm on Mar 17, 2014 16:45:25 GMT -6
Spring Schedule - All Days full pads. Focus on installing our core and trying a few new wrinkles. Really looking to see what we have coming back and who is going to step it up possibly.
Week 1
Monday - Defense Practice
Tuesday - Offense Practice
Wednesday - Defense
Thursday - Offense
Friday - Scrimmage
Week 2
Monday - watch scrimmage and Defense practice
Tuesday - Offense
Wednesday - Defense
Thursday - Offense
Friday - Scrimmage
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Post by realdawg on Mar 18, 2014 5:37:41 GMT -6
We cant have spring practice officially, but we can have an unlimited number of skill development sessions in the spring provided that we have 21 players or less and we dont hit. So during that time I try to work on fundamentals and footwork. During the summer we can have unlimited numbers and unlimited practices provided that we dont hit. So we continue to work on fundamentals but also begin to install our stuff since we can have to whole team out there.
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Post by forcecoach on Mar 18, 2014 6:37:15 GMT -6
We do a lot of agility/conditioning to try and prepare them for the summer workouts/start of the season. do what we call county fair. 5-6 stations 2-3 minutes each, and move. then we go into individual fundamentals to teach the concepts that we will be doing in the fall. we spend most of our time on fundamentals and install in the spring.
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Post by olinedude on Dec 1, 2014 22:55:03 GMT -6
I know of a school that didn't do any padded practice, since they were in texas and there are max number of practices you can have pads on. They would go through basically a short practice; INDY, 7on7, inside run, and some team. By the end of the spring they were doing full 11 on 11 good on good at Thud pace with a quick whistle. The coaches said it was dang near full padded practice just like in the fall, but because they had no pads they were able to get in almost 50 "practices."
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2014 8:06:13 GMT -6
Where I'm at we get 17 practices and 2 games, 1 of those games being against ourselves, the other being a full game vs. an opponent. Spring is a very good time b/c it's like packing 1/2 a season of practices in before the summer workouts start. I've always used spring to install the base schemes, offensively and defensively. Usually we don't go live special teams in our spring games. I try to focus heavily on fundamentals and making it SUPER fun. Everyday we try to do some sort of competition. The one the kids love is skills vs. OL/DL in a punt return drill. It lets you try out some guys at punter if you're looking for that position and gives the other guys a chance to catch punts, plus allows the OL to touch the football. Basically for every catch made it's 1 point. About 5 years ago the OL won! It was hilarious and the kids had a good time with it. We'll play some games too, just to keep it light. My point w/spring is try to get out as many kids as I can, and get them interested in the game of football. If you get 20 new faces and can keep 7-8 through the season, I think it's worth it.
As some mentioned our scrimmage against ourselves is usually some sort of fund-raiser type event that is usually fun and competitive as we also divide up the staffs. The staff usually jaws at each other a bit which gets the kids rolling and having a good time. We keep it VERY loose, but not to the point of being silly or unproductive. There are kids vying for jobs out there and we film the entire thing, and EVERYONE plays.
In the game vs. our opponent, the goal is to win, but the goal is to also get as many guys on film for off season evaluation as possible. Most of the time, the game is pretty much decided in the 4th and you can start to roll some guys and get them on film.
Anyhow, that's what we do, and I cannot imagine NOT having spring football. It is an invaluable tool to kick off the off season weight lifting/summer program for us.
Duece
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Post by gibbs72 on Dec 3, 2014 8:45:14 GMT -6
Spring ball for me is going through my notes from Glazier clinics, golfing, and reading about all the spring ball stuff you guys have going on!
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