Devoting single practices to Offense or Defense

IF you players have to lean BOTH O & D = try it like this (assuming you play Fridays):

Monday = Defense

Tuesday = Offense

Wednesday = BOTH (half & half)

Thursday = A lot of Special Teams work, & reviews of O & D; 2 Minute Drill, ETC.

We just simply do an hour of each for every practice all year. If your practice efficiency is high you'll get more than enough reps.

I would do them on the same day, for the reason that you are going to have players that don't go both ways.  The player that only goes one way will give you a terrible practice when it is not his day.  The offensive player will hate Tuesdays cause that's offensive day...

Every time I was part of a single side of the ball practice situation, it just never worked as well.

I think it is important to find a way to get all three phases taught each day. Especially with a young team. Individual and group is when you make the most gains with fundos.

We did defense days and offense days at one stop I was at and hated it. We would go O on Monday and then not see anything again until Wednesday, pregame was Thursday.

That just isn't enough IMO even if it's the same amount of reps if you go split practices.

I was also one of 2 coaches who had no defensive responsibility so defensive days were just a waste of my time. I'd help out with DL drills and work on O stuff during those drills if it applied to us, but those days felt useless to me.

Wouldn't recommend it.

We've done emphasis days at a few schools I've coached at.

Mon. is a shorter practice with film in shells.  We split it about evenly (40ish minutes each) and focus on 10-15 kickoff and 10-15 kick return then.  We just want to install the gameplan and show them the looks they'll be seeing/install any new wrinkles.

Tues. and Wed. are our emphasis days.

We don't go 100% offense or defense on our emphasis days.

Basically, on offensive emphasis day, the defense will get about 10 minute of indy, maybe a 15 minute tackling circuit, and then 10 of team D (a lot of it might just be alignment and checks).  Then offense would get 75-90 minutes (individual, group, team, and situations).  We'd work another special team (punt return) and go home.

On defensive emphasis day, we would do 10 minutes of individual, then 20 of inside run/7 on 7 (we do these at the same time on opposite ends of the field with the RBs and QBs rotating halfway through, and then 10 of team O.  Then we do 75-90ish of defense (individual, group, team, and situations) and punt team before we leave.

Thursday is a non-contact review/game simulation on air that works both sides.  We also work FG and FG block on this day.  We go about 90 minutes, total, and then have a team meal.

In the pre-season, we will may just do offensive emphasis on M/W and defense on Tues./Thurs. or something like that, then a short day in shells on Friday if we don't have a scrimmage that week.