How important are meetings/chalk time?

My meetings I consider important but we keep them pretty upbeat. It turns out I was using DI, flipped classroom, and think-talk-share all by accident. Full offense meetings really need to be short and cover only the broad overview.

I think that's the best way to go. The longer I work in education the more I believe kids learn by physically doing, more so than listening or seeing.

The only time we meet with the defensive guys is when we have an issue with something . We do a ton of walkthrough on the field. If we have a problem, we go to a classroom after practice a spend about 20 minutes going over things on the board. When we do this, we make the players tell us what they are doing and why.

I hate team walk through. Too many kids not involved. 10 mi utes on the board or lately I write things up before and send kids the pictures. 20-30 mins of film. Less as week goes on.

My rule in the classroom is 10 minutes tops for lectures as well. However I'm realizing that our situation is more unique than I knew after talking with my college coach last weekend. He pointed out that I have more assistants than a college staff.

Our meetings are pretty successful probably bc we are split up in position groups and we have the numbers of players and coaches to do that. I think if it is working for you and you are executing at a high rate then do what you do but I hate the ideas of large group or team walk through for teaching. We do it by position group. We do team walk through for Thursday review.

For me all kids need to go through the VAKT learning process. So I want them to see it hear it jog it and run it over. And over.

For my summer team that starts games the 3rd week in May I will do classroom install followed by gym walk-thru.

We only practice 2 (stretch is 3) times a week and the first month of our preseason (we start 8 weeks before our first game) we have to use indoor dome fields which cost $180/hr. Having kids starting around and doing install walk-thru is very expensive. I'd rather use a school classroom and gum time to install and walk-thru and save the field stuff for things that require an actual field.

We never had the meeting in the true sense of the word, I would still time after practice or before practice to quickly review something. We install and talk everything on the field and it usually ends up not working. Our kids have an attention span of very short and seem to have a hard retaining as we line up on the field. Plus I find their attention span shorter on the field, because there are a ton more distractions. I am hoping we are moving to a more meetings this year

My question about watching film after install or practice, I have always felt it made more sense to see it before you walk through run it on the field. My coach believes in watching after practice as well but I find at that point, most guys want to get out of there any ways and the focus is not there

Everything I'm going to say has the caveat that we are talking about 10-15, maybe 20 minutes tops, a couple of times a week. If you are trying to meet for 30 minutes everyday... you are probably wasting time.

The value really comes down to how prepared you are for the meeting. If you have some prepared material (Cutups, powerpoint or at the least a written list of what you are going over) that has a definitive purpose (This is their top play, this is what it looks like, this is how we stop it, this is your individual job) I think they are extremely beneficial. If you have 10 clips prepared, the formations already drawn then it's easy.

If you get on HUDL and start going through the game 1 clip at a time, rewinding the clip to find your coaching point... with 30 second intervals between anything useful.... your kids are going to be bored and stop listening.

If you go up to the WHiteboard and go through a base play.... then rip through 8 adjustments and then your response, but then go back and correct yourself.... or try and install the entire offense on the whiteboard in 1 sitting.... yea, not effective.


Monday - Scouting Report, Goals for the Week. A few clips from their offense (Base 3 or 4 plays). Or a few clips of their defense vs the same scheme you run. This is especially useful to teach your scout team what to do.

Tuesday - Clips of your team vs a similar scheme (maybe last years game if it's early in the year).

Wednesday - Straight to field.

Thursday - 10ish clips of practice. Maybe some special teams.

As you get later into the season, some more time spent on meetings and less time on the field (as Wear and Tear becomes a concern).

I agree, I show films on Monday as a defense for about 10 minutes (no real chalkboard needed as they have a packet with them that has the opponent's top plays drawn up already). During film players are required to communicate out loud what they are looking for, checks and alignments. 

We then go outside and do the same, line up vs what we saw on film, talk and communicate where we need to be and what we expect. I expect it to be VERY loud (learning is rarely quiet). Those who are not in can stand on the field right behind the defense move about and communicate too (its more efficient than having them on the sideline).

One of my jobs at this time, in addition to making sure players are lined up correctly and there eyes and mouth are right, is to keep it upbeat and intense (yeah, even a walk through can have some excitement to it if we bring it).

I think there is a place for chalk talk. However, I think you have to build a link between the X's and O's and real football for the kids. As coaches we naturally see the game when we see the X's and O's, but I think a lot of kids just see X's and O's and don't actually visualize their responsibility in an actual football setting. HUDL and other film systems have been a huge help for me in allowing kids to see the game and visualize their keys and responsibilities.

There is a place for both. The key with meetings for me is just like practice-have a plan as coachks said, restrict the time so you have to keep a good pace. Keep the energy high, if your sold on what your delivering is important to your teams success then you should be able to get up for it. Also, anytime its possible I'll get a player or 2 up to demonstrate a point or to emphasize the technique that makes the scheme work. As stated above, 10 minutes is around max time.
Preseason-this is done before practice to begin install process. So they see big picture, then learn the technique in indy, put it together in group, and run it in team.
In season-we are generally reviewing checks and run fits. This doesn't take much time at all.


On the same note, I would like to get better at walk through. I haven't been on a staff that really did walk throughs well. They have been fine, but from reading this board I feel like there has to be some really good walk through ideas and procedures out there.

Meetings are fine as long as they are short. I remember meetings going 30 minutes or more and I would just be antsy to get out there or falling a sleep by the end. I try to keep it short unless we are watching game film, even then its pretty easy. 10-15 minutes by position, good game film, bad film, scouted film and get to the field. Nothing worse than looking back and seeing the glazed over look.

We would have a team meeting every Monday for about an hour. We would go through everything from the previous game and for the upcoming game.

I don't think they are really needed, but might work for the right group of kids.

We do meetings during the first two weeks so that the kids can fill out their playbooks. We provide them with sheets that have just the OL on them and the kids have to fill in the responsibilities for each position. We do the same thing for defense.

We watch film of our opponents on Monday for a bit and that's it.