Changing Up Practice

Personally, I love practice, but the thing is I am always busy.  The reality is that it doesn't always happen that way for the players.  Think about whether or not you have something going on at all times for your players.  In other words, when you run KOR or punt or whatever, do you have other kids standing around?  If you are running inside run, whats up with the players that are left, again are they standing around?  

There are a ton of different ways to run drills during indy to still get the EDD results, but with the change up each day things aren't so repetitive.  Think about the old Dunkin' Donuts commercial where the guy got up every morning with the suicidal look on his face and said "Time to make the donuts", that's what practice becomes for a lot of theses short attention span players that we have these days.  They are used to gaming and other "busy" types of things and then we have practices were you have half the team standing with their thumb up their ---.

Towards the end of the season, one of the things I try to do is once a week for my indy time with whatever position group I have is run competitive drills.  For receivers we will set up barrels in the shape of routes we run, pair 2 receivers against each other and have a finish line.  We run the barrels (routes) and they have to catch a ball and cross the line first to win.  Process of elimination until we have a winner.  The players think they are just running around barrels.  I know they are running a route, catching a ball, and competing to win something...everybody benefits and they aren't bored with the same old shiz every week.

Aren't there days where you hate to go to work because you know it is going to be the same old thing. This is the closest thing to work these kids know, so we as coaches need to make it as enjoyable as it can be for them or they might start looking for other jobs.  Doesn't mean every day is fun time, but it can be hard, grind it out work but challenging and with a variety to it that keeps it interesting.  Especially hard toward the end of a season, but I think it can be done.

To me, I don't think there is anything we can cut out as those are all things that have to be done.  
We seem to always be crunched for time so I don't feel like adding things much.  
The way I see it we have 2, maybe 3 days of "prime" practice time (Tuesday / Wednesday).  Monday is more of a walk through / install and Thursday more walk through.  

I'm just looking for ways to do it better if there are any. Thanks for the feedback. 

How about cutting down on individual periods as the season goes on? I don't pretend to know the science but don't we at some point reach a point of diminishing returns doing the same drills over and over again? By week 9 if the right guard doesn't play with great pad level, two more weeks of the chute will probably not change it, he's been in the chute for four months now. Same goes for other positions, is your WR really going to learn how to cut in week 9? or the RB going to learn how to keep his feet up by running through those dummies the 4,789th time? Let's have individual to install the game plan, little bit of inside run, run the script in team, and call it a practice. It's not as if your not getting reps on technique anymore, you coach that stuff on the run during inside and team sessions. Seems like that would keep coaches and players a little fresher as you get down to those critical late season games.

I agree with your disagreement (if that's a thing) I'm not advocating that we abandon individual all together. What I should have said is that we can cut back on the time it takes to get individual done because our drills have advanced to the point where they are no longer broken down into many parts.
For Example: I coach offensive line (which makes me a blashpemer to many for wanting less individual)
on day 1 of two-a days we spend time repping every step that we take in our offense
then we rep taking those steps on different angles
then we rep taking those steps on the correct angles off the ball and making contact
then we rep making contact correctly and engaging defenders
then we rep engaging defenders and using leverage to create movement
then we rep finishing blocks and sustaining blocks
...all of those are separate drills

by now, I want to be able to say "let's work on blocking down" and we should be able to coordinate all of those things into one drill and spend a fraction of the time in individual that we used to need.

I'm not saying it's the best possible scenario, but the OP was looking for ways to make practice less boring, and individual is boring. I also feel the need to mention that in a few weeks we will be in the offseason and all of those lineman will spend their time flippin' tires, wrasslin', and shufflin' between cones for next eight months and completely forget all the movement patterns that we have so painstakingly tried to teach all season. That point has nothing to do with the this thread but it is annoying to me and feels good to type about it to a group of strangers on the internet

grab your lunch pail... work is monotonous at times. welcome to the real world

I think one of the tougher parts of coaching is finding a way to make the routine engaging. I'm with the previous posters in being stuck in the middle. I agree that you must continue to rep the essential drills and skills that develop your players but the magic is finding ways to make sure the players view them as engaging. One of the major things we notice in our area is that teams that make consistent playoff runs continue to stay on top for a variety or reasons, but one of the bigger ones we think is that they get an extra 2/3rds of a season of practices (6 weeks if you go to state here) which allows JV and Freshmen to gain that experience, especially when they are on the scout team.

I think developing depth in a drill is an important part of keeping these players growing. What I mean by that is at the beginning of the season you are working on the individual steps and breaking each of them down to make sure the foundation is solid, as the season progresses on you can start to move to deeper into your drill progression, focus on higher level skills and add competition.

Another approach I am looking to develop more this year is to come up with a full Rolodex of drills for different skills. For example this season we had something like 6-7 ball security drills that we would rotate (we do 2-3 ball security drills every day). One of the things I'm looking to develop this offseason is a much wider array of ball security drills that we can rotate through to keep them fresh and engaged, kind of a variety in monotony.

In the end no one way will do it and I think a lot comes down to the coach communicating the purpose, focusing on different coaching cues, bringing energy and finding a way to have fun with it.