Importance Of Practice

While I disagree, I disagree for a different reason.

We currently live in a culture where people think the longer you do something, the better it's going to get. Lot of people waste time and claim they are "grinding."

In HS football I believe about 1/5 of the game are decided before the season even starts, basically the talent discrepancy is soo big that there is no amount of practice the losing team could do to overcome that. They will lose 10 times out of 10 (and usually by a blowout). I have actually talked with coaches here who believe that number to be higher; but the point is there is a variable out there of natural talent that we rarely can control, and I think you are missing out on that in your argument.

Think of it this way. You take that dominant team that sucked at practice but won all the time; and instead of having them practice technique, plays, reads, developing athleticism, etc. just have them show up for Thursday walk-thrus. You give me a team of equal talent, and let me work with them a couple hours a day M-W as well as Thursday walk-thrus. I won't go overkill, just teach and repeat quality technique, practice a simple but sound playbook, and develop athleticism.

Now, what do you think the score is if we play in week 1? How about week 5? I bet the team that practices wins easily in week 1, but by even more in week 5. We are what we repeatedly do.

Now, as was stated above, lots of teams do too much for too long and are counterproductive; so also take that into account.

Point being, gotta find that happy medium .

I used to work with a HC who did as you said (practiced to the clock). Our summer days were 8am-12noon; most of the time we'd get done about 10:30 with what we needed to do, so he'd fill time with speeches and videos.

As I've gotten older in coaching I've learned how to become more efficient in my coaching; in turn I've realized, darn near the exact minute, the amount of time required for things to be done. I'm fairly meticulous in my practice planning (some sessions will be for 7 minutes as opposed to 5 or 10). But this allows for us to get things done correctly without wasting time.

I'd put that number at 2/3

Its an interesting thing to look at. For me, to declare a game is decided before it starts it would have to be a game in which the winning team wins every time, and wins every time by 24+ points. Anything closer than that indicates to me that there was at least some competition and possibility of the other team winning; but in most cases this is usually a win of 40+ points.

So figuring that some 24+ point victories do not fit into one of these "guaranteed victories" (they are games that either team could win but ended up in a large win), you'd have to figure that for that 2/3 number to be accurate probably 75% of games played would have to end up in a blowout. I just don't think thats how it is. 

So let me throw this out there. Is there other benefits to practice outside of football. We are always trying to make quality young men, do we sometimes practice for this purpose? Overcoming adversity, working around a crowded schedule, developing mental toughness- even if we are not benefiting our team in regards to winning football, is there something to be said to practicing for the intrinsic value it provides the players?

Been a part of the same type of scenario...we were 9-0 going into the last game and the other team was 1-8...if you lined both teams up at their own 45 yard line and determined a winner by athletic ability and how the teams looked physically, you would have thought the records were reversed. But we wore them out on the field 42-6.

We could make the thresh hold high enough to disprove it. A 3 score game isn't that close, seriously, go down the schedules, you can pick the outcome at about a 66% efficiency.

We emphasize the "process" a lot with the guys. Putting in the work on the basic skills, building on them and applying them and then seeing the results from the work. I don't think this is something that kids get a lot of in the American education system anymore as I haven't seen a lot of emphasis on work ethic in classrooms anymore. I friggin' cringe when I plug a low test score into the grading system now as there's a good chance I'll get an email or a phone call from a p-ssed off parent. Apparently, telling them that their kid needs to work harder, be more organized and study for tests doesn't apply anymore. I'm going to lose my sh-t if I hear the word "accommodation" one more time this year.

I use this type of example all the time with our kids in practice.  Whenever we're having a lousy practice or getting lazy with our fundamentals I ask, "Are we here to beat the POS's on our schedule or are we here to beat the teams we're not supposed to beat?  Which are you going to remember when you tell stories to your kids or your buddies?  How good do you want to be?"  That sort of stuff....

That's why you practice with a purpose.  To beat the 33% you're not supposed to have a chance at beating.

Coach, even though you won games that year I bet you look back and say your team underachieved.  

24 as the barometer in the HS game is high enough to illustrate to prove your point and give the illusion of it being competitive. Period and point blank, the gap continues to grow that the "haves" in nearly all situations are moving further and further from the "have nots". 92% accuracy of winner in the NFL seems a little high as well.

There are some things just by the nature of the process of preparing for a contest and the game itself that are routine drudgery. But they are necessary.

Having said that, kids don't get bored, coaches do. They only do this for four years max. We've been doing it for however long we played plus our years' coaching.

Bring enthusiasm to practice every day and it will not seem so long or purposeless. If you don't feel enthusiastic, ACT enthusiastic - you might fool yourself.

This is the whole deal. 

Just because you win games with {censored} practices doesn't mean you've figured anything out.  It just means you've cheated those kids out of what they could have been.  Do better.  If your practices suck then you probably suck at coaching practice.  Find a better way.